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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 3, 1997)
T EDITORIAL IW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Steven Asbury MANAGING EDITOR: Thom Schoenbom NIGHT EDITOR: Ryan Frank EDITORIAL EDITORS: j- i i , Ashley Bach & Brian Diamond editorials, letters, commentary and perspective NEWSROOM: (541) 346-5511 DISPLAY ADVERTISING: (541)346-3712 BUSINESS OFFICE: (541)346-5512 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: (541) 346-4343 With a variety of sites, women are making the World Wide Web their own \ It’s no hidden fact that com puters and the Internet have traditionally been, and still are to an extent, dominated by men. The rise of the Web and Internet cul ture has made a way for women to speak out like never before. <£■ There are several websites now devoted to women, but these are no sissy, feel-good sites. These are screaming sites that seamlessly blend feminism with humor, scathing wit and a little bit of patriarchy bash ing. One of my favorites is the Heartless Bitches International Web site at http://www.heartless-bitch es.com, Bitch being an acronym that stands for “Being In Total Control, Honey.” It’s a graphic-intensive site A OPINION Amanda Erickson complete with frames and tons of links to other pages and funny stuff. Their icon is a red heart with an ax embed ded in the center, and one of the icon “but tons” is animated with the ax cheerily hacking away. One of the linked pages is a list of things that annoy. One of my favorites is: “Any writer who refers to an intelligent, well educated, powerful, take-charge female in a position de serving of respect as ‘feisty,’ ‘perky,’ ‘zippy’ or any other term best applied to a little yappy mutt with a how in its hair.” Another site, less-subtly titled than the former, is the All Men Must Die website. This was done by a girl in England who just got dumped by her boyfriend and decided to blow off some steam at the other gender. It has received a lot of attention by Web pulse-takers and is replete with stinging diatribes and a form that invites men to “Beg Like a Dog” to be spared their lives. And there are a lot of guys begging out there. What makes these sites cool is that they exist. Women are the constant brunt of sexist jokes, put m/. downs, stereotypes and other cultural crap. Basi cally, what it boils down to is that women can fi nally speak out on the Web. The Internet is an ac tual place where you can say, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” In other places, women are making their mark. If you are at all familiar with the testosterone-plas tered, blood and gore that are the first-person, fighting computer games “Doom,” “Duke Nukem” and “Quake,” then you are proba bly familiar with their cult-like following and their cult-like, or should I say, clan-like players. —~ These online games can be played individual ly or as a group with people 1,000 miles away. “Quake” has a system of clans who play against each . other. One of the newest is the PMS Clan, or Psycho Man Slayers. They say that ini tially they got a lot of obnoxious flack from their male competitors, even having the guys they are playing against stop the game to ask, “What do you look like? Are you cute?” The group of eight women let these things roll V off their back as they crush the competition. You can see their website at http://www.under ramp.com/~pms and be greeted with the welcom ing quote, “Under every floral print dress lies a lady wearing black garters, carrying a big f~king gun!” The surge of women on the Net parallels what computer companies and game designers are ex periencing — more women. Due to the over whelming success of Mattel’s interactive CD-ROM Barbie Fashion Designer, as reported in Wired magazine, many developers are trying to tap in to the female market. Unfortunately, they can’t get > away from giving their programs overtly femi } nine names. While that works for some peo ple, I think that they will have little success if they market them like tampons: “It’s a breath of spring air on your girly computer.” The world of computers and the Internet is an area where I think we will see women suc ceeding. It is a truly unique area in that brains are worshiped over brawn. And, as technology be comes overwhelmingly a part of our daily lives, women will be able to assert a lot of power and be the unabashed movers and shakers of the very near future. Amanda Erickson, a senior majoring in journal ism, is a columnist for the Emerald. Her views do not necessarily represent those of the newspaper. E-mail: aericks@gladstone.uoregon.edu Women on the ■ FOXY MAGAZINE http://www.tumyeto.com/tydu/foxy Lots of tongue-in-cheek articles including a “mega index of dumb chick stuff." ■ gURL http://www.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~gURL: A simple online magazine that has fun graphics (a la Maurice Sendak) and is great for the older high school or young college girl. ■ CyberGrrl http-7Awww.cybergrrl.com: Off-kilter and amusing; it’s the “premier place for nice Jewish goils.” It even has a matchmaking service called Cyber Yenta. ■ BRILLO http7Avww.virago-net.com/brillo: Another online mag which features pop culture graphics and arti cles ranging from Ebonics to privacy to AIDS. A lot of useful information here. ■ CUPCAKE http://www.cupcake.com: This is actually done by a guy but it’s pretty funny and you can read about how he duped the media royally into thinking he was a girl. Obvious womb-envy here. Here’s pages of other chick-related links: http://www.dogpatch.org/women.html, http://www.webgrrls.com/directo(y.htmi, http://home.dmv.com/--olcs/wweb.html Up ID Top 10 signs it's time to get out of your cult -10 You notice the words “mass suicide" written in black marker on the events calendar. -9 Social highlight of the week is “Monday Night with the Moonies.” -8 Your dress code includes black Nikes. -7 You get a 10 per cent “suicidal cult discount” at par ticipating stores. -6 Your leader preaches absti nence, but all the temale members seem to sleep in his room. -5 Despite the fact that you area “pacifist” group, you have an alarming amount of AK-47s in the basement. -4 When you mention your group in public, people say “That crazy cult?!" and run away. -3 You have to pack your suitcases every night before sleeping. -2 In every speech, your leader slips and declares, “We’re all going to diet" -1 One word: castration LETTERS Racism not dead I am writing in response to the letter sub mitted by Ed Madrid (ODE, March 17). I am both saddened and deeply frustrated by the tone Mr. Madrid chooses to adopt. Mostly, I am appalled by his assertions of the “utter ir relevancy” of “race issues” and by his por trayal of “those few outraged individuals” who have nothing better to do than “cre atively invent instances of racism” either on this campus, in this state or in this nation. 1 find myself actually agreeing with Mr. Madrid that instances of racial harmony do exist on this campus (as they do in the larger society). I even agree with his concerns that focusing only on the negative is not only counterproductive but unfair to the hard work so many of us (of all colors) have put in to unlearn our “isms” (racism, sexism, classism, homophobism, etc.) and look past these smoke screens to acknowledge our common humanity. But I must stress that it is even more dan gerous to assert that race has reached a point of irrelevancy as well as callous to dismiss instances of racism either on this campus or in the larger society as "invented.” 1 am re minded here of the young black couple who were gunned down by ex-paratrooper and self-professed skinhead fames Burmeister in North Carolina, the ridiculous uproar that developed after a black actor was cast in the role of Jesus in the annual Passion play in Union City, New Jersey, my own experi ences recently while driving along the Belt line Highway and in IHOP and yes, the racial slurs targeting UCLA basketball play ers. In short, racism is not dead. Speaking directly to Mr. Madrid, I ask what is so threatening to you to believe that other people on this campus experience pain based on their perceived racial differ ences? I invite you to take one of my classes (with an open mind to being exposed to ideas/experiences that may not sit well with you since they clash with your belief that in cidents of racism are “creatively invented”). You have truly lived a blessed life as a Fil ipino-American if you have not been sub jected to racial taunting, hate stares or dis crimination. I only wish the same could be said for all people of color. I challenge you to systematically study the significance of racial dynamics in this society, both past and present, before summarily dismissing the existence of racism. Mia Tuan Assistant Professor Sociology
