Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!ucla-cs!ucivax!gateway From: randy@ms.uky.EDU (Randy Appleton) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: A Moral Question Message-ID: <16098@s.ms.uky.edu> Date: 11 Oct 90 16:34:25 GMT Reply-To: Randy Appleton Organization: U of Kentucky, Mathematical Sciences Lines: 61 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu Hi! I have two unrelated thoughts, but I'm putting them both in the same post to reduce clutter. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thought Number One Suppose the following two statments were both true: 1) Black man have a different life expectancy than white men. My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that black men live shorter lives. I think this is true, but if not, just assume it for now. Now, if I were a life insurance company, and I were to charge black men more for life insurance, I would be sued. If I were a BIG life insurance company, I'd probably get Operation Push [a hypothetical company? --clt] to tell everyone what an evil racist I was. 2) White women have a different life expectancy than white men. I *know* this to be true. White women live longer than white men. Again, if I were a life insurance company, and I charged white men more for life insurance than white women, I'd be doing what every other insurance companyy does. Something is inconsistent here. That seems obvious. But I cannot figure out how it ought to be. So my questions are, "How do you think this inconsistency should be resolved in an ideal world?" "How do you think this inconsistency should be resolved in the current world?" "How would ERA change the legal situation here?" I note that the 16th ammendment (I think) prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, and that ERA *might* be interpreted to prohibit charging different rates based on gender. -------------------------------------------------- Thought Number Two (The Smaller Thought) In my mind, the definition of feminism includes *only* the striving for equality between the genders. It does *not* include an anti-nuclear power position, a fight against the porn movies, our foreign policy towards South Africa, or even nationalized Child Care. I understand the American Feminism (tm) does not need my support, but my support does *not* extend to those areas, and to fight for those things will aleanate me. I would suggest that one can be for gender-nutrality and yet also for peaceful nuclear power. It just seems like a possibility to me. [You are assuming that there is only one brand of feminism, which is not true... --CLT] -Randy -- ============================================================================= My feelings on George Bush's promises: "You have just exceeded the gulibility threshold!" ============================================Randy@ms.uky.edu==================