(no subject)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/fashion/21webgirls.html

This is news?
Girls exist?
They express their identities and desires?
They can type?
OMG!

I feel irked.

Also?

“Girls are trained to make stories about themselves,” said Pat Gill, the interim director for the Institute for Communications Research and an associate professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

From a young age they learn that they are objects, Professor Gill said, so they learn how to describe themselves. Historically, girls and women have been expected to be social, communal and skilled in decorative arts.

“This would be called the feminization of the Internet,” she said.

Last time I checked, I, and every girl and woman I know, tell stories about themselves not because of the need to be decorative objects but because we're not, because the story is longer than that, and because making sure other people know it can feel and be key to our very survival. Telling stories is about existing, not disappearing.

Also, the headline is "Sorry, Boys, this is our domain." Whenever girls surpass boys in anything there's a "sorry" in teh headline. It never works the other way. Why should we apologize, even through the words of some reporter, for what we like or what we do?

This is a petty little thing but it EXASPERATES and ENRAGES me.

Finally? The piece is in the fashion section. Because nothing girls do is real.

on that times article

I was just going to write a letter to the editor, but maybe I should be submitting an op-ed instead? I dunno. It feels like a longer-shot but an Opportunity. Afterall, I tell stories and write about stories for a living, and I've been creating on-line content since 1990 -- when I was a teenager.