Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    
I mentioned in the "But There's Hope.." topic of V2 that the half-canton of 
Appenzel Rhodes-Interieures would be voting for the 3rd time on 26 April to 
decide whether women would be allowed to vote on cantonal affairs...

Well, the women's right to vote was turned down by a large majority, so now 
Switzerland, apart from chocolate, cuckoo clocks, cheese and watches, also has
the particularity to be the only country in Europe where women cannot vote 
in all occasions...

All Swiss women do have the Federal vote (i.e. matters concerning Switzerland
as a country), as well as the communal vote (i.e. matters relating to the
town/village of residence). However, the cantonal vote is still denied to the 
women of this half-canton!

The ball is now is the hands of the Federal Court, who will have to make a
choice between:

	- forcing the canton to allow the woman to vote, thus violating the
 	  Constitution under the heading of the "Sovereignty of the Canton"
	  (canton = state)

	- accepting the recent vote, thus violating the Constitution under
	  the heading "Equal Rights for Men and Women".

Interesting, right?
Joana

    Recently the Canadian government commissioned a task force to look into
    the status of women in the public (civil) service.  Some of the
    comments made by women to the task force have recently been made
    public.  Here is a selection [not mine] reproduced without comment.
    
    				----***----
    
    		
    "When I was in the process of divorcing my husband and very unsure of
    my future, my boss used to remark that if he were my husband he would
    'beat me black and blue.'"
    
    
    "I did have enough sense to use only my first initial on my
    publications.  One scientist showed surprise on finding that I was the
    author of a certain article and remarked, 'Gee, if I had known that, I
    wouldn't have read the paper.'"
    
    
    "The department I worked for was very male-dominated.  It's not that
    you are discriminated against, it's just that you feel alien so much of
    the time.  You really don't feel part of it."
    
    
    "Since I came back from maternity leave there have been some negative
    feelings, snide comments about how nice it is to have me back at work
    after all that time off."
    
    
    "Valid certified leave, taken to nurse a sick child, was remarked on
    detrimentally in my appraisal."
    
    
    "I was harassed by one gentleman so much that I had to go see his
    manager (who is also mine) and tell him that unless he did something
    about the situation I would have to file a grievance.  They talked to
    him, made him apologize to me, but I am the one who received a poor
    evaluation and was told that I don't interact well with others and have
    a bad attitude.  The gentleman in question received a glowing
    evaluation."
    
    
    "After seeking my superior's opinion re my lack of success in
    competitions, he suggested that I should perhaps 'spend more time at
    home with my child.'  It seemed that my fate was sealed right then and
    there."
    
    
    "There is a scientist who is a bit of a mentor.  He's older and I
    consider him to be a good friend, but I will do something and he will
    say 'good girl.'  I'm the same age as his daughter and that's the way
    he treats me."
    
    
    "Our regional chief usually greets me with a smile and a big hello -
    but has emphatically stated that women shouldn't be doing this kind of
    work and that he didn't want any more female technicians hired.  To the
    Deputy Minister, to whom I was proudly introduced as the only female
    technician he said, 'If we could find more like her we would hire a
    dozen.'"
    
    
    "Because my husband is a lawyer, I have been asked why I am holding
    down a job that belongs to someone else.  No one asks men what their
    wives do for a living."
    
    				----***----

    
    I saw a bumper sticker driving to work this morning.
    
    
    		Girls Wanted
    		No experience Necessary
    
    The driver was a man who looked to be at least in his mid-thirties.
    
    Gag,
    
    Justine

    re .3
    
    *The driver was a man who looked to be at least in his mid-thirties.
    
    *Gag,
    
    *Justine
    
    Because he was a man, or because he is in his mid-thirties??
    
    fred();

As I would see it, a man in his mid-thirties might want a WOMAN in her
twenties or thirties as a companion, but a GIRL?  It would seem like he's
looking for a 17 year old.

Lisa

    The whole world does NOT go ga ga over the word GIRL.
    I never heard of ANYONE until I came to DEC, spacifically, Womennotes.
    
    also, how do you even know that it was a car belonging to a male?
    Because a male was driving it?  good assumption, but not always
    correct.  If I were to see a sticker stating that the best man for the
    job is a woman, should I assume that its one of them feminist radical
    types that hate men?  No, that wouldnt be fair.  
    
    
    Sexism is alive and living in PEOPLE!  thats the problem.  people
    automatically assume the worst about a person solely based upon their
    gender.  
    
    sorry, its a nit I have.
    
    

It would not matter if it were on *my* car.  A person (of either sex) in
their thirties should not be looking for a romantic liason with a *girl*.
Only boys or other girls should be looking for that.

           Carol

    > The whole world does NOT go ga ga over the word GIRL.
    > I never heard of ANYONE until I came to DEC, spacifically, Womennotes.
    
    Perhaps you might want to check on the results of a Roper Poll which
    was conducted last summer, reported less than a month ago.  Several
    thousand American women were polled; over half (55%) agreed with the
    statement, "It annoys me to be called a girl."  See quark::mennotes
    447.21 for this and other results of the poll.
    
    So are you saying Al, that over half the women you've met in your life 
    work here at Digital and read =wn=? ;-) just kidding.
    
    DougO

    I am trying to avoid the use of the term "girl" when refering to any
    adult female. I still make mistakes along these lines but am catching
    myself and promise to do better next time. I do, too. I did make a
    mistake at lunch. THe cashier, a man, wanted to know if some stuff and
    money on the counter was mine and I said "No. It belongs to that girl
    in the smoke room." I then gave her name and pointed her out. I also
    thought to myself, "Oops. You've said girl again." I am trying, though.

    As it were Doug, I saw the poll that you speak of......
    
    All I was saying was that I know not too many women that get upset over
    the word "girl".  tis all.
    
    Oh, BTW, that same poll stated that over 90% felt that mariage was
    better that being "alone"  shall we consider this accurate also???
    
    I thought not.
    
    AL

I feel back into the 'girl' pattern being around my uncle last week. It is
_such_ a hard habit to break.
	Mez

    RE .11. How do you know thatthe women that you know don't get upset at
    being called girl? Just a question not trying to set any HOT buttons
    off.
    
    I was just visited by an engineer from another facility and he kept
    calling me "lad" and "young feller". He was either English or Irish by
    his accent and I just put it down to the form of speach that he was
    used to. I did not care for it. I'm 38 years old. He wasn't much older
    than that. Late 40's tops. I didn't get upset or even ask him to stop.
    I did think that I am not a child and don't like to be called like one.
    He was very nice and we worked well together for the hour he was here,
    so I didn't make an issue of it. I get the feeling that many woman do
    the same thing. I can't state this as fact and may be totally off base,
    but it's a possibility.
    
                                  Phil

    
    Well, I, for one, don't like to be called a girl. I am almost 30
    and have a girl of my own. However, unless I know the person well,
    I don't usually make a deal out of it, since I don't know how to
    get the point across without sounding too radical or obnoxious.
    I don't mind being called "one of the girls" by another "girl". 
    But boy, I can't stand my father-in-law saying to me "Now, that's a girl".
    
    My attitude may change as I get much older. By 60, I may consider
    being called a girl a compliment! But for now, I prefer some
    respect, especially in front of my kid. 
    
    You know, I stopped calling my cats "kitties" a few
    years ago, when they turned 3. They may always be my "kitties",
    but they don't look like kitties and they don't act like kitties
    anymore. And I want my little girl to learn the right words for the
    right things.
    
    Eva.
    

    
    re .13  Yes, Phil, I think your reaction to being called "Lad" is a lot
    like how I feel about and deal with being called girl.  I often just let it
    go by -- especially, if the encounter is a short and/or one-time
    thing.  But it bugs me.  Of course, I felt that in Womannotes I could
    or other women could talk about  how that pisses (some of) us off
    in relative safety.  
    
    One time I was having lunch with my (then) boss, a woman in her
    forties.  The waiter was maybe 18.  He called us girls.  It pissed
    me off.  I thought about saying something to him since I used to go to
    that restaurant a lot, but I didn't want to embarrass him or my boss,
    and I couldn't be sure that wouldn't happen, so I let it slide.  I
    think it's polite to always try to use the least offensive form of
    address.  We all slip, and we all choose not to fight sometimes, but
    I appreciate it when folks make an effort.  My lover's father is in
    his early 70s.  He used to say girl or lady, and I never dreamed of
    correcting him, but my lover and I always say woman.  Last time we 
    visited, I noticed that he would say girl or lady and then correct 
    himself.  I thought it was lovely and very sensitive of him to 1) notice 
    that his daughter and I used a different way of referring to women and
    2) to change his behavior.  I don't think he did it to be PC (he's
    still a republican :-).  I think he did it because he cares about and
    respects his daughter and me, and that makes me feel good.
    
    Justine 
         

    You may indeed be correct Phil.  The thing is though, I never really
    called a woman a "girl" in the past, so why start now?  My daughter is
    a girl, Mel (my wife) is a woman.  end of story.
    
    now "chick" or "babe" or "honey" or the almighty "C" word, now those
    are words to go ga ga about (all in my opinion of course), but "girl"?
    
    I jes dont know.  Maybe I should use it once or twice on Mel and see
    what her reaction is.  That way, I'll get a better idea as to where
    some of you folks are coming from.
    
    

    Al
    
    One place I really object to having 'girl' used is by my male superior
    in the work place. It makes me feel like he's assuming a 'parent' role
    towards me and I don't find that appropriate in a business
    relationship.
    
    Depending on the sort of relationship 'girl' (or 'mom') or other
    expressions are reasonably used between people who are friends,
    lovers, etc. as long as both are comfortable with the terms.
    
    Bonnie

    re .15. Justine, thank you for backing me up. I wasn't sure if I had
    the right perspective on what I was trying to say, but it seemed to me
    that this is what women in this conference and I'm sure elsewhere have
    been trying to get across. That if men can be called men and take
    umbrage at being referred to as boy, then just maybe it's a teensy bit
    possible that women feel the same way about being called girl. Seems
    good to me. I'll keep trying and maybe I'll lose girl from my
    vocabulary altogether. 
    
    Your lover's father is to be commended. To change a habit or something
    as ingrained as a speech pattern after 70 years is amazing and I
    applaud him. My father still referred to me as boy until the day he
    died. Of course I was 43 years younger the he was and he had spent 17
    years slowly deteriorating from a massive stroke, so I'll forgive him
    and in fact hadn't really thought about it until I read this topic.
    
    I do have a question though. In addressing a group of women, is ladies
    still acceptable to women? My thought patterns do flips when I think of
    saying Good morning women. How are you today? I don't seem to have a
    problem with Good morning men. How are you today? Somehow this seems
    wrong. Perhaps we could have a few suggestions from the women out
    there. I would really like to know and perhaps if we started working on
    it together, we could get it ingrained into our thought patterns and
    daily lives. I would really like to know your thoughts on this and work
    to help in this matter. If we change our speech habits, then it goes a
    long way in changing the way we view a group of people.
    
    Phil

re.18  'good morning' should work for groupings of either or mixed gender.

the negative response to 'ladies' usually varies directly with how much a woman
has been clubbed with the ol' 'be a lady' stick coming up in life.  But notable
exceptions to this rule do come along from time to time -- the ones who are 
so glad to finally hear _some_one call them ladies after years of being 
castigated because they weren't that they'll bless you for it.  I leave it to
you to take your chances ... :^}.

  Ann

    I think this would be great for the "Language" topic.
    
    						=maggie

 
From a San Jose Mercury News, circa last week:
 
    WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Philadelphia businessman who asked his secretary
    to scout for good-looking women at a local pub is a dubious "winner" in
    a national bosses' contest.
 
    "He told me to beep him if there was anyone good-looking in the bar so
    he wouldn't waste his time,"  the secretary wrote.
 
    Other bad and "downright unbelievable" bosses named Wednesday included
    a new York supervisor who followed female employees to the restroom and
    stood outside to time them.   .....
 
    
    The contest sponsors, a Cleveland support group for clerical workers
    called 9to5 and the National Association of Working Women, would not
    reveal the identities of the bad bosses.  .....
 
    The manager of an insurance company in Boulder, Colo., also "won" for
    yelling at a female worker to bring coffee and adding, "You squaw; me
    chief."
 

    At my site last week, there was a manager's meeting.  One member at the
    meeting is getting married.  The others secretly pooled some money and
    arranged to have a personal "congratulations" delivered by a bunny.
    
    Not a cute fluffy bunny with whiskers and pink ears.  A Playboy-type
    bunny.  
    
    She arrived at HLO, came in to the room, flashed open her coat, found
    the Target, wiggled her puffball-clad fanny, sat on his lap, put a lei
    around his neck, and cooed "Now you can say you've been "leid" by a
    bunny!"
    
    I am disgusted that this happened at a DIGITAL site!  Particularly
    since one member of the group had said she would feel extremely
    uncomfortable if they did it -- and she wasn't even warned ahead of
    time so she could leave them all to it.  
    
    Pam

    Well, years ago I got flamed for saying this, but I felt the same
    kind of violation when the DECcarolers marched into our cafeteria
    and started singing very explicit Christian songs while I was eating
    my lunch sometime in December.  
    
    The workplace is not as free and neutral a place as we'd like it
    to be.
    
    Unfortunately, in those situations, the person who objects is 
    often cast in the role of curmudgeon.  It's hard to be upset when
    everyone else is laughing (at the bunny) or beaming sweetly (at
    the Christmas carols).  It's a double feeling of isolation.  It
    reminds us who's in charge.
    
    Nina

    Seems like you are forgetting that the rules are for everyone.  you are
    complaining about Christmas Carolers and yet you probably didn't
    volunteer to work "Christmas Day because it was a Religious Day".  (Get
    my Drift).  Thought you might remember the double standard works in
    several directions at once...

    
    re .24
    
    That's kinda ridiculous. There are a TON of holidays that I don't
    celebrate. That doesn't mean I'm going to come into work. It just means
    that if it was taken away, I wouldn't miss it. I'd never heard of
    Patriot's Day before I came to Mass, and I think its a waste, but that
    doesn't mean I come in to work.
    
    On the other hand, I don't see people making a big to-do over the day
    in a way that makes it clear that not-celebrating the INTENT of the
    holiday puts me in a minority category. That's the feeling you get when
    you're surrounded by Carolers during Christmas. I don't see a double
    standard.
    
    I'd also like to remind you that there are lots of people at DEC who
    work interdependently, and wouldn't get a whole lot done in an empty
    building with minimal lighting and no computer support, as is so often
    the case for "major" American holidays. Coming in is pointless.

    But you don't get "flamed either, and that is the point....

They did have a menorah in the HLO2 lobby.  IHMO, it looked better than the
tree that they had.

The carolers bugged me simply because I did not want to hear people singing at
that point in the day.

To me, Christmas is a totally commercial concept, because that's the way
it was during my childhood.  My Mom's Jewish, my Dad's Protestant, I was
brought up in the Jewish faith (although I don't practice anymore).  We 
celebrated Christmas, supposedly because my Dad wasn't Jewish, but now that I'm
older I realize that we celebrated just so that my Mom could go crazy and 
decorate the house, and buy lots of stuff, and have the most excellent tree.
The same with Easter, it was a time to color and hide eggs and get candy.
I was 6 or 7 before I found out these holidays were religious, and that I was 
not supposed to celebrate them.  I was crushed.

Maybe that's why I'm really not bothered alot by nativity scenes and the sort,
as, to me, the religious aspects of the holidays are so trivialized.  Call me
cynical, but to me Christmas = cool tree and lots of food and too much $ spent
on presents. 

And too much hype.  

I would prefer if they just gave us the nine assigned holidays as extra vacation
time that we could take any time we wanted.

Lisa 

That's it for the discussion of religious/ethinic holidays/traditions at work.
If you want me to start another topic, holler.
	Mez

I used to work for a DEC OEM.

The female employees in the office once had a male stripper come in
during a party for one of their female co-workers.  

I was not amused. I was not comfortable. BUT, you know what? I didn't
really give a sh*t because they were having FUN!

To bad I didn't have this notes file then. I might have given a SH*T
then. Hell, I probably would have ....................




















			WALKED OUT!

    re: .30
    ...it died.  :-)
    
    re: .31 
    Well, if you didn't think it was funny and you felt uncomfortable, then
    I'd say you *did* really give a sh*t, whether you said anything or not!
    
    What bothers me about my example is that 
      a) it was at a work site
      b) it was on company time
      c) it was at a business meeting
      d) it was all managers at DEC
      e) it was against the previously EXPRESSED wishes of one of the group
         (which is against Digital harassment policies)
      f) it was unnecessary (a bunnysuit with balloons would have gotten
         the "well-wishes" across just as well, and without the controversy)
      g) it was highly unusual for this group (they don't "buddy" around
         much)
    
    As followup, the person who organized it apologized to the person who
    objected.  Matter closed.
    
    Pam

    
    Well the classified notes file is used for selling pornography (i.e.
    Playboy), so perhaps this is not entirely inconsistent... 8-}

    Dorian, a year has gone by, and we're still discussing this. 
    
    Playboy is 'erotica', not pornography.
    
      Alan

>    Well the classified notes file is used for selling pornography (i.e.
>    Playboy), so perhaps this is not entirely inconsistent... 8-}

Not it isn't:

         <<< USCD::$3$DUB3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CLASSIFIED_ADS.NOTE;32767 >>>
                        -< PLEASE READ THE RULES (2.7) >-
================================================================================
Note 2.7             UP TO DATE RULES IN 2.7 - PLEASE READ!               7 of 7
SEAPEN::PHIPPS                                       74 lines  22-DEC-1989 17:18
                             -< Rules of the Game >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[...]
         6. RESTRICTED ITEMS (no-nos) WIP (work in progress)... may change:

             Note: Means to be sold or "WANTED"

               NO ADULT MAGAZINES - Playboy/girl, Penthouse etc.
[...]

    re: .32
    Well, if you didn't think it was funny and you felt uncomfortable, then
    I'd say you *did* really give a sh*t, whether you said anything or not!


You'd be wrong!

    Re: .35
    
    >    -< and *that's* what's meant by "male naming"... >-
    
    Actually, Dorian (and I'm sure you remember it quite well), it was
    Maggie Tarbet about a year ago, who suggested that "Pornography"
    was not the same as erotica.
    
