• Women with
  Disabilities on the NET
  
• Getting into
  Internet Relay Chat
  
  

by Miriam Ticoll

There are literally hundreds (if not several thousands by the time this goes to press) of sites pertaining to disability issues on the Internet. Many sites are disability specific - providing information and resources for particular types of disabilities. Increasingly, disability rights organizations and advocacy organizations with a focus on the rights of people with disabilities, are showing up on the Internet.

As always, finding sites (and really relevant, useful information) takes time and perseverance. Yahoo has developed a subdirectory fo r disability under Society and Culture. This is a useful index that can speed up searches:

http://english.hk.dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Disabilities/

Here you will find an entry point into disability resources on the net, including a several sites which are attempting to keep up with the proliferation of disability-related information and organize them into helpful categories Disability Information and Resources is one of the most comprehensive listings of disability-related sites, with links to over 1500 sites. It is searchable by keyword at:

www.eskimo.com/~jlubin/disabled/all.htm

While there is a great deal of disability-related information, there are not yet very many sites designed specifically by or for women with disabilities. I am highlighting the sites designed for/by women with disabilities that I am aware of, as well as a few sites which, while not specific to women with disabilities, are interesting, useful or lively sites pertaining to disability as well as disability rights in Canada.

A Canadian site, maintained by Human Resources Development Canada, Indie -Integrated Network of Disability Information and Education is a search engine and comprehensive directory of resources for products, services, and information for the world-wide disability community.It can be found at:

http://indie.ca

The Disability Rights Activist is a list of publications and groups whose main focus is on disability rights. Also included are some groups whose focus is not disability rights but who are involved with advocacy on issues of interest to people with disabilities:

www.teleport.com/~abarhydt/dr-dis-rights.html

The Council of Canadians with Disabilities site includes the newsletter A VOICE OF OUR OWN and the CCD Monthly Update, an update on the Federal Task Force on Disability Issues, Latimer Watch. It is at:

http://www.pcs.mb.ca/

The Electric Edge, the www edition of the magazine called The Ragged Edge is an edgy, energetic, militant, and visually interesting site dealing with issues faced by people disabilities in the United States. It includes political and social commentary by people with disabilities, as well as art and culture:

www.iglou.com/why/edge//P>

A site which is of particular interest to people with disabilities, given the recent controversy around "mercy killing" (for example, the Latimer case in Canada) is the Not Dead Yet site. This site which provides information and links to help those involved in mobilization to oppose the legalization"mercy killing":

www.acils.com/notdeadyet/

The Disabled Women's Alliance is a loose-knit network of women from the United States and Canada. The group is diverse in terms of race, age and disability. Members of the group range in age from 18 to 62 and include women with physical disabilities, deaf, hard of hearing, blind and low-vision women. It is at:

www.igc.org/beijing/ngo/widnet.html

Recognizing that the wheelchair world tends to be biased towards men - this site, part of The Hub, includes a number of resources specifically for women with disabilities. (Includes a short but interesting list of books on women with disabilities:

www.inch.com/~dog666/hub/Women.html

Tracy O'Dell - who is, among other things, a mother, a cybermom, and a woman with a disability - has an accessible and entertaining homepage with interesting links. She is at:

www3.sympatico.ca/odell/

From her page you can also link to the DisAbled Women of Ontario (DAWN) - homepage:

www3.sympatico.ca/odell/dawnpage.htm

The Disabled Peoples International site has a Women's Committee Page at :

www.escape.ca/~dpi/women.html

There is a unique quarterly newsletter coming out of the United States that is expressly devoted to the health and disability concerns of lesbians. It is called Dykes, Disabilities & Stuff.

LIVING list! Is billed as a list for lesbian and bi women with disabilities, and women who love them, whether lovers, friends, sisters, moms, or daughters. This list is unmoderated; apparently, you can discuss anything here (or so the blurb says):

LIVING@qiclab.scn.rain.com

The Deaf Queer Resource Center (DQRC) is a national non-profit information center founded and maintained by Dragonsani Renteria, former Director of San Francisco's Deaf Gay & Lesbian Center and current publisher/editor of CTN Magazine. It includes a Bulletin Board, .People , Deaf Queer Organizations, Deaf HIV/AIDS Resources, Deaf Leather, Library, FLASH -the Deaf Queer e-zine. This is a multi-award winning Web site with "comprehensive and accurate information about the Deaf queer community":

http://www.deafqueer.org

And, of course, I cannot close without mentioning the site of The Roeher Institute, Canada's national institute for the study of public policy affecting people with an intellectual impairment and other disabilities (and where I happen to work!) We have lots oF resources, publications, information about social development and education events, and a comprehensive library on disability issues. Have a look at our site now (we are about to reinvent ourselves) :

indie.ca/roeher

I'd be interested in any other sites that you come across that would be of particular interest to women with disabilities. You can email me at
mticoll@yorku.ca

Thanks to Vicky D'Aoust, Catherine Frazee, and Fran Odette for sharing site favourites.

