When it comes to emotions, smiley faces are the great gender equalizer between men and women.

In a 2000 study, Alecia Wolf, an as-sistant dean at the University of Texas at Tyler , looked at how people express themselves online through emoticons, keyboard characters used to represent faces. Wolf found that the age-old stereo-types of the emotional woman and inex-pressive man may not apply to electronic communications. Through her study, Wolf concluded that, when men and women message as part of a mixed-gender group, gender has little e! ect on the frequency of emoticon usage.

“It’s so hard to convey non-verbal cues, like tone of voice and facial ex-pression, in text-based c o m m u -n i c a t i o n , and I think emoticons do a great job of con-veying this information for us,” said Mer-edith Guthrie, a lecturer in media communication at Pitt. “You can let the

other people in your discussion know that you’re kidding, or that you’re angry, with just a few simple keystrokes.”

When Wolf began her re-search, she said there were two prevalent, yet confl ict-ing, beliefs about the In-ternet.

One belief claimed that, since the Internet was male-dominated, it replicat-ed the o" ine environment where the gender bias favored males in the working world.

“The Internet was viewed by some as inherently masculine and un-

friendly at best — hostile at worst — to women,” Wolf

said. The second domi-

nant belief was that the Internet was “the great

equalizer,” Wolf said, be-cause “on the Internet, nobody

knows you’re a dog,” like the old adage states. This means that

because men and women can remain anonymous and hide whether or not they are male or female online, it’s much more di# cult for readers to uphold gender biases in the Internet

world. With this in mind, Wolf wanted to

explore if race, sex, class, age, etc., dis-appeared online, would the internet pos-

sibly be a hostile environment for women.

“Since stereotypes already existed re-

garding gendered emotional expres-sion, and the widespread use of emoticons was

also a relatively new phenomenon,

it seemed like an interesting place to

start,” Wolf said.Wolf ’s research revealed

that there is a distinct change in the kinds of emoticons used when men and women converse in a same-gender group, rather than in a mixed-gender group. Wolf said in her study that

“the majority of emoticon use by females lies in the meaning category of humor; the bulk of

male emoticon use expresses teas-ing/sarcasm.”

Additionally, when moving from same-gender to mixed-gender groups, male frequency of emoticon use increases greatly and use of teasing, sarcasm and humor decreases. Meanwhile, women use more emoticons to express teasing, sar-casm and humor in mixed-gender groups. The study showed that the basic smiley :), the basic frowny :(, and the basic winky

@thepittnews

Vol. 105Issue 89

Friday, January 9, 2015Pittnews.com

Study shows emoticons bust gender stereotypes

Anjana Murali Staff Writer

One game removed from a narrow loss to a highly ranked Louisville team, the Pitt women’s basketball team was able to play the role of spoiler.

The team defeated the eighth-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels 84-59 in a monu-mental win for the program. Brianna Kiesel led the way, scoring 22 points while record-ing nine rebounds and fi ve assists. Monica Wignot and Stasha Carey added 18 and 17 points respectively.

Having already beaten perennial tourna-ment teams Michigan and Ohio State this season, the Panthers looked calm and col-lected against one of the top teams in the ACC. They claimed their fi rst win against a ranked opponent since 2011.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the way [the team] executed the game plan,” head coach Suzie McConnell-Serio said. “It was a great game to be a part of.”

Pitt’s goal was clear from the beginning: to force the Tar Heels to beat them with the outside shot, as UNC has only hit 30 percent of their attempts from behind the arc this year.

UPSET SPECIALWomen!s basketball

knocks off No. 8 UNC for 1st ACC win

Mark Powell Staff Writer

Emoticons 2W Hoops 4

2 January 9, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a new Pittsburgh activist group, We Change Pittsburgh, will march against racism and police brutality.

“The best way to commemorate Dr. King is to continue his work to end rac-ism at home, war overseas and milita-rism everywhere,” said Julia Johnson, organizer of We Change Pittsburgh.

In a press release announcing the Jan. 19 march, We Change Pittsburgh said the activists “feel that Dr. King’s opposition to war and racism are con-sistent with the theme of this march.”

