HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: zen@death.corp.sun.com (d)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Some examples (Was Re: Winning by Violation (was: new group?))
Date: 8 Sep 92 10:07:29
Organization: savage hackers
	<715582627@lear.cs.duke.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: death.corp.sun.com
In-reply-to: gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu's message of 4 Sep 92 04:57:08 GMT


In article <715582627@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes:
   In article <ZEN.92Sep3202122@death.corp.sun.com> 
> > zen@death.corp.sun.com (d) writes:
> In article <715566430@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes:
> >  Well, it is a feminist topic, I suppose... but I never said it wasn't.
> >I personally don't think feminism is about women controlling anyone --
> >but I suppose a large part of women's problems is that there lives are
> >so unfairly and unequally dominated by society, which has been
> >traditionally and currently been controlled by men.

> Talk sometimes with men who went through a divorce and get a clue.
> Talk sometimes with men who have to pay child's support for 18 years 
> because of a birth control failure and get a clue.
> Talk sometimes with men who were drafted and get a clue.
> Talk sometimes with men who lost a job and/or university
> admission to less qualified women and get a clue.

  What does this have to do with women's problems, which is what I was
addressing up there?  Unless... are you saying that in our society women
control men more than men control women (overall, not in any single
issue)?  Are you saying that it's harder being a man than a women
because our society gives too many unfair advantages to women, and
persecutes men?  Or perhaps that men are controlled a lot also, and that
women should stop griping because men have it just as rough (or
rougher)?

  In any case, I've talked to people who fit your descriptions (except
the last example), and none of them were particularily bitter towards
women (although some weren't thrilled with a particular woman...
*smile*).  Even if they were, what would this prove?  I think the
evidence that women are oppressed and controlled by men much more than
vice-versa (and is well agreed on by sociologists, even if you don't
think so -- try reading just about *any* text on the subject if you
disbelieve, or cite some references if you disagree).  Men are
controlled as well, but mostly by other men (since, after all, it is men
who are in power); if we were able to shift the power structure so that
men didn't control *everything*, then perhaps people in general might
not be so oppressed and things might be much more equal, which is the
goal of most folks, I'd think/guess/hope, at least those that are
pro-individual freedom.  This may or may not happen, and this may or may
not be something that you'd like to see, but it's what I'm for...
equality and fairness.  It may be that it's human nature to opress, but
I would like to believe that even if that were true, that a more even
balance of power would more evenly distribute the oppression.

 -- d
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.men,soc.women,soc.college
From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Subject: Re: Do Engineers Use Calculus?
Reply-To: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles C. Lin)
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 18:20:47 GMT

   Maybe we should call it BASIC instead of calculus.  I once heard
someone who thought BASIC was an easy languages while Pascal was
hard, and I'm sure the name BASIC had something to do with it.  It
may be true that Pascal has difficult concepts in it, but to do
the same thing in BASIC as in Pascal isn't.  Anyway, I, too, digress.

   There are two reasons I can see for learning calculus.  One is
that you might wish to go to graduate school, and you have to 
learn calculus somewhere along the way, and teaching it at the
grad level doesn't seem to make sense.  Still, not everyone
goes to grad school.  The other reason is just to get you to
think.   It's just like the argument about why anyone should bother
majoring in history or English since you aren't going to get a
job (most likely) in history or English.  It's the ability to
organize and express ideas that is important, not so much the
actual content (unless it's important to you to appear
knowledgeable about such things in conversations or just
have the need to know).   Hence, it is the solving of the
problems that gets the engineer used to dealing with
difficult ideas that I think is the main benefit.

   The main difference in the "real world", so I'm told is that
there is rarely a systemized theory such as there is in calculus.
You tend to learn bits and pieces which are practical whereas
calculus can be thought of as one big theory.   In any case,
I know someone who does research in an area that never uses
electronics, yet his knowledge of electronics is formidable, and
he has used it from time to time to play around with real
circuits.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: dholtsin@nyx.cs.du.edu (Doug Holtsinger)
Subject: Re: Pro-LIFE feminists???
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 17:45:39 GMT

sk73171@cs.tut.fi (Kiiskil{ Sami) writes:

> So, the matter isn't if killing is righ or wrong, but who has the
> right to fo it ? Is that a common attitude thereabout, could surely
> explain some of the violence on the streets ?

Some people have attempted to link the increase in child abuse in recent 
years to the liberal abortion policies created by Roe v. Wade.
From: holzman@fnalno.fnal.gov (Daniel B. Holzman)
Subject: Re: STNG episode about homosexuality
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Lab
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 20:18:55 GMT
X-Posted-From: fnalno.fnal.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <1992Sep12.032956.10243@leland.Stanford.EDU>, 
farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:
> I thought it said some good things about having something entirely
> natural to some people being treated as an illness by the majority,
> but it still didn't deal with homosexuality clearly.  

