Hi everyone,

The very idea of choosing a face to accompany my online words horrifies me. Should I choose an "authentic" image, one that shows my age and devia-tions from standard female beauty markers? Or does the electronic medium license me to alter my image? License? Does it *mandate* that I alter my image (think of the number of times people have sheepishly said after a first time on a MUD--gee, I used my *real* name! I didn't know [the rules]... (blush))?

In creating a face to accompany my words, how would I deal with the very diverse audience of the net--remembering that I might want to retain a profes-sional image for the job search and in addition construct a fanciful image for other lists or create some feminist symbol-face for this list? Will my female face get more or less respect if I make it nice looking, smiling?
Does nice-looking reinforce the nice training that I want to shed or does it indicate my insistence on new and nice rules? Or should I make a face very much at odds with my words (mean face/nice words or nice face/mean words) in order to subvert stereotyping?

Ah so many rhetorical decisions if we add visual rhetoric. And gender issues become heightened, I think, rather than lessened.

Is anyone here making home pages?
I have enough trouble with words.

Tina (November 1994)