HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: fina2f@rosie.uh.edu (Venkatesh, P. C.)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Excluding men
Date: 17 Nov 1992 11:08 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rosie.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

----------------------------------------------------------
Posted for Susan Chacko, whose usual posting address is 
temporarily out of commission.
----------------------------------------------------------

The mailing list is in no way secret, and has been discussed fairly
extensively on soc.culture.indian where the proposal was first
floated. At that time, there was no plan to exclude men, but a number
of the women who responded felt very strongly that they would prefer
an all-female group. For this reason, the question of male membership
was postponed until the group was formed and *all* the members had
a chance to express their views.

Well, they did. Uma has posted some of the reasons that the
members gave for not wanting men, so I won't reiterate them.

The mailing list was created as a forum for women to speak. If
we unilaterally impose male participation, a number of the women 
will probably drop out, or effectively not participate. This 
group was created for women; should we choose to admit men and 
essentially make the group a largely male forum for discussion 
of women's issues? (I say 'largely male' because there are many more
men with email access than women, and email received indicates that
if the group were open, there would be at least as many men as
there are women now. And then if women drop out....)

I initially assumed that men would be part of the group too. In
fact, having been in largely male-dominated places for most
of my life, I couldn't imagine an all-female group. Now that the
group is in operation, however, I have found that it has a
unique character which I like a lot. It serves a unique function:
I have had few opportunities to hear other South Asian women speak,
not on whether the issue exists or whether it's unfair to men or
how the men react to it, but on how they handle the things in their 
lives that I see in mine. 

About cross-posting, the members are most welcome to cross-post their
*own* posts to any newsgroup. However, they aren't supposed to cross-
post anyone else's words without her permission. Seems eminently
fair to me. 

If someone were to start an open group to discuss women's issues,
I'd join and contribute. But I don't see any reason to change the
nature of this mailing list at present, especially since most of the 
members prefer it as it is.

Susan.
From: mba2@Rosie.UH.EDU (Puneet_S)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: SEX
Date: 21 Nov 1992 18:28:48 GMT
Organization: University of Houston
Reply-To: mba2@Rosie.UH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: rosie.uh.edu

In article <misdeva-201192004534@morse-college-kstar-node.net.yale.edu>, misdeva@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu (Devjani Mishra) writes:
>In article <1egoa5INN89t@menudo.uh.edu>, mba2@Rosie.UH.EDU (Puneet_S)
>wrote:
>> 
>> Attention! Not for the mild-mannered or the comically inclined.
>> 
>> 
>> I am taking this matter seriously, definetly not in fun or pun.
>
>Me too.  (Look out!  It's a woman talking dirty! All right!)
>
PS	You see that's just it... Why is it dirty?  This is a serious
	group of people who have many things in common.  Our difficulties
	in growing up / adapting.  These discussion are there to help	
	us listen to people and then reflect on our own opinions.  Isn't
	what this is really about, a frank open, unencumbered discussion
	where both the male and female point is useful....If not, then
	for this discussion alone, I really want to see that.  Those of
	you out there who feel embarassed discussing this topic, Why?
	Is it the mind set that society has placed on us?  If you 
	want to respond to private E-Mail, that's fine.  If you want
	send me private E-Mail.... I'll combine some of the comments,
	removing the source and post it as a collection of comments....

	For this, please send it to my MBA2 account....

________________________________________________________________________________
It's not my goddamn planet, monkey boy
Puneet

                                                         MBA2@JETSON.UH.EDU   or
                                                         BBRC215@BAL0053.B-R.COM
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: misdeva@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu (Devjani Mishra)
Subject: Re: MISUNDERSTANDING
Followup-To: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Organization: Yale University
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 23:42:47 GMT

In article <6996@dove.nist.gov>, hira@cme.nist.gov (Ron Hira) wrote:
> 
> In article <1992Nov9.193657.14192@nas.nasa.gov>, raghavan@wk28.nas.nasa.gov (Venkatraman Raghavan) writes:
> |> From: raghavan@wk28.nas.nasa.gov (Venkatraman Raghavan)
> [Stuff Deleted]
> |> Please spell the name M.K.Gandhi correctly, it is not Gandy or Ghandi.
> |> (I am pretty sure it not a typo, your 'h' is three spots out of place).
> 
> This is intended more as a question than a flame, but isn't `Gandhi' just
> a phonetic english spelling of his name? As an example, there are many 
> english representations of Gaddaffy, Kadafy, etc etc (for those of you
> who used to watch SNL).  
> 
> Is there a right or wrong way to spell it, or just one that is commonly
> used?
> 
> Ron

