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From: cel@cs.duke.edu (Chris Lane)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Girls, girls, girls
Message-ID: <655652817@romeo.cs.duke.edu>
Date: 11 Oct 90 13:46:58 GMT
References: <1990Oct4.021201.23780@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <12345@chaph.usc.edu> <18086@oolong.la.locus.com>
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In article <18086@oolong.la.locus.com> judy@altair.la.locus.COM (Judy Leedom Tyrer) writes:

>According to Miss Manners, a person should be addressed or referred to
>in a manner which the person prefers.  Therefore, if I ask you to call
>me Mrs. Tyrer and you insist on calling me Judy, you are being rude.
>In the same manner if a woman requests you to refer to her as a woman
>and not as a girl and you insist on referring to her as a girl, you
>are being rude.  It has nothing to do with your "intentions" and
>everything to do with honoring a person's request to be referred to in
>a manner that person feels comfortable with.

Of course, this is not-necessarily-a-feminist issue.  Feminism has made a 
lot of progress by not being polite, and not labeling as they feel
comfortable.  For instance, if I became a employer or manager or boss of
women, and politely asked everyone to address me as "O great masculine
lord of the universe and of this office", it would not be feminist of my
workers to politely accede to this request of self-labeling.  

[We might take up the question of how manners and politeness are evolving
in response to feminism.  This broadens it away from the "what to call people"
issue which is getting a bit overworked here.                - MHN]



Just a thought,

Chris
-- 
"Life's a bitch and then you die."      cel@cs.duke.edu
Down with Gender!  
Enjoy today.