HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Choice for men
Date: 7 Sep 92 22:54:13
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
	<715642736@lear.cs.duke.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu's message of 4 Sep 92 21:38:57 GMT

In article <715642736@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes:
>#I claim that Muffy supports choice for women, but she is
>#against choice for men.  She sees nothing wrong if a
>#birth control failure destroys a man's life.

Actually, I have never said that.  Hillel posted what I *did* say, but
here's some more of what I *really* think...*grin*.

[what is "choice for men?"]
>Most of us (non-feminist && non-traditionalist)
>supported the following idea:

>In a case of pregnancy the woman would (if she wants) notify the man
>about it.  Then he will have a week to decide if he wants rights
>and responsibilities (as one package) toward the future child.  
>If he answers yes, then the situation is similar to the situation 
>today; if he answer no then he would have no rights or 
>responsibilities toward the future child.

Actually, in the case of *accidental* pregnancies (i.e. reasonable
precautions (birth control) were taken during sex, but failed), this
sounds like an excellent plan to me (although I would tend to think that
the man should *always* be told and make this choice).  The interesting
thing about this is that I have never seen this proposal before, so I'm
not sure why Hillel claims that I'm against it, especially now that I've
seen it and I'm not at all against it.

Anyway, I think it's a little simplistic and probably would require a
lot of adjustments to really work.  A lot of education on birth control
would be quite important, as an auxiliary to this.  As I said in what
Hillel quoted earlier, I think that *both* parties have to act
responsibly, so the more they know about birth control and their
options, the better.

[in reply to d's post saying (quite correctly) that I had not said
anything against "choice for men" in the excerpt that Hillel quoted (or
anywhere else, but d wouldn't necessarily know that)]
>#So please fuck off to your favorite newsgroup, and stay there.

Heck, maybe this *is* d's favorite newsgroup?  I'm sure you wouldn't
want to *discourage* views other than your own on this newsgroup, now
would you?

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
From: buescher@betwixt.ugcs.caltech.edu (Brent Joseph Buescher)
Subject: Re: girl/woman = guy/man? (WAS: Sexist Incidents)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 00:25:03 GMT

[Lots of the old girl/woman argument deleted]

In many ways I see this as a corallary to the use in German (for example)
of "du" and "Sie"; "du" being the familiar term and "Sie" the polite
honorific for strangers.  I usually do refer to young women (my
contemporaries) that I am well acquuainted with as "girls."  If someone
takes exception with this I switch my usage for their benefit, just
like I would switch to "Sie" if I ever made the mistake of using "du"
in an inappropriate situation.  Recently I did make the error of
referring to the "girls on the third floor" and was deservedly corrected-
not only are some of the "girls" in question over 40 (!), but I really
only know a handful of the women who reside on the top floor of the
residence hall where I live (which is incidentally a 21 and over hall
w/ kitchenettes that attracts a number of grad students and non-traditional
students).  Maybe someday I will be politicized or merely well enough
trained so that I too chafe at female adults being called "girls." :)

Brent Buescher

buescher@phys.uidaho.edu
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: flame naming (ataylor's inconsistency)
Date: 9 Sep 92 17:00:00 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

