[net.women] What net.women.only is for

alan@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Alan Algustyniak) (11/20/84)

> From: edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall)
> Date: 7 Nov 84 17:29:23 GMT
>
> Who said *anything* about net.woman.only having to do with man-hating?
>
>		-Ed Hall

Well, at least some of those who wanted the group in the first place.

Even the name of the group implies (nay, declares) discrimination.

If you will peek from under your blindfold a minute, I have transcribed
below, parts of a posting Laura Creighton sent on 28-August-83, when the
group was first created.  If this doesn't convince you, then there's no
sense trying to convince you any more.

	Below i have transcibed parts of the classic posting by
	Laura Creighton, entitled:

	      I FOUND OUT WHAT NET.WOMEN.ONLY IS FOR!!!


************************************
I found out what net.women.only is for! Or, rather, I found out what
some people want net.women.only for. It is as some of us suspected,
intended by certain people to be used for voicing hatred for men and in
general acting as if you have the Divine right to subjugate them.

You see, I just got some mail which expressed this. ...
...I gather that its author was rather upset when I posted my
objection to net.women.only...

her conclusion was that i was a traitor to women in general. After all,
I did not support her in her crusade to keep the toilet lid down and to
force men to do the same, and I have the audacity to disagree with her
on the need for both genderless language and net.women.only.

She claims that I am failing in my 'duty to fellow women' at great
length. I got news for her...
-- I take people as they come and don't play favourites due to sex...

At the tail end of this article I infer she was struck with a
revelation. I wasn't a woman at all -- but a man using a woman's
name.

...

After deciding that i was male, I got a long list of what the "Duty"
(yes, with a capital D ) of every woman was to man and how this defined
a woman since only such a woman "was universal in her freedom".
(Whatever that means ... ) Now I have some pretty strong ideas about
freedom myself, and one of them goes that making slaves out of men "in
payment for the many years of torture which women have endured" is a
lousy idea. And if she intends to get on with her threat and come on
over to Toronto and "place her dominion over me as befits a true woman"
then she hasn't seen anything like the hostile reaction she is going to
get from me.

...

She is doing all this out of compassion "for men, the lesser creatures",
by the way. She thinks that if all men were to "take up their rightful
place ... as servants of the superior <sex>" there would be an end to hatred.
...

the problem is that she claims the word "woman" to describe only
herself and those "millions of other women" who "are true to the
feminist cause" and in general support her beliefs...
*************************************

It's pretty easy for Whites to get indignant over probable racism by
Whites against Blacks.  I applaud Evelyn and Laura as being among the
few women with the objectivity and sense of justice to get indignant
over probable sexism by women against men.

	sdcrdcf!alan

ecl@ahuta.UUCP (ecl) (11/21/84)

Reference: <1490@sdcrdcf.UUCP>

> It's pretty easy for Whites to get indignant over probable racism by
> Whites against Blacks.  I applaud Evelyn and Laura as being among the
> few women with the objectivity and sense of justice to get indignant
> over probable sexism by women against men.

I appreciate the 'compliment' but I take the most strenuous exception to
the adjective 'few'.  This whole comment smacks a little too much of "Well,
*some* <fill-in-your-own-ethnic-group> are okay, but most of them are, well,
you know..."

					Evelyn C. Leeper
==> Note new net address:		...ihnp4!houxq!ahuta!ecl
(Mail sent to my old address will be forwarded temporarily.)