From: nmurrayr@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Re: Women as Victims/Backlas/AA
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 14:22:18 GMT

   Firstly, sorry for the delay in replying to this one. We seem to have had a
large newsfeed hole for a few days.

In article <1992Oct8.081218.26583@leland.Stanford.EDU>, farthing@leland.Stanfor.edu writes:
> In article <1992Oct8.094759.1@cc.curtin.edu.au> nmurrayr@cc.curtin.edu.au writes:
>>In article <1992Oct6.021155.26304@panix.com>, gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>>   Note the words "preferences" and "quotas". They're not just space-fillers
>>in the sentence. It appears to be that Robert is suggesting that women not get
>>preferential treatment.
>>
>>   Secondly, don't you see the innate hypocrisy in your (implied) approval of:
>>
>>> The women almost certainly got their jobs at least partly as
>>> a result of this corporation's being busted severely several
>>> years ago for never giving women managerial or engineering
>>> jobs.
>
>>   What's the basic difference between hiring them because they're women, and
>>firing them because they're women? IMHO, both actions are equally reprehensible
>>because they're based on selective treatment dependent on a person's gender.
>
> Read what Fitch wrote:  "...this corporation's being busted severely
> several years ago for never giving women..."  Doesn't this seem that
> selective treatment dependent on a person's gender had indeed been
> going on before the women received the jobs--that men were receiving
> preferential treatment?

   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.

   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 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?

> That's what AA is all about, imo.  After years of white men receiving
> preferential treatment (and damn little outcry by middle-class white
> men about it), now we're all supposed to have a level playing ground
> and AA is preferential treatment.  It only matters if white men are
> being hurt?

   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.

   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.

 .....Ron

-- 
                                 ***
 Ron Murray
 Internet: nmurrayr@cc.curtin.edu.au
     Are we having fun yet?    -- Garfield