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From: jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: PMS and incompetence
Message-ID: <567@rtech.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Jul-85 03:29:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtech.567
Posted: Wed Jul 24 03:29:53 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jul-85 02:07:38 EDT
References: <993@ubc-vision.CDN> <202@ihlpl.UUCP> <282@timeinc.UUCP> <206@ihlpl.UUCP> <592@mtung.UUCP> <173@whuts.UUCP> <324@timeinc.UUCP>
Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA
Lines: 44

> 
> An interesting question:  Let's assume that a women were to run for
> President, Prime Minister (Hi, Maggie!), or whatever.  Should her
> PMS (or lack thereof) be taken into consideration?  No flames here, please,
> but since *some* women get VERY weird due to PMS, and these women
> (if elected to office) would conceivable have their emotions doing
> weird things during some important decision process, shouldn't this
> be taken into account?
> Ross M. Greenberg  @ Time Inc, New York 

Unknowns don't usually get into high office.  They usually are not even
considered for such.  For example, Geraldine Ferraro was a legislator before
she was a vice-presidential candidate.  If she had any history of "weirdness"
due to PMS, it would have become public knowledge long before she had any
chance of being nominated for the vice-presidency (that is, the "weirdness"
would have become known, not necessarily the PMS, if she had any).  Politicians
are constantly under public scrutiny, and erratic behavior is hard to keep
hidden.

While I know of no proof that some men have organically induced personality
cycles, we all know that some men are extremely erratic and others are quite
stable.  That is, some men are too emotionally unstable to be trusted with
important responsibilities.  The same is true for some women.  What difference
does if make if the erratic behavior comes from a known cause (PMS, for
example), or an unknown cause?

Some might argue statistically, saying some women suffer from PMS, but no men
do, the implication being that one takes a greater risk in electing a woman to
high office than in electing a man.  I have two responses to this.  First,
there is no proof that, on the average, women are less emotionally stable
than men (even given PMS).  Second, nobody votes statistically (I should hope).
One votes for the candidate one thinks would do the better job, based on the
expressed policies and political affiliations of the candidate, and one's
impression of the intelligence, personality, etc., of the particular candidate.

There are two traps we have to avoid.  One is judging individuals by the
statistics of the groups they belong to.  The other is assuming we know what
those statistics are when we have no real evidence.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak

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