mandel@well.UUCP (05/21/87)
bvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <887@killer.UUCP> Sender: Reply-To: mandel@well.UUCP (Tom Mandel) Followup-To: Distribution: usa Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA Keywords: Why am I getting the distinct impression that any disagreement with Mark Ethan Smith is tantamount to a personal attack and/or harassment? --Tom Mandel mandel@well.UUCP P.S. By the way, USENET is not a system entirely supported by public funds. It is paid for by the systems that participate, many of which are computers owned by private companies. In one way or another, most, if not all, of the costs are passed on to the various users. First Amendment rights to freedom of speech do not necessarily apply, although convention on the nets is to permit great discretion.
benson@alcatraz.ksr.com (Benson Margulies) (05/21/87)
> >Why am I getting the distinct impression that any disagreement >with Mark Ethan Smith is tantamount to a personal attack and/or >harassment? > >--Tom Mandel mandel@well.UUCP > This is not a flame of Tom. He just provided the excuse. Its too bad that none of you seem to have been active in 60's civil rights. If you were, you would twig quicker. When a person's perception of their life experience is one of constant and unremitting discrimination, denigration, and other hostility, even seemingly "minor" additional examples of the acts or attitudes are going to become intolerable. Comments that doubt that 6 million died send a lot of jews, including myself, right off the wall, no matter how "reasonable" or even "humorous." Its quite obvious that Mark is extraordinarily attuned to the discrimination and denigration of women which is a constant and unremitting feature of life in this society. Whether or not you personally agree, and whether or not you personally feel any responsibility for this state of affairs, the least you can do (if you want to have any solidarity with feminism) is to grant folks like Mark the right to their rage. You may not like it, it may not be pleasant to hear, but that's just too bad. Note that this is NOT a defense of anything Mark has or will say or do. It's not my intention to defend him, especially since I haven't seen any of the traffic on soc.women. He may have done the moral equivalent to blowing up building. That's not my point. This post is entirely designed as an answer to people like Tom Mandel (and even to a certain extent Erik Fair) who don't seem to see what the fuss is about. Back in the 60's, there were a lot of white people who didn't do much of anything in the way of active discriminating, and didn't see what the fuss was about. Those institutions seemed OK to them. Now it seems that most people see it differently. Whatever you personally think about the use of him/her/he/she, its no excuse not to see that the dispute stems from some pretty serious nastiness in society. But I can't resist suggesting one thought-experiment for people who disagree with mark, and are males. Imagine being referred to as "she" on an ongoing basis. Imagine it hard. Examine your feelings. I'll be very surprised if down there somewhere you don't feel insulted, and that the "accuracy" of the reference is the least of the issues. Benson I. Margulies Kendall Square Research Corp. harvard!ksr!benson All comments the responsibility ksr!benson@harvard.harvard.edu of the author, if anyone.
jpn@teddy.UUCP (John P. Nelson) (05/21/87)
>Imagine being referred to as "she" on an ongoing basis. Imagine it >hard. Examine your feelings. I'll be very surprised if down there >somewhere you don't feel insulted, and that the "accuracy" of the >reference is the least of the issues. I don't mean to fan the flames, but if I told people my name was "Linda", or "Sue", I would expect them to assume I was female, unless I specifically said otherwise. I don't understand why Mark should be so annoyed - her name is a traditionally male one. If that bothers her so much, I think she should take action: either change her name legally, or take to using a nickname or other transformation of her name that will not cause so much confusion. Otherwise, she should not be surprised at any gender confusion that occurs. >This post is entirely designed as an answer to people like Tom Mandel >(and even to a certain extent Erik Fair) who don't seem to see what >the fuss is about. I STILL DON'T understand what all the fuss is about. I don't subscribe to soc.women, I didn't see any of the fracas until it spilled over into news.misc. It appears to me that several people have overreacted to some ordinary USENET flaming. I have yet to see anything that looked remotely like discrimination due to gender. Can we please move on now? Flames cheerfully redirected to /dev/null, John P. Nelson