From: payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne)
Subject: Re: Women as Victims/Backlas/AA
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 06:29:21 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.023158.4100@leland.Stanford.EDU> farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:
>In article <1992Oct11.232218.1@cc.curtin.edu.au> nmurrayr@cc.curtin.edu.au writes:
>>   True. And I doubt very much that there's anyone reading this who would
>>dispute the fact (oh, all right, there is _one_, but he only does it to annoy
>>[to paraphrase Douglas Adams]). Apparently you haven't yet caught on to the
>>fact that the entire discussion is about whether or not sexism, in the guise of
>>AA, is a valid answer to this, or whether AA proponents are guilty of forcing
>>on us the very thing they're claiming to be combatting. The latter is
>>hypocrisy in my book.
>
>No, I know that some people want to say that any preferential
>treatment is sexism or racism.  

You mean people like blacks and women?

>                                 What the discussion really is about is
>how preferential treatment of white hetero men was bad in the past,
>but good in the present and future when young white hetero men benefit
>from it.

Say what? 
 
>>   Sexism in reverse is still sexism, whatever else you want to call it. You
>>can attempt to cover up its true nature by hanging fancy names like "AA" on it,
>>but deep down they're all just euphemisms. It's still just plain sexism.
>>It would be better if feminists were a little more honest about this, but then
>>porcine quadrupeds may attain orbital velocity.
>
>It, of course, depends on your definition of sexism.  If one sees
>sexism as institutional power, discrimination against men by a few
>colleges or businesses is not sexism.

If we selectively re-define things, we can claim anything at all. It
is only meaningfull if we mean the same thing when talking about both sexes.
If you can change or remove the sexes of the parties involved and still get
the same answer, then your definition is sexism is not sexually biased.
And is not sexual bias claimed to be a problem?
 
>I'm not even sure that the AA I've seen practiced is discrimination.
>The only kind of AA that I've seen in both a national lab and here at
>Stanford has been an effort to increase the number and diversity of
>applicants.  Before the lack of funds freezed hiring, all I saw of AA
>is that one woman and a few non-Anglo men were interviewed for jobs
>and Anglo men were hired.  (I'm speaking from my personal experiences,
>of course, and not for Stanford.)

What conclusions can you draw from your limited experiences? 
 
>Even if I do agree, yes, it's sexist, what then?  If men or whites or
>Anglos are getting into the better law schools (whatever) on virtue of
>better scores and grades, then everything is equal, so we are happy
>with that?

Naaa, too simple.
 
>Let's take a person who comes from a poor background.  Student X goes
>to a public high school where fewer than 5% of the students go on to
>college.  S/he goes to a state college by working at a Kmart and on
>loans.  S/he applies to law school, takes the LSAT, does well, but not
>top-notch.  This person is up against the son or daughter (student Y)
>of a judge, someone who went to private schools, a private college,
>worked in the summers at a law office for experience, has a higher
>LSAT score and higher grades, and has recommendations from lawyers and
>other judges.  Whom do you choose?  And if student X is Latino, or
>black, or female, does make any difference?  Is student Y such a
>better choice because of the experience in a law office, the better
>grades and LSAT score?

The point is that -rather- then looking at qualifications, you are looking
at eveyything, and you have a ton of assumptions as well, all or none of
which may be true.

The fact that you probably would not even bother to consider any -actual-
qualifications shows that you are racist and/or sexist. I must be mistaken,
it seemed like you considered this a problem as well.
 
>>   It comes down to this: How can any claim to "equality" be taken seriously
>>when the solution proffered advocates inequality? Is it any wonder that many
>>men (myself included) distrust feminism (as practised) when it suggests that
>>men be deprived of rights in favour of women? Do you wonder, then, why some
>>men suspect that many women only call themselves "feminists" because it's
>>likely to get them a free ride home? Because it's likely to get them a
>>high-paying job without them having to put in the years of ground-work that
>>men have usually had to do to get to the same position?
>
>Do you see that happening?  I haven't.  In fact, in the time I've been
>a grad student here at Stanford, I've seen fewer women entering
>engineering.  If things are getting so much better, where are the
>women?  Are women becoming profs, receiving tenure?  Very few.  I've
>attended conferences, meetings, dinners, lunches where women were so
>few, most speakers greeted the "gentlemen."  Where are the women who
>have managed to leap-frog past those years of groundwork that only men
>have to do?

I don't know about Stanford, but about half the engineers where I work are
women. I've always thought of Stanford as being isolated from the real
world anyway. 
 
>We must be living in different worlds, because I don't see it.  

You don't see it, ergo it does not exist. Wonderful. Have you ever
seen Pluto, or Grand Canyon? I really hope so, I've been to one of them,
and it seemed to be there. 

>                                                              And I
>deliberately look for women, lesbigays, non-Anglos or non-Asians in
>engineering.  I'm looking for them, but they don't seem to be here.

How can you tell a 'lesgigay'? Do you ask everyone?
 
>If there were so much discrimination for women going on, wouldn't we
>see some effects by now?  Wouldn't we see a lot more women in the
>government, as judges, as professors, as chairs of businesses, as
>CEOs?

Have you examined the government, judges, or chairs in business and
compiled statistics? How many are we seeing now, and what do you mean
by 'a lot more'?
 
>>   Oh dear. You almost had it there, too, but then you blew it. Of *course*
>>AA is preferential treatment. You seem to have completely missed the point:
>>that neither I (nor, probably, Robert) are trying to claim that preferential
>>treatment was a Good Thing when men were benefitting from it, any more than
>>it is when women benefit from it.
>
>So, as I said in another post.  You'd be perfectly happy to be greeted
>by a panel of black lesbian women every damn time you went for a
>college interview, a job, a job promotion?  You'd be assured that your
>superior grades, scores, and performance would win out?

What does this have to do with anything? Or are you calling black lesbian
women sexist/racist? 
 
>>   Of course, if you're only out for revenge (perhaps disguised as "redress
>>for past wrongs done to women"), as seems at least possible from your last
>>paragraph, then you're unlikely to listen to any other point of view. It would,
>>however, be preferable if you could be at least honest about it. Even with
>>yourself.
>
>And I'd think more highly of you if you would give an alternative to
>AA which doesn't seem to be more of the preferential treatment for
>white hetero men and more of the shaft for the rest of us.

So you think that giving the 'shaft' to white hetero men will make things
better for 'the rest of us'? Is this not what you accuse the WHM of?
 
>I haven't seen you or Scheaffer (a request Fitch has made) or the man
>who suggested that white men, by virtue of their "genetics and
>upbringing," are better suited for success come up with anything other
>than AA is sexist.

I suspect that Robert Shaeffer can defend himself, but I do not recall
anyone here (at all, and I've been here from the start of the newsgroup)
has ever raised that argument. 
 
>If you're ten steps ahead of me because of past preferential treatment
>and then you suddenly yell, "Now everyone is equal and we will all be
>judged the same," pardon me if I don't see you as anything more than a
>protector of your privilege.

Oddly, you look no different from what you claim nmurrayr looks like.

Of course, being PC has it's burdens. One must be non-sexist/racist 
-unless- it HWM's are involved, in which case anything goes.

If there is any WRONG here, it is wrong no matter who does it.

If it is not, you have no complaint.

Make up your mind.


Rich

payner@netcom.com