I must differ.  The parallell was sufficiently clear that every Fundamentalist
Christian gathering I am aware of was shocked and talking about a
Trek/Paramount boycott.

-- 
Daniel B. Holzman                    | Eight Words the Witch's Rede Fufill:
HOLZMAN@FNAL.BITNET                  | An It Harm None, Do What You Will
HOLZMAN@FNALC.FNAL.GOV.INTERNET      |
                                     | All Acts of Love and Pleasure are
Love doesn't subtract,               | Her Rituals
   it multiplies    - Heinlein       |
                                     | Speak the Word.
Disclaimer:  Fermilab's far too large to have an opinion, let alone mine.
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: nancyo@fraser.sfu.ca (Nancy Patricia O'Connor)
Subject: Re: Choice for men
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 02:56:14 GMT

biesel@javelin.sim.es.com (Heiner Biesel) writes:


>Presumably the goal of birth control is the prevention of fertilization
>of a specific female. It is obviously more efficient to find an effective
>means of preventing ovulation/fertilization/implantation for her than to
>suppress the production of sperm for every male she might mate with.

>Regards,
>       H. Biesel

This is not the situation for couples, however--an unplanned
pregnancy usually becomes a problem for both.  Since the methods
for males were safer than the methods for females, having birth
control options for the male half of the couple would allow the
couple greater choice in eliminating their risks.
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Grading papers
Date: 5 Sep 92 19:12:57 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1992Sep4.213851.2740@burrhus.harvard.edu> dsvoss@isr.harvard.edu (Steve Voss) writes:
>I recently graded a paper by a young man who consistently used "he"
>and "his" for pronouns.  I spent a decent amount of time trying
>to come up with an appropriate response when grading the paper,
>so I thought I would share the comments I used.  Maybe somebody
>will want to use it too, or maybe someone will have a suggestion
>for next time I confront this situation.  Here goes:
>
>"The emerging convention is to use gender-neutral or otherwise
>inclusive pronouns (e.g. "she or he" or "his/her") when writing
>for a polite audience, since this reduces sexism inherent in
>traditional language conventions.  Although this factor didn't
>influence your grade, I would have appreciated less frequent use
>of masculine pronouns to describe hypothetical individuals in the
>text."
>
>I thought this set a good balance, admonition without strong
>advocacy.

Humm.  I think it might have been better to mention it to all
the students rather than put pressure so directly on one person.

Did it really not influence the grade?  Not even a little?  Are you
sure the student will be convinced it didn't?  What if he offends
again in the same way?

One thing that puzzles me is that it sounds like (1) only one student
used pronouns this way, and (2) you hadn't seen that sort of pronoun
usage in student papers before.  How can this be?  It suggests (at
least) that he wasn't a student you had dealt with before and perhaps
that he had a different background than the other students.

Maybe he had good reasons for using masculine pronouns.  Perhaps some
other teacher had rejected papers that weren't "standard English", and
he was just following the rules he'd learned.  Maybe he thinks "he or
she" is too clumsy and doesn't know how to get around the problem another
way.  

Or perhaps he just has a different view on the politics of language
than you do.  Is his political position relevant to the subject matter
of the paper?

Finally, I'm not sure it's true that the emerging convention is to
use "she or he" or "his/her" -- which is the only specific advice
you give.  I hardly ever see "she or he" or "his/her" in my reading.
The conventions I see most often are to use "they" and "their" or to
sometimes use masculine pronouns and sometimes feminime (in the
same article, paper, whatever) or to avoid pronouns in favor of
"the readers", "users", etc. 

-- jd
Xref: sparky alt.feminism:1173 soc.men:16457
From: slarsen@schumann.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.men
Subject: Re: a programmer is not an engineer, indeed
Date: 15 Sep 92 16:55:03 GMT
Organization: OUC, University of Notre Dame

In article <1992Sep14.152837.9951@uoft02.utoledo.edu> dweddin@uoft02.utoledo.edu writes:
>> 
>so what should we do, muffy? hire women as engineers who are not qualified
>to make up for all the years of negative messages? that would be great
>news to me when i drive over a bridge that collapses...
>
>
>"ayyyyyeeeeeiiiiii, i'm falling....but i'm not bitter because the WOMAN
>who designed this bridge was hired as compensation for her not going into
>engineering because of all of the negative messages from society....
>ayyyyeeeeiiiiiiii".......... *SPLAT*

Okay, I'll admit it, this is off-topic, but:

Since when has private business made it a point to hire the "most 
qualified" anyway?  Every for-profit business I have worked for 
viewed "qualifications" as just one part of the hiring package.  
In some outfits, it was a rather small consideration.  "How did 
the applicant look?"  "Which of the bosses' relatives is this?" 
"Who are they connected to?"  "What was the name of her husband's 
business?"  "Do we owe his dad a favor?" "Oh, we don't ever 
hire people from *that* university.  Old football rivalry, you 
know."  "Gotta get a domer, we need that Notre Dame connection."
I saw a secretarial applicant lose a job for looking too 
matronly (her words-per-minute was 100+, the hiree tested at 
58 wpm).  I saw managers re-writing job descriptions to prevent 
secretaries from bidding on them because "you know how hard it 
is to find a good secretary."  At one place I worked, I had to 
endure a summer of college interns, each one given the job 
because their parents where muckety-mucks in the company or 
were potential clients.  These interns spent their summer 
chasing each other's tails.  I *wish* people in this town 
would hire strictly for "qualifications." 

In fact, I worked for an engineering design firm that hired people 
by bloodline over credentials.  Drove under one of their railroad 
trestles during a rain shower designed by junior.  Unfortunately 
I didn't see the big lake that had formed and it killed my car!

Shoot, the places I've worked that do take "qualifications" 
seriously are the places that have embraced affirmative action 
principles.  These organizations are required to back up their 
hiring decisions.  I don't necessarily agree with the 
concept of affirmative action, but I will never again work for 
anyone that hasn't embraced the notion.

Sue Larsen
slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu
From: gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Choice for men
Date: 10 Sep 92 20:49:55 GMT
Reply-To: gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel)
Organization: The Piranha Club

#Telling a woman "if you will get pregnant, even if you cheated him
#about birth control, then we'll either help you take him to the cleaners
#or we'll pay you welfare," is a great way to create irresponsible women.

In article <1992Sep10.194216.5685@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> 
gsh7w@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes:
>This from somebody who wants to let men not pay *ANY* child support
>when he decides it isn't convienient, err, "ruin his life".

*Only* if he tells it to the woman fast, so she can have an
abortion or look for the kind of adoption she might want.

The idea in feminism is to have the choice, but shift the 
responsibility.  (If men would have a say about abortion then 
they would have to take the responsibility; that's why I don't
want any say about the subject.)

BTW if an unmarried woman decides, in birth, that she does not
want the baby and the father manages to win custody, will she 
pay even a penny in support?  Does anyone thinks that our 
pro-equality Virginia man gives a damn about that?
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: awerling@nmsu.edu (WERLING)
Subject: Re: Word Games (Was: Freshm*n)
Organization: NMSU Computer Science
	<1992Sep3.123528.23642@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
	<YIP.92Sep4151138@rever.acca> <ATAYLOR.92Sep4154741@gauss.nmsu.edu>
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 23:13:24 GMT

ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy) wrote:

> yip@rever.acca (Happy-happy-happyfag!) (er, that's me) writes:
   <   Entymology notwithstanding, I'll paraphrase Wittgenstein: look not
   <   at what a word means, look rather at how it is used.

   <   Man in English is male, in any context.  

	   Manipulate your hands in the manual alphabet.
	   Manumit your mind from the many superstitions it contains.
	   Manage, if you can, a manuscript containing less manure.


	   Show me the "men" in the above sentences, please.

Man as relates to "person."  Freshman relates to person.  Boy, that
was difficult.

	   And try looking up the Latin word for "hand", if
	   you can spare some time from Wittgenstein's fulminations
	   on "how many demons can opress the head of a pin".

I only subscribe to Wittgenstein's notion of looking at how a word is
used in culture.  Entymology has nothing to do with how a woman feels
everytime she is called a man.


   <   Well, dear, it *is* a serious issue, with or without your decree.

	   Thank you for another example of feminist patronization....

Hmmm.  1. I never labelled myself a feminist.  2. You deleted Jeff's
original statment about feminists getting "real issues" in order to be
"taken seriously."  How would you define Jeff's tone?  How else would
you have me respond to him?

--
Andrew Werling   awerling@nmsu.edu   yip@rever.nmsu.edu
"Jesus is coming, look busy."
          --from a button I bought in an Albuquerque bookstore.
Xref: sparky alt.feminism:1147 soc.men:16422
From: payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.men
Subject: Re: a programmer is not an engineer, indeed
Date: 14 Sep 92 23:59:06 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <ZEN.92Sep14153856@death.corp.sun.com> zen@death.corp.sun.com (d) writes:
>
>In article <1992Sep14.152837.9951@uoft02.utoledo.edu> dweddin@uoft02.utoledo.edu writes:
>> actually, you are right with respect to the fact that most engineers
>> are abyssmal programmers. that's because their classes have IMHO far
>> too few classes. but out in the "real world" (where i've been) the
>> corporations prefer to hire engineers and teach them to program well
>> as opposed to hiring you CS folk and teaching you to be engineers.
>
>  The problem with generalities is that they are always wrong.  Or
>something like that.