Yes, it is just phonetic, but there is an obvious phonetic difference
between "Gandhi" (gaahn-dhee) and "Gandy" (gan-dee) or "Ghandi"
(ghaan-dee).  Moreover, I'm almost sure that M.K. Gandhi did spell it the
first way, since his descendants have done so.  I think "Gandhi" is viewed
as the "right" spelling.

       /-                 Devjani Mishra      misdeva@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu
      /   /               New Haven, CT          diva@minerva.cs.yale.edu
  ___/  _  _   _  ___           
 /  /   /   | /  /  /     "Women are repeatedly accused of taking things
/__/_  /_   |/  /__/_      personally. I cannot see any other honest way of
                           taking them." - Marya Mannes
                           
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
From: saeed@watson.ibm.com (Saeed Jaffer)
Subject: Distinguishing ethnicities (was Re: Problems faced by Indian immigrants not common to Chinese or)
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 21:21:05 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Ron writes:

|> In article <1992Nov05.194926.132897@watson.ibm.com>, saeed@watson.ibm.com (Saeed Jaffer) writes:
|> |> From: saeed@watson.ibm.com (Saeed Jaffer)
|> |> Subject: Re: Problems faced by Indian immigrants not common to Chinese or
|> |> Date: 5 Nov 92 19:49:26 GMT
|> |> 
|> |> I think the reason my friends and I enjoy this so much is because we feel a
|> |> sense of community and solidarity in the joke.  And because the joke ridicules
|> |> the ``ignorant Amrikan idiot'' who can't tell the difference between a South
|> |> Asian (desi), an Arab, or a Persian.
|> 
|> I have some difficulty with this myself. I also have difficulty discerning
|> between Irish, Polish, German, French, etc. people. Does this make me
|> ignorant. In addition I find it difficult to figure out differences 
|> between Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, etc.
|> 
|> A good number of desis don't think that I'm desi, does that make
|> them ignorant and idiots?


I was responding to an earlier post that called Amrikans ``ignorant'' because
of their inability to distinguish different cultural affiliations (and for
other reasons I assume).  I quoted the words ``ignorant amrikan idiot'' as a
stereotype of Amrikans that I do NOT believe is accurate at all.  In fact, if
I recall correctly (my post is no longer here on my system), I mention that I
don't believe Amrikans to be ``ignorant'', but rather uninformed and without
experience with regards to cultural differences.  I myself have gone through 
an educational process living at MIT.  It's pretty easy for me to discern
between Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese now.  Living in New York City is
helping me recognize differences about African-Americans (Haitians,
Senegalese, North African, etc.)  I'm sure Manish (Berkeley) and others at
schools with high proportions of non-white groups have experienced this as
well.   

A question, Ron: do many desis think you're Latino?  This frequently happens
to a Pakistani friend of mine.  Whenever I'm with him he gets mistaken for
being Hispanic.  Since he knows pretty good Spanish, he can often fool
most people.  

A question for others: can you distinguish between different types of South
Asians?  If I try, I can usually distinguish Bengali, South Indian (Tamil,
Malyali, etc.), North (Punjabi, Gujarati, etc.), Pakistani (Pathan, Punjabi,
Sindhi, etc.), etc.  I'm sure many of you will blast me for even trying to
tell the difference -- sue me -- I like to figure out some of a person's
background when I meet them.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------
--saeed jaffer        			You wouldn't understand ...
saeed@watson.ibm.com  			It's a DESI thang.
saeed@athena.mit.edu  			;^)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: fina2f@rosie.uh.edu (Venkatesh, P. C.)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: Excluding men
Followup-To: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Date: 19 Nov 1992 12:53 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rosie.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

------
Posted for Susan Chacko, please send email to susanc@helix.nih.gov
------

In article <1992Nov18.002019.26782@cbnewsi.cb.att.com>, alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia) writes...
>
>
>Could we see some sort of a vote count or referendum among the subscribers
>of this mailing list on this issue ?
> 
>Just post the results on sci, acuai etc.
> 

Thank you for the kind suggestion. The mailing list is private, and
there's absolutely no need to justify its policies. Although we do 
use 'public' resources, such as the internet, that doesn't mean that 
the mailing list must be public too. If this were not so, I could 
demand that you post all your private email on this newsgroup, since 
your mail also travels by the tax-supported internet.