Activists will march from 6 to 8 p.m. from the intersection of Bigelow Bou-levard in Oakland to the City-County Building on Grant Street Downtown.

Members of We Change Pittsburgh organized the December Pittsburgh protests against police brutality. John-son led the way during the three-hour

police brutality protest last December. Johnson and roughly 200 students and community members marched for about eight miles through Pittsburgh.

According to the release, We Change

Pittsburgh teamed up with the Thomas Merton Center Anti-War Committee, an organization that advocates for peace and social justice, and several other peace and justice groups to organize

the march.Chief Cameron McLay, chief of Pitts-

burgh’s Bureau of Police, announced his solidarity with anti-police brutality movements on New Year’s Eve when he was photographed holding a protester’s sign that read “I resolve to challenge racism @ work #EndWhiteSilence.”

“Chief McLay’s promise to challenge racism at work is a step in the right direction, but we will keep marching until police brutality, racism and mili-tarism come to end,” said Pete Shell of the Anti-War Committee in the release.

A message on We Change Pitts-burgh’s Facebook page detailed the group’s demands.

“[We] demand an end to all forms of racist wars: from the domestic war waged against the poor and working Black and Latino communities to the imperialist wars on the poor and work-ing people all over the world,” the group said.

New activist group honors MLK, plans protestDale Shoemaker

Assistant News Editor

“We will keep marching until police brutality, racism and militarization come

to an end.”Pete Shell

EMOTICONSFROM PAGE 1

faces ;) are the most commonly used emoti-cons for both men and women.

“I think that men use more emoticons and express less teasing and sarcasm in mixed-gender groups because they want to be understood by women,” Guthrie said. “They don’t want to hurt women’s feel-ings and so they default to a clearer type of communication that is hopefully better understood.”

Pitt’s Slutciety publication adviser Au-brey Hirsch said this behavior may say something signifi cant about how men and women are socialized di! erently when it comes to self-expression.

“Men may feel less comfortable showing real emotion in front of other men because they worry about performing their gender roles incorrectly,” said Hirsch, who is also a visiting lecturer at Pitt. Slutciety is Pitt’s intersectional feminist publication.

According to Wolf ’s study, research

Emoticons 5

3January 9, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

OPINIONSCasual Fridays

EDITORIALEDITORIAL

Snake the drains

“Harry Potter” fans, re-joice. A fi ve-and-a-half-foot-long snake has re-opened the Chamber Pot of Secrets in a San Diego o! ce building. Stephanie Lacsa plunged the o! ce toilet last Tuesday after she noticed the water level was higher than usual. A slippery surprise ap-peared, as a snake slithered up to greet the unbemused o! ce worker. Someone should have told Little Johnny that fl ushing snakes isn’t quite like fl ushing your goldfi sh.

In the ru!

Last week, a homeless Flor-ida resident gave CVS workers everywhere a reason to demand a raise. Jeremiah Patterson, 22, walked into a CVS pharmacy and stripped down to the bu" in the men’s room. Following his derobing, Patterson exited the restroom and proceeded to rummage through the dog beds until he picked one fi t for his bare body. O! cials found Pat-terson tired as a dog, asleep in the pet bed and receiving fur-tive glances from shoppers

Man of steel

Last Friday, the health of Illi-nois man Arthur Lampitt took a turn for the worst. He visited his local emergency room after ex-periencing pain in his right arm. Once there, doctors removed a turn signal lever that had been lodged in his arm since a car

crash in 1953. Today, Lampitt looks forward to no longer set-ting o" metal detectors . If he could turn back time, he would have had it removed sooner.

Pokey little puppy

There’s no doubt about it, Chris Shaw and Bradley Jus-tice have a knitwit for a dog. On New Year’s Eve, Tutti, their Papillon, jumped onto the cof-fee table and landed on a pair of knitting needles, piercing her heart. Tutti went limp and stuck her tongue out, leading Shaw and Justice to believe that she “had expired,” they told WNCN. Luckily, the needle was small enough that minimal injuries were sustained, and Tutti stuck through it all.