It's good to see a some humor in an otherwise unfunny diatribe.
 
> -- d

Rich

payner@netcom.com
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 17:45:05 EDT
From: <ABR105@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Birth control

>
>Precisely my point: since there are numerous males that might impregnate
>a female, and since such impregnation might be desired from some, but not
>others, it is more efficient to provide an effective means of birth control
>for the female than to do the same for every male she might mate with.
>(efficient in the sense that to achieve the stated goal, only a single
>person will need to control her fertility, rather than several potential
>or actual mates)

Is this explanation meant to show how men can save money?

>
>It is, after all, the female who has the ultimate choice as to whether
>she will get pregnant or not.

Hmmmmmmmmm,  Last time I checked, there was actually a choice in
_using_ birth control ----- but the actual effectiveness could not
be totally guaranteed...

Sorry for the sarcasm but it sounds as though you think of women
in this light as baby factories...

>Of course, which is why there need to be effective birth control methods
>available for both sexes.
>

I can totally agree with this.

>No argument. However, this thread started with some vague assertions that
>male contraceptive methods are not being pursued as aggressively as female
>ones. That may be so, for several reasons: truly effective means of
>suppressing
>sperm production run the risk of producing impotence in some men. Mechanical
>methods other than the condom usually require surgical intervention and
>have some risk of permanent sterility. (presumably no-one on this net is
>muddleheaded enough to advocate tight-fitting jockey shorts as an effective
>means of male birth control) Much of the motivation behind finding
>effective birth control methods is the desire to limit population growth,
>especially in third-world countries. If the motivation is simply to prevent
>impregnation of a female by any male, then control of the female reproductive
>cycle is most efficient, especially if the method is effective over a long
>period.

Well, -- OK!
Just as there are risks for men -- they are there for women
But, you may be forgetting the most prominent reason that men don't
want to use any type of birth control or method of sterilization.
__It might take away their masculinity!!!!!__
This is the way many of my friends feel.  But I for one (of many) can
take the responsibility for my actions and help prevent the pregnancy
of any partner that I may have.  It is not the responsibility of one
person, but both to take precautions.  Both are participating so both
should be responsible.

CHEERS!
                     --Adam
From: lynch@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Tom Lynch)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: What's the purpose here?
Date: 7 Sep 92 07:21:18 GMT
	<LYNCH.92Aug31023446@flubber.cc.utexas.edu>
	<4870@daily-planet.concordia.ca>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin
In-reply-to: honna@cs.concordia.ca's message of 4 Sep 92 19:18:08 GMT


>In article <LYNCH.92Aug31023446@flubber.cc.utexas.edu> 
>lynch@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Tom Lynch) writes:

>>    Frankly, it looks like an excellent argument for a
>>   moderated group to me. 

no,no,no I did not write this.  It does appear within a quote of Muffy
in one of my postings, and it is clearly marked as such.  (I have double
checked).  It also completely contradicts the thesis of my previous
postings in this thread.

If your gonna spew.. please at least attribute the quotes to the
correct person.  I can't help to point out, after seeing your gross
metaphor, the misquotation, and lack of an apparent point (except
possilbly to smear someone), that some people may reflect on the
advantages of a moderated news group.

Please direct flames to email, I'll be glad to debate issues relating
to free speech `until the cows come home'.  For now I am quite content
to follow what other people have to see about censorship/noncensorship
in soc.feminism.  I have already `stated my peace' on that one.

-tom Lynch@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu




Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: bgarfink@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (beth diane garfinkel)
Subject: Re: girl/woman = guy/man? (WAS: Sexist Incidents)
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 16:39:12 GMT

In <AWERLING.92Sep1225713@dante.nmsu.edu> awerling@nmsu.edu (WERLING) writes:

>You know, I often catch myself saying "girl" and I instantly correct
>it to "woman."  The word "girl" is patronizing by its very nature, but
>my problem is I'm looking for a friendly term to refer to anyone
>female.  Like "guy" is used to refer to anyone male in a friendly
>context.  Or casual I guess is a better word than friendly.

>Anyone know of a female version of the "guy"?

Try "gal."  It's a variant of "girl" whihc most often calls to mind a
grown woman.
							Beth

-- 
"Hold stick near center of its length.  Moisten pointed end in mouth.
Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion."