HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: women in engineering ( help..)
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 92 06:26:48 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <laura.716031754@vipunen.hut.fi> laura@vipunen.hut.fi (Laura Tiilikainen) writes:
>In <1992Sep8.220540.26780@leland.Stanford.EDU> farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:
>
>>I believe it was Margaret Mead who pointed out that, regardless of
>>what men in a society did, men's work is nearly always rated higher in
>>status and more valuable than women's work.  
>
>Paradoxal though that it is both men and women who seem to emphasize
>the value of men's work and disparage women's work. 

Yes. Steven Goldberg deals with this apparent paradox in his "The Inevitability
of Patriarchy." In a nutshell, his explanation is: whatever society values
the most highly, that is what men will practically knock themselves out
to do. In some societies, a particular task may be done by men, while
in other societies that same task is done by women. And in societies
where it is done by men, the task is valued highly, while in those
where it is done by women, it is not. 


-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

       "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
        Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
        broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or
        where it will end."
                               - Emerson: Essay, "Circles"
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: nissim@mary.fordham.edu (Leonard J. Nissim)
Subject: Re: women in engineering ( help..)
Organization: Fordham University
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 18:23:00 GMT
X-Posted-From: mary.fordham.edu
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <16858F0E2.FM010201@ysub.ysu.edu>, FM010201@ysub.ysu.edu writes...
>I am a graduate student in engineering, a minority, doing a thesis on " women ,
>engineering and creativity". I am interested in knowing about the opinion of ot
>hers about why there is not much interest in women about becoming engineer. I a
>m pursuing two traditional line of search:
> 1. Nature: women have different cognitive abilities than man and do not have m
>            uch interest in men's pursuit of dominating nature. As most of the
>            engineering is.  More right brain with thicker connection between
>            right and left brain ( corpus clossum).
>2. Nurture: Women are discouraged verbally or non-verbally to pursue abstract t
>            opics such as math, science and engineering. feminist opinion.
>Both sides have their defenders. It is hard to see which one is on the right tr
>ack. Your opinions are highly needed to form a sort of informal survey. Thanks:
> Lisa
> 

Since many engineers were mathematics majors for some or all of their under-
graduate career, you should read the September 1991 (v. 38, no. 7) issue of 
"Notices of the American Mathematical Society"; it was a special issue on 
women in mathematics.  

In particular, the reflections of Jean Taylor (p. 706) and the article writen 
by Jenny Harrison (pp. 730-734) give their evidence for 2., above. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leonard J. Nissim  (nissim@mary.fordham.edu)   
Disclaimer:  "I speak only for myself."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Some examples (Was Re: Winning by Violation (was: new group?))
Date: 5 Sep 92 19:55:32 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
| >Hillel, are you aware of the difference between attacking
| >someone personally and disputing their ideas?

gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes:
| Please spell out for me the Politically Correct definition
| of the difference.. 

Well, there's an example right there.

| E.g. Please explain the reasons for the following rejection.
| (I tried to point out ideas which were posted and were baseless
| and/or run against counter examples.  I'm sure that you can
| explain why these were judged personal attacks...)

I can't read the minds of the moderators, but you often seem 
to be imputing malice to people and making attacks on their
character.  Of the two examples you give, one is essentially
a one-liner and pretty much ad-hominem -- it doesn't allow of
any reasonable answer -- and the other, if I read it correctly,
is a complete digression with no function but to prove that
the other person doesn't pick the same things out of _Ms_ 
you do.

Can you explain the examples otherwise?  Both postings seem
like personal attacks to me, and I suspect to a lot of
other people too.  I find the constant pugnaciousness boring.
I'm not against you having newsgroups full of it, as soc.men
was the last time I looked, but there's no reason while the
whole net, and soc.feminism in particular, should be 
likewise saturated.
-- 
 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women
From: awerling@nmsu.edu (WERLING)
Subject: Re: "One" as a pronoun
Organization: NMSU Computer Science
	<AWERLING.92Sep10222653@dante.nmsu.edu>
	<1992Sep12.000429.785@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 19:19:36 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.000429.785@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> moselecw@elec.canterbury.ac.nz (C.W. Moseley) writes:

   awerling@nmsu.edu (WERLING) writes:
   > keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:
   > 
   > -   Well, I would write:
   > -
   > -	"One should watch what he says about his teacher,..."t
   > -
   > -   This clearly sets up the gerderlessness but does not seem so awkward.
   > 
   > How does the continued use of "his" maintain genderlessness?

   #brain OFF
     because `he' refers to both sexes, it's the generic term.
   #brain on

But of course, while the intent is that it refers to both sexes, in
effect, "he" only refers to the masculine.