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You're on the Internet already, and you've discovered the ease and convenience of email and Web browsing, but maybe the thrill is starting to wear off and you're wondering how else the 'Net can be useful to you and your organization.

Welcome to Internet Relay Chat!

Internet Relay Chat, commonly known as IRC, is a way to talk to people across your city, province, or the world, in real time. Everything anyone types in is displayed on the screen of each person, prefaced by the "speaker's" nickname. This is a great way to hold meetings, brainstorm, or just chat with people long-distance without phone costs.

Download the Software

The first thing you need to do to use IRC is to download software from the 'Net. The most commonly used IRC program for PCs is mIRC, but you can just head down to any search engine like Yahoo:
www.yahoo.com
or Lycos:
www.lycos.com
and do a search on Internet Relay Chat to come up with various IRC clients for PCs or Macs.

Once you've downloaded an IRC client, you'll need to configure it. This isn't as scary as it sounds: with mIRC, all I had to do was fill in my name, e-mail address, and IRC nicknames. For privacy reasons, I don't use my real name in the name field; instead, I use my nickname there as well. Your IRC nickname can be anything you like, and you can change it whenever you like, even if you're already in the middle of a conversation. Each nick can only be used by one person at a time, so many IRC clients have an option for an alternate nick to use in case someone else is already using the primary nick you've chosen. Once you've filled in that information, you're all ready to go!

How to Connect

My mIRC client came with a list of various servers to which I can connect. The servers are located all over the world, but it is generally best to connect to the one nearest you, because it should work faster than connecting to someplace on another continent. An address for a Canadian IRC server is:
irc.openface.ca
(with no period at the end, just like an URL). Some other addresses (in case that one is busy or slow) are:
irc.igcom.net
irc.stealth.net
irc-2.stealth.net

Once you're connected, you should receive a long welcome message with information about the server, and a "MOTD" - Message of the Day. Once that information has finished scrolling across your screen, you're ready to create or join a channel. You might want to try creating your own little channel just to experiment with how some of the commands work before you plunge in to conversations with others. You can call the channel whatever you like. To create or join a channel, type:
/join #channelname
(fill in whatever name you want instead of "channelname, but it must be preceded by "#").

If a channel with that name already exists, you will join it. If it doesn't already exist, you will have created it. Try to pick a name that doesn't already exist, by choosing some random letters on your keyboard. In privacy, you'll be able to experiment with a few commands before venturing out into populated channels.

Beginning to Chat

Here are a few commands to try:
To speak in a channel, type what you want to say at the bottom of the channel screen, and press "enter." This puts your words onto the screen of everyone on that channel. If you're the only one on that channel, then obviously you won't be able to see any other people's words! :-)

/nick newnick (substitute a new name for "newnick"). This will change your nickname.

/topic #channelname New Topic (substitute the name of your current channel for "channelname" and whatever topic you like for "New Topic"). This will change the topic of your channel. You can see the topic at the top of the channel screen.

/me "some action" For example, if your nick is "Candle," the command: /me passes some cake around the room would show up on everyone's screen as "Candle passes some cake around the room." I often use this action command when there is something I want to say which doesn't seem to work well as dialogue. (e.g., /me blushes).

/list This lists all the channels on the server. Sometimes there is so much information coming in at once (because there are so many channels) that you will get "flooded" and disconnected. Don't worry about that; reconnect and look in your IRC programs' help file for ways to limit the list of channels, or to prevent being flooded.

/part This removes you from the channel.

There are also commands you can use to make your channel "invite only" (so people can only join when you invite them), or "private" (so your channel isn't listed when people request a channel list).

The Channel Operator

When you create a channel, you are automatically the channel operator. When you have "ops" you can give operator status to others, de-op others, kick people from the channel (kicking is when people are temporarily removed from the channel as a warning for misbehaviour, but can rejoin immediately), or ban people (banning is a permanent removal which can only be revoked by "unbanning"). In mIRC, operators are designated by an @ before their nickname, in the list of people who are on the channel. If you are a channel operator, it is very important to only give ops to people you know and trust, because there are some people on IRC who get their kicks by trying to do "takeovers" by getting ops and then removing everyone else from the channel, or at least removing their ops. The only thing operator status is really good for is being able to get rid of people whose behaviour is inappropriate to the tone of the channel.