As I said, there's no *requirement* that the policies of the mailing
list be justified. However, the question of male participation has
been much discussed in the mailing list and on these newsgroups, so
it's clear that there are many different positions on the issue,
among the members and the world at large, and it's good that they
were discussed. I do, however, think that it's been discussed to
death.

>How would others know about these so called womens issues if there is
>limited access to this group ?  I mean how are men going to know about
>these womens issues ? Are the moderators or somebody going to post 
>summaries of these issues on the open groups like sci or acuai etc ?
>Would there be an open discussion on these issues after such summary
>postings ? Will the result of these open discussions then be discussed
>on the private maillist and so on ? I mean - what is the mechanism you
>or the organizers of this private mailing list propose to have men
>involved at some point ? Do you see the need at all of having men
>involved at some point in future ?
> 

Whether men are involved at some time in the future depends entirely
on the members of the mailing list, who may or may not change their
current positions over time. Some of the discussions on the mailing
list may be summarised and cross-posted, but there's no organized
plan to transfer material between s.c.i. and the mailing list, and
I doubt that there will be in future. Women's issues occasionally
come up on s.c.i, and everyone, whether part of the mailing list or
not, is welcome to discuss them here.

Susan.
From: hira@cme.nist.gov (Ron Hira)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: MISUNDERSTANDING
Date: 18 Nov 92 21:40:50 GMT
Reply-To: hira@cme.nist.gov
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology

In article <1992Nov9.193657.14192@nas.nasa.gov>, raghavan@wk28.nas.nasa.gov (Venkatraman Raghavan) writes:
|> From: raghavan@wk28.nas.nasa.gov (Venkatraman Raghavan)
[Stuff Deleted]
|> 
|> [Some of your hatred of America seems to come from the economic hardship
|> you might have gone through. Get a decent education and a good job, you 
|> will be happier. If you are trying to form Indian street gangs, no thanks,
|> we don't need them.]

Where does this leave the people without a decent job and education??
Once one has attained the economic status of white middle class america,
one should ignore those who have not? If someone calls me a sand nigger,
I tell them to f___ off. I tend to be a bit more confrontational than 
most, but I'm unwilling to take sh__ from white people. 

What you're advocating is that we should feel good about ourselves
because the white man has sort of accepted us into their clique. 
Find out how they react when you start dating their daughter?

I don't advocate violence, but I do think that one should throw 
sh__ back in their faces once in awhile. 

One thing that I've been wondering about is if anyone knows a good 
derogatory name for white people? Frankly, "whitey" doesn't cut it. 

|> Please spell the name M.K.Gandhi correctly, it is not Gandy or Ghandi.
|> (I am pretty sure it not a typo, your 'h' is three spots out of place).

This is intended more as a question than a flame, but isn't `Gandhi' just
a phonetic english spelling of his name? As an example, there are many 
english representations of Gaddaffy, Kadafy, etc etc (for those of you
who used to watch SNL).  

Is there a right or wrong way to spell it, or just one that is commonly
used?

Ron
From: mba2@Rosie.UH.EDU (Puneet_S)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: Your Duty as an IA/American
Date: 21 Nov 1992 18:44:54 GMT
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: usa
Reply-To: mba2@Rosie.UH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: rosie.uh.edu

In article <1992Nov20.233337.20659@athena.mit.edu>, tyadav@athena.mit.edu (Tapesh Yadav) writes:
>==============================
> hira@cme.nist.gov replies:
> I don't quite understand this. How come you have the desire/time to 
> find out who is staring at you? Enjoy the date. I am usually so lost
> with my date that I don't know/care who is around me.
>
> Furthermore, may be they are staring at you for positive reasons (and 
> not racism). Many humans are unsuccessful in dating/relationships. And 
> they may be tempted to learn your manners of courtship....

