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From: ted@osiris.UUCP (Ted Ying)
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.legal,soc.women
Subject: Re: Proposed lawsuit
Message-ID: <1650@osiris.UUCP>
Date: 20 Jul 88 15:09:09 GMT
References: <12165@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <1378@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu>
Reply-To: ted@osiris.UUCP (Ted Ying)
Organization: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Lines: 71

In article <1378@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu> wengler@ee.rochester.edu (Michael Wengler) writes:
>
>Mark Smith IS being picked on by a large number of bigots with the morals
>of playground bullies.  In addition, some relatively uninvolved people have
>started picking on him also, presumably without having really understood what
>it is that Mark is asking for, and how things have gotten to the current 
>state.

	Now I was planning on staying out of this, however, this person
	chooses to support MES.  I think to the contrary, you and MES are
	the ones being bigots.  You are the ones that take offense at
	the terms 'she', and 'her'.  Not only that, but you are the ones
	implying that these are derogatory or diminuative.  My girlfriend
	who definitely wants to be recognized as a FEMALE equal would
	take offense if you refered to her as 'he' or 'him'.  But, to imply
	or state that these terms are in and of themselves diminuative or
	derogatory is a horrible twisting of the English language.  The
	words do not imply or mean any such things.  All you need to do is
	ask and I wouldn't mind calling you 'he' and 'him'.  However, as I
	am sure of several people on the net, I have never heard a courteous
	request from MES.  The first I heard (and I have been reading
	soc.women for just over a year now) about MES' annoyance with gender
	related pronouns, was this recent flame.  And it was crude and
	obnoxious with accusations thrown about and threats of lawsuits.
	Go ahead.  Make my day.  Sue me.  I'll bring in any number of
	females who will atest that she/her are not diminuative but gender-
	related.  Next time, try asking nicely instead of reacting like a
	spoiled child and making crude accusations.
	
>Mark's analogy to the Black person being called boy is largely
>correct.  When Blacks started complaining about that, there were
>people around them who didn't recognize their right to better
>treatment.  Blacks continued to complain, and make sense, and
>eventually, there is a much broader recognition of that right.  Mark
>has rather eloquently asked to be referred to as a `man' in the sense
>that `all men are created equal' etc.  Damned reasonable position.
>
	NO!  The analogy is not correct.  'Boy' is a diminuative
	word to refer to blacks.  'She/her' are not necessarily so.
	They are only so if you see them as such.  There are many
	women who want to be treated as FEMALE equals and don't see
	the pronouns as being diminuative.  In fact, some women would
	be insulted to be refered to as 'him/he' because you are
	treating them as equal MALES and thus showing that you don't
	think females are equal.  Think back to the 'Dear Sir/Madam'
	discussion here a few months ago.  This amounts to the same
	idea.  The difference is that NO blacks think of boy as
	anything but diminuative.

>What I would prefer to these successful suits is that people `vote
>with their fingers' for decency to each other, and that the pigs, the
>playground bullies of the usenet, be accorded the education about
>compassion and decency that they need, that the other people on the
>usenet playground just not tolerate that shit.
>
	What I would like however, is to teach people to respect women
	as they are, as FEMALE equals.  To teach those that don't
	understand, that she and her are not diminuatives.  By using
	male pronouns, you are trying to treat women like men.  That
	is a misguided goal at best.  To treat women as EQUALS is by
	far a better goal.
	
>Michael Wengler			wengler@ee.rochester.edu

			Velilind's Laws of Experimentation:

	1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once.
	2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.

	Ted Ying		allegra!mimsy!aplcen!
					 uunet!pyrdc!osiris!ted