Weeding out criminals

Florida man John Balmer was not dressed for success when he entered a local Kmart on Tues-day, wearing a T-shirt declar-ing, “WHO NEEDS DRUGS? No, seriously, I have drugs.” Noting an o! cer in the store, Balmer panicked and tried to hand o" a bag of “green, leafy substance” to another customer. When the customer declined the bag, Balmer nonchalantly dropped it and paid for his items. Author-ities detained him — and the “leafy substance,” which turned out to be marijuana and meth-amphetamine. He was arrested for one count of possession and two counts of absolute idiocy .

COLUMNCOLUMN

The United States does not have a religion problem — our First Amendment proves that. However, it seems the United States has a peo-ple problem. Instead of tolerating diversity, we have adamantly worked against spiritual autonomy.

The First Amendment protects our right to religious freedom —this is widely understood. Centuries later, the 1993 Religious Freedom Restora-tion Act (RFRA) addresses the First Amendment’s shortfalls, where the liberty of practicing religion meets secular law.

That being said, what happens when the line between church and state becomes blurred?

Those who are religious and antireligious alike question the RFRA’s true purpose and actual ef-fectiveness. The act was meant to allow certain religious practices to take priority over secular law—with compelling justifi cation. Yet, the act fails to address social accceptance of religion itself.

Ben Carson, popular political conservative leader and author of “America the Beautiful” , commented on the amazing tolerance and har-mony that he experienced giving speeches concerning religion.

According to his book, Colum-bine High School school o! cials asked Carson not to mention God in his speech there, following the tragic mass shootings. Carson felt the com-munity needed such faith and assur-ance, so he did not comply with the request. He spoke of his Creator and received a standing ovation.

The RFRA does not force anyone to believe in any supernatural force in which they do not otherwise be-lieve. It simply allows those who do have religious beliefs to practice them

without undue burden.This does not mean, however,

that paramedics who identify as Christians can deny care to the LGBT community, as recent media, such as a recent CBS News’ article on a Michi-gan religious freedom bill, suggests. Nor does it allow Muslim extremists to freely practice homicidal behav-iors. These ideas and actions would not have compelling justifi cations, as the RFRA requires.

To play devil’s advocate: what then, is the purpose of this act?

In Employment Division v. Smith (1990), a Native American was de-nied a job due to a positive drug test for a Schedule I substance, peyote. This hallucinogen is derived from cactuses and is used during religious ceremonies. The Supreme Court sid-ed with the Native Americans and permitted the drug for religious prac-tices. This decision was an important precedent for other cases of similar nature.

The results of this precedent are seen in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Benefi cente Uniao do Veg-etal (2006), in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Schedule I substance being used in tea for re-ligious ceremonies. This Schedule I substance, ayahuasca, contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a hal-lucinogenic used in the sacramental tea. The court sided with the Brazil-ian church in question because the U.S. government could not prove that they had a compelling interest in barring the substance.

The RFRA comes in handy for lawful acceptance of religious prac-tices, but what about the social accep-tance of religion itself? Is the allow-ance of hallucinogenic substances during religious practices seen as a triumph or a gateway for illegal drugs to be misused based on a phony re-ligious claim?

The results of the act are limited and controversial, mirroring the complications of the act itself. It does not solve the root of the problem, only the leaves that stem from it. Our nation’s democracy fl ows through waves of liberalism and conservatism with every election, but no matter the sway, our values should remain the same: tolerance, unity and freedom.

According to a Pew Forum poll on religion in the U.S., 78.4 percent of the population identifi ed themselves as Christian, 1.7 percent identifi ed as Jewish, 0.6 percent as Muslim and 1.6 percent as atheist.

For every atheist, there are 50 people who identify as Christian, Jew-ish or Muslim. Why is that one person able to outshout 50 others? Why are the religious so afraid to fi ght back? They are not afraid. They are simply tolerant.

The Religious Freedom Restora-tion Act serves as little of the popula-tion as possible because it does not change the problems the religious majority faces. With the line separat-ing church and state becoming more controversial every day, how is our nation going to be able to return to its Judeo-Christian roots?

Carson suggests a cause for this separation:“Freedom to worship or not worship as one pleases would not be an issue were it not for the extreme intolerance of antireligion groups. These are the same people who brand anyone who disagrees with their agenda as bigoted and intolerant.”

