Xref: utzoo misc.legal:5498 news.admin:3162 soc.women:12231
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!whuts!whutt!mag1
From: mag1@whutt.UUCP (GIDEN)
Newsgroups: misc.legal,news.admin,soc.women
Subject: Re: A real sweetheart
Summary: what?
Message-ID: <3658@whutt.UUCP>
Date: 28 Jul 88 14:13:00 GMT
References: <12624@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 41

In article <12624@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, era1987@violet.berkeley.edu writes:
> 
> 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."
> 
> --Mark

What you are talking about in the above example is sexual harassment.  If
this is taking place at work, in school, etc. it is actionable.  This is
very different from following the conventions of the English languague
and using she/her when talking about someone who is biologically a female.
This is just not actionable in a court of law.  As I've stated before,
not going along with your wishes is rude but not illegal.  The best way to
deal with people who do not respect your wishes is to ignore their postings.
Since you have the option of NOT READING a particular article, you can't
claim that reading the comments that rude people post is harassment.  If
they stood outside your house yelling these things it might be a
different story.  But they aren't doing this.  You have named the people
you are mad at, so just don't read their postings if they bother you.  If
you voluntarily read them you can not claim injury when you have a
simple method of avoiding this hurt.  

A lot of the laws you talk about require that the people involved have
a specific relationship (supervisor/employee) in order for the behavior
to be illegal.  Behavior that is illegal when done by a supervisor to
an employee is perfectly legal if the two people don't know each other.
Calling one of your subordinates "sweetheart" is actionable, calling a women
that in a checkout line at the store is not (not that I propose calling
women this [other than my wife of course]).

I really think it is time for Mark to just use 'n' when she sees a
posting from those she doesn't like/don't like her, and we can all
go on to other topics.

Mike Giden
AT&T Bell Labs
Whippany, NJ