Never again will I underestimate the wrath of Blue. No, I’m not talking about the team from Michigan. I’m referring to Blue the Dog. Last Monday at 9 a.m., a mere three hours after the Monday Lantern was irretrievably delivered across campus, the bell of doom tolled. My sociology professor, father of a toddler, delivered the news after reading my column. Blue (a canine character on a popular television show for kids) is not, as I had written, a boy. Blue is a girl. I anticipated the blows that would follow: e-mails and letters to the editor. Some of my fellow columnists told me what I already knew. I had made a mistake in my column about the orientation of computer software and its repercussions for girls in a technological society. I used Blue as an example of yet another male character featured in children’s computer games.And so today, I sit here, wallowing in the misery of error, and think about why everyone cares so much. For all the people who responded angrily, this was not just an opportunity to point out a factual mistake. Blue being a girl certainly doesn’t invalidate my argument that popular computer software excludes girls – for every female Blue, I can show you 10 characters that are male. It was an opportunity to tell me that I am setting women back from the great strides they would make if people like me did not exist. Usually, I ignore it. I believe in what I do and don’t need to justify it to anyone. But this time, I am going to defend myself.In the specific case of Blue, I was wrong. No doubt about it. But wrong enough about my point in general to warrant being told that I write “ridiculous articles,” or that my idea to implement affirmative action for hiring computer programmers is an “extreme” action? If my views about the world are so wrong, why do people get so upset when I express myself?Don’t we get most angry and offended by criticisms that contain a grain of truth? My guy friends at home in Cleveland go ballistic when I ask them not to use the word “pussy” around me. Why? If they thought I was wrong, wouldn’t they just ignore me? Instead they waste their time justifying their use of the word and get angry because I suggest that they are not as enlightened as they would wish.As another example, an anonymous pro-life “fan” sent me an e-mail last spring after reading a column I wrote about abortion, writing that “every week someone is oppressing your gender, well cope with it. I swear to God if I know my child will bitch as much as you, I will have it aborted too.” The person admitted that sex discrimination exists. But so angry was he/she at me for pointing it out that he/she tried to intimidate me into shutting up, by telling me he would have people like me aborted.Brilliant, clear-headed logic. I’ve got some news for you, folks. You may not like what I write, and perhaps I make some people mad enough that I alienate them and cement their sexist views. But I am not out here to coddle readers and win them over; I am here to make them think. As a mother of a 4-year-old whose computer games are perfectly un-gender-biased, so eloquently put it, I “annoy” readers and don’t represent the women’s movement as perfectly as she, self-admittedly not a feminist, would like. Guess what? I never claimed to. And if there were some other female columnists in this paper, I wouldn’t be expected to, either.By the way, go Bucks.
Jessica Weeks’ column appears on Mondays in the Lantern.