Those who are antireligious have progress to make, but the religious do, too. Neither side should ask to receive what they are not willing to give — tolerance.

Rebecca Peters writes about current political events for The Pitt News.

Write Rebecca at rcp30@pitt.edu

America’s new religion problem Rebecca Peters

For The Pitt News

4 January 9, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

SPORTSSophomore guard Allisha Gray highlighted

the Heels’ four-guard lineup. Gray averages nearly 17 points and eight rebounds per game.

The Panthers got o! to a fast start, match-ing the Tar Heels basket-for-basket. Wignot entered the game as the team’s leading scorer, averaging over 17 per contest. Wignot played the game with a pro-tective mask from an undisclosed injury against Louisville.

The injury had little effect, as she scored nine points in just as many minutes to open the game. Wignot demonstrated her range throughout the fi rst half, hitting multiple 3-pointers from the right corner.

Kiesel entered the game leading the ACC in assists per game and assist-to-turnover ratio. She set up three of her teammates’ buckets in the fi rst 20 minutes.

Gray did all she could to keep UNC in the game in the fi rst half, scoring 12 points on three of fi ve shoot-ing and grabbing nine rebounds.

Pitt’s defensive strategy paid o! , as they took a 10-point lead into the half. The Panthers forced the Tar Heels to jack up 14 3-pointers, of which they only made three. Overall, North Carolina shot 32 percent from the fi eld, compared to Pitt’s 37 percent.

The most relevant stat of the half, how-ever, was the di! erential on the boards. The Panthers out-rebounded the Heels 29-20, including a 10-5 edge on the o! ensive glass.

“As a team, we did a great job fi nding their girls and boxing them out,” Wignot said. “We

didn’t let them get second-chance shots.”Despite the fi rst-half lead, the Panthers

couldn’t get too comfortable. They held a second-half lead against seventh-ranked Louisville in their last contest, yet lost the game 57-63.

“I was a little intense at halftime,” McCo-nnell-Serio said. “I didn’t go in passive at all,”

The Panthers pushed the lead to 20 points early in the second half, with key contributions from freshmen Aysia Bugg, Yacine Diop and

Carey. Carey became the third Pitt player in the game to score in double fi gures.

Bugg fi nished with her best statistics of the season, scoring eight points and add-ing six rebounds.

“We have all new players except a cou-ple of returning se-niors ... they’ve been here four years, and I don’t think it’s the four years they wanted to have,” Bugg said. “We’re just trying to build this program up.”

But the Tar Heels would not go qui-etly, as a four-minute Pitt scoring drought helped UNC trim the lead to 14.

Kiesel came up big late, as she was able to break the UNC press defense several times, as well as provide pressure on inbounds plays after a

made basket.“She just continues to make plays,” McCo-

nnell-Serio said of Kiesel.Pitt took advantage of UNC’s growing frus-

tration late in the game and pushed the ball in transition to extend their lead.

The result improves the Panthers to 11-4 on the season and evens their conference record to 1-1. Their next game will be at Florida State on Jan. 15.

MEN’S BASKETBALLMEN’S BASKETBALL

The Clemson men’s basketball team isn’t very good at o! ense.

The proof is in the statistics — the Tigers (8-6, 0-2 ACC) rank last in the ACC in scoring, second-to-last in scoring margin, last in fi eld goal percentage with .425 — but Clemson head coach Brad Brownell also hestitantly admitted the team’s weakness.

“Scoring’s been a little bit of a problem for us this year,” Brownell said on Monday during the ACC coaches’ teleconference.

The issues don’t end there: Clemson is third-to-last in the ACC in 3-point percentage and last in assists. It’s also tied for second-to-last in turnover margin and scoring margin, as well as last in assist-to-turnover ratio.

“I think we’re a better shooting team than our stats,” Brownell said before reconsider-ing, “that’s really not the case. You are what your stats say you are. But I do think we can shoot the ball better.”

Despite these major struggles, Pitt head

coach Jamie Dixon knows a team’s o! ensive success can shift suddenly, which was pre-cisely what happened to the Panthers on Tuesday at Boston College. Trailing by as much as 10 late in the game, the Panthers were able to surge back and notch a 61-60 win in overtime.

