Powerbook

The PowerBook

Terrible thing to do to a flower, indeed. I will never be able to look at a tulip or an artichoke the same again. Over the course of this semester I have been disgusted, disgruntled, and delighted over the course reading material and this novel was no exception. (Btw, how does one get added on to the Roripaugh summer reading list? Haha) This novel brings up several key issues such as gender roles, orientation, and the anonymity of the Internet. Gender roles have fascinated me since taking psych 101 my freshmen year. What makes a girl a girl other than the obvious anatomical bits? Why do little girls reach for dolls and little boys for toy guns? Are the roles of maternal care giver and protector imbedded into out genetic makeup at birth? If so, how do you explain tomboys and sissies? There are some fascinating documents written about this topic by people with a much more impressive list of credentials than myself, but I’ve always had a feeling that the whole genetic assignment of gender roles was a load. When I was a little girl, had I been given the choice, I would have run around in the summer without a shirt on just like my brothers, but because my mother insisted that little girls wore dresses and these abominations they called slips, I was forced to parade around in the summertime heat, a prisoner to my gender. I was taught how to be a girl, I didn’t have a clue what the difference was between a girl and a boy when I was born. I was just like my brothers, had my mother not been around to paint my cheeks and adorn my stubborn little body with frills and lace, I would have been content to continue the delusion until puberty began making more noticeable distinctions.
I think the book made some interesting statements about the power that lies within the anonymity of the Internet. This is a phenomena that our generation can most keenly feel the enormity of. Without persecution, we can slip seamlessly from one identity into another and back again into our own well worn shoes in the breadth of a single night. Fire up the transmogufier (yes, I’m stealing from Calvin and Hobbes now) also known as the computer and within a matter of seconds you are a 9th level Jedi priestess with a huge talent and a set that would make Dolly Drool. An endless free pass into a schizophrenics wet dream. Endless opportunities to remake yourself, endless chances to try on different personas and explore who you would be if you could be anybody but yourself. Aside from the feint anchor of an IP address to link you to your location, the chances of being discovered for your shape shifting ways are fairly slim. Anonymous, consequence free, environments tend to lead to unfortunate consequences-we need only look at the 60’s for verification of this. What will the anonymity of the Internet mean for our generation?