    Your continually suggesting that they are the same is plainly wrong.
    
    As was your assertion last year that those who enjoyed "erotica"
    were (your words, again) perverts.
    
      Alan

    
    re .40 -
    
    I didn't say pornography = erotica. I said Playboy = pornography. I
    still say so.
    
    If I said those who enjoy erotica are perverts, I meant that those who
    enjoy pornography are. Perhaps perverts is the wrong word. They are
    victims; they are more than likely addicts. And someone is making a lot
    of money off their addiction and is therefore doing their best to keep
    them addicted. It is also extremely harmful to women; they are also
    victims, in a different way. What is perverted is its depiction of sex:
    "The caricatured emphasis [in pornography] on sex is not a celebration of 
    it, but an attempt to escape it altogether" (W.I. Thompson). It is more
    than anything else an expression of our society's hatred of women.
    
    I myself enjoy erotica, but have a devil of a time finding it. The
    overwhelming dominance of male-oriented, exploitative pornography 
    makes even erotica look like pornography after a while.
    
    I guess this belongs in another topic though.
                                                                      
    Dorian

This didn't seem - to me ;-) -  to belong in the silliness topic, and there 
doesn't seem to be a pornography topic, so I'm putting it back here under 
sexism (which is probably appropriate). Mods please move it if you can 
think of a better place.

I believe that "pornography is the theory and rape is the practice."

I do think there's a category of erotica as distinct from pornography, but 
the distinction is blurred, the erotica is tainted by our glorious $10 
billion a year, crime-supporting, woman-degrading, woman-punishing 
pornography industry. 

Our society decided long ago (ultimately, I believe, because of males' fear
of their own attraction to females) that 

	1. sex is evil,

	2. it's women's fault, and

	3. women should be punished for it.

This attitude underlies all our dominant religions; IMHO, it's what's going 
on in pornography and it's what's going on in rape.

I don't have anything more to say on the subject except to mention a little 
book by David Mura, A Male Grief: Notes on Pornography and Addiction, 1987. 
On the back it says:

"Much has been written about the degrading effect of pornography on women, 
but relatively little about the harm pornography does to men. This powerful 
essay is based on the premise that some men are addicted to pornography 
and, therefore, have little control over their consumption. Through 
examining the relationship between child abuse, addictive family systems, 
and the adult male's consumption of pornography, the essay argues that this 
addiction to pornography is self-destructive, joyless, and unsatisfiable, a 
symptom of a consumer society rather than a natural urge."

I've seen the book at New Words Bookstore in Cambridge, or it can be 
ordered from Milkweed Editions, P.O. Box 3226, Minneapolis, MN 55403 (for 
less than the price of one of those slick mags).

Dorian
                             

    Re: .42
    
    Dorian, you and Sandy Ciccolini (there must be something in those
    GEMVAX:: electrons :-) )appear to have strong views on pornography, 
    although I think you each feel negatively about it for different 
    reasons.
    
    I have a serious question for you: Do you consider photos of heter-
    sexual/homosexual couples engaged in sex, that are taken with their 
    consent, neither person having being coerced into giving their consent,
    and both parties enjoying what they're doing to be "pornography?"
    
      Alan

    I've created a new topic to discuss pornography, topic 157, and have
    copied 34.42 and 34.43 there to begin the discussion.  Please continue
    the discussion in 157
    
    -Jody
    

  
   How about this one? I saw an advertisement on TV last night for
   a new DRAMA series about women lawyers.

   It was called:  BAR GIRLS!!

				(barf!)

    re .45 Saw an ad last night for an upcoming movie - "Ford
    Fairlane" - starring Andrew Dice Clay.
    
    double barf

    
posted with permission of the author...
    
================================================================================
Note xx.xxxx                    I hate it when...                  xxxx of xxxx
ALLVAX::SCHMIEDER                                    18 lines   2-JUL-1990 14:08
              -< Now girls, only YOU can "make babies" for us... >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...when I go in a toy store and see that Parker Brothers has come out with a
new edition of one of their oldest games, "Careers"... onlt it has a new name,
"Careers... for GIRLS"!

...and the career choices are: Fashion Designer, Nurse, Rock Star, Secretary,
Teacher and MOM!!!

I have nothing against women making a personal choice for one of these
careers, but when they aren't complemented by Professional careers, the
obvious message is that there ISN'T a choice; that these are the only
"valid" choices for a woman!

Parker Brothers is a local (Beverly MA) company.  I am MAD AS HELL about the
new focus of this game, but I am too overextended with other commitments to
put any energy into it right now.  If anyone else has any ideas for how to
most effectively protest this throwback to the 50's and get the company to
change (whether it's by convincing the Boston Globe to do an article, or
whatever), I would be glad to help as long as I'm not in charge.

    Has anyone else received a packet from CMP Direct Marketing Services
    ("The right approach, The right names" - ha) labelled "For
    Executive Women of Influence"?   Inside is a bunch of coupons/ads
    for pantyhose, jewelry, stationary....give me a break!!!!  Do
    "Executive Men of Influence" get the opportunity to buy
    Fruit-of-the-Looms at the office?
    
    cj/

    I couldn't decide if this belonged in "I hate it when...", "Answers to
    frequently asked personal questions" or here.
    
    Anyway, these days well meaning people who know that both Janice and I
    work have been asking.
    
    	"So, is Janice back at work now?"
    
    my reply is invariably.
    
    	"Why yes, we both are."
    
    Since we both took the same amount of time off (about 10 weeks) and
    went back to work full time at the same time.
    
    	Grr...
    	-- Charles

    The other day I was riding along, and a woman flagged me down.  She had
    a flat tire.  She asked me if I could change it for her.  I said,"Don't
    insult me that way you sexist pig.  Change it yourself."  With that I
    hopped back in my car and sped off, leaving her in a cloud of dust.  I
    hate it when this sexism happens.:')
    
    What really happened is that I changed it for her and didn't accept the
    money she tried to give me.  Probably because I'm a chauvenist no
    doubt.
    
    
    Chauvenistically yours,
    
    Mike

    
    Re .52 -- I hope you at least got a phone number off her.
    
    
    <obligatory wink/smiley face that let's you all know I'm kidding>
    
    Justine

    I had to rescue my wife with a flat tire (on her car, actually) once.
    But then, I outweigh her by 60+ pounds, she already had the car up on
    the jack, and I had to jump on the tire iron to loosen one of the wheel
    nuts.

    On the other hand, she had to rescue me at Sears pickup once when one
    of the "help" there accidentally locked my Jeep (running) with the keys
    in and the police weren't able to jimmy the lock (she had the extra key).

    No Justine, I'm happily married.  No need for anymore phone numbers.
    
    
    
    Mike

        The phone  rang  -  I  was home, Sandy was out.  A female voice
        asked to talk  with Sandy.  I explained the situation and asked
        if I could be  of  help  - the voice identified herself as with
        the Betty Crocker organisation, and wanted to talk to the woman
        of the house with a view to selling a by-mail cookery course.
        
        My response:  "You just lost  any chance of a sale - I do _all_
        the cooking! Have a nice sexist day though."
        

    As a male secretary, I occasionally get "looks" from passing men
    in suits who don't work in this area of my building.
    
    *step, step, step, step, look, step, step, double-take*
    
    new looks translates to: "Wait a minute!  You're wearing a tie!
     You're hair is...well, kind of short..."
    
    hee....
    
    
    On another front, I was co-teaching (me and ten others...a real
    team teaching effort!) an educaiton course a year ago, and we came
    to the section on gender issues.  Here's a scenario:
    
    "A young man is in a severe car accident and is rushed to the hospital.
     Once prepped for surgery, he was wheeled into the operating room
    as the surgeon walked in.  The surgeon took one look and said, "I
    can't operate on him...this is my son"  The surgeon is not the man's
    father...
    
    
    Only twenty percent of the students (college aged) said that the
    surgeon was his mother...sheez
    
    daniel

    I don't know if this can be considered sexist or neutral. Certain
    catalogs are always addressed the same. Spencer's Gifts comes to mind,
    but they aren't the only one. The name on the label is always the same.
    It's to Mrs. (name of addressee). At the service station I used to work
    at, it was always sent to Mrs. Walt's Super Shell. Here, I've seen
    catalogs sent to Mrs. Incoming Inspection. I've oftened wondered how
    the gender and marital status of an organization, group, or company was
    determined.
    
    Phil

    when I was pregnant the 1st time, the car had a flat in the parking lot
    at work.  Normally I'd've changed it myself, but I had gained 45 pounds
    by this time and didn't feel up to it!  So I went in to work and asked
    the first coworker I saw for help.  He grumbled about how wimpy and
    sexist I was to have asked (but did change the tire for me).
    
    I hate it when 'politically correct' overrides common sense!

   I heard something interesting on the radio this morning as I was driving
to work:

   It seems that a female who was going to college worked for a certain 
government Service (which I do not name because of our no- libel suit policy.
Anyone who wants to know the name of this important service should contact 
me through MAIL), and happened to have a supervisor who was sexually 
harrassing her. She reported this supervisor to their EEO office in the 
expectation that something would be done to stop this behavior (there was no 
doubt that she was being harrassed. Unsolicited touching, sexual innuendos,
and snide little solicitations cannot be interpreted as anything else).

   Well, the EEO office made him take a one- day class on sexual harrassment
(she described it as a "no, don't do it..." class), and she was made to
sign an agreement waiving all of her rights in the matter.

   Then things got really interesting. Her supervisor systematically 
isolated her from the rest of her co- workers by shifting (reducing) her
working hours and telling others not to deal with her. She was placed in 
the position of being an "uncooperative troublemaker" who no one could
work with.

   Then she -- and her boyfriend -- were fired. The reason they were given
for being let go might (if you stretch your imagination) have been
legitimate for her, but couldn't have applied to her boyfriend, who had
been working there (satisfactorally) for more than two years.

   Indications are that what happened to her was not an isolated occurrance.
Apparently, many other women working there are treated the same way (I do not
believe that she can prove that the entire Service behaves this way, but it 
wouldn't surprise me if it did).

   She spoke of it on the radio because she wanted to increase awareness. 
Frankly, so do I. I hope by entering it here I have helped her do so.

                                                      -Robert Brown III

    I am apalled!  While reading this - THIS - note, I took a phone call.
    The intended recipient was not someone in my group.  In fact, not even
    in my building.  I am one of those women who is *not* a "girl", and I
    hold doors for men if I get there first, etc.  The caller asked for
    Initial. Initial. Lastname.  I said he was not at this #, but I would
    give him the message.
    
    Initial. Initial. Lastname is a WOMAN!
    
    I'm sooooo mortified!
    
    E Grace
    

>    Initial. Initial. Lastname is a WOMAN!

>    I'm sooooo mortified!

Why?  I must be missing something here...seems to me that in our society the
norm is to assume someone is male by default. Yes, it is rooted in sexism;
yes, it affects us on a daily basis.  But this particular incident doesn't
seem any worse than the continually use of "he" to refer to gender-unknown
individuals

So I am very curious as to why this particular incident has you up in
arms about sexism, why you are "mortified"?  What leads you to believe
the individual on the phone was sexist, and not, perhaps mistaken, or
simply making assumptions that s/he should have questioned but was too
lazy to do so?

D!

I think you missed it D!, Re-read it. _She's_ the one who made the assumption,
even while participating in important conciousness raising such as reading this
note.
	Mez

    Thank you, MEZ. 
    
    D, don't be so quick to assume!
    
    E Grace

    I've caught myself doing the same thing....such as, driving down
    the road and somebody cuts me off.  My instant thoughts are,
    "Look at that guy", TUH!  Turns out a woman, or vice-versa.
    A bad driver is always referred to as *she*.  It does take a lot
    of awareness clicking to get over all these mind sets.
    
    Each time I catch myself doing these assumptions, I'm mortified.
    Soon, I'm catching myself *before* I insert foot...
    
    .02
    Nancy

    E Grace, don't be so mortified. It sort of happened to me in
    sideways/reverse. A woman called one of the numbers in my immediate
    area of work. The person whose phone it was, was at break. I transfered
    the call to my phone and proceded to take the message. They asked for
    Terry, 1st name of person being called. I said and I quote myself, "At
    break just now. May I take a message." The caller said "No thanks. I'll
    call her later." Terry is a man. I said "She's a he." The caller said
    "Oh! I'm sorry, I just assumed." I was amused, but it might be reverse
    sexism. Harmless in this case. My conciousness raising from this
    conference helped me to be amused by this. In a past life, I might have
    been upset by it. Now I think there are more important sexist issues to
    vent my spleen on, then just assuming a person's sex by their name. 
    
    Phil

    
    	Sometimes you can't help make a mistake. I know a woman named Shawn,
    	and a man named Gail. I'm always careful with generic names like
    	Chris, Terry and Bobbie/Bobby
    
    	Guy
    

    re .69 'Guy' is easy, Guy :-)  Lost count long time ago of
    mailings to Miss Dana Charbonneau. (One I never forgot was
    an invitation to apply to an all-women college. Nearly did.
    >8-)  )

    I hung up the phone after a conversation with a man who is actively
    soliciting Digital's participation and financial support of an activity
    they are sponsoring.  In the course of a 5 minute conversation this
    man, who has never met me or spoken to me before, called me "Dear" 5
    times.  Bet he doesn't call my boss "dear"!  Too bad for him - I make
    the decision whether or not we do business with them.
    

    I was talking to a man yesterday who was trying to solicite business
    from DEC, and in the short conversation he kept saying that if he
    wern't available on the return call to just leave the information with
    "the girl", I asked "with whom?" he repeated, the girl.  I was so mad
    when I hung up that I was making so much noise with my frustration that
    when I explained it to the reciever of the message, It was decided that
    Dec would not do business with that vendor.

    
    I've just asked a colleage *four times* to stop calling me
    "sweetness"...
    
    He is younger than me, has been with Digital for about 1/8th the time
    I have, has less experience, and has just been made my "team leader".
    We - he and I - are a "team" of two....
    
    Still seeing red.
    Hiss........spit..........
    'gail
    

    re .73:
    
    Call him "Honeypie" and do it several times in a short space of
    conversation.  Maybe he'll get the hint?
    

    
    Some time ago, I was shooting pool with some young men that I didn't
    know and didn't know me...I ran the table several games, and, they
    were very friendly about all of it.  As they were leaving, a comment
    to me was made, "You shoot great pool for a girl!"  Steaming me up.
    I returned the compliment by saying, "Yeah, you shoot pretty sh!tty
    for guys."
    
    smirk, smirk

    .75 Reminds me of a woman I knew slightly some years ago.  Her name
    is Honey and she is a fantastic pool player.  She was grousing one
    day:  She'd been in a tournament that was filmed by Wide World of 
    Sports.  And she'd won and beaten all the guys including (I think)
    Minnesota Fats.  The tape was never shown on TV.  
    
       Margaret

    
    .75  The tape was never shown on TV...
    
    She obviously wasn't built right ;-)
    

    I'm not sure whether this belongs in this string, or "But there's hope
    yet."
    
    Or both. Or neither. Oh well, here goes:
    
    The Portsmouth, N. H., school board decided not to change the name 
    of Portsmouth Jr. High to Portsmouth Middle School.
    
    The reason? 
    
    The students would not want their school known as (press return)
    
    
    
         PMS
    
    Bruce

    I heard a commercial on the radio yesterday for Framingham Ford. In it,
    a father is "teaching" his infant son to talk, and tells him that the
    important words in life begin with "f". He then recites such words as
    "ford" and "fox", saying that a Ford is essential to catching fast
    foxes, but don't tell your mother I said that.
    
    How tacky....
    

    RE:-1 And the first F word I thought of...wonder if they intended that
    also? liesl

    
    re: -.1, Nah, that was the first word that came to my mind, too.
    
    CQ

    re: .73
    
    Your colleague's actions violate corporate policy on sexual harrassment, 
    in case you are interested in pursuing it.

     Re -1
    
    Thanks - that is MOST interesting to know....
    
    'gail
    

    G'day,
     I'm removing F words in my vocabulary......
    
    starting with
    
    
    
     Failure!
    
    
    
    derek
    

    I don't know if this is sexist, but it bothered me.  Budweiser has
    a radio ad out in which a group of women are talking about another
    woman and her boyfriend and saying things like, "Do you notice how
    _Evan_ brings her flowers?  Did you notice how Evan isn't afraid
    to hold hands in public?"  Then they start saying to their boyfriends
    "Why can't you be more like Evan?"  A voice comes in and says "Why
    ask why, drink Budweiser Dry."  Then a touch male voice says, "Hey
    Evan buddy, come over here."  Noises of punching.  Same tough voice
    says, "Who says men can't cry?  heh, heh, heh".  Do they really
    need to use violence to promote their beer?
    	Linda

    .85 - now, there's some male-bashing for ya!
    
    getting serious now, what it shows is how deep is the resistance to
    change in the relationship betw the sexes.  A *_MAN_* not only won't
    change, but will fight any man who does! 

    re .89 Snakes, not having free free will, are not subject to 
    ethics. I'd say they (the ad people) are on the same ethical
    plane as used-car salespeople myself :-)

    
    My roommate (single female) has a friend (another single female) who,
    along with her mother, owns her own home.   They decided to have the
    house done with aluminum siding.  She calls a reputable local area
    company and they came out and sided her home, work guaranteed.  Soooo,
    shortly after the job was done, she noticed that some parts of it were
    buckling.  She called the company several times and left messages. 
    No one returned her call.  She sent a letter, addressed to the owner,
    and here it is 5-weeks later and there has still been no response.
    
    Here's the kicker:  My roommate called the company and said a friend
    had recommended them to use for siding her and her HUSBANDS 3-family
    house.  OOOO-LA_LA!  $$$$$$$  The person she spoke to said "SURE!"
    Well, my roommate states that there's only one problem.  Her husband
    is on the road all the time and won't be home until this Saturday, and
    she had gone to her friends house and saw some buckling, but, to her
    it wasn't that bad.  The final word would be up to her HUSBAND and HE
    was REAL picky about things like that.  Well, don't 'ya know.  The
    company immediately called the woman and arranged to fix the buckling
    Friday morning....they called my friend back and said to bring her
    HUSBAND with her on Saturday morning and he can view the home HIMSELF.
    
