rwl@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU (Ray Lubinsky) (07/29/88)
In article <4311@cbmvax.UUCP>, lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown CATS) writes: > In article <1650@osiris.UUCP> ted@osiris.UUCP (Ted Ying) writes: > > > What I would like however, is to teach people to respect women > > as they are, as FEMALE equals. To teach those that don't > > understand, that she and her are not diminuatives. By using > > male pronouns, you are trying to treat women like men. That > > is a misguided goal at best. To treat women as EQUALS is by > > far a better goal. > > Why does the above, and many more points being made during this debate, > remind me of the "Separate but Equal" philosophy of South Africa? And > we all know just how successful *that's* been. C'mon, where's the "separate" part in this? I think all Ted's saying is that you don't have to put on blinders to accept people -- in fact, it would be more derogatory to do so. People are different; there's nothing to be gained by pretending they're not. Take this MES person -- by insisting that she not be referred to as a female, she is helping to propagate the myth that women are inferior (just that the smart ones "jump ship" and pretend that they're men). She certainly doesn't come off like a person concerned with equality. She'd much rather leave her sisters to stand alone while she hides from what she perceives as the stigma of her female biology. BTW -- "separate but equal" was the accepted policy of the United States up through the 1950's. In South Africa, "separate" is the law -- there's no "equal" written into it. -- | Ray Lubinsky, UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!uvacs!rwl | | Department of BITNET: rwl8y@virginia | | Computer Science, CSNET: rwl@cs.virginia.edu -OR- | | University of Virginia rwl%uvacs@uvaarpa.virginia.edu |