PS	YES, key to a date, pay attention to the young lady more than	
	your surroundings....  
________________________________________________________________________________
It's not my goddamn planet, monkey boy
Puneet

                                                         MBA2@JETSON.UH.EDU   or
                                                         BBRC215@BAL0053.B-R.COM
From: hira@cme.nist.gov (Ron Hira)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: Problems faced by Indian immigrants not common to Chinese or
Date: 18 Nov 92 18:27:34 GMT
Reply-To: hira@cme.nist.gov
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology

In article <1992Nov05.194926.132897@watson.ibm.com>, saeed@watson.ibm.com (Saeed Jaffer) writes:
|> From: saeed@watson.ibm.com (Saeed Jaffer)
|> Subject: Re: Problems faced by Indian immigrants not common to Chinese or
|> Date: 5 Nov 92 19:49:26 GMT
|> 
|> I think the reason my friends and I enjoy this so much is because we feel a
|> sense of community and solidarity in the joke.  And because the joke ridicules
|> the ``ignorant Amrikan idiot'' who can't tell the difference between a South
|> Asian (desi), an Arab, or a Persian.

I have some difficulty with this myself. I also have difficulty discerning
between Irish, Polish, German, French, etc. people. Does this make me
ignorant. In addition I find it difficult to figure out differences 
between Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, etc.

A good number of desis don't think that I'm desi, does that make
them ignorant and idiots?

Ron
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian,soc.culture.indian
From: prabhak@giga.cs.umn.edu (Satya Prabhakar)
Subject: Re: Excluding men
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 12:36:26 GMT

(Uma M Subramanian) writes:
>
>5. There are other arenas for men to discuss woen's issues, with
>women's inpu, whereas there is none for women to just network
>with other women, be as outspoken as they'd like to be without being
>watched. In this sense this is really not excluding men in the way
>women are excluded from many spaces. The analogy the poster drew
>was a support group for Black Engineering Students at a prestigious public
>univ. which excludes whites and others. Is this exclusion or
>not? Should the black students feel obliged to include others?
>
This is a sympathetic analogy and therefore does not present an
objective viewpoint. This is because both the groups are ostensibly
persecuted and believe they need their own *space* to air their 
grievances.

I personally don't have a problem with that as long as we extend
this right to everybody or just state that this right is limited
only to those who are widely believed to be disadvantaged.

Another analogy is an exclusive white country club or, even worse,
KKK. Now, do people who support exclusion of men also support
exclusion of blacks from a private white country club? Or the
Wimbledon allowing only Caucasians to take part in the championship?

Anecdote:

(On a recent trip to London, I walked 2 miles in nippy weather from
Southlands to the Wimbledon club, only to be stopped at the gate.
I asked the guard to allow me to just look at the grounds and he
said, "No, sir! This is a private club!" I just took a picture of
A.E.L.T.C. on the metal entry gates and the Fred Perry statue
in the fron lawn and walked back to the Tube. I agree the
exclusion is not racist, but it would have steamed to no end if
they allowed white tourists to get in and stopped me. After all,
it is a private club, you know!)

Satya Prabhakar
From: raghavan@wk28.nas.nasa.gov (Venkatraman Raghavan)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: None
Date: 23 Nov 92 22:15:47 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: -

Hey Ashish (Vaidya),

 Shouting doesnot prove your point (I am refering to your e-mails). 
Also your letters contain language I wouldn't use with a stranger. If 
you continue to send me e-mail containing foul language I will resort 
to posting it on the net. Let me say that again, e-mail from you will
not be treated as private by me anymore. I hope you go your way and 
I mine.