    OK, sounds great.  I'll bring my HUSBAND with me and HE can make the
    decision.  Guess who's going to be the HUSBAND.....ME!
    
    ENJOY!
    Nancy

    
    Referencing the problem a woman had in trying to get a response from
    the company to repair their guaranteed work, the span of time was
    approx. 2-1/2 months of phone calls, letters.  Now, that the mere
    mention on the decision being up to a HUSBAND, the place is going
    to be repaired within 3-days.  I seriously believe the woman who
    wanted the repairs done, did not become beligerent and wouldn't do
    so as she's not that type.  I would have, as I am that type, but,
    some folks just don't have the aggressiveness to do so.  Aggressive
    behavior is not the case here.  She had aluminum siding put on her
    house, guaranteed work, and found that the quality was not to her
    liking.  With all the phone calls, letters, etc., something should
    have been done withing the time span I mentioned.
    
    Well, case closed, a HUSBAND was going to be viewing this same 
    house, and just like magic, it's going to be fixed.  This, IMHO, is
    a blatant display of sexism.
    
    

    
    
    	I also think that it was the influence of another BUYER, not a
    HUSBAND that brought about the quick response.
    
    Greed vs sexism
    
    ed

    
    I beg to differ.  It was impressed upon the company  that the
    HUSBAND was making the final decision and *that's* what the
    company heard and reacted to, besides the $$$$$$.  
    
    
    

    Remember that Nancy had the advantage of being in the presence of
    the people in question.  Her roommate got to hear the phrasing,
    the inflection, and the timing used by the siding people, and
    she got to tell it to Nancy with those characteristics present.
    
    Everyone else is going by printed, second-hand information.
    
    						Ann B.

    
    
    I realize that she heard it, but she doesn't know that if HUSBAND
    wasn't used, the company may have come just as quickly.
    
    Don't forget , the company was looking at the potential for another
    10,000 dollar job here.
    
    ed

    No.  That's what she heard.  "There's a $10K order." "Oh." "If we
    like your current work." "Oh." "I didn't like it." "Oh." "My
    husbank will check it." "OH! (Quick! Do something.)"
    
    						Ann B.

    
    The fact that the company has made *no* communications or attempts
    to get back to the woman who had the work done *until* there was
    mention of a husband being the last word, indicates to me that it
    had a lot to do with the quick reaction the company made.  The
    key words here are the husband has the *last word*.  All of a 
    sudden, it's going to be fixed.  Ann is totally right in the way
    she's reading the chain of events.

     
    Look, I'm not going into any long, drawn out discussion on the use of
    my words or anybody else's.  I merely entered a note into this
    conference referring to "SEXISM IS ALIVE AND WELL".  The responses
    *some* folks insist on are not in my interest to respond.  It's
    responses like this that keep other wymyn "read only".  Maybe some
    folks ought-to take a check on their state of denial and get a life.

    Nancy has a good point folks. I am rather amazed at the amount of
    effort being put into trying to prove this incident was not sexist.
    Wonder what that says about the world.
    
    Bonnie

    
    
    another reason *why* FWO is soooooooo important

    Warning:  Reply from another reactionary broad follows.
    
    
    
    re: .104 >another reason *why* FWO is soooooooo important
    
    I hear sexist overtones of "it's only the men in this conference who
    perpetuate sexism and refuse to really see what goes on".  As if there 
    are no confrontational women in here who are armed and ready for an
    argument at the drop of a hat.  Myself included.
    
    Nancy 

    
    
    FINE.  If someone can't disagree with a note in this conference, then
    be FWO for the whole thing.
    
    

    Hey folks, please lets calm down, this is getting out of hand.
    
    Bonnie J
    
    =wn= comod

    Nancy T.,
    
    If you go back over this particular substring, which starts at .91,
    you will find that the only people questioning Nancy B.'s judgment
    are men.  You will also find that there are three of them, which
    takes it out of the accident class, and probably out of the
    coincidence class.  Even yesterday, I felt that the questioning
    responses constituted an example of sexism, and today I feel
    legitimated in actually claiming it.
    
    Now, you may have heard "it's only the men..." but I heard (well, read)
    something different.  What I heard was the same thing I hear every
    time For Women Only is promoted:  We will get a *different* line
    of discussion, *different* points of view, and *different* sets of
    objections/confrontations/arguments if we leave men out of it.
    (A claim that is hard to argue by anyone who has read the FGD/FWO
    strings. :-)
    
    As for where the difference comes in, read note "Mirror, Mirror" for
    some investigation and insight.
    
    						Ann B.

    Also, discussions of the FWO concept and other things pertaining to how
    this notesfile works should be taken to the Processing Topic...topic
    22.
    
    -Jody
    

    Re the siding issue: Come on, folks; while it certainly *seems* sexist,
    and probably *is* sexist, and there's definitely a long history of
    sexist behavior among salespersons, the facts as stated don't provide a
    conclusive test case. What you want is a similar situation in which
    someone uses the "new job/mucho bucks/but only on approval" line,
    contingent on whether the female customer's sister or mother or "my
    business partner, Cheryl" approves of the fixes. If the siding folks
    didn't act with the same alacrity as for "the HUSBAND", then I'd say
    you had a good indication of sexism.
    
    Of course, I think siding must have been invented by subversive aliens,
    because everyone I've ever met who was connected with the sale or
    installation of same has definitely acted in a horribly anti-social
    way! ;-)
    
    -b

     Read all about it.....
    
    I am updating this issue for anyone who has been concerned with the
    outcome of this issue.  I wish to say, anyone that has a problem
    with it TOUGH!
    
    I've just been informed that the work is under repair as I'm writing.
    The company is *very* apologetic (sp?) that it has taken so much
    time, and the owner of the siding company is there, at the site, to
    insure things go right.
    
    A conversation went on with the home owner and the company owner, to
    this effect::
    
    
    "Do you mind if I bring 'MR. SOANDSO around tommorrow to view the work
    we have done?"  
    
    (Mr. Soandso, yeah, *she'll be there)
    
    CASE CLOSED....!
      
    
    
    
    

    
    I invited a very good male friend of mine to go to lunch.  We went
    to lunch.  We ate lunch.  I asked for the bill....
    
    The waitress brought us the bill and said, "There 'ya go, Sir.  Hope
    you enjoyed your meal."
    
    I said, "Excuse me?  I'm buying"
    
    

    
    RE -1
    
    That reminds me....
    
    Back when I was a very green, very nervous salesperson I was leading up
    to getting  my first big order. I was going to ask for it over lunch.
    
    I thought about where I'd take the guy, and then went there a couple of
    times before with less important customers so that the waiters would
    recognise me. I then explained to the maitre d' , when I booked the
    table, what I would be doing...
    
    They *still* gave the man the cheque.
    
    I *still* got the order....:-}
    
    'gail

<            <<< Note 34.106 by SUBSYS::NEUMYER "FUBAR, Big time!" >>>
<                            -< I'm outa here,woman >-
<
<    
<    
<    FINE.  If someone can't disagree with a note in this conference, then
<    be FWO for the whole thing.
<    

	re: -< I'm outa here,woman >- 

	Is that supposed to impress us?  scare us? or just give
	me a good belly laugh???


	Sorry, but it's the same reaction I get when my 5-yr old neice
	pulls that.

    I always give a little extra tip to any waitperson who very obviously
    makes *no* assumptions about who is paying, or, better yet, who is
    perceptive enough to notice when I am paying (like the fact that I am
    holding out a credit card) and hands the bill to *me*.
    
    I was astounded to learn that some restaurants have two menu's - one
    with prices on it and one without - and that they give the woman the
    one without prices.  Boy, I'd probably have walked out!
    
    D!

    
    .116 -
    
    birth name
    

    D!
    
    I once was at a small dinner before a fundraiser, and the women
    were handed menus without prices.  I'd heard of this phenomenon,
    but this was the first time I'd ever experienced it.  (And the
    last.)  Knowing that Drew, on my left, always fretted about
    spending too much money (but did it anyway), I swapped menus
    with him, earning his gratitude.  (I have strange friends, remember?)
    Soon all the women at the table had swapped with all the men.
    Then our genial host, Harlan Ellsion, called over the maitre
    d'hotel....
    
    					Ann B.

    You name dropper, you.

	Considering what I've read by and about Harlan Ellsion, I can imagine
the maitre d' got an earful...


				--D

    Glad they didn't tell me that at daycamp!  
    
    -Jody
    (who got her Bowman First Rank - 120 points with 30 arrows at 30 yards
    - at the tender age of 12)
    

    Excell first?
    
    My college roommate used to play "knock-knock".  This was a game
    in which she would shoot an arrow into the very middle of the
    gold.  Then she would shoot another, and try to split the first.
    She succeeded three times, and one of those times no one was
    able to prize the two arrows apart.  The pair went into her high
    school's trophy case.
    
    So.  Is tripling Robin Hood's record good enough?
    
    						Ann B.

    
    	RE: .132  'gail
    
    	You brighten my morning (but in a far, far different way.)  ;^)
    

    re: .132
    
    I was listenening to edp.
    
    Nancy

>          <<< Note 34.126 by SMURF::BINDER "Recherche du Sox perdu" >>>

>    Women are not men's equals and never will be, because EQUAL
>    means IDENTICAL.


	equal: (adj)  1. Having the same capability, quantity, effect,
	or value as another.  2. Having the necessary qualities for a
	task or situation.

	identical (adj) 1.  Being the same.  2.  Being exactly equal
	AND alike.


	Equal does NOT mean identical.  I can most definitely be
	"equal to" a man without being "like" him.


	kath

    
    re .126 about women competing with men in shooting (rifle/pistol):
    
    According to my husband, in Europe they don't allow women to compete
    with the men, but here in the US, they do.  He made it sound like a
    good thing that everyone competes together.  The way he explained it,
    it's because in the US we're more accepting of women as being equal to
    men.  He says that women (at least in rifle) regularly beat the men.
    In Europe, the men can't abide by women beating them in the
    competitions, so they've kept them separate.  At least that's what
    he says.  NancyB might be able to tell more.
    

    In _some_ shooting sports women hold their own with men, in others,
    they don't. (Target pistol requires shoulder, wrist and hand 
    strength, where men usually excel.) Rifle is more equal. The
    World champion in Metallic Silhouette - where full-power
    hunting loads are used- for a couple of years was a slightly built 
    woman (who was six months pregnant when she won her second title.) 
    
    Remember, in humans physical strengths etc. are _secondary_ 
    characteristics. The _primary_ characteristic of humans is
    their capacity for concept formation and reason. In _this_,
    the most important criteria of 'human-ness', men and women are 
    equal.
    
    Dana
    

>      <<< Note 34.137 by BLUMON::GUGEL "Adrenaline: my drug of choice" >>>
    
>    re .126 about women competing with men in shooting (rifle/pistol):
    
        Re: Women not shooting against men in Europe...
        
        Not true  in my experience, at least in small bore shooting.  I
        competed up to  national (Scottish) level for a number of years
        and regularly shot shoulder  to shoulder with women in the same
        competitions and the same classes.    There  were no 'men only'
        restrictions.
        
        

    
    re .139:
    
    But were the women judged with the men or separately?
    
    Like in running competitions, the women run with the men, but
    are judged separately.
    

        Re .140, Ellen,
        
        With the men. The  match cards were shot, judged and ranked
        regardless of sex. The league tables were published at all
        levels from club, club against club, to Nationals with no
        discrimination.  The only criterion was age, ie.  you shot as a
        Junior, or as an adult.
        

re: .115:
    
    I was astounded to learn that some restaurants have two menu's - one
    with prices on it and one without - and that they give the woman the
    one without prices.  Boy, I'd probably have walked out!
    
Ahh, D!, you would have missed the joke if you did.  A bunch of us
ran into this at the Hotel Anglais in Utrecht (Holland).  As we passed
menus around the table so everyone could see the prices, one of the women
returned giggling from the restroom: the menu, with prices, was posted there.

The "menu without prices" is intended for two reasons:

-- it's given to the guest (while the one with prices is given to the host).
   I've been given menus without prices while being treated by customers
   at three-start French restaurants.  The idea is so that the guest can
   order without being worried about the consequences.

-- it's a sop to the fragile male ego; hence the full menu posted in the loo.
   Because, after all, it's bad manners to eat something too expensive, right?

Martin.

>    A bunch of us ran into this at the Hotel Anglais in Utrecht (Holland).
    
    Huh? When was this, Martin? :-} I must say I wouldn't know to find
    Hotel Anglais to save my life but then again I hardly ever need a hotel
    around here - but I do know that's not a regular custom in most
    restaurants over here. BTW it's currently mandatory to have a price
    list at a very visible place at the entrance of the restaurant, but
    that law is only a couple of years old. 
    
    I once did go to an Italian restaurant here though, with a female
    friend  who wanted to treat me, and we went through the motions of her
    doing the ordering (boy, that was difficult), her asking for the bill
    (wow, that raised eyebrows), and of course accepting all that was as
    far as they'd ever go. The bill landed at my end of the table even
    though she reached to take it from the waiter... I passed it on to her,
    she payed it, we left the restaurant and boy did I get a couple of
    looks from the waiters on the way outside. I pointed my friend to it,
    she saw it too, we both laughed at them and went for a beer in a bar
    nearby.
    
    But I've got to say, that was rather exceptional. Most waiters
    carefully place the bill somewhere in the middle of the table and leave
    it up to the customer rather than making a fool of themselves...
    
    Ad

    re .147, he wasn't talking about math.  He was talking about
    people.
    
    Lorna
    

    Many people have trouble with this "equality" thing.  I believe
    that this is mostly because we forget/were never properly taught
    that it is shorttalk for "equality under the law".
    
    It means that if person A can vote, then person B, being of the
    same status (age, citizen, appropriate resident, never served
    more than a year for a criminal offense...), can also vote.  (This
    sort of thing is where "previous condition of servitude" is
    important.  There was a time when "previous condition of servitude"
    was considered a `legitimate' difference in status, and was used to
    restrict certain people B.)
    
    It means that if person A, with certain skills, can hold a particular
    job, then person B, having the same skills, can also hold that job.
    It means that if person A were to strike person A' and be convicted
    of criminal assault and battery, then if person A were to strike
    person B, then person A would still be convicted of criminal assault
    and battery.  It means that if the death of person A were to be
    adjudged as murder by an inquest, then the identical death of person 
    B would be adjudged as murder by an inquest.
    
    It is all a matter of those behaviors which are, when conducted
    between persons of the A class, considered to be `public' rather
    than `private' under the meaning of the Constitution.  That's the
    rub.           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    
    						Ann B.

    
    re: 34.136     
    
    
    /Re: .135
    
    /Okay.  I can handle pedantry, I'll play your silly game.  You quote
    /your dictionary, I'll quote mine (The Oxford American Dictionary):
    
    	please pull your quotes completely, and also READ what you
    	are quoting!
    
    > equal, adj.  1.  the same in size, amount, value, etc.  2.  having
    > the same rights or status
    
    /Now then.  In re: definition 1, I beg to point out that women are not
    /equal to men in size or amount, unless we are discussing the size of
    /wit and the amount of intelligence.  I freely grant equality of value. 
    /In re: definition 2, the facts stand for themselves.
 
    	I believe that the discussion is centering around the second 
    	defintion here....that is, women coulw like to have the same 
    	rights and status as men.  So, (IMO) your comments about women
    	not being the same size as men has nothing to do with the 
    	discussion at hand.  (what we call a rathole, which has it's
    	own topic)
    
    /Quoting a single source isn't good research.  Here's what the American
    /Heritage Dictionary says:
    
    /> equal, adj.  1.  Having the same capability, quantity, or effect as
    /> another
    
    /Women do not have the same capability as men; they cannot impregnate a
    /woman - and conversely, men do not have the same capability as women;
    /they cannot become pregnant.  I've already dismissed quantitative
    /equality.  As for effect, well, I've never met a man I was inspired to
    /marry.
    
    	You list "1." definition, which would imply that more follow.
    	Why did you skip the other definition(s)?  Or did they simply
    	not support your case?
    
    	[serious biting of fingers to not touch the "never met a man I 
    	was inspired to marry" comment]
    
    /The more the merrier.  How about Webster's Ninth New Collegiate:
    
    /> equal, adj.  1a:  of the same measure, amount, quantity, or number as
    /> another...  b:  like in quality, nature, or status
    
    /The implications of this definition are left as an exercise for the
    /student.
    
    	Hmm....... "like in quality, nature, or status".  Of the three, I 
    	would guess that women would like to be "Like in status".  So,
    	teacher, do I pass or fail?
    
    /Actually, this whole reply is an attempt to emphasize the truth, which
    /is that quoting "authority" is pointless, civen that casuistry is the
    /order of the day when so doing.  What is, is.  What is not, is not. 
    /One thing that is not, and cannot ever be, is EQUALITY between men and
    /women.  One thing that is not, but should be, is EQUAL RIGHTS between
    /men and women.
    
    	When EQUAL RIGHTS are passed, will women be considered EQUAL
    	before the eyes of the law?  Won't there then be EQUALITY between
    	the sexes?
    
    /-d

    	set mode=silly
    
    	In addition to the image of "Justice" being a blindfolded lady
    	holding a scale, I think we have to add some sort of nose filter
    	so that decisions won't be affected by perfumes that might be
    	worn (thus giving "Justice" a hint at the gender of the people
    	being judged...)
    
    	jonathan
    

re. Note 34.151         
    
    >When EQUAL RIGHTS are passed, will women be considered EQUAL
    >before the eyes of the law?  Won't there then be EQUALITY between
    >the sexes?

    Men and women will then have equal access to jobs, based on 
    qualifications. There will still be different strengths and
    skills between most men and most women. For instance, most
    ditch-diggers will still be men, most electronic assembly
    workers will still be women. (And no, the jobs won't pay the 
    same, but the operation of the free market is outside the scope
    of this discussion.) Jobs where the physiological differences
    between men and women are irrelevant (eg. programming) should 
    be a balance of male and female, young and old, white and non-
    white, etc.
    
