From: dswartz@sw.stratus.com (Dan Swartzendruber)
Newsgroups: soc.women,alt.feminism,soc.men
Subject: Re: Practise what you preach? (was:what is sexist?)
Date: 17 Nov 92 21:44:07 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: redondo.sw.stratus.com

In article <MUFFY.92Nov17113118@anableps.berkeley.edu>, muffy@anableps.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
> In article <1ebd05INNdch@transfer.stratus.com> dswartz@sw.stratus.com (Dan Swartzendruber) writes:
> >In article <1992Nov17.162445.28368@midway.uchicago.edu>, mec6@quads.uchicago.edu (rini) writes:
> >> But if you are *trying* to be rude -- I don't know why they would be
> >> off limits.  I believe that they are more acceptable to the gentle 
> >> reader than "asshole."  
> 
> >But what the women whose postings I read were complaining about wasn't the
> >gentility (gentleness? whatever) of the rude male posting, it was the fact
> >that they resented (and quoted feminist dogma to back it up) men posting
> >insulting and/or condescending postings against women in soc.women.  I find
> >it more than a little strange that a moderator of soc.feminism engages in this
> >type of behavior on soc.men.
> 
> Well, let's look at this.  First, I was posting in alt.feminism, not
> soc.men.  I do not know why it is that people keep cross-posting
> everything to soc.men.  I have not cross-posted any of my posts to that 
> group, but I do reply to all the groups that a posting was originally
> put in.  Presumably, while you may consider soc.men to be your personal
> space, I, as a "well-known net feminist," can consider alt.feminism to
> be at least partially mine.

I never said I considered soc.men to be my private space.  I was just
pointing out the inconsistency (IMO) of women criticizing men for posting
insulting and/or condescending stuff to soc.women (said criticism being on
feminist grounds [ask Barbara Stubna, Cheryl Stewart, etc] and then doing
the same thing on soc.men.  The claim being that ridicule and insult is one
of the ways men oppress women on the net, by making them reluctant to post.
The fact that the target of your ire cross-posted to soc.men doesn't in my
view change anything.

> Second, I have never personally advocated the ideas you give above.

Oh, you're not one of the avowed feminists who feel men shouldn't post to
soc.women (unless they agree with feminist viewpoints), since soc.women is
"womyn space"?  The problem is that it isn't feasible for me to determine
which set of feminist opinions you hold, other than those you have explictly
stated.  And when men have (on more than one occasion) been criticized for
posting to soc.women; and when said reasons are justified using feminist
dogma, it's hard not to assume that that is a typical view.  To anticipate
your question, said justification was that men posting to soc.women was akin
to men being in the same classroom (or whatever) as women, and the women end
up feeling suppressed/oppressed/whatever due to the societal conditioning.

> Third, (and you may not have realized this), there is absolutely no
> requirement on moderators of soc.feminism to be polite to idiots in
> other newsgroups, only to be polite to idiots whose posts we receive for
> approval.

I never said there was such a requirement.  And in fact, you folks don't
even meet the criterion you just described.  I seem to recall a post where
one of said moderators rejected a post using the dreaded "dear" word?
I suppose it was unreasonable of me to assume that because you enforce a
policy of reasonableness as a moderator on one group, that you might have
the restraint to not engage in flame wars on another.  My error.

> Muffy
> --
> 
> Muffy Barkocy                               muffy@mica.berkeley.edu
> ~Weavers' fingers flying on the loom/patterns shift too fast to be
>  discerned/all these years of thinking/ended up like this/in front
>  of all this beauty/understanding nothing~ - Bruce Cockburn

-- 

#include <std_disclaimer.h>

Dan S.
Xref: sparky soc.women:19690 soc.men:19379