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From: melnick@unc.UUCP (Alex Melnick)
Newsgroups: soc.women
Subject: Re: Cosby exemplifies sexism on "The Tonight Show"
Message-ID: <436@unc.unc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Sep-86 17:23:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.436
Posted: Sat Sep 27 17:23:02 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Sep-86 00:35:15 EDT
References: <6304@lll-crg.ARpA>
Reply-To: melnick@unc.UUCP (Alex Melnick)
Organization: CS Dept, U. of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 26
Summary: Let's not jump to conclusions.

> [Cosby hosts the Tonight Show, gives Liberace the spotlight, ignores
>  Bea Arthur, and spars with (the great) Linda Ellerbee.  Original
>  poster speculates that Cosby may be reacting to his guests' genders,
>  as opposed to the guests themselves.]

This sounds like very odd behaviour for Cosby, compared to other things
I've heard him say and do, and compared to his writing.  I didn't see the
show, so I may not know what I'm talking about, but is it possible that
Cosby treated Liberace so well and Bea Arthur so shabbily for personal
reasons (e.g. Liberace is a friendly guy, maybe they know each other;
maybe he doesn't know Ms. Arthur or maybe he doesn't like her)?  At least
from your descriptions, I couldn't see what was particularly sexist about
his treatment of Ms. Ellerbee; it sounded more like a big star trying to
deal with an upstart, with gender not being an issue.  Were there 
particular remarks you didn't include?

(Please don't think this is a flame.  It's just that you didn't include
enough details for me to come inevitably to your conclusion, and I'm
inclined to give Cosby the benefit of the doubt.)
-----
Then again, I could be wrong.

--Alex   ...!mcnc!unc!melnick

"Never, never doubt
 What no one knows about."