    Dana

re: .145:
>    A bunch of us ran into this at the Hotel Anglais in Utrecht (Holland).
    
    Huh? When was this, Martin? :-} I must say I wouldn't know to find
    Hotel Anglais to save my life but then again I hardly ever need a hotel
    around here - but I do know that's not a regular custom in most
    restaurants over here.

August 1984, at an international conference of linguists.  That was about
the first time we showed DECtalk in public (and 5 months before product
release).  (Thanks to the Utrecht office for help setting it up.)

The Anglais is about 1 km from the town centre (railroad station and
conference hall).  It might not have been clear from my posting, but
the meal was excellent.  The Anglais is a very old-fashioned "European"
hotel: the sort of place that Boston's Ritz Carleton tries to enulate.

The town held a reception for the 2000+ linguists, with a nice welcoming
speech (in English) by the mayor.  When she finished, one of the MIT
participants remarked that they won't be able to hold the next congress
in Cambridge, as we wouldn't be able to teach the mayor English in time.

Martin.

     
    Re: .154
    
    Well, THE court in London is the Old Bailey, and that has the
    Statue of Justice on the top.
    I don't know if she's blindfold or not - I'll have a look for you
    next time I'm on that bit of my patch...
    
    'gail
    

    I hate that commercial for Canteen fragrance...."Essential for
    Survival"
    
    Thanks, but I've never used it and I'm doing quite fine.
    
    Also, that awful game for girls about guessing who your friends will
    pick as their dream guy...."ooohhhh sports car, musician, nice eyes....
    but his IQ is smaller than his shoe size....SO WHAT...hehehehehe"
    Barfarama.....
    
    And lastly, as much as I love Legos....the girls are relegated to
    playing with the town set, while the boys enjoy the castle, pirate,
    space and more advanced sets......
    
    Toys really annoy me....I can always tell the girls aisle because it's
    pink....
    
    Lisa

> And lastly, as much as I love Legos....the girls are relegated to
> playing with the town set, while the boys enjoy the castle, pirate,
> space and more advanced sets......
    
  So ignore the advertising.  Buy whatever sets the child wants.
  Ajay's buddy Katie *LOVES* to come over and play LEGO pirates
  with him.

                                   Atlant

    Yes, I spent a few minutes walking through the girls' section at
    Child World in which everything was colored a pepto-bismol pink.
    BUT then, I went into the boys' section, which was jungle camouflaged,
    and found 3 little boys enjoying themselves immensely, taking turns
    shooting each other and dying.  What fun, she says sarcastically.
    
    

    you don't find dying fun?
    
    why not?
    

    Re .159: Well, actually, I've always felt that a good death was one of
    the more entertaining roles in games, and used to envy my brother no
    end because he was much better than I was at clutching his chest,
    leaping backwards off of the porch, and writhing to a splendid finish
    as he snarled, "Ya got me, Bart!" (I never quite had the nerve to do
    the backward-dive bit; my forte was the forward tuck-and-roll used to
    evade pistol or phaser fire, and the occasional flying mount onto my
    getaway horse/bicycle.)
    
    And just think how many of the really juicy dramatic roles involve death
    scenes - and what a pity if little girls are discouraged from
    practicing for them. (Anyone for a line of "Lady Macbeth" toys???)
    
    Or maybe the ad-campaign people would think that guns-for-girls were OK
    if they were pink and came with matching compacts and eye shadow. And
    we already know that makeup for boys is OK as long as it comes in
    camouflage colors.
    
    [What really surprises me is that the people whose job it apparently is
    to sell as much of this stuff as they possibly can don't seem to have
    realized that they're cutting themselves out of a significant potential
    market by advertising their products as only usable by one sex...]
    
    -b, who never did understand what all the fuss was about

    Living in the world of small businesses etal....
    
    Comments like "this office is owned and managed by a woman blah
    blah..."
    WHat the hell should that matter?  really!  Should we also start
    stating that this office is owned and managed by black women, white
    women, gay males gay women etc, etc, etc?????
    
    Point to ponder...
    
    did you know that DIGITAL practices this?  whomever it was that said
    that Digital would be considered sexist if they blah, blah blah
    obviously wasn't thinking of this....  If you have access to vendor
    info on SPOC (engineering types and writers will know this), take a
    look.  You'll see notes like "Minority owned and operated" or women
    owned and operated"  HONESTLY! tell me what freakin difference this
    makes to the engineer that orders parts for something.....

    
    the quality of the part or service being equal, why not make an
    effort to give business to a firm that might be making a real
    difference in the lives of oppressed people? 
    

    Before going to a business, I like to know if it is woman-operated
    because in general I find women-operated businesses friendly more
    helpful places...so having no more information than that, I would opt
    to go to the women-operated business.
    
    Once I have determined that a woman-operated business is of equal
    quality to other businesses, I will continue to do my business there,
    because I like to give my support to the "underdog"...not just in
    business but in all aspects.  Because I believe everyone should be
    given a fair shake - I believe the woman-operated business has it
    tougher, so I am going to try to help compensate for society's sexism
    by giving them my business.  (Similarly, I root for the team that
    has the lower odds of winning...if I am divided 50-50 between two
    politicians I will vote for the oen running lower in the polls, or
    the one who had the most obstacles to overcome in running...if two
    brands are equal in price and quality I will buy the one from the 
    smaller company or the less well-known brand, etc.)
    
    This isn't sexist - I would not go to a woman-operated business that
    charged more or had lower quality service than somewhere else.
    
    D!

    On playing death...
    
    I've heard victims of violence of TV say, after being shot, 'I didn't
    think it would hurt like this.'  Also, those boys (word used
    intentionally) in VietNam; I don't think they realized that dying
    is so darn permanent.
    
    I just don't think children should be taught to kill, even in play.
    Maia
    

    re .166, I agree with you, and my ex agreed, too.  We never allowed
    Melissa to play with toy guns when she was little.  (Although, the more
    and more I hear of violence against women, I may want her to have a
    real one someday.) :-(
    
    Lorna
    

    
    re .166
    
    I can assure you that a bullet wound *hurts*...
    
    /. Ian .\
    (Still occasionally riding a cane)

    re: .163 etal
    
    Well then, maybe Eric was correct in his acusations stating that people
    here are sexist themselves......  If I were to choose client
    spacifically because HE was a WHITE MALE, would that be sexist?  Sure
    it would.. so what makes your motives any different?
    
    RE: The reason DEC does it... I knew that, but thanks anyhow.  I just
    dont think it is right.  it is a LEGAL way to discriminate, but that
    doesnt make it any more or less wrong..

    Does money change hands for someone to become a member of this
    conference?  No?
    
    Does money change hands for someone to become your client?  Yes?
    
    That strikes me as a real difference.  If it doesn't strike you
    as one, then I suggest you not accept any money from any of your
    clients and see if it comes to make a difference to you in the
    fullness of time.
    
    						Ann B.

    Good point Ann, but not strongh enough.. WQho says I get paid all of
    the time?  Hmmm?

    RE: .last
    ahhh the ole Pendulum theory.....
    
    although your first para was a fair guess  for some folks...
    I would add that also, those who were/are the discriminated against,
    are in no way shape or form gonna let go of that edge neither...		
    

    
    re:.169
    why would you choose a white male client? i said i would choose a
    non-white non-male client because i could get equal quality and
    might be helping in the on-going fight against oppression. what
    effect would your choosing a white male client have? do you care
    about the social effects of your actions?
    

    Because I can get equal quality.. so why should it matter?
    Opression smopression......  I can get 2 bills from a white male, white
    female, black male, black female, asian etc, etc etc/......
    
    am I a bigot?  am I sexist?

     
    it's fairly easy to say 'opression smopression' when one is not
    oppressed.
    
    as to whether or not you are a bigot or sexist, only you know your
    motivations. i'm fairly certain that noone here is saying that
    patronizing a white male business is sexist or bigotted per se.
    heck, all of us here work for a business that could easily be
    described as white male. i'm merely saying, as others have suggested,
    that patronizing a non-white non-male business *might* be a
    helpful thing to do in the struggle against oppression.
    

    
    
    Patronizing ANY business simply based on the sex/race of the
    owner/operator *is* sexist/racist.
    
    
    It's discrimination based on sex/race (regardless of the sex/race).
    
    
    Is it bad?  That's for you to decide for yourself.  Is it sometimes
    "okay" to be sexist/racist?  Again, that's for you to decide for
    yourself.
    
    I feel it's wrong for me to be sexist/racist, and so I choose what 
    businesses I patronize based on quality of service.  I'm still being
    discriminatory, but I feel better discriminating based on something
    that can be changed.
    
    People can change the quality of their service, however, they can't
    change their sex (very easily) nor the color of their skin.
    
    
    kath

    >I feel it's wrong for me to be sexist/racist, and so I choose what
    >businesses I patronize based on quality of service.
    
    Kath, the question is: what do you do if the quality of service is
    *equal*?
    
    No one here has suggested going to a company of inferior quality simply
    because they are run by or employee some set of people.  What they are
    saying is that they use that criteria to choose among business of
    *equal* quality.
    
    So you tell me: how do you choose among businesses that are of equal
    quality?
    
    If my neighbor on the right sold cookies for a dollar a dozen, and my
    neighbor on the left sold the exact same cookies for the exact same
    price, and my neighbor on the left was a disabled black woman and the
    neighbor on the right was a middle-class white man, I'd buy from the
    neighbor on the left.  What's wrong with that?
    
    D!

    
    
    RE: D! (.179)
    
    > What's wrong with that?
    
    I didn't say anything was wrong with what YOU choose to do.  (Why do I
    feel so defensive right now?)
    
    >   So you tell me: how do you choose among businesses that are of
    >   equal quality?
    
    I find that talking in hypothetical situations rarely has any bearing
    on reality in my world, but I'll take a stab at it.
    
    If quality of service was equal, if distance to establishment was
    equal, if *ALL* of the NUMEROUS FACTORS were equal (very low
    probability, I would assume)....I would probably patronize the
    establishment who needed the business (ie, $$$$$) more....but would 
    not exclude the other business totally, if possible.
    
    
    kathy

    
    
    RE: DougO
    
    >you did say "sexist" and "racist", which (in my eyes, at least) 
    >implies "wrong".
    
    Did you re-read what I said?  Yes, by definition, "sexist" means 
    "discrimination based on sex" and "racism" means "discrimination based
    on race."
    
    then I followed it by the words [paraphrased ]"Is it wrong?  That's 
    for you to decide for yourself."
    
    Any implications were YOURs.  I is YOUR decision to imply that
    either of the two are wrong.  I NEVER made that implication.  And I
    would hope that if you RE-READ what I wrote you'll see that I NEVER
    implied that how *I* feel has ANY bearing on how ANYONE ELSE should
    feel.  In fact, I SPECIFICALLY STATED that what I feel has NO bearing
    on what anyone else "should" feel.
    
    > I don't know why you feel so defensive right now.
    
    When someone else applies THEIR implications to a note that I
    specifically wrote as as NOT to make that sort of implication....yes, I
    do feel justified in feeling defensive.  
    
    If you feel that I implied something other than what I feel I stated
    very clearly, then please point out where... 
    
    I'd be interested in seeing where you feel I was judging the actions of
    others. 
    
    >Were you suggesting that sexist or racist is not necessarily wrong?
    
    Why does it have to be so black/white???  Does it what I feel is
    right/wrong for ME have ANY bearing on what is right/wrong for someone
    else?  
    
    If a woman decides it is morally wrong for HER to have an abortion, is
    she then, by default, PRO-LIFE?  Can she not feel that others can make
    the decision for themselves?
    
    
    Yes, I feel VERY defensive............and I feel justly so.
    
    kathy

    
    i know we've been through this before, but it's sometimes useful to
    review. my webster's new world dictionary defines 'sexism' as:
    
    the economic exploitation and social domination of members of one
    sex by the other, specif. of women by men
    
    this is, to me and i'm sure many others, a fairly accurate description
    of my understanding and usage of the term. please note that it is
    not the same as mere 'discrimination on the basis of sex'.
    
    thus, choosing a woman-owned business might be counteracting sexism.
    similarly, choosing a woman-owned business is not sexism.
    
    

    re .184,
    
    Sorry, Kathy.  I misread.  My earlier note is gone.  Yeah, I make
    mistakes, sorry it set off your defenses.  Let me say a bit more.
    
    Here's a phrase to consider: purchasing power.  One is employing power
    when one spends money.  You choose to discriminate based upon the
    quality of services you receive, and probably several other criteria 
    (I know I use several others, such as convenience to my place of work
    or residence, or near a path I frequently travel, or whatnot.)  In a
    society where women are disadvantaged compared to men (imo), one of my
    criteria is to employ my purchasing power to assist the success of
    women in business.  Yes, that's "sexist".  But when my other option is
    to ignore it, and let the defacto status quo male advantage (again, my
    opinion) become the dominant factor (we're hypothesizing all else being 
    equal) I claim that this option is sexist, too...that by ignoring
    societal factors which advantage men and disadvantage women, we are
    ignoring that these two "equal" service providers are not really equal
    in this society, and favoring the male.  By my thinking, either
    behavior is sexist.  So I choose to support women owned businesses
    because my criteria aims to remove the underlying inequality of this
    society in such small ways as I can.  When women are equal partners in
    this society, maybe I'll change my criteria.  Until then, you see, I
    see your choice as just as sexist as mine, though perhaps in less
    obvious fashion.  And I'm not saying that your choice is wrong for it.
    
    ok?
    
    DougO 

    
    Whenever I have to travel by plane, I CHOOSE a certain airlines as I
    have observed the majority of the ground crew are wymyn....
    
    Also, observing the passenger area of the plane is cleaner, smells
    nicer, and obviously attended by concientious employees.

    All services, perks, etcetera being equal, I am aware that there are
    MANY people who would choose a business owned and run by a respectable
    and heterosexual seeming white male simply because they have the slant
    that this person will provide a better quality product de facto than
    the alternative (which is presumably run by someone who is a woman, a
    black, a homosexual, an American Indian, whatever).  
    
    By choosing to matronize businesses run by people from groups of
    difference, I hope to balance the scales - I'm using my purchasing
    power to "vote" to support these people, and they're often quite
    appreciative of the business....
    
    -Jody
    

    
    
    
    BTW....I might add that 8 times out of 10 I have no idea WHO runs the
    business that I'm patronizing.
    
    For example, how am I supposed to easily find out who runs Stop & Shop
    as opposed to Shaw's?  Or Strawberries, as opposed to Newbury Comics or 
    something?  
    
    I don't feel it's worth my time to find out these things.......I
    wouldn't feel comfortable at all choosing a business based on the sex
    of the owner.......even WITH all things being equal.
    
    What a staggering concept this concocts in my head..........hummm....
    
    
    kat

    Ahhh it all is clear now...
    
    Sexism. n.  To show favortism to males.  the act of prejudice against a
    protected group by white males.  The act of prejudice of white males
    against women and other protected persons in business and politics.
    
    
    Thanks folks. 

    re .192, Kath, I bet that if you check, you'll find that Stop'n'Shop,
    Shaw's, Strawberries and Newbury Comics are all run by white males. 
    Most businesses in the US *are* and it's difficult for minorities and
    women to get started in business because most people are so used to
    having everything run by white men that they choose these businesses
    without even thinking about it.  That's the problem and that's why some
    people choose to do deliberately give business to women and minorities.
    
    I think that so few businesses are run by women and minorities that
    if someone didn't deliberately seek them out, the chances are that the
    business they choose, off the top of their head, will be run by white
    males.  (because most businesses are run by white males!)
    
    Lorna
    

    
    re:.189,.193
    and from which dictionaries, pray, are these?
    

    re; .194
    
    Lorna,
    
    I understand what you are saying, but could you also provide
    clues as to how to obtain this information?  I tend to do
    what kath does, that is to depend on quality and other such
    factors.  9 out of 10 times, I don't know who owns/runs the
    store.  But how do I find this out?  And keeping in mind that
    for *me*, *I* HATE shopping, therefore, conveinence/quality 
    are number 1 on my list.  I would be very happy to try to 
    specifically matronize women run businesses as long as their
    products met my quality/price/conveinience needs, but how do
    you get this information?  I don't have time to do major research
    on every store I go to.
    
    Christine

        Do any woman/minority owned establishments post a little
        sign that says so?  Or would that hurt more than it would
        help?
        
        Dan
        

    
    re .195:
    
    Yeah!
    
    my Random House dictionary offers *no* definition of "sexism"
    
    ipso facto it is a non-word. Not to be used. A total non sequitor
    
    :-)
    
    /. Ian .\

    you could try reading "the women's yellow pages" (I think they may
    still pblish it - my last copy dates from the early 80's....)
    
    -Jody
    

    
    source?
    
    publisher?
    
    International book number?
    
    --- I don't recall seeing that on my local newsvendor's shelves here
    in Britain.
    
    /. Ian .\
    

    
    RE -1
    
    I have seen a directory of wmn-run businesses here, Ian.
    Um...it was in the Pipeline bookshop in Covent Garden, and when I
    glanced through it did seem to contain mainly London-based businesses.
    
    It's not as comprehensive as a normal Yellow Pages though...
    'gail
    

    
    ahh...
    
    well, back to the library then...
    
    /. Ian .\

I'd rather give my money to women-owned, or minority-owned, businesses too,
since I want my money to be doing something besides just buying me
something.  I want to feel like I've done something to help the
(statistically, economically) underdog, the business that has less
(statistical) chance of surviving.  I don't want my choice to be
based only on what's best for me -- I need to have some threshold of quality 
met, and then I want my money to do some good, do some equalizing.

I'd rather think I was doing something to help make the world a little
more equal than base my purchases purely on my selfish what's-the-best-
for-me.

Call it what you will -- but if you're walking down the street and a
poor-looking person and a rich-looking person both were to ask you for
money, which would you give it to?  You'd discriminate against the
rich-looking person and give more often to the poor-looking person, no?
Women- and minority-owned businesses are in the minority and have a harder
time surviving and are less likely to have more capital behind them,
that's the probability in our current society.  I can't ignore that, and
I want to use my heart and wallet to help equalize.

	MKV

    I'd very likely keep it equal and give neithe money-I can't afford
    it, so call me selfish.
    