When you're ready to join a channel which has other people on it, you can try channels such as new2irc, ircnewbies, newbies, chatzone, or irchelp. I don't like some of those channels because there are so many people on them that it is sometimes hard to keep up with any part of the conversations; the text goes by too quickly to absorb, especially when you're new to IRC. I avoided those channels when I was starting out, and used the Help in my IRC client to figure out how to list channels with over 5 people and under 20 people. Then I just joined those channels at random, looking for someone who would talk to me and answer my questions. It didn't take long before I found people whose company I enjoyed, and who were pleased to help me out. The best ways to learn how to use IRC are to refer to the help files often, and to ask other people you meet on IRC.

Identifying Yourself

For the first few weeks I was on IRC, I told very few people I am a woman. I wanted to see how people related to each other along gender lines. I noticed right away that often, the first things people want to know about you is your gender and your age. My strategy, from the beginning, was to reply: "Why could that possibly matter in cyberspace?" I did this mostly out of frustration: the Internet gives us a chance to know each other solely through our words and ideas, rather than through our preconceived notions of age, gender, race, and ability. I wanted to have conversations with people based on thoughts, opinions, and experiences, to see how people could speak with each other without having the basic visual cues we depend on IRL (In Real Life).

Women who use obviously female names (incorporating "girl" or "woman" or else common female names), are more often propositioned for "cybersex" or else have their conversations peppered with flirtation. This isn't always unwelcome, as IRC provides a safe way to play with sex roles and to discover your own level of comfort in sexual conversations or interactions (whether or not they are explicit). On the occasions when I have been propositioned for cybersex, I usually try to engage that person in a "real" conversation; sometimes they just stop talking to me, but other times, that has developed into a great conversation and led to a place where that person and I look forward to talking with each other online. When people are rude, offensive, or otherwise behaving inappropriately, there are commands to ignore them (check with the Help function of your IRC client).

IRC Etiquette

There is some basic etiquette for IRC: when you join a channel, say hi. Before you leave a channel, say bye. When someone new joins a channel, greet them by name (unless the channel has a huge number of users, in which case you would only greet the people you have spoken with before). When you are going to be away from your computer for a while, let people know, so they don't speak to you and then wonder why they aren't getting a response. Don't use vulgar or obscene language unless the channel is "yours" and you don't mind if everyone else starts doing it too (offensive language can get you kicked or banned from some channels). Don't shout (shouting is using all capital letters) unless it's for emphasis, and even then, use it sparingly, because it's very annoying.

Because IRC is text communication, a number of abbreviations have evolved to make typing faster and easier. Here are some very common abbreviations you'll find on IRC, many of which are also used in e-mail:

rofl: Rolling On The Floor Laughing
rotflmao: Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off
brb: Be Right Back (When I'm using brb, I'll often change my nick so the last three letters are "brb" so people know simply by looking at my nick that I am away from the screen. If you do this, remember to change your nick back when you get back to the channel!)
afk: Away From Keyboard
bbl: Be Back Later
lol: Laughing Out Loud
wb: Welcome Back (used when someone who said "brb" comes back and says "back")
re: not really an abbreviation, but means "again."
k: okay
bcz: because
ppl: people
m/f?: are you male or female?
irl: In Real Life
atm: At The Moment

Using IRC

IRC has many advantages for women who want to speak across time zones and long distances. There are no phone charges, and many people can get on a channel and talk at once. However, because channels disappear once the last person has left, some coordination is required to set up a time and a channel where you can meet. I have been pleasantly surprised at the number of women I have found on IRC, and would love to see more and more women move into using this resource for organizational and personal reasons.

Even though you are using a nickname, and you can hide your real name, you should be aware that your e-mail address is available to anyone who does a "whois" on you. You can do a "whois" on anyone by typing /whois nickname (substituting the person's nick for "nickname"). So IRC isn't as anonymous as some people seem to think. :-) It is important to have some sense of self-protection on IRC as with any other medium of communication. Don't give out personal information such as your real name or address unless you are very sure of the people you are speaking with. Be careful if you decide to meet someone IRL whom you have met on IRC (meet in a public place, make sure you have back-up systems).

But as a counterpoint to this caution, do make sure that you aren't self-protective to the point of missing out on great opportunities to meet people all over the world. I met my partner on IRC: we had spoken for a several hours every day for weeks, as he was one of the first people to answer my endless questions about IRC, and then he flew to Canada to meet me (based on conversation alone). I am emigrating from Canada to Holland in May 1997 to live with him. :-)

Denise Østed
Email:fullmoon@euronet.nl

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