   I thought the whole point of the discussion was that the masculine term
   is NOT taken as the generic.

Exactly.

   Maybe s/he/it meant "One should watch what sie says about hir teacher,..."
   (yes, that is a flame, just say "s/he/it" out loud)

Flames ignored.  One might consider growing up (a tad, yes?).

--
Andrew Werling    awerling@nmsu.edu    yip@acca.nmsu.edu
Transmitting from Planet Yip--where everyone you meet 
			      is already dead.
From: awerling@nmsu.edu (WERLING)
Subject: Re: "The Oppressed"? (was: proposed vote of confidence)
Organization: NMSU Computer Science
	<DF.92Sep2164954@anableps.berkeley.edu> <#=xn+b=.sheaffer@netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 19:40:04 GMT


NOTE: many over-generalizations are simply deleted.

In article <#=xn+b=.sheaffer@netcom.com> sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:

(re: women)

- They can pursue careers if they wish, or they can marry a high-achieving
- male and be a homemaker, or can do both at different times. No man has
- any such option, because a career woman sees a 'male homebody' as far
- beneath her. ("Why, he can't even earn as much as *I* do! What a loser!")

I've never heard of this specifically, but I agree that the notion of
"househusband/male homemaker" would probably get the male in question
much criticism for "laziness" (despite the hard work of such a lifestyle).
To be fair, women who choose the "housewife/female homemaker" role in
today's society does get similar flak.

- They have entire departments in universities whose sole function is to
- broadcast womens' complaints to the world. Men have no such thing.

You show a grave misunderstanding of Women's Studies programs.

- Feminists can often bring much pressure toward banning, suppressing,
- or silencing whatever they do not like to hear or see. Many university
- careers have been compromised for failure to adhere to "correct" dogma.

Sad to hear.  Many of us would be interested to read of examples of this.

- Women live eight years longer than men, probably because they do not typically
- find themselves under such unremitting pressure to support themsleves
- and their family. They control MORE than 50% of the wealth of America,
- in spite of having earned considerably less than 50% of the income. The
- "oppressed", I say, are those who end up with LESS than what they earn,
- while those who end up with more than they have earned are in fact privileged.

Excuse me?  I know many many MANY single mothers out there who are
struggling like crazy to work, go to school, AND raise their kids.  I
know much fewer single fathers.  Maybe this is because of the way
custody battles turn out (i.e., some sexist notion that mothers raise
kids better than fathers?), but nonetheless, with the way things are
the way they are in this country today, I would HOPE that women are
making more money than men.  At the very least, for the sake of the kids!

- Oppressed, you say? The feminists' clients are the new Mandarin class, with
- powers and privileges far beyond those of ordinary men. And on top of
- all this power and privilege, their complaints about being
- "oppressed" continues to accrue them ever greater power.

I am not familiar with your posts yet, but I'm almost suspicious
you're being farcical here.  In other words,

		Surely you jest!

--
Andrew Werling    awerling@nmsu.edu    yip@acca.nmsu.edu
Transmitting from Planet Yip--where everyone you meet 
			      is already dead.
From: gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Choice for men
Date: 11 Sep 92 02:16:12 GMT
Reply-To: gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel)
Organization: Nefolet shel nemushot (Fallout of Wimps)

In article <1992Sep11.004458.10062@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> 
gsh7w@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes:
>In article <716169388@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes:

#You, on the other hand, just loves the idea because that's your 
#only chance to get get rid off all those "sick philosophies."

>Since you know nothing about my ideas wrt the power of the governtment, 

How else can force your method of "responsibility" on other people?
You need the government's power because you want to prevent men
from having any way out in a case of birth control failure.

#The point in all this debate is that you don't want to do it
#with your money, just to force someone else to do it with his money.

>I simply want you to pay for the things you are responsible for, not
>welsh out becasue you find paying child care "inconvienent".

But you don't feel any need to give a raw deal to a woman who decides
to carry a pregnancy to term knowing that she can't support the baby,
and the father does not want it.  You also feel no need to give her
a raw deal after she decides not to give it up to adoption.

But you feel that the father should get a raw deal, and you 
have no problem about using the state power to ensure that.

#What will you do after sending the FBI after dead-beat dads will 
#not yield the results you want?  What will you do if the tax payers
#will be tired of paying for irresponsible women?  How much state
#powers will you use to force your ideals on other people before you
#will have the wisdom to say "enough"?

>Why are you trying to change the subject? Losing the current argument?

The subject is that you try to fight the "sick philosophies" 
using government power.  I don't care why you think they are
"sick," I just ask you how much power you are willing to
use against people who don't follow your perfect way.

