oaf@mit-vax.UUCP (Oded Feingold) (08/12/85)
> However neither tried to answer this section of Sunny's > posting: [Carolyn Clark] [ >> = Sunny Kirsten] >> On the whole, from my observations of myself, and of other >> people, I'd have to say that on the average, women are less >> bothered by their sex than men are. ---------------------------------------- Why is "bothered" the operative word? I'm not denying nuff'n, but I'd like to know. >> Back in the old days, I >> all to often watched previously intelligent conversations >> between men grind to a total halt, or to blithering idiocy, >> as some nice looking woman walked by, and when she'd >> disappeared from sight, would turn to discussion of her >> "fuckability" rather than back to work. ---------------------------------------- As Jeff Sonntag, the other man to rise to Sunny's bait, mentioned, that has not been my experience. I see it occasionally, NOT among my peer group. Frankly, any friend of mine who launched into such a discussion would have his ears pinned back with rusty railroad spikes, for which I have a peculiar fetish. I agree with Jeff that it suggests Sunny moved in sleazy or sexist circles. [That's my gratuitous generalization from personal observation.] Perhaps not -- maybe Californians really ARE different. >> (was that blunt enough? no, not really). ---------------------------------------- That rhetorical question certainly was stupid and hostile enough! It is perhaps indicative of its author's attitude toward people in general, men in particular. At the risk of sounding like a vindictive old fart, which I am, I'd estimate that someone who utters such a sentence might hang out with such boys, and get a skewed sample space. >> Much of it is a very animalistic jousting between the men to >> prove to each other who is the horniest. ---------------------------------------- Holy bull-paddies, Batman! Proving my horniness to other men has never been my idea of a good time. But assume Sunny's right: I'd suspect these men are simply trying to disguise their discomfort and diffidence in matters sexual. And keep the animals out of it, huh? [ > = Carolyn J. Clark] > I'm a woman. Obviously I've never been in a group of *only > men*. ---------------------------------------- A wimpy excuse. I eavesdrop shamelessly on whatever's going on around me, whether in restaurants, on the beach, in the street, wherever. If you're at all observant about your surroundings, you should have little trouble gathering your own data. It would help if you look really spectacular :-) > I don't recall observing a group women stopping their talk > to ogle a passing male. ---------------------------------------- I have. Not me, alas. > Is this a real difference or isn't it? ---------------------------------------- I've spent 3500 characters, and the net's collective patience, saying this whole line of argument is a crock, so I'll reverse field and agree the difference is probably "real." Men are socialized to react aggressively to sexual signals. So, given that that kind of thing happens, why not assume it happens more among men than women? That doesn't mean the line of argument ISN'T a crock. Statistical comments about classes of people don't give significant information about individuals (Ross Greenberg, are you listening?) maybe Sunny's right, some percentage more than half the time. So what does that say about any individual man? <<** FLAME ON **>> ---------------------------------------- This whole stupid, miserable, hostile, intellectually sleazy round of personalized shit-slinging started when someone brought up the subject of PMS, and whether we should be hesitant to hire female airline pilots, presidents, garbage workers or whatever for fear of cyclic suboptimal perfomance. Among the responses it engendered, a significant number of people jumped on the same bandwagon at the other end. Namely, they proceeded to try to "prove" that men are more subject to raging hormonal cycles that women, hence in fact the weaker sex when it comes to carrier landings and nuclear war. To her credit, Cheryl Stewart (that one) did a beautiful spoof on the topic, but others, and I name no names (bad memory, testosterone overload) really tried to pull it off. If it's wrong to judge all women by PMS, isn't it wrong to judge all men by whatever is the male equivalent? Don't you owe yourselves that much personal integrity? When will people realize that the way to respond to a stupid, sexist remark which primarily displays its utterer's hostility, mental laziness and lack of honesty is NOT by displaying your own? That it is NOT necessary to subsume your correspondent's psychological defects into your own response, then throw it back? I thought it enough to point out that such generalizations are neither fair nor sensible, and leave it at that. But no, we get runaway conniptions from people whose lives are dominated by violent hostility. No reasonable claims or discussions have a chance, since there's a cadre of disgusting network muggers out there, just waiting to scream "sexist pig" or "castrating bitch" at the drop of a hat. My patience is exhausted, and I firmly believe that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Henceforth I feel no obligation to be reasonable to anyone or anything, and will simply use net.women to work out my own hostilities (you guys ain't seen nothin' yet)!! You'll note there's no <<** FLAME OFF **>> at the end of this posting. <Flame temporarily off> Ms. Clark, I'm not angry at you. I hope my answer covers your question satisfactorily. Thank you for pointing out my previous omissions. -- Oded Feingold {decvax, harvard, mit-eddie}!mitvax!oaf oaf%oz@mit-mc.ARPA MIT AI Laboratory 545 Tech Square Cambridge, Mass. 02139 617-253-8598
gail@calmasd.UUCP (Gail B. Hanrahan) (08/15/85)
In article <601@mit-vax.UUCP> oaf@mit-vax.UUCP (Oded Feingold) writes: >end. Namely, they proceeded to try to "prove" that men are more >subject to raging hormonal cycles that women, hence in fact the weaker >sex when it comes to carrier landings and nuclear war. To her credit, >Cheryl Stewart (that one) did a beautiful spoof on the topic, but >others, and I name no names (bad memory, testosterone overload) really >tried to pull it off. If it's wrong to judge all women by PMS, isn't >it wrong to judge all men by whatever is the male equivalent? Don't >you owe yourselves that much personal integrity? Funny, I thought the whole point of those articles was to make those arguing that PMS implies incompetence realize just how absurd (and hurtful) the discussion is/was by turning it around and applying the same sort of pseudo-logic. > When will people realize that the way to respond to a stupid, >sexist remark which primarily displays its utterer's hostility, mental >laziness and lack of honesty is NOT by displaying your own? That it >is NOT necessary to subsume your correspondent's psychological defects >into your own response, then throw it back? ... > My patience is exhausted, and I firmly believe that if you can't >beat 'em, join 'em. Henceforth I feel no obligation to be reasonable >to anyone or anything, and will simply use net.women to work out my >own hostilities (you guys ain't seen nothin' yet)!! I see a contradiction here. Will contributing to the problem make it go away? Somehow I doubt it. -- Gail Bayley Hanrahan Calma Company, San Diego {ihnp4,decvax,ucbvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!gail