chris@globetek.UUCP (chris) (02/18/86)
There have been several articles in net.singles and net.women recently
which have, in effect, equated expectations derived from experience with
sexism and racism. The original poster has been flamed toasty crisp,
and probably wishes the hell he never posted.
People are very good generalizing machines. All our lives, we make
observations and derive general principles from them. We then apply
these general principles as guidelines in dealing with future situations.
Let's have an example. Our example involves dogs. As an advance disclaimer,
I in no way consider the behaviour of large and small dogs described below
to be, in actual fact, typical of large (or small) dogs. There! That should
cover my ass... Person X observes a big dog approaching. In the past, X
has met many dogs. X has noticed that most big dogs jump up, put their paws on
X's front, and lick X's face. X has noticed that most small dogs run up,
sniff at X's shoes, then sit down and wait to be patted.
X considers it probable that the large dog approaching will display typical
large-doggishness, and thus is prepared to catch the dog's paws if it jumps up.
However, the dog sits down. X notices that this large dog is not behaving
as he expected (X notes it didn't behave exactly typically of a small dog,
either), greets it, scratches it behind the ears, adds it to a mental list
of "dogs X has encountered", and wanders out of the example.
X has *expectations about the dog's behaviour based on the dog's size*. Is
X being *sizeist*? Is X causing jumping and licking behaviour in the large
dogs X encounters because X is prepared to respond to such behaviour?
I do not believe that being prepared to grab paws if one meets a large dog
merits the title "sizeism", PROVIDED one is aware that such preparations
apply to a generalized image, and NEED NOT NECESSARILY APPLY to the dog
in question. Nor should a simple statement by X of X's observations on
dog behaviour as related to size be instantly labelled "sizeism". If X
says words to the effect that "most large dogs jump up, most small dogs do
not, it is the size of the dog which is causing this phenomenon, therefore
there is no point in attempting to train large dogs not to jump up", THEN
X is being sizeist.
Folks, we couldn't function properly if we never made generalizations.
Expectations based on experience become {race,sex,whatever}ism only
when we refuse to believe a member of a particular group could act
differently from our initial expectations, and discriminate against that
person or group of people on the basis of these expectations.
We should all be aware that human beings are classifying, generalizing
mechanisms, and remember the limitations of generalizations. But I
don't think we should lay heavy bigotry/sexism/racism accusations on
other people without a little more thought and questions first.
--
Christine Robertson {linus, ihnp4, decvax}!utzoo!globetek!chris
Money may not buy happiness, but misery in luxury has its compensations...