Conference quark::mennotes

    
    Again,  anyway why are lovers silent, and miserable people loud?????
    
    
    
    
    
    Why?
    
    
    
    B-

    the search for equality is a search in vain. show me one one instance
    of equality in the physical world and i'll give you a dime. lets get
    equality out of the topic, it is misleading. 
    
    

.7>                                              show me one one instance
.7> of equality in the physical world and i'll give you a dime. 
    
a dime is equal to any other dime and a dollar is equal to four quarters.
if these are abstracts you mean they have no value?



andreas.

"equality" in this (.0) context does not mean "is the same as", but rather (and 
this can be stretched a bit) "having the same value as".  One common 
misunderstanding (whether accidential or deliberate) about "equality" in the
context of women and men is that this implies that there should be no
difference recognized between them.   I like Andreas' analogy of a dollar and
four quarters.

					Steve

    
    Maybe the tile should read "strength in differences".

    As someone said once, "Marriage should be an alliance, not a
    battleground".   And as I have said already, the differences in a 
    man and a woman, when  added together, become greater than the
    sum of the parts.  To have two of the same put together seems to 
    still be only half of the two different put together together.  

    Even in Digital.  If you've ever actually been through the "Valuing 
    Difference" program you'll find he value is not so much in the 
    difference or how much we should "value" a given point of view, but in 
    the fact that there are differences.

    fred();

my head hurts.....

straight maths fails here.  

fred's analogy reminds me of fridioff kapra's(sp?) 'the value of the system 
is greater than the sum of its parts' (paraphrased)

as i interpret fred's note, then presumably

applied to women-men interaction this would mean:

	1 + 1  >  2	(the synergy effect)

and for men-men (or women-women) interaction:

	1 + 1 = 1


andreas.

    re .12
    
>and for men-men (or women-women) interaction:
>
>	1 + 1 = 1
    
    Actually I had more in mind
    Man + woman > 2
    while
    man + woman_trying_to_be_man = 1 (maybe 1 1/2)
    or
    woman + man_trying_to_be_woman = 1 (maybe 1 1/2)
    or
    man_trying_to_be_woman + woman_trying_to_be_man = who_knows
    
    fred();

>the premises:
>- women and men are equal
>- men and women are different

Of course, both statements may depend on culture.  Almost all the world's
cultures include beliefs that men and women are different, and many include
beliefs that they are unequal.  Within my culture, middle class American, some
subcultures believe in the statements above and some believe otherwise.

I'll agree with the first statement if it means something like "our laws and
customs should not be based on an assumption of inequality between all men and
all women."  The statement that any person is actually equal to any other person
is either meaningless or false.  I don't know any way of totaling up a person so
that I could compare them to another person to decide if they were equal or not.
I suspect that if I were to find a way, the result would be that the two people
are not actually equal.

>accepting these premises, what are the conclusions (and implications)
>which we draw from these?

I'll assume that we are accepting these premises as right or true independent of
culture.

My first conclusion is that I should act according to these premises, pushing
the envelop that my culture puts around me.

My second conclusion is that I should push my culture towards accepting these
premises, to the limited extent that I, or anybody, can influence culture.

More conclusions depend on the exact nature of the differences.

Given the physical differences, and my sexual preference, my conclusion is
obvious.

If the differences are between mothers and fathers as we have discussed in other
notes, then I think the conclusions is that children are best off with both
mother and father, both actively involved.  Even after separation or divorce,
some kind of shared parenting is essential.

I'll stop here, because other differences I've heard suggested seem to be
differences on average.  The average man may be stronger than the average woman,
but there is a lot of overlap.  I have to deal with actual individuals, not
averages.  If I need somebody to help me move, I'd prefer the stronger person,
ragardless of gender.

>are these premises non-pc? 

Yes, just the idea of right or true, independent of culture, is not PC.  

>are they post-modern?

Beats me.  What we call modern art is a century old, nore or less.  As far as I
can tell, post-modern is a word without meaning.

    The original premise for "All people being equal" had a second half
    to this phrase, which people have forgotten.  It reads (paraphrased):
    
     	All people are equal BEFORE THE LAW.
    
    Outside of this context, of course, all people are not equal.  What
    else is new?