features@ihuxf.UUCP (M.A. Zeszutko) (02/21/84)
Re: the burning of feminists at the stake. (This came as a comment in a response on a pornography submission.) It's been done. So many women who chose to live their lives according to their own beliefs (and consequently run afoul of society's definition of what women should be) have been labeled: witches, lesbians, suffragettes, feminists, spinsters...etc etc. and killed. Some estimate the number of (primarily female) witches burned or otherwise murdered to be upwards of 500,000 (see Trevor-Roper's books). And when the women were not physically killed, they were psychologically abused. I find "humor" of this sort disturbing. There's a lot more to be said on this subject, but I don't want to add fuel to the *flames*. (If I'd have been around ca. 1500-1800, I'd have been burned for a witch) Mary Ann Zeszutko AT&T Bell Labs Naperville, IL