Xref: utzoo talk.politics.misc:6913 alt.flame:1528 soc.women:9050
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdahl!ames!aurora!agate!ucbvax!dewey.soe.berkeley.edu!robinson
From: robinson@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Michael Robinson)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.flame,soc.women
Subject: Re: The Difference It Makes . . .
Message-ID: <22775@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 29 Jan 88 04:08:41 GMT
References: <22620@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <2333@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <2142@chinet.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: robinson@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Michael Robinson)
Followup-To: alt.flame
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
Lines: 77

In article <2142@chinet.UUCP> rhonda@chinet.UUCP (Rhonda Scribner) writes:
>
>The
>excerpts attributed to Robinson quoted from his own BBS...show that whoever
>he really
>is, he is quite well-versed in the techniques of article forgery.)

I own, operate, and administrate a Usenet site (the aformentioned BBS).  Of
course I am well versed in the techniques of article forgery.  I have to make
some effort to see that it doesn't happen on my machine.

>Robinson
>has admirers among women in soc.women, but many of them seem to forget that
>some people see through him and don't buy into his line.

Damn.

>The dead giveaway for Robinson was during his campaign to "prove" that I
>was a pseudo like his pal Mark Ethan Smith.

I did not "prove," nor did I attempt to "prove," any such thing.  I listed 
the evidence upon which I had formed my opinion.  In the absence of any 
objective evidence to the contrary, I don't see that it is such an
unreasonable opinion to hold.

>During that debacle, he
>announced that he had "studied" the differences between men and women,
>and that he "knew" I wasn't a woman from the way I wrote and argued.

I do not, and have never, claimed to "know" the relative authenticity of
the Rhonda Manifestation.  I have an opinion, and I have publically stated
my reasoning behind that opinion.

As for your incredulity that I would "study" the manner in which people write
and argue, I would point out that I am a Rhetoric major.  What else would 
you expect me to study?  Pre-Columbian art?

>The summary conclusion of Mike's
>statement is that there are innate differences between the way women and men
>think, act, and write, and that he in his wisdom can figure out whether
>something was said or done by a woman or a man through his analytic technique.

You get partial credit for coming up with something recognizably similar to 
my actual position, namely that men and women in this culture are treated in
profoundly different ways from the moment of birth (unfortunate, but still
true), and that this difference in treatment throughout life produces
identifiable and characteristic differences in the way members of the two
genders communicate.  Now, it is entirely possible that you have been treated
as a man from the moment of birth.  It is entirely possible I am completely
mistaken.  However, in the absence of any objective evidence to the contrary,
I see no compelling reason to change my mind.

The remainder of your article is largely self-refuting, so I won't bother.
I would like to point out the following, though, for amusement value:

>Unlike many people from that part of the country I don't
>believe conspiracy theories, I'm just amused by them.

Followed by:

>The pattern is similar with Wiener and Robinson's intertwining.  And now we
>see the articles (forgeries?) describing a "spat" between Mike Robinson and
>Mark Ethan Smith.  We can conjecture with high confidence that, judging from
>the content and tone and the sloppiness of these articles reminiscent of the
>bitch@chinet articles, this was nothing but a desperate effort by the now
>desperate forgers to convince us that Mark Ethan Smith and Mike Robinson
>really are two separate people, even though this is not the case.  And who is
>responsible for all this chicanery?  Who else but the annoying children who
>call themselves the Brahms Gang?  Joe Buck's suggestions for ridding the net
>of forgers apply with double force to them.

Followups to alt.flame, if anyone cares to continue this.  I'm sure the
subscribers of talk.politics.misc and soc.women have better things to read.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Robinson                              USENET:  ucbvax!ernie!robinson
                                              ARPA: robinson@ernie.berkeley.edu