Have an opinion about something you read in Grrowl? Write and let us know! Send your e-mail to: grrowl@nrrdgrrl.com. Last month's Snarl! about women seizing power generated a few opinions:



"I am a 16 year old male who enjoys your magazine immensely, although sometimes I am offended by the content such as in the June 97' issue where Carolyn Larke's "We have the power and we have to use it!" article appeared. In this article Carolyn had many remarks in certain paragraphs to the extent that women are better than men and while this may be what she and many of your other readers genuinely believe, this is simply not the case at all! This type of generalization and mistreament of the opposite sex is exactly the reason why feminism was started in the first place, to show that men are NOT better than women and that women are NOT better than men.

Other than these occassional occurances, your magazine is very well put together and informative. I think also that her statement of "Uppity women unite" not only demeans herself, but also demeans all women by supporting the chauvinst male's stereotypical view of feminists and feminism.

By the way, I agree with all of Carolyns other comments in the article, she makes some good points!"

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"I agree with the majority of sentiments expressed by Carolyn, however, this "minority" of women, who, in actual population numbers happen to be a majority, don't seem to have the time, inclination or opportunities to unite the way that men do.

We have to start raising our children to congregate and take the power they deserve - not in a violent way, but with logic and respect for all human beings.

When I was a child my role model was my dad. No one ever told me that I could not do everything he was doing because I would grow up to be a woman instead of a man. I just naturally assumed that I could do and be whatever I wanted. Until I tried to join the Navy. I wanted to be on a ship and travel around the world like my father did, seeing exotic places and learning about other cultures. The recruiting officer literally laughed at me. So I decided I would fly around the world instead. I tried the Air Force. I was told I could not even be an Air Traffic Controller because I might get my period and cause a plane to crash. This is all true. It was 22 years ago.

Things have changed a lot since then. We have made great progress. But until we, as a unit, start taking the initiative and demanding what is our right, treating all humans with equality instead of following the example men have set for us, our roles will continue to change at a snail's pace. But change, they will. We must be patient."

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"I completely agree that we could accomplish many things if we united. I also agree that hate, fear, greed and poverty are the real enemies of a secure society. Laws in themselves are not necessarily the cause of our lack of freedom. Carolyn sort of brought this up in that she advocated gun control (which I am all for). For the most part, the government does not turn people into victims, they do it themselves, or allow it to be done to them. I am not talking about violent crime victims, but people who chose to be victims rather than making their own way.

In past decades our government has tried to alleviate hate, fear, greed and poverty with hate laws and civil rights legislation. It has succeeded in some and failed in others. I don't know how many readers are familiar with the difficulties women faced in the workplace before discrimination laws were in place. How many women doctors, lawyers and business people, much less engineers and scientists were there 30 years ago, relative to now?

It is still not as equal as is should be, but progress has been made, with some thanks to the government. I think we need to teach ourselves to overcome hate, fear, greed and poverty in our own lives, and more importantly, teach our children the same. We need to not just vote, but understand what we are voting for. We need to look at the long term effects and not soundbites."

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And the rest of the June issue:

"Wow! Wow! wow! Claudia's pictures are powerful and I applaud her! I also agree with her explanations of them all. Go for it gal!"

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"The photgraphy by Claudia Sunderland in Growl was incredibly cool and moving."

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"The Tadpole and the Caterpillar is a WONDERFUL story!"

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"Hey Suzanne [re: The Missing Prince], you're not the only one waiting! There are lots of us out here who won't compromise and are feeling lonely because of it!"

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