Pitt hosts the Tigers at the Petersen Events Center on Saturday in its fi rst con-ference home game of the season. The team will need to build on, or, at least, maintain, its o! ensive performance from the later portion of the BC contest, while the visitors do the opposite, in order for Pitt to re-establish a winning streak.

“It comes and goes,” Dixon said of of-fensive success. “There’s a lot of things that factor in, but it can change overnight. Just like it changed for us in the middle of a game o! ensively where we moved better and ad-justed and started making some shots.”

But consistency has been an issue for Pitt (11-4, 1-1 ACC).

Pitt prepares for sputtering Clemson

Jasper Wilson Staff Traitor

W HOOPSFROM PAGE 1

Sheldon Jeter and the Panthers look to play with more toughness moving forward this season. Heather Tennant | Staff Photographer

Read the rest online at Pittnews.com.

Brianna Kiesel led all scorers with 22 points. Alyson Derrick | Staff Photographer

5January 9, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

shows that men are perceived as more technologically inclined and make the rules for online interaction.

“It seems men create the terminology and rules for cyberspace, but we must question whether their rules appropriately suit women,” she wrote in her study.

Wolf ’s study found that male encoding of emoticons did not silence women in cyberspace but, instead, encouraged them to assert positive feelings in conversation.

“Emoticons are just a new tool for self-expression, and I think it’s great that so many women are reading and writing meaning into them and using them to help themselves feel understood,” Hirsch said.

In the mixed-gender groups, Wolf found that both men and women increase their emoticon use and were able to ex-press themselves in nontraditional ways.

“I’m particularly impressed by the way men and women move toward one another, almost mimicking each others’ communication styles in the mixed-gen-der environment,” Hirsch said. “There’s something really encouraging about that,

I think.”Wolf said her research could have a

role to play in shaping the Internet for the better. Her study showed that women, as internal agents of change, were able to a! ect and shape online language use by ac-tively participating in online communities.

“The importance of this e! ort is that as the voices of these groups are heard online, they take an active role in helping to recreate the Internet so that it remains a useful tool for society at large,” Wolf said.

For Sarah O" ey, a freshman molecular biology major, emoticons are both useful and excessive at times.

“In some cases, emojis defi nitely help me fi gure out the other person’s tone and whether they are joking or not,” O" ey said. “If I am texting someone new, emoti-cons help with the conversation and make sure we are on the same level.”

O" ey said she uses more emoticons when she texts her female friends.

“With girls, a lot of the time it just be-comes an excess of emoticons. I tend to use more emojis when I’m talking to my [female] friends, and, if I took them away, there wouldn’t be much of change in the conversation, there just wouldn’t be an excess of smiley faces,” she said.

E S T A B L I S H E D 1 9 1 0

Editorial PoliciesSingle copies of The Pitt News are free and available at newsstands around

campus. Additional copies can be purchased with permission of the editor in chief for $.50 each.

Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the students, faculty or University administration. Opinions expressed in columns, car-toons and letters are not necessarily those of The Pitt News. Any letter in-tended for publication must be addressed to the editor, be no more than 250 words and include the writer’s name, phone number and University a#liation, if any. Letters may be sent via e-mail to letters@pittnews.com. The Pitt News reserves the right to edit any and all letters. In the event of multiple replies to an issue, The Pitt News may print one letter that represents the majority of responses. Unsigned editorials are a majority opinion of the Editorial Board, listed to the left.

The Pitt News is an independent, student-written and student-managed newspaper for the Oakland campus of the University of Pittsburgh. It is pub-lished Monday through Friday during the regular school year and Wednesdays during the summer.

Complaints concerning coverage by The Pitt News, after first being brought to the editors, may be referred to the Community Relations Com-mittee, Pitt News Advisory Board, c/o student media adviser, 435 William Pitt Union, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260.

The editor in chief has the final authority on editorial matters and cannot be censored, according to state and federal law. The editor in chief is selected by the Pitt News Advisory Board, which includes University sta!, fac-ulty and students, as well as journalism professionals. The business and edito-rial o#ces of The Pitt News are located at 434 William Pitt Union, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260.

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EMOTICONFROM PAGE 2