Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    	Bob, I think you are reading too much into that survey about
    	whether or not there should be a woman's only notesfile.
    
    	As far as I know, no one made a point of asking a man to write
    	that note -- but on the other hand, why should we object to
    	the fact that he did write it?  
    
    	If men write basenotes (and we respond politely), are we leaving
    	ourselves open to massive amounts of speculation about why we
    	allowed a man to do that?
    
    	Or is this just a joke on your part?  (It's getting hard to
    	tell anymore.)

    						    Suzanne... ;-)

    re: 368.0
    
    >>Why is a man conducting a a survey of the womens notesfile ?<<
    
      As I see it...who cares who put the base note in. The important
thing (as I see it anyway) are the responses that are coming in from
the women in this conference about the subject of a "Womens Only File".
I personally would hate to see this happen...as granted....I am more a
reader than a contributor, I am learning a lot about women and the
issues that concern them. I never realised how misinformed I was in
how I viewed women, but thanks to being allowed to view this file, I
have been able to grow in my knowledge of the other half of the human
race. Just some thoughts on the subject.

							Paul

      Bob, I put in the base because some of us would like to know a
    little more about how women react (ect) to males in here.
    All the questions has been asked before but not in the same note.
    I, for one, would leave this file if women didn't want men in here.
    I wanted to hear what they think of us (males) inputting into their
    notesfile.
    
                              REK

re .0

Are you implying that only FEMINISTS have a valid opinion ?
Why did you request that only FEMINISTS reply to your note ?
Do you consider a woman who is not a FEMINIST to be run of the 
mill, non-caring and have no opinion ?

Kathie_who_is_FEMININE_not_FEMINIST 


    

      I do believe he is!!  ~!~
    
          REK
    Smily faces galore

    When will it ever stop? Can it ever stop? How much of this Conference
    is now devoted to discussion about the conference? 
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    
    
    Males can be femininists so all that the base note did was change
    the category of requested respondee from female to femininists.
    
    I questioned why the referenced base note was entered - not because it
    was entered by a male but I thought that the information has been
    covered before - yet here we go one more time.
    
    My question (to add to the clarifcation of who is whom) is how many
    non-female femininist are there in this conference?
    
    _peggy		(-)
    			 |	If you believe that women should
    				  be treated as valuable people
    				    you are probably a Feminist.
    

re 362.27  VAXUUM::MUISE  "Why do men want to note here?  I have no interest
			   in Mennotes"

I could give you a lot of reasons.

I want to know where sexism exists.  I was raised by strong-willed women 
who never took any guff.  I never knew about sexism until I entered the 
workplace.

I want to know what feminists are sometimes screaming about.

I want to let women know that not all men are *ssholes [most know this 
already].

I want to know if I do things that, unbeknownst to me, are sexist and 
insulting.

I want to know why some radical feminists are so vocal and how they got 
that way.

I want to help further the understanding in bridging the 'gender gap'.

I want to let women know how and why I got the way I am and compare notes 
with them.

I want to understand what the difference is in 'being a woman' because I 
belive that through understanding, we can eliminate many social injustices.

I want to hear differring viewpoints.  I have changed my mind on a few 
things since I started noting here.  'member what I said about 
understanding?

I want to know how I can help.

I want to let women know why I feel threatened somtimes by the feminist 
movement [because it seems ***some*** want to punish me for my father's 
crimes].

I could go on, but I think I got my message out.

This is not a flame, it is not sarcastic, it is sincere in the greatest 
sense.  I have gotten more understanding since I started here.  I am 
extremely intrigued by many of the people I have electronically 'met' here. 
 I just wish I had a little more courage to have gone to the party 
recently.  Maybe next time.

    
      I am going to respond to this from a social awareness point of
    view.  It takes all kinds of people to make up this world, without
    those differences and differences of opinion it would be a dull
    place.
    
      I believe that all views expressed should be constructive, not
    destructive and that anyone should be allowed to participate in
    any conference whether it is men in Womennotes's;  Chinese in
    Black notes; or smokers in non-smoker's notes.
    
      We should be constantly trying to learn from each other and
    help each other understand, it is of course important to address
    only issues that are present in a particular conference, i.e.
    if its Christian notes, then even if one is of Jewish background
    or aethiest for that matter their views/opinions should be
    accepted as long as they are addressing the particular subject
    matter.
    
      Just my opinion, but perhaps someone out there may agree. We
    have to eliminate the pettiness and look for the solutions.....
    
    
                                           Mark
    

	Sorry if someone said this in the 80 replies I didn't have time
	to read properly,  but...

    BACKGROUND 

	A label such as "feminist",  or any noun for that matter, can
	never be properly defined.  For example,  even "software" as
	a label has grey areas such as firmware and interpreted code
	(is it data?).  So equally,  the word "feminist" has been applied
	to cover everything from man-hater to the simple belief that
	women and men should have equal opportunity.  And so...

    SUGGESTION

	Rather than use the word "feminist" it is better to describe
	ones position in terms of whether one believes in equal opportunity,
	equal pay or whatever else one wants to ascribe to.  Otherwise
	one does run the risk of ascribing to views one doesn't have,
	depending on the interpretation of the reader.

	It seems that all political "labels" suffer from this problem
	particularly.  As for "men don't need labels":  If that note
	was titled "people don't need labels",  I might take the time to
	read it.

Simon.

    re .9
    
    I guess these strong-willed women who raised you also
    
    	didn't let you watch television
    
    	censored your reading material
    
    	educated you at home
    
    Or at least they must have had some alternate explanations for the
    sexism to be found in any of these media.  Or perhaps the examples
    of their behavior simply made it all seem like nonsense?

> < Note 368.12 by 3D::CHABOT "May these events not involve Thy servant" >
    
>    I guess these strong-willed women who raised you also
>    	didn't let you watch television

	They let me.  I just thought that most tv was a joke.  After all, I 
knew it wasn't real.  They were just actors and actresses.  Then again, I 
watched a lot of science specials.  You won't find much sexism in there.  
The only thing I wondered about when young [as far as sexism is concerned] 
was why there were no women astronauts.  That got explained to me as there 
were no women test pilots [when the original astronauts came from].  That's 
when I learned about the sexism in the military.
    
>    	censored your reading material

	Nope.  I read science-fiction mostly.  I also read fantasy which 
frequently had women portrayed as heroines.
    
>    	educated you at home

	Hah!  I wish!  Would that my mother would _be_ home for a while!  I 
can't complain.  She was out working, trying to make the best for me.  She 
used to come home with some real strange stories about people she worked 
with.  Back then, I thought they [the people she talked about] were just
stupid. 
    
>    Or at least they must have had some alternate explanations for the
>    sexism to be found in any of these media.  Or perhaps the examples
>    of their behavior simply made it all seem like nonsense?

	Nonsense is _exactly_ what it seemed like.  Hell, I had some pretty 
dumb kids around me when growing up, I figured that kids didn't have 
exclusive rights to being stupid.