Good luck and Good bye.
-Raghavan

P.S.: I am posting a copy of this on a.c.u.a-i. 
Xref: sparky alt.culture.us.asian-indian:1215 soc.culture.indian:37304
From: moh2@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Excluding men
Date: 17 Nov 92 14:49:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: midway.1992Nov17.144929.25606
Reply-To: moh2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Nov16.224135.23117@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> usubrama@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Uma M Subramanian) writes:
>In article <1992Nov16.181305.715@cirrus.com> venu@cirrus.com (Venu Nayar) writes:
>>>In <1992Nov16.140428.12218@midway.uchicago.edu> moh2@quads.uchicago.edu
>>>(Kateri/Mary Anne) writes: 
>
>5. There are other arenas for men to discuss woen's issues, with
>women's inpu, whereas there is none for women to just network
>with other women, be as outspoken as they'd like to be without being
>watched. In this sense this is really not excluding men in the way
>women are excluded from many spaces. The analogy the poster drew
>was a support group for Black Engineering Students at a prestigious public
>univ. which excludes whites and others. Is this exclusion or
>not? Should the black students feel obliged to include others?

Yes.  The one thing I really liked about the South Asian Students
Union at my university is that when I brought a Philipino and a white
friend with me to the first meeting, they were welcomed and included
in the discussion.

If it's a public institution, discrimination on any grounds is
inherently unfair, not to mention unconstitutional.

>2. No one was personally invited to join the email list, except for
>teh announcements in the various newsgroups no one was personally
>asked by teh moderators to join the group. The members of this 
>group became members on their own free will.

(sorry if I was unclear.....all I meant when I said I was invited was
that a friend reading the list sent me info about it, since it wasn't
posted about on a.c.u.a.i.)

As things stand, I'm withdrawing my objections to excluding men, but
solely because this is a *private* as opposed to *public* mailing
list.  Were it possible to construct a newsgroup which excluded men
from posting, I would oppose that construction wholeheartedly as being
a fundamentally discriminatory procedure.

And I'm still not happy that men are excluded, but am willing to wait
until the majority are converted. :-)

 - Amirthi
 (wondering if it's okay to crosspost her own postings to a.c.u.a.i.)
-- 
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads.  One
path leads to despair and utter hopelessness.  The other to total
extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
						 - Woody Allen
From: mba2@Jane.UH.EDU (Puneet_S)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: SEX
Date: 23 Nov 1992 18:44:43 GMT
Organization: University of Houston
Reply-To: mba2@Jane.UH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: jane.uh.edu

In article <1er17kINNi19@tamsun.tamu.edu>, gagrawal@cs.tamu.edu (Gopal Agrawal) writes:
>In article <1equdlINNhqc@menudo.uh.edu> mba2@Rosie.UH.EDU writes:
>>>
>>PS	Jealousy.....It's evil,

>Actions due to Jealousy is then a way to ensure that the parents 
>stick together and the chances of survival of their offsprings are 
>bettered i.e., it is not an evil but a survival mechanism. Hence,
>knowing that your girlfriend/boyfriend is having (or recently had)
>sex with someone else triggers off that gut feeling that she/he may
>not necessarily be committed in the future either. However, if one 
>is convinced that his spouse/SO has long forgotten previous sexual
>encounters, then it may not cause any Jealousy.  

PS	Sorry, can't agree with you on this.  I don't think of jealousy
	in those terms.  The self-defense mechanism doesn't cut it for
	me.  I think of it more in terms of me being insecure with my
	own self and not being able to deal with it.  I do feel that
	one should not "cheat" on a monogamous or polygamous relationship.
________________________________________________________________________________
It's not my goddamn planet, monkey boy
Puneet

                                                         MBA2@JETSON.UH.EDU   or
                                                         BBRC215@BAL0053.B-R.COM
From: hira@cme.nist.gov (Ron Hira)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: arranged marriages
Date: 17 Nov 92 21:45:41 GMT
Reply-To: hira@cme.nist.gov
Distribution: na
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology

In article <1992Nov5.193328.14324@cbnewsi.cb.att.com>, alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia) writes:
|> From: alok@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (alok.vijayvargia)
|> Subject: Re: arranged marriages
|> 
|> I don't think Indian guys talk about sex either with each other.
|> Not in India at least. I haven't seen very many talk about it
|> here either. As I said 'sex' is considered private in Indian culture.
|> I don't necessarily think that it should be so private..

This is not what I've encountered from guys including my cousin from
Bombay. In fact he talks about women ad nauseum. 

Ron
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian