To the Editor:
The column by Ethan Ostrow Wednesday ("A Magazine in Need of a New Direction," The Dartmouth, Jan. 12.) was a florid expression of outraged male propriety masquerading under the guise of a "sensitive moderate intellectual pushed too far."
Inner Bitch is not a magazine - it is a 'zine. A 'zine is more on the fringe, an underground publication thrown together. 'Zines tend to plumb the outrageous. Diseased Pariah News is a 'zine produced by People With AIDS , with macabre humour of the sort to make Elizabeth Taylor blanch.
Inner Bitch is thus not gnosis. Read the intro again. Its a take-off on the idea of releasing ones Inner Child. Serious as we are about encouraging women to get angry about the appalling sexual violence done to them - not merely sexual "molestation" - and fight back, we gasp also have a sense of humor. Anger and humor can co-exist quite happily. It is important for happy and healthy survival.
As to leaving a stack of copies at frat houses... we only distributed one to each house. We distributed to sororities and affinity houses. Since much of the 'zine was inspired by frat-boy behaviour, we thought it only courteous to grace them with copies. The rest of our limited number of issues were distributed on request and through the mail to professors, adminstrators and students.
Why some men think that feminist publications all need some form of public chastisement and change to be "valuable contributions" is beyond me.
SHIMI SUBRAMANIAM 94