>-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia

Hillel                                                   gazit@cs.duke.edu

"I don't need the Canadian government's approval, any more than I
need an NEA grant to fund my posting."  --  STella@xanadu.com	
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: awerling@nmsu.edu (WERLING)
Subject: Re: The word "sexist" (WAS: Sexist studies...) 
Organization: NMSU Computer Science
	<1992Sep12.030901.9193@leland.Stanford.EDU> <qnwn!mj.payner@netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 19:25:55 GMT

In article <qnwn!mj.payner@netcom.com> payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:

-   In article <1992Sep12.030901.9193@leland.Stanford.EDU> farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:
 
-   >Jewish studies anti-Gentile?

- Take the anti out. If you have been reading my posts you should know
- that I do not use sexist in it's the form most here seem to prefer,
- where it is only sexist if the woman is being discriminated against.
- This is not, as some have alluded, wrong, or dishonest.

Rich, I never said that sexist was only applicable if the woman was
being discriminated against.  In fact, if I remember right, I was
trying to get you to explain how the *men* were being discriminated against!

--
Andrew Werling    awerling@nmsu.edu    yip@acca.nmsu.edu
Transmitting from Planet Yip--where everyone you meet 
			      is already dead.
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: tjbryce@unix.amherst.edu (THOMAS JAMES BRYCE)
Subject: Feminism and womens studies
Organization: Amherst College
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 22:00:59 GMT

(moselecw@elec.canterbury.ac.nz) writes, continuing a discussion
about womens studies courses, about the lack of such courses for men

ther is certainly enough literature out there for such courses

Why men are the way they are, warren farrel
Men freeing Men, by various authors
Iron John and Fire in the Belly
transitions newsletter

and plenty others, enough to cetainly fill a few courses
In fact there are some such courses offered at places, but they are few

I also must disagree with moselecw's definition of sexist:
(sexist: discrimination by gender with negative results for the group
discriminated against)


the with negative results clause seems tailor made only to permit 
discrimination against people without a loudhorn at the universities.
because you can always argue that there are no negative results.

This definitioon is only acceptable if the person/group being discriminated
againsdt is permitted to decide if there are negative effects or not

else certainly some people applying the definition will have no sympathy.

the definition seems to allow some groups with louder representation
in americas intellectual circles to get away with double standards that arew unfair
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: sk73171@cs.tut.fi (Kiiskil{ Sami)
Subject: Re: equality by regression?
Organization: Tampere Univ. of Technology, Finland.
	<1992Sep1.121316.589@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Distribution: alt.feminism
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 12:14:35 GMT


In article <1992Sep1.121316.589@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> moselecw@elec.canterbury.ac.nz (C.W. Moseley) writes:

>   yes, good one, brilliant. Remove the penii of all male children at birth.
>   There will be no more rapes. um, well, no? Violent sexual violation I

Nope. Maybe I didn't said it clearly enough. Only from those who had
already committed the crime.

>   Of course, this violates all sorts of laws and theories.
>   I do not favour killing, maiming or mutilating anyone. ever.

So you think it is not right that a surgeon removes organs or part of
them that doesn't work properly ( tumors,damaged veins etc.. ) ?

>   I think it is possible to remove the incentive to rape, remove or
>   reduce the factors that cause 99% of rapes. And I believe that

Sure. But the brain areas that control the sexula behaviour are so widely
distributed inside the head that it is not possible for current technology
to find and deactivate them whitout causing serious damage to other
functions as well.

>   feminism will provide many of the methods and philosophies we
>   need to do this.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
: Money isn't everything, : Sami Kiiskil{  ( The { means 'ae' ) :   Nothing   :
: . . . there is also     : e-mail : sk73171@ee.tut.fi          :     is      :
:  H i g h - T e c h  ! ! : phone : 931-180690 or 934-428254    : impossible. :
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
From: hans@Software.Mitel.COM (Hans Johnsen)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: "One" as a pronoun
Date: 15 Sep 92 19:14:56 GMT
Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada.

In article <1992Sep14.220702.10787@tfs.com> ecsd@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
>One is to use my voice and use 'he', and allow the reader to make the
>translation. Because I'll expect to read authors doing the same with
>'she', and I'll make the translation.

Yes, but it must be clear that you are speaking with YOUR voice and not
with a general voice. Plus this is not always practical.

>My common method is to abuse the grammar and use 'they', which works
>because there is most often no ambiguity about number. I recall getting
>into trouble grammatically from time to time, but I can't remember now
>what caused the problems.

I tried doing this in my thesis. My supervisor (being a traditional type)
corrected it. I was left with the dilemma of trying to explain to him
and risk his ire (and risk having to postpone the start date of my
already arranged job), or compromising my principles. Instead I simply
reworded everything to plural. It worked just as well as the original.

