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From: omo@mcnc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women,net.singles
Subject: Racism, Sexism, Etc
Message-ID: <1189@alvin.mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 1-Mar-86 00:55:12 EST
Article-I.D.: alvin.1189
Posted: Sat Mar  1 00:55:12 1986
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>I still think
>that sexism and racism involve the assumption that a person is *inferior*
>based on he/r membership in a group.   
>I don't
>think ``most mathematicians are men'' is sexist -- it is reality.
>``Most mathematicians are men because almost no women can think logically''
>*is* sexist.
>Laura Creighton		

Laura, this seems to carry the implicit belief that *if* most women could
*not* think logically, they would be `inferior'.  This can be extrapolated
to "if most women cannot think *as* logically as most men, then women,
on the whole, are indeed inferior to men, on the whole" and also to
"if individual X cannot think as logically as individual Y, then
individual X is inferior to individual Y".

I'm not sure if this is what *you* meant, but it hits on what *I* see
as the real basis for racism, sexism, Ugly Americanism, prejudice, etc
(instead of stereotypes, which I see as a distraction from the real
issue), so I'm going to comment from there.  Don't take it personally!

I think the real problem is that various cultures and subcultures
define certain human characteristics as being more `valuable' than
others.  In our society, things that appear to enhance success in
business or achievement of power, for example, seem to head the list.
These values are so ingrained that it becomes impossible for the
person holding them to accept someone else as `equal' unless they
have these characteristics to more or less the same degree as
the particular group that values them:  Blacks can't really be
equal to whites unless they are as `intelligent' and women can't
really be equal to men unless they can think as `logically'.
Then you get off into silly and unfruitful efforts to try to compare
groups based on characteristics that we can't even evaluate.

I could go on for many screenfulls on this subject, but, lucky netters,
I won't!  I'll just say that I think the real problem is how we assess 
the `value' of human beings, *not* stereotyping (which is often quite
justified and accurate).