Preface - Electronic Poetry Center

policed by some sort of affirmative action of response or mention." I agree.
Policing rarely works in any situation (doesn’t stop crime, does it?). But I’ve
noticed that what I fear more than policing itself (since policing on the net is
really quite rare) are accusations of policing directed at those of us who dare to
criticize the speech and/or "tone" of others. (And, yes, this does resonate with
the "political correctness" argument the right uses to make the left appear more
powerful than it is…) Like Juliana, "I do not want to be a woman all the time
either." In fact, the ability to "pass" on the net is a real relief to me, and I use it
frequently. But passing is just… passing. What I’d really like is for it not to be
so exhausting to be a woman. At any rate, let me share with you a short piece
which I wrote in the middle of the TNC flamewar, after suffering the slings and
arrows of outrageous distortion (accusations of being a wounded, vicious
person, a manhater, blah, blah, blah) and weathering what can only be called a
storm of abuse, name-calling, and red-faced fist-shaking. (Not that I didn’t dish
it out as well as take it, but then, that’s the point I make below…)
Simultaneously amused and appalled by the narratives different male
listmembers were writing about "me" (the person behind the narratives, to
which none of them had any access), I explained:
"It is my pleasure in electronic communication to attempt to respond in the
style in which I am addressed, and, at times, to address the issue of style itself.
Lacking physicality (obvious race/gender characteristics), I find that it is simple
to engage in stylistic shifts in espace, whereas it is very difficult to engage in
such shifts in person. One of the results of my stylistic adventuring has been
my realization that textual style is as gendered and racialized as the physical
body–though passing in espace is easier than passing in person. What I find,
however, is that when I publicly position my gender as female, and then insist
upon "competing" in "rational" (masculine) discourse in traditionally masculine
terms while simultaneously insisting we focus on issues of importance to
women, all hell breaks loose. The pattern is quite predictable: certain men will
grow completely infuriated and claim that I am attacking them because I hate
them. They will also impute all sorts of power to me–as if, in their eyes, I
"control" the discourse–"Kali’s game"–and depict themselves as victims of my
rage…"
In fact, the upshot of the TNC flamewar, was that I was accused of being a
machine. George Landow wrote:
"KALI TAL IS NOT A PERSON BUT A TEXT-GENERATING
APPARATUS INTENDED TO PASS THE TURING TEST AND AT THE