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From: era1987@violet.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: misc.legal,news.admin,soc.women
Subject: A real sweetheart
Summary: Truth as defense (libel vs. harassment/discrimination)
Message-ID: <12624@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 27 Jul 88 07:40:15 GMT
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: era1987@violet.berkeley.edu (Mark Ethan Smith)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 37


Anyone old enough to remember the days when some men referred to
all women in friendly, familiar, nondefamatory ways, like, "honey,"
"sweetheart," "gal," etc.?  Remember when such guys ran into their
first feminist or professional busineswoman who objected?  And the
guys indignantly explained, "But I've always referred to *ALL* women
that way, and none of them have ever objected."

Here's the logic set:

We always refer to all women as X.
This individual is a woman.
Therefore, we can refer to this individual as X.

The "truth" that you think (and all your friends agree) that
somebody is, in truth, a real sweetheart, is perhaps a defense
in a defamation suit, but not in a suit for discrimination andor
harassment if you persist in calling them sweetheart andor referring to 
them as sweetheart, and they object.

Let's take another example.  Suppose I have always
referred to all lawyers as prigs.  And suppose further, that
one particular individual lawyer, really is, in deed and in truth,
a prig, and I have 100 other lawyers eager to testify to that fact
in court.  Now suppose that I decide to have some fun, and I post
several articles referring to that lawyer as a prig, and I
encourage all my friends to do so, telling  them that since the
lawyer really is a prig, they don't have to worry about libel suits,
and the poor lawyer finds that six to twenty articles a day are being
posted to the net, each one referring to that lawyer as a prig as
many times as possible in each paragraph.  Suppose the lawyer has
no sense of humor, being a real prig, and sues me.  Do you
think that the truth that she or he is, in reality and in fact, a prig,
will serve me as an absolute defense in a harassment suit?  If so,
you might consider suing your law school for providing you
with an inadequate education.  :-)

--Mark