    
    In addition to wanting to support women and minority-owned businesses
    (when I'm lucky enough to find them), I've also found that I like
    shopping in a place where I feel comfortable.  Those of you who are
    white and straight appearing (according to commonly held stereotypes)
    might not realize how badly some of the rest of us are treated in
    "mainstream" businesses.  I know we all get bad service from time to
    time, and that it often has to with the server and not the customer,
    but.. I am often passed over by servers in favor of a more
    "conventional" looking customer.  Sometimes I get mean looks or even
    under-their-breath nasty comments from servers and other customers.  
    So if I can avoid it, I don't go back there.  Why feel unwelcome, when 
    I can go someplace else and get a smile, a friendly word, and respect?!!!  
    All this and I get to support someone who's had a harder time getting bank 
    loans and maybe business licenses, too?  I feel good about it.   There are
    plenty of times when I have no choice but to continue to support the
    well-established, white-male-owned businesses, so when I do have the 
    choice to do otherwise, I exercise that choice freely and happily!
    
    Justine      

    Lorna,  A point of interest...
    
    Stop n Shop companies (Including Bradlees) was owned by the Goldbergs, 
    Wanna guess who was the Pres and who weas the Vice?  :-)
    
    I worked for them a few years back as manager of store dicks....

    re .208, I had forgotten that Bradlees and Stop'n'Shop were owned by
    the same company.  But, now I do recall a photo of that smiling,
    white-bread type, middle-America looking woman in Bradlees.  
    
    Did she actually *start* the business, or did she inherit, or marry
    into it?  How many of her individual store managers are women?  Is she
    really the "boss" or is she just a smiling figurehead for the Bradlees
    ads?  (She looks a little like Betty Crocker doesn't she?)
    
    Lorna
     

    Yes, she does indeed look like Betty Crocker..:-)
    
    YEs SHE runs (las I knew anyhow) the company.. And she be a tough one
    at that!  As for managers... I ran the store dicks for the two Nashua
    stores and the Manchester (NH) store.  The Simenole (sp) Plaza store
    was run by a woman, with an asst who was also female, the DM's
    (Department managers) were about half.  The Nashua Mall was run by a
    female, and her asst female also, (to this day there is still a female
    manager there)  a short period there was a a male manager but he
    died.... the DM's were 3/4 female.. and the manchester store was run by
    males with dm's about half.....  MY district manager was a male but his
    boss was a female (Corp.)....
    
    granted, this is a mall sample, but it should give you an idea... yes?
    
    al 
    
    

    re .211, well, good, then.  I need a new alarm clock and a new electric
    can opener (both stopped working in the same month!!!), so I'll just
    run into the nearest Bradlees to get them, and I'll be supporting a
    woman owned business at the same time. :-)
    
    Not much of a comparison to Womencrafts in P-town or Crone's Harvest
    but....I guess there's room for all types of woman owned businesses.
    
    Lorna
     

    The chain of "Body Shop" stores is run by a woman.  (I mentioned this
    chain in the "Animal Rights" topic.)  There are now 450 of these stores
    world-wide, and it made her the 4th richest woman in the UK.  Sorry, I
    don't know how that ranks among the richest *people* in the UK; my
    source didn't give it that way.  Number one is the Queen, I think.
    
    For those who missed it there, the Body Shop specializes in toiletries
    and cosmetics that use natural ingredients and are not tested on
    animals.

    RE: Getting the "owner behind the owner" (apologies to Paul Harvey)
    
    It typically isn't easy to find out who "really" owns a large chain
    these days. And I'm not advocating spending all one's waking hours
    trying to find out. However, if I *should* happen to find out, I then
    do make the choice of whether to support particular groups or companies
    with my money. 
    
    --DE
    
    
    

    Good.  Glad yer happy Lorna... Shoot, I am so happy that yer happy that
    I am going back to that position in two weeks on a temp basis (until
    Feb)...:-)
    
    

    Al
    
    if I picked your 'dec' agency because it was a small one, but you
    are someone I wanted to support, how is that choice different?
    
    Bonnie

    Choosing an agency based upon thier small amount of clientel is one
    thing Bon, but to choose said agency based upon the gender of the owner
    is wrong.  Say I were to hire an asc, and I only wanted a male...you
    know, only men can handle guns and I like to have a guy that can handle
    one, so I only interview males... thats sexist, discrimination etal...
    right?  Say I only go to &^(^ graphics cause (*&^( graphics has onlt
    white males working for him....  isnt that sexist?  I think so, so
    whats the dif?  The only difference I see is that one group is not
    protected by law, thus it is acceptable and pretty much legal to
    discriminate against them.... yes?
    

Over the years, I've consistently preferred to give my business
to small businesspeople rather than "big business." I also
like to buy Vermont (my home state) products whenever I can.
What kind of "isms" am I guilty of with these confessions? ;-) 

Most often, I don't know whether the owner of any given establishment
is a woman or a member of a minority. My interests, however, sometimes
lead me to woman-owned businesses.... For example, when I go hunting for
a good selection of books by and about women, odds are real good the
store is owned by a woman. 

Kathy

    
    
    	A couple of evenings ago, several computer nerds ;-) and myself
    	were experimenting with a add-in module for the PC called 
    	Sound Blaster.  One feature of Sound Blaster is voice recognition..
    	sort of.  It seems to only recognize **male** voices !!
    	A 'game' included is a parrot.  You speak into the microphone,
    	and the parrott on the screen echos what you say.  When a man
    	talks, the parrot echos it back in a decent replication of a male
    	voice.  When I was finally able to get it to recognize my voice,
    	it echoed this AWFUL high-pitched chirpy-sounding noice somewhat
    	like the words I said.  What's even **worse** is that most of the
    	time, it responded to what I said with , "don't talk gibberish" in
    	parrott talk!  The nerve of that parrott ;-)!!!!
    
    	Needless to say, the guys present were quite amused.  
    	Needless to say, I was totally miffed!!
    
    							nancy b.
    

    
    .219 -
    
    Does Dale Spender know about this?  ;-)
    
    D.
    

I have a SoundBlaster, and the demo nancy is talking about doesn't actually do
any speech recognition - it just notices when then sound level rises above a
certain floor, records the input, does some signal processing on it, and plays
it back. It's a "mimic". It randomly throws in some obnoxious responses instead
of playback. I think the problem may be that the sampling rate for the digitizer
is pretty low, and so does a worse job on higher frequencies - women's voices
are higher frequency, and so it messes them up more, that and nancy just got
unlucky.

	-- Charles

    I saw this on TV yesterday. It's for a technical training school. I'm
    not sure which one, except that it's in Mass. After going on about all
    the electronics and computer repair training one got by going to this
    school, they showed "testimonials" from people. This was obviously
    posed for by professional models type of testmonials. Anyway, they
    showed a man fixing some kind of electronic widget and saying how his
    training had landed him a good job. Then they show a woman saying how
    her training had prepared her for an exciting job in electronics and
    they showed her as a receptionist behind a desk in some office
    building.
    
    I'm not sure if they meant to portray the woman as only being able to
    get a receptionist's job or not and they didn't say if they included
    this type of training. I just felt somewhat disgusted after seeing the
    commercial.
    
    Phil

    from Physics Today, this month, discussing how male scientists are
    portrayed by the press as near-gods, and female scientists are
    described as "normal folks":
    
    "She's a brilliant scientist, her children are perfectly charming, and
    she's so darn pretty it makes it all seem so unfair."
    
    The sentence appeared in McCall's.

    I saw a commercial for a small package company (no names as I'm not
    sure it's OK to do that in here and DEC does a lot of business with
    them) yesterday. Basically, a company exec put together an interoffice
    basketball game, was playing horribly, getting more and more frustrated
    and ended up screaming at the package delivery person and being
    pleasently surprised when he saw who it was and got his important
    package in a timely manner. The sexist part, (to me) was two women kept
    asking in unison to play in the game and the boss kept screaming NO at
    them. I know that wasn't the point of the commercial and was probably a
    jab at people who behave this way, but many might take it wrong and see
    it as accepttable behavior. I thought it was wrong anyway.
    
    Phil
    

re .225

The manager in the ad decided to have the basketball game to instill some 
team spirit in his group.  In my opinion, the ad portrayed the manager as
a bit demented when it came to basketball.  One or two guys were on the 
periphery waiting for the ball to get passed to them.  The boss kept a hold
of the ball and wouldn't let anyone else play, including the women on the
side line (who looked quite capable of playing basketball).  I believe the
ad was meant to show what a bad boss the guy was, not that is acceptable
to leave women on the sidelines.

			Bb

    
    
    I was listening to WAAF on the way to work this morning, and I almost
    physically threw up.
    
    
    A guy has called in to play their "Beat the Clock" game.  The
    conversation went something like this:
    
    DJ:  Is there anyone you'd like to say hello to this morning?
    Guy: Yea, my beaver, who's at home asleep this morning.
    DJ:  Hey, that's not cool, that's not nice.
    Guy: <stammer> Uh <stammer> I meant my girlfriend.
    
    ......break to commercial......
    
    It physically sickens me to hear comments like this coming out of
    someone's mouth.  I can't believe that a woman would actually STAND for
    someone treating her that way, as if she were just a piece of meat for
    him to come home to and bang away at.
    
    I'm going to be ill just sitting here thinking about it.
    
    8-(
    
    
    kath

re .227

I've heard worse from a DJ on that station.

    I caught a segment of one of those "Aerobics with Alice" type shows.
    
    There were 3 participants on 3 colored "spots" on the floor, and
    an instructor in front. One of the participants was a man. [Wow!
    Great! So far, so good.]
    
    Each of the 3 participants was doing a different "level" of aerobics -
    from "low impact" to "high energy". Guess who was doing "high energy"?
    Yup. Our Boy.
    
    Women can *almost* do it - not quite, but *close*.
    
    No cigar, though....
    
    

    Ummm....Dawn, I think I might have seen that show; 3 different energy
    levels, three instructors...they rotate to different platforms, and a
    different one (the "medium-energy" level one) does the spiel, each time
    the music changes.  The three "spots" you mentioned, were they really
    circular platforms at slightly different heights?
    
    DougO

    Hiya Doug!
    
    No - there were just spots on the floor. But  if they *do* change
    spots, I am MORE than thrilled!! Also, I think it was three spot-bound
    "students" and a non-spot "instructor".
    
    --DE
    

    
    
    
    RE: .229
    
    
    Actually, I've heard that high impact aerobics are worse on women's
    bodies than men....the jarring effect can really tear up a woman's
    insides.
    
    High impact aerobics is bad for anyone, really, and should be avoided.
    I suppose we could look at it the optimist way and say that the women
    were taking more care in their bodies because they were avoiding a
    level of exercise that is bad.
    
    (FWIW, anyone attempting to LOSE WEIGHT, should work out at low impact
    levels anyway).
    
    
    kathy

    (we need some good news in this note...)
    
    i watched _fromage '90_, muchmusic's annual worst videos of the year
    show. last year the worst videos were generally idiotic songs, with
    cliched, inane videos that had nothing to do with the song.
    
    this year many of the worst were disgustingly sexist, misogynist rap
    and heavy metal songs with disgusting videos to match.
    
    maybe there's hope after all.
    
    ...laura

    So as not to perpetuate incorrect ideas about exercise: women's
    "insides" are not "torn up" by jarring more than men's. 
    
    Ligament and tendon damage might be the same for both.
    
    If you are in good shape, high-impact aerobics are probably not
    harmful; however, NOone NEEDS high-impact to get the aerobic
    benefit. As long as your heart-rate is in your target zone,
    you are getting the benefit.
    
    --DE
    

    
    
    re: .234
    
    Hummmm......not what my doctor told me (and I seem to remember reading
    in one of my fitness books.....).  I'll check......
    
    kath

    Well, I have a friend who was told by her doctor to get rid of her
    cat because it would suck the breath out of her baby. MD's aren't
    free from odd ideas.
    
    No course I ever took in school (physical education), no reputable
    exercise physiology book, no professor, ever mentioned jarring being
    more harmful to women's "insides". The fascia that connects all the
    organs does so in both genders. The only problem I could see would
    be if that fascia or the abdominal musculature had been weakened in
    some way. 
    
    I *have* been told many times, however, that the knee and ankle joints
    are in danger (in both genders) from the excessive jarring of running
    on hard surfaces (and presumably, high-impact aerobics on hard
    surfaces.)
    
    Hmmm...I feel a rathole coming on....
    
    --DE
    
    

    I second what DE says (for what it's worth, I got a Master's in
    Health Education in my life before DEC). Mostly the lower body joints
    suffer from *HIGH* impact aerobics.  

    Last week a heard a report on NPR that high impact aerobics may cause 
    damage to the inner ear that results in small hearing losses and
    ringing of the ears.  I always thot my ears rang from the music
    being so loud!  
    
    Linda
    

          From the Miami Herald:

                 _Quayle says he will keep golfing at all-male club_

          Vice President Dan Quayle said Sunday he stopped playing at an
          all-white golf course because it might look bad, but he has no
          problem playing at a club that excludes women.

          Quayle cut short a golf outing Friday at the all-white Cypress
          Point Golf Course in Pebble Beach, California.

          Quayle said he decided to cancel a Friday round of golf at
          Cypress Point after learning it was the subject of controversy
          because of its all-white membership.

          But he said he will continue to play at the Burning Tree course
          outside Washington where women are barred as members and can't
          even play as guests.

          Quayle said he is an honorary member of Burning Tree by virtue of
          being vice president but is not a dues paying member.

          "I've played there before, and I'll play there again," he said
          when asked about the matter by reporters traveling with him to
          visit U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.

          "I'm not going to protest Burning Tree,"  he said. "Maybe they'll
          change.  I think it would be a good idea for them to take women
          into the club.  I don't have any problem playing there in the
          meanwhile."

    
    
    	Does anyone know the address of our VP?
    	(wasn't that posted somewhere else here in =wn= once?)
    
    						nancy b.
    

    
    do you mean mars, pennsylvania?
    

Nope - mars as in the solar system. He's said publically that he supports a
manned Mars mission because Mars has enought oxygen. Clearly he must have some
first hand knowledge.

Speaking of first hand knowledge, you might try

	The Vice President of the United States
	1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
	Washington, DC 20500

I'm not sure it should go to the White House, it maybe should go to the Senate,
in which case you need to know which building - I don't.

	-- Charles

    re:.238
    
    Sexism, hell. What about the implicit racism?  Note that he claims
    that he won't play at Cypress Point (the all-white course) because
    it's *controversial*. Not because their discrimination is morally
    reprehensible.
    
    --- jerry

    He clearly didn't see "Total Recall".
    
    D!

For the folks in Saudi as the ad calls them "our boys overseas."

Double whammy!

Barb

RE:<<< Note 34.247 by BATRI::MARCUS ""I am not an actor...this is my true story"" >>>
                         -< NBC Ads for Bob Hope Show >-

>For the folks in Saudi as the ad calls them "our boys overseas."



Everytime I hear someone refering to "our boys overseas" I cringe.  One can
hear it a lot on talk shows, and when I do I want to call them up and tell them
that there are women over there also.  But, lacking a car phone I wind up yell-
ing at the radio.




Jim

Jim,

One wonders when anyone is going to wake up to the fact that women are an
integral part of our services effort.  From looking at the ads, there is a sea
of young men's faces cheering for the show.  I wonder if it's just the camera
angle or if only combat batallions were invited?

Not to mention that anyone who carries an assualt (whatever else) weapon and is
looking down the barrel of whatever missle/weapon systems could hardly *in my
opinion* be considered a boy.

Barb

    
    From what I've observed of our culture, it's more profitable to photograph
    women for other purposes.
    
    D.

    re .247 .248,                   
    
    And I am sure that if the phrase "our girls overseas" is used, there
    will be someone screaming sexism (How DARE you call 'em girls!).
    
    Come on people.  I say we stop wasting energy on these trivial things
    and work on the real problems (such as how to make the business
    environment more accessible to women and lessen job descriminations
    and myriads of other real issues).
    
    Eugene 

re: .251

Sometimes we eat a full course dinner, sometimes we have a little snack, no?

Barb

    One thing at a time, OK?
    
    Right now a batch of young women and men are overseas in a foreign and
    hostile environment.  Apparently there is a strong desire not to
    recognize women in that area so as not to offend.  (Offend who?  The
    people we are obstensively protecting?  Those here who prefer to
    believe that women are not in danger from combat?)
    
    I try to remember that Bob Hope is a holdover from another era, which
    also didn't recognize women for their contributions in the military,
    but the fact that his publicity people are acting like the same sort of
    holdovers is at the very least distastful to me.
    
    Meg

    So we take one thing at a time.  "Our boys overseas" is a way to convey
    certain affection by a prominent elderly figure to the soldiers.  It
    is not the same as saying "our men overseas".  "Our girls overseas"
    conveys anything but an image of female soldiers in Saudi.  English 
    language is loaded with metaphors that most of the time two 
    phrases of the same literal meaning convey entirely different moods 
    and emotions.  This is why Cliff Note is such an absurd idea 
    (although we all like them in college).  Picture this:  "Friends, 
    Romans, countrymen, countrywomen, lend me your ears."  Need I say more?
    
    Eugene
                                      

If I see a couple of the males who work for me in the hallway, I may say
"Boys, how ya doin'?"  I guess its a habit I picked up somewhere along the
way.  But if I were to see a couple of the women who work for me in a hallway
or cafeteria or whatever I wouldn't say "Girls, how ya doin'?"  I can't recall
a time when I would have done so.


As someone said a few replies back, the males over there preparing for war
can hardly be refered to as boys, and I guess I missed that when I replied
to .247.




Jim

>    Picture this:  "Friends, 
>    Romans, countrymen, countrywomen, lend me your ears."  Need I say more?
    
    Hey, I like it better.  On one hand, it's so much more inclusive.
    On the other hand, it's less man-hating -- the other version implies
    one of two things, depending on whether you consider it inclusive
    of the same population as the version above and that "Romans" includes
    the same group in either case:

	A. that not all countrymen are friends, but all countrywomen are
	B. that the countrymen are being singled out [from the countrywomen]
	   for [temporary] disfigurement.

