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From: carroll@cs.uiuc.edu (Alan M. Carroll)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: the *isms
Message-ID: <1991May15.195423.26129@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 15 May 91 19:54:23 GMT
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In article <14801@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>, farmerl@handel.CS.ColoState.Edu (lisa ann farmer) writes:
> Funny, though, how most of this [scientific] Truth says that
> women and minorities are inferior.

While there have been examples of such "science", they are aberations,
not "most" of science. In fact, most of science doesn't even deal with
a subject matter that could possibly say anything about gender or
race. Could you give me even one example of what you mean from
particle physics, chemistry, or math?

> Why a person can't be an *ist when they aren't in power?

How about, five <ethnics> see a white guy walking along the street,
and beat the shit out of him for being white. Is that a racist act?

How about someone in a management positions who says, "I don't hire
women because they're undependable". Is that a sexist statement?
According to you, the answer is "unknown", since I haven't told you
the gender of the speaker.

> Nor does my group have the "power" to give money to someone to prove this idea.

You mean every single female in the US is completely broke, and can't
even afford to buy a book that "proves" men are scum?

> I can hate men, but I can't be sexist to men.

So if you were a sysadmin, and you decided to cut off the net access
for all the men at the site because men never say anything worthwhile,
that wouldn't be sexist?

> I am not saying that I can't be predujice against males but that I can not do
> anything to hurt them collectively.

This is a complete bogus argument. Few male sexists have the power to
hurt women "collectively", most of them can only hurt those in the
immediate vicinity. Can they absolve themselves this way also?

-- 
Alan M. Carroll          <-- Another casualty of applied metaphysics
Epoch Development Team   
Urbana Il.               "I hate shopping with the reality-impaired" - Susan