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From: courtney@hp-pcd.UUCP (Courtney Loomis)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Net Language Use (flame) - (nf)
Message-ID: <1476@hp-pcd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Aug-83 03:38:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: hp-pcd.1476
Posted: Sat Aug  6 03:38:53 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Aug-83 07:28:06 EDT
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#R:machaids:-42100:hp-pcd:19100010:000:1334
hp-pcd!courtney    Aug  5 13:01:00 1983

No, your not alone...  but we can find patience with the understanding that
things don't always change easily or all-at-once.

What burns me is when people don't give a shit and aren't even trying to
get the gender out of their speech when it is unnecessary (and/or socially
destructive).

Another thing that I have been seeing a lot of is people exclaiming that
"men and women ARE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT" in the same breath as when they
try to justify differential insurance rates, or different abilities to be
a firefighter, or...  when the sex of the person has nothing at all to do
with the issue.

It is inappropriate to use the words "men" or "women" when talking about
or discriminating between these two groups (unless you are specifically
talking about biological differences), because these words imply reference
to the INDIVIDUALS of the group.  When talking statistics, it is ok to say
that "40% of all women cannot lift more than (some-such) pounds of weight,
while 60% of all men can lift this weight..."   This is a fundamentally
different statement than "men can lift more than women"...  This diffence
is subtle yet very often overlooked, and it really pisses me off when people
don't pay attention to the semantics of a statement that they are using to
make a point...

                            Courtney Loomis