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From: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.US (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Girls, girls, girls
Message-ID: <9009182216.0.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 19 Sep 90 16:44:32 GMT
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Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
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In <10254@goofy.Apple.COM>, bdelan@apple.COM (Brian Delaney) writes:
> In my example conversation, what can these people do?  They both have
> contradictory notions of how one goes about be polite and respectful.
> The best thing they can do is to remember that words are indeed just
> words.  This makes the dynamite more stable, and less likely to be set
> off by the words.  When they remember that words are just words, then
> our second person won't mind quite as much hearing those words, and
> out first person won't mind saying them.

Nice try, but, you hit on the right answer before.  There _is_ a power
sub-context.  That is not to say that everyone trying to set the
framework for conversation is doing so with that as a primary purpose.
Nonetheless, it happens whether intended or not.

That is not to say that I totally disagree with you.  One of the best
ways of eroding that power base, the power base which sets the
framework within which communication can occur, is to realize that the
other party is attempting to assert that power.  The most effective
way to thwart that attempt may not be to explode, as you suggest.  For
example, I recommend Suzette Haden Elgin's "Gentle Art of Verbal
Self-Defense" books.  I also recommend Deborah Tannen, Ph.D's "That's
Not What I Meant!" and her latest book (I do not have it and have
forgotten the title, but it is something like "You just don't
understand").  [This is correct. --CLT]

My point, to state it directly, is not that any one particular
framework should be chosen as "correct," but rather that one should be
aware of the power sub-context "framework" so as to decide how best to
respond to inappropriate usages.

-Doug
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