In spite of what many people try to tell you, it is NOT hard to avoid
gender-loaded pronouns. It may take a bit more work, but including
twice as many people in the effective audience of my work is worth
it to me.

I almost never use s/he (which I prefer over he/she, she or he,
etc..). When I do it is intentionally used to shake up people's
expectations and (hopefully) make them THINK! By the way, there is an
example of doing exactly this in the first sentence of this paragraph.

p.s. It was awfully hard not to waste my time attempting to disabuse
our resident sexist engineer of his misconceptions, but I have so far
managed. What gets me is his hostile tone towards women and his
classifying of all of them as not able to 'take the heat', all the
while claiming that there is no sexism in engineering schools (who
would want to spend 5 years learning to drive a train anyway). Oops,
I appear to have succumbed to temptation.

disclaimer: Oops does not refer to object oriented programming in any
            way.
-- 
Take off all your clothes and walk down the street waving a machete
and firing an Uzi, and terrified citizens will phone the police and
report: "There's a naked person outside!" - Mike Nichols
Xref: sparky alt.feminism:1201 soc.women:16657
From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Defining terms
Date: 8 Sep 92 17:37:12
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
	<AWERLING.92Sep8155202@dante.nmsu.edu> <2458@tymix.Tymnet.COM>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: baba@Tymnet.com's message of 8 Sep 92 23:44:44 GMT

In article <2458@tymix.Tymnet.COM> baba@Tymnet.com (Duane Hentrich) writes:
>In article <AWERLING.92Sep8155202@dante.nmsu.edu>, awerling@nmsu.edu (WERLING) writes:
>|> In article <715952271@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes:
>|> - Feminism is, more than anything else, a political movement.  The real
>|> - "theory" behind most of this political movement demands is "it is good
>|> - for women therefore it is good."  
>|> 
>|> Feminism is an intellectual movement with political implications.

>There is no emotional nor personal side?

Femin*ists*, being humans, have emotions.  Femin*ism*, being either a
movement (as the two posters above seem to agree), or possibly a
philosophy or a way of looking at the world, cannot have emotions, nor
does it require in any way that the people who follow it have emotions
related to it.  However, people who gain a feminist viewpoint (or who
oppose one) will often have many emotions related to what they perceive
using this viewpoint.  This is not a part of feminism, just a
side-effect.

>Feminism seems more a Rite of
>Passage to me. I'm glad to be beyond it.

Are you beyond it having gone through it or around it?  What did you
find on the "other side"?

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy | muffy@mica.berkeley.edu | wi.4636@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
 sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
 But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women
From: laura@vipunen.hut.fi (Laura Tiilikainen)
Subject: Re: women in engineering ( help..)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date:  9 Sep 92 09:42:34 GMT

In <1992Sep8.220540.26780@leland.Stanford.EDU> farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:

>I believe it was Margaret Mead who pointed out that, regardless of
>what men in a society did, men's work is nearly always rated higher in
>status and more valuable than women's work.  

Paradoxal though that it is both men and women who seem to emphasize
the value of men's work and disparage women's work. 

			Laura
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: scottm@intime.intime.COM (Scott Michel)
Subject: Re: Dworkin and her positive contributions to feminism?
Organization: Home for J-24 sailing programmers, West Coast branch
Distribution: alt
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 02:19:57 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.213005.964@news.nd.edu> slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen) writes:
>In article <ZEN.92Sep10120207@death.corp.sun.com> zen@death.corp.sun.com (d) writes:
[ ... truncated ... ]
>One of the ironies is that she claims that men reduce women 
>to their sexual organs while at the same time I get the 
>impression that she is describing men as being motivated 
>almost exclusively by the pursuit of sex, thereby reducing 
>men to their sexual organs. 

Whilst I agree that she is perceived as preoccupied with the
subject, and reduce it to absurdity in the process, many other
feminists are perceived as reducing sex also to just sexual
organs too. Am I way off base on this? (No emotional flames, I
will rip them apart and expose them for what they are.)

>I agree that many net-writers toss her name around as some sort of 
>feminist-bashing code word.  I could not say either way if she 

Perception (concrete sense perception, as is used in abstraction)
is what defines general opinion of any movement. I know that the
inevitable Rush Limbaugh quotes this lunatic, and thus the feminist
movement does get bashed pretty heavily. Why don't the less extreme
or moderate fems get out there and change perception? Secondly,
it's been my experience that the more radical or reactive parts of
a movement have the greatest impact on a movement and determine its
direction, simply because they voice themselves the loudest. 

>Sue Larsen
>slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu

-scottm
Newsgroups: alt.feminism