    Eugene's version is much more universally malicious, and much more
    appropriate to a time of impending war where both male and female
    soldiers will fight.

	Sharon

    re .256,
    
    Hey, that is hilarious, and I laughed so hard and had to get out of my
    office for a walk in the hall.  Well Sharon, I am flattered and much 
    encouraged.  What other Shakespearean plays do thou think I may labor to 
    improve?
    
    Eugene

    Well, I saw some of them in the airports over Christmas. And
    a good chunk of 'em are a hair's breadth from being boys and girls.
    
    Still, they're legally adults, so I'd say "men" and "women" would
    be preferred.
    
    After all, twould be a shame to have children die over there.
    
    --DE
    

    before nastiness broke out, news reports (canadian ones, at least)
    included discussions with women serving in the gulf. it's a boy's club
    now, except for that correspondent from _al hayat_...
    
    ...laura

    
    ... people's last names.
    
    Davidson, Michaelson, Johnson, Frederickson, Adamson, Martinson,
    Olafson, Otteson, Robson, Robertson, Eastman, Newman, Goldman, 
    Goodman, Goodfellow, King ... to name a few.
    
    Carla Joycedaughter
    

    re .260, That is so true.
    
    Lorna Veradaughter
    

    "daughter" is too long is a name.  how about "do" or "da" for a suffix
    meaning "daughter of?"
    
    Diana Donnada
    (or would that be Diana Carrolldo?)
    
    (Kinda has a nice ring too it, doesn't it?)

    
    as some of you are no doubt aware, in iceland people are, in fact,
    named that way. i have dear friends named olaf thorarinsdottir,
    anna-sigga ossesdottir and orn oskarson (they are mother, daughter
    and father in the same family)
    

    Bonnie Harrietsdottir
    
    i like it....
    
    hmmmm wonder if michael would call himself donaldson or bonnieson..
    
    if bonnieson, then Cannan would .....
    
    never mind ! ;-) X100

    
    
    Why does "mothersdottir" look better than "mothersdaughter"?
    
    I like Christine Violasdottir, myself.  (My mother could be Viola
    Flosiasdottir.)
    
    So, has anyone actually _done_ this, intentionally?
    
    CQ

    somewhere or other in this conference (or V2) I *know* there's been a 
    mention of the three books detailing the 13th century novelization of 
    a woman's life, Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigurd Unseth (I think).
    
    DougO

    doesn't *anybody*else* read Darkover books???
    
    Sara n'ha Joyce
    
    
    (but I can't decide whether or not I want to change from "Thigpen". 
    Yah, it's Bob's name, but it's hard to hate a name that seems to mean
    'that genteely poor family on the top of the hill' :-> )
    (My Mom's name was Kronick.... nah.  I'd have to have the same name as
    the Ice Bitch, by most hated relative.)
    (My Dad's name is Stutz, shortened a few generations back from
    Bialostutzkia, meaning "from Bialostok" I think.)

	Well, I know, that the way to tell if there's trouble anywhere in the
	world, there will be a woman there reporting it. If she's not there,
	then there's no trouble.


	Heather

    	Does this mean I should become Amy Goldwoman?  :^)

    	amy

    Amy you could be Amy n'ha XXXXXXX instead :-)

    
This is excerpted from an article in the New Yorker, Jan. 7, 1991, called
"The House of Hashem," written by Milton Viorst. It describes what happened 
to a woman candidate for parliament in Jordan before, during, and after the
elections in 1989. 


"One of the losers in the election was Toujan Faisal, a beautiful, long-
haired woman of forty-one. She told me an incredible story, which I was
later able to confirm in detail. Faisal, a graduate in English literature
from the University of Jordan, was an announcer on the national television
station in 1988, when her editor assigned her to a new beat, covering
women's affairs, a subject with which she had long been deeply concerned.
She became the hostess of 'Women's Issues', a series that each week
considered a different problem of special interest to women. 'It turned out
to be the most controversial series in this history of Jordanian
television,' she told me. The broadcast that stirred up the most frenzy
dealt with the physical abuse suffered by women in every stratum of
society. 'The fundamentalists tried to have that particular program banned
before it went on the air,' she said. 'Afterward, the local newspapers
received hundreds of letters of protest from outraged men. The letters were
unbelievably sadistic. They maintained that it was a God-given right for
men to beat women, and that my program was challenging God's order.' 

"Faisal, a Circassian, was born into a family of lawyers and judges; her 
husband is a gynecologist. She explained to me that the Muslim woman is 
kept powerless by her total economic dependency. Her husband often 
confiscates her property and sometimes her income. He can keep three or 
four wives, and divorce and remarry at will. The divorced wife can be 
thrown out of her house, be left destitute, and even be deprived of her 
children. No woman is safe, not at any social rank; husbands take and 
dispose of wives as they move up the economic ladder. In response to these 
injustices, she said, she had become a student of the Koran and had learned 
that such behavior was nowhere authorized in the scriptures. It was, 
rather, a tradition established by men in the interests of men. 'I rebutted 
the fundamentalists within the context of Islam,' she said. 'I quoted 
directly from the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet. What these men have 
created is a distortion, but the fundamentalists said that I was a heretic, 
and that I wanted four husbands for myself.'

"After almost a year of denunciations and threats by religious fanatics, 
the Ministry of Information took the program off the air. It was at that 
point that Faisal filed as a candidate to run for a seat in the parliament. 
She and her husband raised about two thousand dollars, almost half of which 
went for filing fees, and placed newspaper advertisements announcing her 
candidacy. She was deluged with offers of help. She campaigned on, among 
other things, a proposal to amend Jordanian family law to give women 
greater rights, which, she said, so infuriated the fanatics that they 
brought charges of apostasy against her in a religious court. The penalties 
for conviction included dissolution of her marriage and separation from her 
children. In the fashion of Khomeini's condemnation of Salman Rushdie, her 
accusers called for the lifting of punishment from any Muslim who might 
choose to assassinate her--the equivalent of an extra-legal death sentence. 
The first judge to hear the case threw it out, but the fundamentalists 
shopped around and found a judge who was willing to rehear the charges. The 
result was a series of pre-trial hearings--in the course of which the 
police had to protect her from screaming zealots--which ended when the 
court disclaimed jurisdiction. During all this, Faisal said, she campaigned 
under the protection of volunteer bodyguards, while her husband (who 
ultimately had to close his clinic) and other members of her family were 
constantly subjected to harassment and intimidation.

"Just before election day, she said, a delegation of secular-minded 
intellectuals called on King Hussein to protest her treatment. The King has 
always favored women's rights, she said, and was personally responsible for 
the adoption of woman suffrage in 1973, but he was unaware of the turmoil 
around her, which the press, intimidated by the fundamentalists, had largely 
ignored. When he learned of it, he was deeply upset, and in response made 
his election-eve statement criticizing religious extremism. But even he--to 
say nothing of the Queen, whose hands are tied on Islamic issues--was not 
powerful enough to confront the fundamentalists head on. Faisal came in 
third among six candidates for the seat she was contesting. She insisted 
to me--and others confirmed--that she was deprived of many votes by 
electoral fraud, and, in fact, her district was the only one in Jordan 
where the results were not announced until the next day, and one of only 
two where there was evidence of serious irregularities.

"Since the election, the fundamentalists' war against Faisal has not let 
up. They succeeded in having her case reheard before an appeals court, 
which acquitted her. However, fundamentalist leaders have continued to 
denounce her as a heretic from the pulpits of their mosques. Some of the 
imams are advocating the death sentence. 'They do not forgive,' Faisal 
said, 'though I suppose that if I agreed to give up politics permanently 
they would leave me alone.' Unable to find work, she is bringing up her 
children alone, in an apartment in an Amman suburb, which is where I talked 
to her. Her husband is now working abroad. She remains active in various 
women's-rights groups, and she seems resigned to unemployment, unless some 
international agency with an office in Amman offers her a post. 
Unfortunately, she said, it seemed unlikely that her candidacy would set a 
precedent for other women. She predicted that the abuse she suffered would 
discourage women for a long time from running for office. 'I don't think 
that even the human-rights community in the West has noticed,' she said. 
'But I believe I am fighting for human rights. In an Islamic country like 
ours, that often comes down to fighting for the rights of women.'"
    

I had an English teacher named Nadorski when I was in high school.  She
was Estonian or Latvian or something, and took the name as a political 
statement.  It means (or she thought it meant) "Daughter of Dorski," 
which is the name of her home town in her home country, which she 
had to flee when it was overrun by the Soviet army.(Whew, what an 
awful sentence . . . )  

I also knew a woman named Helga Dramsmutter (spelling not guaranteed) --
She wasn't Dram's mother; it was a family name the same as Goldman or 
Randall.

--bonnie

    even most of the Nordic namings trace through the male line
    
      Olafsdottir, Eriksdottir, ...
    
    the Irish naming Mac - son of, Ni - daughter of, O - of the line of
    still generally ties itself to some male personage.
    
    In more modern times the Ni has come to mean 'a woman of the line of'
    in common usage.  Hence, MacConnal would translate to 'son of Connal',
    O'Connal would be of Connal's line, and NiConnal [no funny marks or
    spare letters on this terminal] either 'Connal's daughter' OR 'a woman
    of Connal's line'
    
      Annie
    

    >     a woman's life, Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigurd Unseth (I think).
    
    oops.  That's Sigrid Unseth.
    
    DougO

    
      <<< Note 34.275 by SX4GTO::OLSON "Doug Olson, ISVG West, UCS1-4" >>
    
    >>Unseth. which should be Undset...
    
    ;_)
    Bo

    >Undset
    
    ! oh!  thank you.  My english language edition does have the anglicized
    spelling, and I've never seen it as Undset.
    
    DougO

This morning I retrieved the 10-16 Nov 1990 issue of The
Economist which my husband had discarded in the trash can,
wondering what could possibly be in it that was better than sex. 
I didn't find anything that excited me that much, but I did find
this article about sexism in Africa (copied without permission).
 
                     Women's Value, Men's Worth
 
The lot of African women is not only unfair, it also costs Africa
money.  With vast underemployment, Africa needs to encourage
small businesses.  In much of western Africa women dominate
commerce.  But in other parts of the continent banks will not
lend to women.  Most of Africa's farmers are women.  But their
efforts to improve yields are often thwarted by prejudice.  The
World Bank is so concerned at this wasted potential that a third
of its African loans include special mention of how they should
help women.
 
Yet in some ways women's lot continues to get harder.  As the
towns grow, men drift away from the land, abandoning their
traditional share of farm work.  As schools multiply, women also
get less help from children.  The ecological disasters creeping
across Africa add to women's workloads, impoverishing the soil
and denuding the countryside of trees.  In deforested parts of
Zimbabwe, women spend a fifth of their time collecting wood for
cooking and brewing.
 
Too much of the help that Africa's farmers need misses them
because it is not aimed at women.  Most of the continent's
agricultural advisers are men, who feel uncomfortable advising
other men's wives.  Incentives to farmers are often misconceived,
as when Kenya sought to encourage tea-growers by paying an annual
bonus to the (male) owners of the land, rather than to the wives
who did the work.
 
Outsiders trying to help Africa's villages naturally ask village
authorities what sort of help they need.  The authorities are
men.  Ask a Kenyan chief what his people want, and he is likely
to request water for the cattle, since men traditionally do the
herding.  The women, who do three-quarters of Kenya's farming,
might prefer a village store, to save a long walk to the town. 
CARE Kenya, the local branch of an international development
agency, says that when it consults a village about the siting of
a pump men make the decision -- even though the women are left to
install the pump and to fetch water from it afterwards.
 
Most outsiders are aware of such traps; but their efforts to help
women are frequently frustrated.  Proposals to secure land title
for women are often squashed by jealous men.  In one village in
Zimbabwe a grinder was installed to help prepare sadza, the maize
porridge that is the country's staple food.  To generate cash for
other labour-saving devices, women who used the grinder paid a
small fee.  But the grinder fund was soon being administered by
the more literate men -- and spent on men's preoccupations.
 
Reformers try to help women with changes to the law, but old
attitudes die hard.  A Zimbabwean who beat his wife to death was
fined a mere Z$250 ($100) last year .  Mitigating circumstances,
said the magistrate:  one evening she had refused to cook supper
for the children.  Modern law has limited reach in Africa, whose
customary codes, preserved by colonists, still govern the way
many of the continent's people live.
 
Kenya's statutes forbid polygamy, so men marry extra wives under
customary law.  In defiance of statute, Swazi women before
consulting a doctor or buying land are often made to produce
written permission from their husbands -- many of whom work far
away in South Africa's mines.  Custom often prevails even where
social change has made it absurd.  A widow may find all her
belongings snatched away by her dead husbands brother.  That made
some sense when brother and widow lived in the same village, and
the widow became the brother's responsibility.  Now that the
extended family is disintegrating, the brother may claim the
furniture but not the widow.
 
Most widows are ignorant of the laws that protect them.  A better
deal for women thus depends on education, and that in turn
depends on lower birth rates.  Africa's girls and boys attend
primary school with comparable diligence; but later on far more
girls drop out than boys.  Their mother calls them home to look
after younger brothers and sisters; or the teacher sends them
home because they themselves are pregnant.
 
Without better education it is hard to spread the use of
contraception.  The World Bank reckons that women with ten years'
schooling want on average three fewer children than women with no
education.  True, Zimbabwe and Botswana have managed to persuade
about a third of all couples to use contraception.  For the
continent as a whole, however, the Bank puts the rate of use at
only 3-4%.  Men, you see, don't like it.
    

    Friday night on 20/20, a female ABC correspondent was interviewed about
    her time in Saudi Arabia with the troops.  She spent 6 weeks with 
    marines at the front.
    
    Barbara Walters was just dying to ask questions of her peer.  Here's
    what they consisted of:
    
    1.  Where did you shower?
    2.  I see a wedding band, so I suppose that precluded a romance?
    3.  How could you stand being away from your husband in Atlanta?
    
    ARRRRGHHHHH!
    
    Hugh Downs had the sense to ask her the real questions.
    
    judy

    I know this is a nit but: considering that Africa is made up of over 50
    different countries, compared to 34 in Europe, and far fewer in North
    America, its seems totally ridiculous (to me, anyway) to name a topic
    about ONLY 3 COUNTRIES as "Africa".
    
    That's like titling an article which discusses Guatemala and the
    Honduras as "North America". 
    
    I would appreciate it if the topic were renamed as Kenya, Zimbabwe and
    Botswana, or "Countries in South-East Africa".
     

    Gosh, 'ren (I hope I got your name right).  I guess I interpreted the
    article to be refering to sexism in a large part of the continent with
    specific examples from those three countries.  Maybe that was a bad
    assumption on my part.  Anyway I have deleted the title and left the
    reply untitled.  I posted the article because it helped raise my 
    conciousness of the lot of women in other parts of the world.  It bugs
    me that that kind of stuff occurs anywhere on the planet and I
    certainly didn't mean to slight Africa as a continent.
    
    Mary

    My aerobics class.
    
    As we were discussing what kind of bodywork to do in aerobics today the
    man who took class today said, (meaning, I assumed, that he wanted to
    do pushups) "Girls don't like pushups."  I looked at him pointedly
    and said "But women do."
    
    I did not smile. nor did he.  I almost felt like apologizing.
    but not enough.
    
    -Jody
    

    
    
    	Yay, Jody !!
    
    

    A few weeks ago, PEOPLE ran an article about Terri Fischette, the
    Continental employee who got the mandatory makeup policy overturned. 
    Now, in the Letters section of the latest issue:
    
    "I wonder if it ever occurred to Ms. Fischette that perhaps Continental
    Airlines was doing her a favor by suggesting that she use makeup?  At
    38, she isn't the fresh-faced young lady she was 20 years ago."
                                            o Patty Johnston, Fairfax, VA

    I ran into a DECcie a couple days ago (not at DEC) who (unaware that I
    too was a DECcie) was complaining about some big-wig at DEC he had to
    deal with.
    
    I made some noncommital comment about "Well you can never tell about
    those corporate types" and he says "Corporate, yeah!  This woman is one
    level away from being VP, and she'll *definitely* make it.  She's got
    all she needs: she's a woman, and she's got the walk, she's got the
    clothes and she's got the attitude."
    
    I wish I had had time to argue with him.
    
    D!

"husband: a married man."

"wife: a woman to whom a man is married."


-- The American Heritage Dictionary (Office Edition)

    Re: -.1  is that like active vs. passive.  I guess so.

    I don't remember reading this in here before, but it really ticked me
    off when I saw it:

    Bradlees did a Mother's Day TV commercial for telephones and answering
    machines.  The voiceover talked about making life easier for mom, but
    the video showed only men using them.

    deb  8-\

     ... my wallet.
    
    A quick look at the US currency currently resident in my wallet shows
    the following signatures:
    
      Series 1985 bills:
    
    	Katherine Davalos Ortega	
    	  Treasurer of the United States	
    
    	James A. Baker III
         Secretary of the Treasury
    
    
      Series 1988 bills:
    
        Catalina Vasquez Villalpanto	[sp?]
    	  Treasurer of the United States	
    
    	Nicholas F. Brady
    	  Secretary of the Treasury
    
    
    An interesting trend here ....

    The Treasurer is _not_ a Cabinet member. The Secretary _is_.

    The Treasurer has by long tradition been a woman. I recall women
    Treasurers from when I was in grade school.
    
    Bonnie

    re.291
    
    no, sh&t ...
    
    ... it just kinda, sorta looks to me like 'Mama's purse gotta be full
    of money, but Dad get to say how it be spent ...'
    
    quite aside from the cabinet/no-cabinet political appointee business

      "it's uncivilized and women can't do it.  women give life, sustain 
       life, nuture life, they can't take it.  if you want to make a 
       combat unit ineffective, assign women to it."

                               - former marine corps commandant,
                                 ret. general  robert h. barrow

    
    
    Note 883.9
    

    
    Copied without permission from "Computing" - Britain's most
    widely-read computer "comic"....
    
    "Not all italian men are male chauvenist pigs who would rather pinch
    a woman's bum than engage her in meaningful conversation.
    Only those employed by DEC.
    
    It also seems that the more sexist they are, the higher their position
    within the company, for the biggest mcp of them all is undoubtedly
    Pierre Carlo Falotti, president of DEC Europe.
    
