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Women's Rights
What's New? - Archive
WomenMatter will continuously post updates on all this and other issues as we monitor the continuing philosophical and practical debates nationwide.
Please check back often for updates. Past updates are available for reference on the Women's Rights Archives page.
Since Women's Rights is in many ways an umbrella issue, WomenMatter will highlight related updates from other Life Issue areas here:
Surfing the Election: New Combinations of Politics and Technology
To remark that the world has been changed by the Internet is clichéd. To remark that elections have been changed by the Internet is to begin a practical discourse.
Technology has planted new grassroots. All aspects of elections including organizing, campaigning, informing, and voting are evolving. Many argue that the Internet is bringing politics back to the people.
To discuss the way that technology is impacting politics through the vehicle of this political website is more than a postmodern trick. Each new technology seems more self-aware than the last; the Internet certainly invites Internet analysis.
Organizing
Many say that the Internet has further alienated us from each other, closing us off in dark rooms in front of the computer screen. Others are quick to point out how it has brought us together.
Meetup.com turns virtual communities into real ones by helping people with matching interests find one another. Over 25% of Meetup.com users log on to meet people who are politically like-minded.
Internet groups that support Clark, Dean, Edwards, Kerry, Kucinich, Lieberman, Sharpton, or President Bush meet in cyberspace and then in real spaces in cities across the nation. Meetup.com even sponsored groups that were in favor of or opposed to the California recall election.
In a C-SPAN interview on December 13, 2003, Don Means, the political advisor for Meetup.com, argued that any and all Meetup groups are political, regardless of the topic that brings the members together.
For example, a group that gets together to talk about knitting must vote on where to meet, negotiate how to discuss, decide upon ways to recruit new members, etc. Means makes the point that our everyday communities directly relate to the political process, a position that WomenMatter has argued all along.
WomenMatter too has online communities. To participate in one of our online forums, click here.
Campaigning
The President and each of the Democratic candidates has a website where you can read about his qualifications, ideas, and promises.
Howard Dean’s site may be the most famous among the bunch. Perhaps this is because he focused on recruiting new and younger voters via the web very early in the campaign. The other candidates have followed suit, and now, you can easily donate $5 to the candidate of your choice using your computer and your credit card.
Informing
It is not necessary to rely on the mainstream media for information on the candidates and election. On the Internet, political information and opinions abound, especially in the form of web logs, a.k.a. blogs. Further, the Internet offers an analysis of the traditional media’s campaign coverage.
One searchable weblog is The Campaign Desk, launched by the Columbia Journalism Review. This site’s main objective is to critique the press coverage of the presidential campaigns.
You can also check the accuracy of the media and of campaign ads through the new website FactCheck.org. This site claims to hold politicians accountable; it posts inaccuracies and then corrects them; it replaces quotes into their context; it points out ways that media, politicians, or parties have bent the truth.
WomenMatter is the only website of its kind, discussing with women the way that their Life Issues relate to the political.
Voting
Why can’t we just vote over the Internet? It would be so much easier.
Online voting could be on the horizon. The Department of Defense has poured $22 million into a pilot program to allow soldiers and other overseas Americans to vote using just an Internet connection and their personal computers.
The New York Times reports that security experts have heavily criticized this program, called the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, or SERVE.
The security experts reported that the system is vulnerable to viruses (and the first online vote is likely to attract hackers near and far). The catastrophic effects of a cyber attack on the online vote would likely diminish voter confidence.
Many argue that online voting would drastically increase voting system insecurities and that the risk is simply not worth the convenience.
Surfing politics
Do you feel that the Internet is a door to the political process? It can be. Use WomenMatter to learn about the issues that matter to you. Read more about Women’s Rights or explore the other eight Life Issues. Register to vote, and contact your representatives and let them know what you think.
Article Posted on: 1/27/2004
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