ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried III) (07/19/88)
All this non-sense about making everyone equal reminds me of a story by Ursula
B. Leguin called "The Lathe of Heaven".
Basicly, a man whose wishes came true wished that everyone was equal.
We the dream came true, everyone was grey...
Silly i know, but i think the point is valid. I am a STAUNCH believer that
noone should be discriminated against ( in the truest sense, not the government
sense - i dont believe in giving an underqualified minority a job over a
more qualified non-minority ), but we are not talking about denial of life,
liberty or property here. This is not a case of discrimination. We are
disscussing the semantics of a language. If it was "honey" or "sweetheart"
or any of the other demeaning epiteths used to refer to a woman, i could
get behind Mark, but its not. Its about fundamental components of language.
Interestingly, my fiances name is Kevin and is most definately a woman,
though she regularly gets mail addressed to "Mr. Roughen". She holds a
professional job, has been promoted, equal pay, etc., etc. Oddly enough,
SHE hasn't suffered emotional trauma from being called "Miss". In fact,
she is rather high demand as an intellegent, articulate, degreed professional.
I guess the difference between you and her is the fact that she work dilligently
to further herself and didnt spend time bitching about how terrible things
were and how she was going to "get" everyone who didnt act exactly as she
thought they should.
The really pathetic thing is Mark casts itself as the martyr, going down in
flames for the good of the world. True struggles for equality are cheapened
and slandered by this sophomoric attack.
I guess the only REAL solution is to replace all general pronouns by "it".
Oh, and Mark...if you find anything in this note worthy of adding me to your
"hit list", go right ahead. I, like York, retain the kind of legal assistance
that would see you die of old age before i ever saw a courtroom.
I retain it for just such lunacy as this...
______________________________________________________________________________
Kenneth J. Seefried iii | Internet: ken@gatech.edu
P.O. Box 30104 | Bitnet: ccastks@gitvm1
School of Information & Computer Science| uucp:
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332 | ...!{backbone site}!gatech!ken
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