    At a preview of thie year's DEC Services roadshow Falotti was asked
    by a plucky journalist why there were no women on DEC's board
    of directors.
    
    Falotti, a poor man's Yul Bryner with a taste in suits that makes John
    Major look flashy, rubbed his pointed pate and replied:
    'Because we all have one at home'.
    
    Conratulations, Signor Falotti. You have been short-listed for the
    Backbytes 1991 Clammy Hands award.
    
    Perhaps DEc should leave off the restructuring of its business and
    start reconstructing some of its male employees."
    

    I just lost my appetite.
    
    Did you forward this to Ken?  Or maybe the Delta program could use the
    restructuring idea.
    
    Where can I sign up to work for PCF?  He probably wouldn't expect much
    of me.  It would be a cushy job...I make a good cup of coffee.
    
    Nancy ;^-
    
    ps wasn't there a woman on the bod up until a few years ago?
    

Unfortunately, there is no recording of this Q&A session. However, this is 
what several participants recall of the conversation:

The question came at the end of a very long day of briefing journalists on 
the importance of Services to the success of Digital. The atmosphere was 
friendly and very relaxed.

Pier Carlo was asked "Why are there no women on the Panel"?

This refered to the panel of managers answering questions at the Services 
Press briefing in Valbonne. There was no reference to Digital's Board of 
Directors.

The answer that Pier Carlo gave was lengthy, and after the initial remark 
he went on to say that he believed that very soon we would see many more 
women in senior managemnt positions in the information technology industry. 
He added that in his opinion, women often have better innate skills to 
undertake this work.

He continued that in some key areas, such as Software Services, there were 
already a majority of women and he predicted that in 10 years we would see 
similar panels of mangers mostly comprising women.

Pier Carlo acknowledged that in the United States there were many women in 
Digital and in the industry who held senior management positions. He 
concluded that he believed that Europe is behind in this, mainly due to 
historical, cultural and educational reasons, but that significant changes 
were currently underway.

The magazine which published the comment, placed it on a page which is 
reserved for what it calls "Backbytes". These are meant to be satirical 
comments. The other 60 or so editors attending the briefing clearly heard 
the complete answer and therefore did not see the need to build a story 
around a single remark within a much broader and comprehensive response to 
the question.

David Cooper
Director, Communications and Corporate Relations (Europe)

>              <<< Note 34.298 by GVA01::DCOOPER "David Cooper" >>>
>                           -< Reply to Note 34.296 >-

>The question came at the end of a very long day of briefing journalists on 

>around a single remark within a much broader and comprehensive response to 
>the question.

>David Cooper
>Director, Communications and Corporate Relations (Europe)

1).  He apparently *DID* say it.
2).  Someone feels it necesary to defend him.

 So it is still inexcusable!

Amos

            -< At his salary/position he needs to be more careful >-


>The question came at the end of a very long day of briefing journalists on 
>around a single remark within a much broader and comprehensive response to 
>the question.

>David Cooper
>Director, Communications and Corporate Relations (Europe)

>>1).  He apparently *DID* say it.
>>2).  Someone feels it necesary to defend him.

>> So it is still inexcusable!

>>Amos

    
I think this is what the media would call a "soundbite".....something that 
they can play, totally out of context, that fits someone's point of view or 
vision of what was said....The US media is excellent at taking a 
straightforward comment and distorting it. It isn't something that PCF would 
probably have said if he thought about it (*My* interpretation for him, not 
based on any real knowledge about his attitude!) but once said, it can't be 
taken back. 

He certainly should not have said it, but he need not be condemned on one 
comment.....His long term actions should be what makes him a saint or 
sinner...

    The other Hamburger....

    	Vic

	Reported on CNN last night...
    
	The majority of diabetes cases occur in adulthood.

	Women and non-white men are 3 times more likely to develop
	adult diabetes as white men.

	A recent study has shown that regular exercise can decrease
	one's chance of developing adult diabetes.

	The study was done entirely with white men.

		deb  8-\

    
    do you think that this wouldn't be true for wimmin as well?

	re: 34.301 (Deb Arch)

>	Women and non-white men are 3 times more likely to develop
>	adult diabetes as white men.
  [...]
>	The study was done entirely with white men.

	Deb, was this something you noticed from the news report,
	or did CNN make this obvious or explicit.  

	In other words, did CNN say, "Although women and non-white 
	men are 3 times ... , the study was done entirely with white
	men."   (or were those 2 facts mentioned separately)

						nancy b.

        I saw the CNN Headline News report, and they mentioned
        the two facts one after the other, adding something like
        (not a direct quote) "but the study results reply to
        women and non-white men as well" (without saying why that
        should be so).
        
        Dan

    Most studies are indeed done with white males. It's being discovered
    now that this has resulted in two things:
    
    1. Women, who display (normally) other behaviours, symptoms, or 
    what-have-you are deemed "abnormal". 
    
    2. Treatments, remedys, or what-have-you, are ineffective for women.
    
    Yes, some things are cross-gender. Some things, however, are not.
    
    And we don't even know *which*, cuz we haven't even studied *that*!
    
    Well, heck. It's only *women*. 
    
    --DE
    

    in re .302
    
    One has to get funding, one has to convince those who hold the
    purse strings that the project is worth giving money to. In general
    those who control the purse strings are older white males. This
    introduces a strong bias away from funds to spend just on women's
    health.
    
    Bonnie

    re .304  
    
    Thanks, Dan.  My system has been unavailable for most of the past 24
    hours and I'm just catching up.
    
    It is a ludicrous situation, really...If women and non-white men are 
    THREE TIMES as likely to contract diabetes as white men, then that must
    indicate that there is *some* contributing factors (WHY??) that should
    be explored.
    
    This situation is similar to the aspirin-a-day-prevents-heart-attack
    study done previously.  All the people studied were men, yet they felt
    perfectly free to extrapolate that it "should also apply" to women.
    
    	deb

    On the news this morning comes a commercial for motorboats from some
    company in Worcester.  Now in these boats, that are shown whizzing
    through the water are 4 women with *the* perfect figures, in nice
    little bikinis....And the *man* driving the boat is fully dressed in
    all of the shots but one!!!!!!!  I mean long pants, shoes, long-sleeved
    shirt, the works!
    
    How come *he* gets all his clothes on and they don't, either he's very
    hot or they're very cold (I know which way I'd guess!).  How come
    *he's* always the one *driving*?  Perhaps driving a boat is too much
    for us delicate females?  
    
    I've *got* to stop watching morning TV!
    
      -HA

    Re:308 Sex sells..... and speaking of motor boats, What percentage
    of males and females would go out and buy a boat???
    
    REK

    And what percentage of males and females would wear bikinis in boat
    anyway?
    
    DUCK, INCOMING!!!!
    
    :-)

    That's just it....The *females* were wearing bikinis in the boat, which
    seems appropriate but the male is wearing full, fairly warm clothing!
    Now, I have a camp on a lake in NH, and I very seldom see men driving
    boats in anything but swim trunks.  When I am out in a sweatshirt
    because I feel it's a little chilly, they are still out in their boats
    in swim trunks!  This commercial just seemed *very* blatant to me.  I
    don't believe it would have ticked me off so much if he had at least
    been dressed in the same fashion as the others.
    
    Yes, motor boats seem to be more of a male thing, but there are women
    on our lake that do seem to be able to drive them, and perhaps one or
    two of them even *own* theirs.  I just would like to see a bit more
    *balance*.

    Speaking of Worcester....
    
    a couple of weeks ago, there was a "car show" at Green Hill Park.
    In covering the item, the paper showed a picture of 4 women dressed
    in bikini's, not a car in sight.  I guess the women were there as
    uh, well, uh, I don't know, attractions of some kind.
    
    Ugh.
    
    Time to write to the T&G although I don't think they'd care.  IMHO,
    it's a crummy paper.
    
    M.
    

    re.311 it's all part of the 'image' they're selling - "The smart
    man is well dressed and riding one of our boats. He gets all the
    pretty girls." 'Bout as subtle as a bulldozer in a china shop.

    How 'bout beer commercials?  I love cold beer in the summer (and winter
    for that matter).  I love a particular product called the "Silver
    Bullet."  But, I *HATE* their advertising.  Watch TV some Friday or
    Saturday night.  All you see are women in the least amount of bathing
    suit possible, hanging around these guys drinking this or that beer. 
    
    They never show a woman [mowing her lawn] [fixing her car] [etc.] and
    stopping to relax with a beer! 
    
    And where'd "silver bullet" come from? 
                                                                     

    And how about my personal favorite beer commercial (don't know which
    brand, and I don't drink beer, so I can't boycott it anyway) that
    starts with this woman in a white bathing suit, and the voice over
    "If you don't watch your figure, who will?"  I see red every time
    that one comes on!  I've *really* got to stop watching TV!
    
      -HA

    RE: 34.311 by BOMBE::HEATHER

<    Yes, motor boats seem to be more of a male thing, but there are women
<    on our lake that do seem to be able to drive them, and perhaps one or
<    two of them even *own* theirs.  I just would like to see a bit more
<    *balance*.

  My $0.02:

    Yes and airplanes, sports cars, and god know what else.  My take is
    difference in pay needed to support those things.  It's not a universal
    thing, it is however predominent.  To me it has little to do with
    body configuration, I know many more woman that sail (solo) which
    is a more demanding task than driving a stinkpot(power boat).
    
    Allison

    
    

    RE: 34.315
    
    < the Silver Bullet comercial
    
    It annoys me to no end how they show that women in the white bikini in
    parts: her stomach, her legs, etc.  I feel like they are saying that
    women aren't whole people, but objects that can be broken up into
    pieces.
    
    J.

    Heard one on Paul Harvey this morning on the way to work - Didn't hear
    the location - but I think that's relatively unimportant.  
    
    It seems that there was a male disk-jockey who went thru the
    transsexual process, and became a woman.  After it was complete -
    "he" was fired from the station "as a man", then was rehired - "as 
    a woman"  BUT AT A LOWER SALARY!!!  Supposedly this was fairly
    recently.  
    
    Linda

    There is a food commercial on TV in which a woman says something
    like...
    
    "The ONLY woman in a house full of hungry men..."  The announcer then
    supplies the solution, the food being advertised.
    
    The assumption of course is that she is charge of feeding all these
    hungry men, but if some of them were daughters instead of sons, she
    would at least have some help!  grrrrr.....
    
    -Tracy
    

    "Sex sells"?  Women are not sex.  But that's a common mistake.  A
    dressed woman driving a boat full of hot, nekid males would be sex,
    wouldn't it?  Maybe not to a man.  So I guess then it just isn't. 
    Right?
    
    Sandy

    OK, Sex appeal sells........

    REK

    Thank you Sandy, that was one of the points I was trying to make.
    
    bright blessings,
    -HA

    "Sex appeal" is the same thing.  You mean "sex appeal to het men".
    Don't say fruit when all you mean is apples.
    
    BB's back at ya, Heather!
    
    S.

    
    sex appeal to cossack cheiftains? now theres a narrow classification..

Why don't we stop pussy-footing around the reality of this issue about
the motorboat ad.  I know little about marketing, but it seems obvious
to me that the people who sell motorboats know that a large proportion of
the people most likely to purchase a motorboat are attracted to images of 
young women in skinny bathing suits.  So they give them what they want, in 
order to make their product more appealing by association.

Blaming the advertiser is, I think, short-sighted.  Attempting to change
the laws is possible (you no longer see cigarette ads on TV) but it
might be difficult to legislate imagery.  Blaming the motorboat buyers
who like to look at women in bikinis is more honest.  Changing their
attitude, however, might be difficult, because a large portion of their
attraction is tied up with hormones and reproductive instinct.

BTW, I feel that the case of advertising aimed at children is a different
case, and should be regulated more carefully.

Ben

    re. motive
    
    Gee, I always thought showing bodacious ta-tas in the boat and car ads
    was so as to subliminally suggest to the viewer that he should probably
    buy two of these large, expensive items so as to park 'em close
    together and mashe his face between them ...
    
    no?
    
     Annie

    Priceless, Annie!  And so is Elayne, as always.
    
    But I have to disagree about the women used to appeal to men.  They're
    used in ads aimed at women too, but in a very different way - to make
    women uncomfortable.  Men are *pleased* into buying a product, women
    *shamed* into it.  And both use women's bodies to do it.  Now we could
    turn that around, couldn't we?  Couldn't we tittilate women and shame
    men?  Oh, heavens, absolutely not!!  And that's the sexism.  "Don't
    hate me because I'm beautiful" the ad says to women.  But to men, it
    says, "Don't you just love me, (and therefore this, the product), because 
    I'm beautiful?"  A man is told that buying a certain product will make
    him great.  "You'll be a big stud and you'll have all these women, you
    magnificent, pagan beast".  But a woman is told that a product will
    only make her "less bad".  "So what if you look like shit, buy this and
    maybe, just maybe, no one will notice.  Together we can fool them."  
    
    It's not the surface image of an ad so much as the relative approach to 
    the 2 genders.  It's all give, give, give to men and take, take, take from 
    women.  And it sucks.
    
    S.

    no, no, Sandy,
    
    I _never_ said the same bodacious ta-ta's weren't used in ads aimed at
    women ... perish the thought!! ... although I do believe that the ads
    aimed at women try to draw down shame on other body parts ... the
    pores and the tummy spring to mind ...
    
    It would be tough to shame me into buying a $20K boat because some
    lovely woman with a bodacious pair of ta-ta's falunting them in the
    back of it.
    
    On the other hand, it might _just_ be possible to shame me into
    purchasing a $14 jar of cream that will clean out an minimise my pores.
    
    Yes, that's right ... men for margin, women for volume ...
    
    Did I ever tell you about the time I bought my car ?
    
    

    Oh, no, Annie, they don't figure women buy boats at all.  Just that $14
    night creme and stuff.  We don't actually DO things, we just get
    decorated so that some man will hopefully stop doing what he likes to 
    do long enough to take a look at the results of all our hard work and
    financial investment and maybe take us along next time and let us watch 
    him doing what he does!  You know, like standing around in our bathing 
    suits watching them drink beer or play frisbee, kissing the winners - 
    we mustn't break a nail playing too!  More shame - and we'll be left 
    behind, next time!  After all, who'll watch our figures if we don't?  
    Oh NO!!  "The liposomes!  I *must* have the liposomes!" screeched Cathy
    in one comic.
    
    ;^>
    
    S.

    If you're real nice you can ride in the boat!

    
    the real reason they used wimmin in ads is to provide an eyepoint.
    
    nothing subliminal, nothing "sexy" about it. actually, its almost
    as effective at drawing female attention as male.
    

    Ok.....Let's say I don't care that they used women in skimpy bathing
    suits for "an eyepoint"......My *main* complaint with this ad, which
    I've stated all along is that they all be dressed appropriately! 
    Either it is too hot for the man to be fully clothed, or it's too cold
    for the woman to be in bikinis!  All I'm asking for is a little even
    handedness here!  This ad insults my intelligence (more so than usual!)
    and *that's* what really gets to me about it!
    
    Oh, btw....Why is it always *women* who *get* to be the "eyepoint"?
    
    -HA

    >...why is it always *women* who *get* to be the "eyepoint"?
    
        We have better looking bodies?  ;^)
    
    
    
                                        L.J.

    -1
    
    Well.....I can't argue with that! ;-) ;-)
    
    -HA

    durn few _would_ ;-)

    re .336, I will. :-)  I think nice looking men's bodies are more
    appealing to look at than nice looking female bodies.
    
    But, men are more used to thinking they can buy a nice looking female
    body than vice-versa.
    
    Lorna
    

    
    I'll argue with it, too, Lorna.  But that sentiment is another example of 
    the culturally held belief that what is male is simply "what is".  Men find 
    women's bodies "nicer looking" and so we as a society always see women's 
    bodies in glorified images.   And therefore, many people, women included, 
    come to the illogical conclusion that it's simply the bodies themselves 
    that is what's nicer looking, rather than the way the two are always
    presented, i.e. Dagwood vs. Blondie, Roger Rabbit vs. Jessica, pix in
    men's mags vs. pix in women's, etc.  Change around the relative pre-
    sentations, and one would get quite a different idea.  But it's been
    one-sided for so long, people have a difficult time differentiating
    between the subject and the final image.  How about a shot of Roseanne 
    Barr, fully clothed, driving a boat with a few of the guys from the 
    "woof" string in cut off jeans, (photographed by Mapplethorpe who knew
    that it doesn't always take estrogen to produce physical beauty)?  Don't
    be so superficial.  Don't just accept what you're given.  Don't be told
    who you are.  Because that's what these images are ultimately doing.
    
    Sandy

    Well, I for one think women's bodies *are* nicer looking than men's,
    regardless of how they are presented.  In fact, I see absolutely
    nothing redeeming about the male body whatsoever.
    
    So there.
    
    -- Mike

I think "redemption" depends on the male body in question.  :-)

D!

    Speak for yourself, John Alden.

I heard an ad for Fix-a-flat (one of my favorite products) the other day.
The ad wasn't too bad, the announcer sets up a scenario of a family on 
vacation, late a night a dark road, they get a flat etc. Ok, I could deal with
that. The final line of the ad was, "Dads, don't forget to bring a can of Fix
of flat...Mom and Kids, don't let him forget!"

AUGH! Believe it or not, even a dumb girl like me can use it. And I don't 
even need my daddy or husbands help!

(sigh)


dee

    
    
    RE: .last
    
    Yea, but the other Fix-A-Flat commercial is the reverse.  Three cars in
    a desert get a flat tire.  One man starts to change the tire.  Another
    man calls for "help" (AAA?) on his cellular phone.
    
    ....the woman uses Fix-A-Flat and is on her way in "seconds."
    
    kat

    Last night I saw a beer commercial aimed at women!
    
    But did I see an average-looking woman surrounded by gorgeous,
    young, sexily dressed men (you know, the reverse of the usual
    ad aimed at men)?  
    
    Alas, our unseen woman was presented with an egomaniac, a mama's
    boy, a basic jerk, and a workaholic.
    
    The tag line was something like "You can't find the perfect man,
    but you can find the perfect refreshment."
    
