Recently, being autonomous learner has been a great scope of discussion in EFL context as the result of the shifted learning form from offline into online learning. It is being fostered as the pandemic has spread and affected every aspect of life, including education. Therefore, this current study highlighted learner autonomy (abbreviated as LA), explored process writing approach as the means to promote LA, scrutinized the gender differences across the students’ autonomy in online writing environment, and the strategies of being autonomous writers in each writing stage. To encounter the aims of this investigation, 28 sophomore EFL learners in English Education Study Program (hereafter, ELESP) taking Argumentative Writing course were engaged as the sources of the research data. As mixed-method research, both quantitative data by means of a questionnaire and qualitative data by means of observation, questionnaire and a semi-structured online interview were garnered and analyzed. The finding revealed that process writing approach can downgrade the students’ dependence on the lecturer and upgrade their self-dependence in solving their problems and deciding what should be done next in online writing. However, in relation to goal setting, the students still relied on the lecturer’s goal of the writing activities. Then, male and female students were different in the level of autonomy, and they posed various strategies of becoming autonomous writers.