Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway From: mjm@ahimsa.intel.COM (Marjorie Panditji) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Erotic images on display in the workplace Message-ID: Date: 15 Jun 91 00:10:53 GMT Lines: 92 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: glacier.ics.uci.edu Thank you, Alden Gannon and Robert Coleman (and others, but I want to respond to them in particular), for discussing this topic in a more intellectual and polite fashion than most (especially some of my mail!). Here are some further thoughts of mine on the subject. Several people have mentioned that, in many cases, people don't realize that these posters are offensive to some. They may also be ignorant of company guidelines or of potential legal consequences. I guess I didn't factor this in. I thought more people were educated about workplace guidelines on this subject. Several people have also mentioned that these pictures are simply reflective of what people like, and are no different from any other type of picture. Ah, but society (the workplace, in this case) has decided that they are a different type of picture. There are guidelines against these type of pictures, but not against, say, landscapes. You might not like the rules. But if you do know the rules, then you can't say that the pictures are just like any other type of picture. They are treated differently. Robert, in his list of reasons why to display these pictures in the office (great list! but which reasons do you think are more common?), comes up with an interesting followup question of his own. robert> Perhaps, since one tends to robert> surround oneself with things that express one's personality, they put robert> it up to express an important part of themselves (why does society robert> require us to suppress our sexual nature, anyway?). Do you think that enjoying sexual pictures outside of work, or privately, is suppressing one's sexual nature? Or is it just directing it to a socially accepted time and place? I suppose it depends upon how you look at it. I look at it as just fitting the activity to the situation, not as suppression. I find it interesting to discuss the separation of personal life from work life, and where different people draw the line. One area where I draw the line, for example, is enjoyment of erotic pictures. There are lots of things that I do not do in the office. Does that mean I am suppressing them? I don't feel suppressed by having to do certain things outside the office. The workplace enforces some rules in order to have a group of people that con work well together. For example, many office areas now have no smoking rules. The companies found that smoking affected the non-smoking members of the workforce and that smokers could smoke in designated areas or outside of work. (Hey, that's an idea! A room just for erotic pictures, just like designated smoking areas! Different rooms for different tastes! And ... :-) We all conform to certain rules in order to get along in society. I guess it is harder to conform to this rule for some than for others. I'm not advocating conforming for conformance sake. I'm just looking for a reason why it would be worth bucking this particular rule, when one can always look at these pictures privately. Perhaps Robert's speculation about trying to attract people who like the pictures, and repel those who don't, actually answers my question in the cases of those who are aware that they are bucking the "rules" of the workplace. Here's another possibility: robert> If I didn't care about offending people, I might put robert> them up as a freedom-of-speech message, and a rebellion, robert> since I don't like other people putting peer pressure on robert> me to conform to societal rules that I think are silly, robert> or declaring my sex drive to be wrong or evil. If one wants to rebel against societal norms, why pick this particular one? And if the society decides that the sex drive is best contained outside the office, does that mean that society sees it as "wrong or evil"? I don't think so. I think it just means that society has deemed it as something to be kept private, not wrong or evil. Now, certain parts of society may find sexuality wrong or evil, but that may be unrelated to the rule about keeping it private. They are not necessarily related. There is one last point in Alden's article that I want to address. alden> Perhaps your workmates hang pinups because they like them, and would alden> be happy to remove them if they thought you were offended. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting here, but it seemed to me that this is offering a solution to a situation that does not exist. I have no current workmates that are displaying such pictures. I asked the question about "why" because I have seen such pictures in the workplace in the past, I know about laws against them, and I know others are offended by them, so I was wondering about motivation. My curiosity was piqued after the "Viewing GIFs" article was posted. -- Marjorie Panditji mjm@ahimsa.intel.com -or- uunet!intelhf!ahimsa!mjm