    Crunch.  Spit.
    

    
    guess there just no pleasing..

    
    re -1,
    
    I wouldn't say that, Bob :-)  Oops, don't want to rathole this note.
    
    trying to ward off this rainy Friday funk with some lite comments.
    Justine

    Not if there's no effort, of course not.  It would be true in the
    reverse, too, but substantial effort is made to please men.  And that's
    an understatement.  It was targetted at women, but it didn't "please",
    did it?  It only said it could make things "less bad".  Or were you
    trying to blame women for not being pleased by these subtly insulting
    attempts to get our attention?  That would be the norm, I suppose. 
    Give us shit and then say we're never satisfied because we're not happy
    with shit.  Sexism is alive and well, etc...
    
    S.

    
    natchurally its an evyl male cabal that do all these spots with
    probably no female input..
    

    
    	If some female did try to tell them what they were doing, no
    	doubt they'd just blow her off with some caustic comment to
    	imply that any suggestion that they were less than omnipotent
    	or perfect is clear proof that she must hate all men (and
    	regard them as being in cahoots with Satan himself.)
    

    I haven't seen the ad in question, so maybe there is more to this than
    I can infer from the description that was posted here;  but my initial
    gut reaction was "Yeah, I imagine that a beer *can* satisfy a lot of
    women better than men can."  The assumption was most heterosexual women
    have experienced first hand the four basic men groups (not to be
    confused with the four basic food groups, by the way), and that this
    experience has left a bad taste in their collective mouths.  On the one
    hand, the commercial was saying, "You don't have to put up with this;
    you don't need a man to make your life complete."  Sounds like a
    feminist message, until you realize that they are offering beer as a
    man-surrogate, so ultimately the message is not one of female
    independence, but rather (as if this were a surprise) shameless
    promotion of a commercial product.  Not only that, but since, for many
    women, beer is hardly an innocuous substitute for *anything* (let alone
    men), that doesn't leave the viewer with much.

    -- Mike

    re: .350
    
    I was in bad humor last week when I saw this commercial, so it
    hit me at a more radical angle -- I saw it strictly in comparison
    with other beer commercials.  Men get beer *and* desirable women;
    women get beer but have to settle for whatever's out there.
    
    re: .348
    
    Actually, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that a woman came
    up with the idea for this spot or that focus groups (if they had
    any) liked it.  There's no doubt in my mind that the vast majority
    of young women the ad's trying to reach would see no further than
    the humor ("Hey, I've gone out with guys like that!  I can relate.").
    I must be getting too old. 8*(
    
    nla
    

What it comes right down to, in the final analysis, is that the beer
company's people think they will sell more beer using this ad than
they would if they used an ad with an ordinary woman surrounded by
hunks.  Money, folks, money.  Nothing else matters.

-d

    I saw an ad on TV the other day for some big pickup truck.  They spent
    the whole minute telling how powerful the truck was and how it could
    drive though this muddy course that no other truck could make it
    through.  The driver of the truck was a woman (in typical stunt driving
    clothes) which I thought was pretty cool...until I started really
    thinking about it.
    
    Was this a case of "a woman can drive through rough terrain just as
    well as a man" or was it "look, evan a woman can drive this truck
    through rough terrain"?
    
    -Scott

> What it comes right down to, in the final analysis, is that the beer
> company's people think they will sell more beer using this ad than
> they would if they used an ad with an ordinary woman surrounded by
> hunks.  Money, folks, money.  Nothing else matters.
    
    Hardly a final analysis. A final analysis would need to deal with
    questions like "WHY do they think they'll sell more beer this way?" and
    "Why don't they think they'll sell beer to men using the same
    approach?"
    
    Ray

Re: .354

No, money doesn't exist in a void.  However, it exists after all the
whys and wherefores (which word also means "why" so I've always had a
problem with the expression anyway, but this ain't JOYOFLEX) are sorted
out.  The final bottom line is that the advertising people told the beer
company people, "This commercial will make you more money than that one
would," and the beer people said, "Okay, we'll buy this one," instead of
saying, "This one is unacceptably sexist so we'll buy that one instead."
At that point, the whys no longer matter.

-d

    re: .353
    
    Sounds like maybe the mfg (finally) realized that women buy and drive
    trucks.  Doesn't matter to me what their motives are...I'll take it any
    way I can get it.
    
    Nancy

    -d,
    
    You seem to be making an assumption about what ideas the advertising
    agency would have come up with in the first place.  I think it's
    equally likely that, having decided that there should be a beer
    commercial aimed at women, the scripters began from a position that
    "This is not a serious concern." and never considered any concept
    that was not non-serious.  Or they might have explicitly looked at
    reversing the man-aimed commercial and decided "Nah" because the
    reversal made them *personally* uncomfortable.
    
    For both of these scenarios, I am cheerfully assuming an all-male
    or mostly male advertising team.
    
    						Ann B.

Ann,

My wife and daughter both work for a magazine and are involved, willy-
nilly, in advertising brainstorming sessions.  I myself used to work for
a commercial art firm.  While I do acknowledge that this is not on the
scale of Bud Dry's ad budget, I know just how thoroughly off the wall
these sessions can get.

BTW, "willy-nilly" is a sexist expression.  Who can tell me why?  :-)

-d

    
    
    >willy-nilly
    
    Because the male name is first?
    

    Sorry, Nick.  See the Rathole.  Ann Broomhead was ther first.  :-)
    
    -d

    The contrasting types of beer commercials seem to suggest different
    messages.  For men, the message seems to be that drinking the product
    will cause the consumer to be surrounded by beautiful women.  This
    suggests (to me, anyway) that the beer is kind of a means to an end,
    rather than an end to itself.  For women, on the other hand (based on
    what I have heard about this commercial) the message seems to be that
    the beer *is* an end to itself, rather than a means to anything--the
    point being that the beer satisfies women in a way that men can't.  It
    is promoting the beer itself, rather than what the beer could produce
    for the woman.

    -- Mike

And it also brings up the interesting idea that a man is very easily replaced by
a mere drink. Not only replaced "improved upon"! 

And as for the effectiveness, I don't drink beer, so it wouldn't matter how they
advertised. liesl

    
    >And it also brings up the interesting idea that a man is very easily
    >replaced by a mere drink. Not only replaced "improved upon"!
    
     as well they might be ... ;-)

    I've seen the beer ad in question.  It actually comes in several
    different variations, and I've laughed at all of them.  I watch mostly
    sports programming, so most of the commercials I see are aimed at men. 
    To me, it was refreshing to get one aimed at women.  Also, if my brain
    is remembering right, this ad is part of a "Why ask why?" campaign that
    has similar messages for men, in that beer is a *replacement* for the
    female vagaries that they can't understand.  :-)
    
    Beer ads generally don't make a whole lot of sense if they are
    approached with any kind of rationality.  Right at the moment, they all
    seem to be fantasy-oriented in one way or another, and trying to stand
    out based on humor or outrageousness.  
    
    Alison

    i find the beer ads described to be more charicatures of the meesages
    than anything else.  there isn't actually anybody out there motivated
    to spend their money on a product because of all the er..well...
    visually striking collection of opposite sex members surrounding the
    character in the commercial is there?  i (thankfully) don't happen upon
    people that impressionable very often.
    
    now, the latest woolite rug cleaner commercial bothers me a lot.  the
    one where the guy drops the greasy wrench on the carpet and a
    marvelously well groomed womans hand cleans up the mess.  made me
    almost angry enough to write them a letter!

    
    how typikal to depikt the guy as slob extraordinare ..

    Last night I was shopping for a greeting card and came across this
    card that had a drawing of a woman on the front and read "Men are scum"
    I got really angry.  Is it really necessary to fight sexism with
    reverse sexism?
    
    Mary

    
    no, but it seems to be in fashion in some places..

    but not here in womannotes, of course.

 I've seen the card. It does not bother me at all. I don't view it as a
serious assertion; I view it as a card one would send a friend that got burned
by a male jerk to make them feel better. The only issue I have with the
card is that it would be unthinkable to have a card that said "women are
<something not nice>." So there's a bit of a double standard there. But given
the wealth of double standards living happily in this country, it's so minor
a point that it isn't worth getting excited over. There are bigger dragons to 
slay.

 The Doctah

    oooh!, oooh!
    
    I'll have to ask Wendy [my sister] to dig out and send you the card she
    got from her ex-husband when he heard she was re-marrying [after 5
    years of being a single parent ...]
    
    It was 'sposed to be lite, but it said "Women are sluts" on the front
    and "sometimes they light your fire and sometimes you just get burned"
    on the inside.

    On the Today show last week, they said that the "Men are scum" card has
    prompted so many complaints that Hallmark has stopped making it.
    
    -Tracy
    

 Who brought it up here?

    > Who brought it up here?
    
    me

Mary,

	I would never mistake you for a man.  Just because you brought it up
here doesn't mean it wasn't the men who complained.  You are simply the
'exception that proves this rule.' ;-)


	I was being cynical - just as my title stated.


							--D

    --D
    
    I was being humorous, just as my P-name stated :-)
    

    "Kindergartedn Kapers", a pamphlet from the local school district to
    check readyness and preparing parents and students for their first year
    in school.  The outside has a little girl and her mother going to
    school, the inside has nothing but boys and all references to children
    are he, him, and his.  Poor Carredwyn just had her first "click" at not
    quite age 6.:-(.  She asked her father and I to read it using they or
    theirs or "your child".  So much for raising a child with
    gender-neutral language.  I feel for the instructor when she brings
    this up.
    
    Meg

Complain to your school board in writing or at a meeting about sexist language
in the booklet.Get other parents with similar concerns to join with you who
will show up with in a united group.

Let the school board know that this is a major concern for you. Ask them if they
approved the booklet before publication, and if they really want to 
perpetuate stereotypes of gender.

Get a commitment from the school board that they will take specific constructive
action. (Unnaceptable: "We'll take it under advisement." Forming a committee can
be an attempt to avoid doing anything. [Get yourself appointed to any 
committee.])

Get the media involved. Call the local paper and tell them the time and place 
of the meeting, and what you plan to say at the meeting. Try to get interviewed
and a story in the paper before the meeting. Ask them to send a reporter to the
meeting. Get other people to call the paper with the same requests. Write 
letters to the editor.

If the school board doesn't do anything, contact the local paper again and try 
to get a reporter to write another story. If the paper won't interview you (and 
print the results) write more letters to the editor. Get several people to 
write letters a few days apart, so it will be in the news repeatedly.

As a last resort, threaten the school board with a sexual discriminatation suit.
(I think this is *too* extreme -- but let them know they "may be" in violation 
of federal and state laws.)

The booklet can be an isolated oversight, in which case the school board will be
sympathetic and agreeable. However, it can also indicate pervasive attitudes
and discrimination based on sex. 

Good luck, and let us know what happens.

Bruce

    
    pity they won't waste that energy in making the schools better instead
    of more PC..
    

    Depending on your perspective...PC is better.
    
    If you don't alienate little girls from the start, you have
    a better chance of reaching more that half of the populace up front.
    
    Even the little boys may become more educated.  They will have less
    of a need to be re-educated when they grow up.
    
    Cindi

If the schools foster equal opportunity, more girls will be encouraged to go
into fields that suit their interests, abilities, and talents. Isn't that a 
worthwhile goal?

Bruce

    RAH,
    
    If my little girl was offended by this pamphlet without my saying
    anything, bu just reading it to her, how many other little girls had
    the same "click" but weren't vocal about it, or just got started on the
    slippery slope to girls don't count?  This is the irritation which sets
    up the poor self estemm too many young women have in this country. 
    (oops I'm about to get angry and on my soapbox)
    
    Since I feel poor self esteem leads to many of the problems women have
    today (teen pregnancy, unaffordable babies, abusive relationships,
    chemical dependancy, poor job skills or skills for only low paying
    professions, etc.)  I have a hot button on this.  This is not PC
    talking, Bob, this is the tiredness of women not counting from day one. 
    It would have taken very little thought to use the term "your child" or
    alternate he and she, or he or she, or their.
    
    Meg   

    
    Perhaps it would help if you could show them what it would like without
    sexist language.  Send a copy along and I'll have a go at rewriting it.
    Send mail.
    
    CQ

	Stall content of the bathrooms in the Admin building (the only
	real bathrooms -- portapotties don't count -- open on the compound 
	on Labor Day):

	    Woman's bathroom:  2 stalls, 2 [unusable] urinals.  
		Throughput capacity of 2.  Line	of 10.

	    Men's bathroom: 3 stalls, 4 urinals (or was it 4 stalls and
		3 urinals?).  Throughput capacity of 7.  No line.

At a softball game (corporate league), night before last...

	I was catcher.  The umpire held me by the waist, tried to tickle my 
	ribs (thank goodness I'm not ticklish and didn't give him the desired 
	effect) and said, "You're going to be the best catcher this season!"


At another game, different ump, I'm up to bat:

	After having two balls pitched to me, the umpire said "Can't pitch to 
	her, she's too pretty!" 

... don't worry, I'm typing up my complaint today.


Two years ago, trying to pick up my car after a tune up:

	Garage Employee: "What's your name?"

	Me: "Rogers"

	GE: "No, your FIRST name."

	Me: "... Roseanne."

	GE: "Well, now THAT's a pretty name!"

...and no, he wasn't taking my name down for the paperwork or anything.
He was just passing the time while the other GE's looked for my car.  After
10 minutes of putting up with this ... person, a GE walked up and said
"We can't find your car.  Will you walk through the lot and find it?"

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

    
    I hated hearing a couple of..um.."jokes" on the radio this morning.
    
    This was on Radio 1, which is the official UK pop station with a
    very wide audience...
    
    (Btw, Essex is an English county, but you probably knew that anyway).
    
    Q: What is the difference between an Essex girl and a computer?
    A: You only have to punch information into a computer once....
    
    Followed by:-
    
    Q: Why do blonde women take the Pill?
    A: To find out what day it is.
    
    
    
    

    
    Q: How does one make a blonde laugh on Friday?
    A: Tell a joke on Monday
    
    

    Huh?
    
    
    
    This joke may be "blondist", but how is it sexist?

    Because of the 'e' at the end of "blonde".

    (Unless it means to suggest that blondes are so quick that they
    can anticipate a punch line 3 days ahead...)

    
    Liz,
    
    I interpreted it as sexist through my filters because the jokes
    about "dumb blondes" are rarely directed at men, in my experience.
    
    'gail

    I agree with 'gail. In the HUMOR note there is a whole string about
    dumb blondes. It is fairly obvious that it is directed at female
    blondes, even when gender isn't mentioned.
    
    
    Jerome. 

    Maybe I've been hanging out with too many yellow-headed men who joke
    about their hair color. In my circles, being "blonde" is not gender-
    specific. But I can see how it would be "in the real world".
    
    
    Liz

    IN re my previous note ... I believe in traditional usage,
    "blonde" can only refer to yellow-haired women; when yellow-haired
    men are described, they are "blond".

    'Blond' isn't gender specific. 'Dumb blond' usually is.

why is dumb blond(e) objectionable, but not testosterone poisoning?

    Sara,
    
    (This belongs in the Rathole.  If anywhere.)
    
    The genetic basis of blond[e] hair is the same basis as the really
    pale skin needed to create vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin) in a
    cold climate, where most of your skin is covered.  This [according
    to deCamp's theory (to which I subscribe)] means that light hair (skin,
    eyes) are markers for people of [partial] Neanderthal ancestry.
    
    This makes deprecating comments about blond[e]s racist.  See?
    
    						Ann B.

    Maybe because one has always been taken more or less "seriously" and
    the other is just kind of a recent joke?
    
    Sandy

 Because one, as Ann points out, is racist, and the other is merely sexist. ;^)

    I would have thought it was because to call someone a dumb blonde is
    refering to the stereotypical "bimbo" which is pretty derogatory to
    all blondes (incl. people who are bimbos).  Maybe it's to do with the 
    intent behind the remark that makes it derogatory as well. Just because 
    you're blonde it doesn't mean your a stupid "bimbo", but if a man (or 
    woman for that matter) had testosterone poisoning, it would probably 
    have some effect on hir behaviour, exagerating the normal male behaviour. 
    I do think it is a bit extreme to call derogatory remarks about blond(e)s 
    racist though. 
    
    
    Jerome.

    You mean blondes are a different _race_ from us brunettes? (Is 
    brunette a gender neutral word, BTW?) It would explain a lot ;-)/2
    
    

    If blondes are descended from Neanderthals, does that mean the rest of
    us are descended from some(one, thing) else?

of course we're a different race, Dana.  We're smarter, and less aggressive, 
because the smarter you are the less aggressive you have to be (you realize
just how stupid aggression is).  And of course, as a woman I'm both smarter
and less aggressive than you.  It's the testosterone, y'know.  You can't help
it.

Sara the Superior Brunette Woman

    
    Glad I'm colorblonde..
    
    D.

    re .399, wow, I've waited many years to hear a racist slur I could
    personally identify with!  :-)
    
    Lorna
    

    So, as a blonde, I'm a descendent of Neanderthals?  Humm, does that
    mean brunettes are descendents of the Piltdown Man?   :^)
    
    Wow, I feel a sudden solidarity with Clan of the Cave Bear...
    
       Margaret (give me a club and bear skin dress!)

    Margaret, the blonde joined the Clan of the cave bear. She was not
    borned into it.
    
    REK

sorry if this is a spoiler, but in any case it's minor.  In
_The_Plains_Of_Passage_, Ayla and Jondalar meet a blond Clan woman.  Ayla was
astonished.

    The new (excellent) issue of "Frighten the Horses" reminded me that I
    hadn't seen the following mentioned:
    
    Paul Verhoeven (the man who made his name directing films about
    repressed-bi male misogyny and who recently directed Arnie's divorce
    scene in "Total Recall") has just finished directing Michael Douglas
    (the man you love to see blow away Crazed Career Women) in the upcoming
    Major Motion Sickness "Basic Instinct". The film concerns a trio of bi
    and lesbian women all of whom are, naturally, psycho killers, and all
    of whom, naturally, are blown away to anticipated cheers, but not
    before one gets to thank Michael for raping her.
    
    Naturally I wouldn't suggest a boycott, but there's gotta be something
    else playing that week...
    
    Ray