In article <1992Sep9.081351.8685@leela.cs.orst.edu> petersm@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Marguerite Petersen) writes:
| In article <ATAYLOR.92Sep08152113@gray.nmsu.edu> ataylor@nmsu.edu (Alan Taylor) writes:
| >In article <MUFFY.92Sep8151044@remarque.berkeley.edu> muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu
| >(Muffy Barkocy) moans and groans and whines and cries:
| >
| >>WI'm just curious about this; I have noticed you calling Gordon Fitch
| >>"Fitch" several times now while attacking.  On the other hand, you call
| >>me (Muffy Barkocy) "Muffy" when flaming.  Is this just random
| >>inconsistency or is there a reason?
| >
| >>attack/insult/flame people?  Is it somehow more/less insulting to men
| >>to just be called by their last names (particularly with no title)?
| >
| >>Muffy
| >
| >I call you "Muffy" because "Muffy" really sounds stupid.  It's the kind of
| >a name you give to a rag doll or a French Poodle.  "Fetch Muffy, Fetch!"
| >"Here Muffy, here's a bone for you to chew upon".  "I'll be out of the
| >bathroom as soon as I wipe the shit off my Muffy".
| >
| >A REAL WOMYN -- A REAL FEMINIST wouldn't be caught dead with a name like
| >"Muffy".
| >
| >I call Fitch, "FITCH", because it's the kind of name that generates respect
| >and it's the very least a worthy advisary such as Gordon deserves.
| >
| >You, on the other hand, are just a jerk.
| 
| And this is about the most sexist comment I have heard in a long time!
| Argue with a woman.  Put her down, try to make her feel as irrelevent as
| you can.  Argue with a man.  Well, that's different.  This is another
| man after all.  He must be treated with *respect*.
| 
| >I hope this helps you to understand my reasoning.  It's really not all that
| >inconsistent.
| 
| Ah yes, I understand!
| 
| Marg

I hesistate to impute irony to ex-Nosy here, but I think
there can't be any other explanation.  Other than that,
it's got to be a case of "divide and conquer and make
friends and influence people."
-- 
 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: mig@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Meir I Green)
Subject: Re: Playing Games with Words
Reply-To: mig@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Meir I Green)
Organization: Columbia University, New York
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 06:25:58 GMT

In article <Bu29y4.AEK@comp.vuw.ac.nz> Francis.Gardner@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Francis Gardner) writes:
>
>  This is a bit of an aside......but is still relevant-ish
>
>  In the English language there is no sexless singular third person personal
>  pronoun (except maybe "it" :-).

"one"

>  When I write up my masters thesis in about 6mths time I will want to make
>  statements like "he can do this and she can do that", but without using he
>  or she.  I personally don't like "s/he", I find it distracting to read.  I
>  do like using "they" as a singular but it is bad grammar and my supervisor
>  wont let me do it.  I could make a declaration stating that "he" should be
>  read as "he/she", but I think these are silly.

One may generalize genderlessly by using the pronoun "one".
(The comma is after the period to make it more computationally correct.)

 * * * * *  =================== Internet address is  mig@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
* * * * * * == Meir I. Green == Amateur Packet Radio N2JPG@W2XO.PA.USA.NOAM
 * * * * *  = mig@columbia.edu= Amateur TCP/IP       N2JPG@uhm.ampr.org
* * * * * * ===================
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,rec.arts.startrek.misc
From: bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Re: STNG episode about homosexuality
Organization: Motorola, CCR&D, CORP, Schaumburg, IL
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 16:29:25 GMT


In <some posting>, ljf writes:
)I write:

)>They did do an episode on homosexuality.  It had some problems (IMO).
)>A brief plot outline - there is a planet where having a gender identity
)>is looked on as an illness.  One of the aliens is 'ill' in this manner,
)>and has a relationship with Riker.  She is found out, and cured via
)>'psychotectic therapy'.  Riker tries to rescue her, but she's already
)>been 'cured' and says she's glad she's normal now and she can't understand
)>why she avoided getting help.  Riker goes away pissed.  End of story.
)
)I'm not sure I'd call that an episode on homosexuality (neuter has a
)female identity and is attracted to Riker).  Maybe if the alien had a
)female identity and had been attracted to Dr. Crusher...
)
)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'd love to see
)a gay or lesbian couple as part of the background in the ship's bar,
)etc.  Heck, I was hoping Ensign Ro (spelling?) would turn out to be
)lesbian, but there was that episode about her and Riker.

The story in question was, IMO, about homosexuality but I agree that it
'danced around the issue' so it wasn't really direct, it was implied and
'hinted at'.

I'd guess that the producers didn't feel comfortable making any statement
more directly about the issue, so they resorted to indirection.

My sympathies in the story, and (I think) the sympathies of the writers
were with the gendered  woman in the story, but the story is also written to
be 'compatible' with the 'homosexuality is a disease' viewpoint as well,
which is my main objection to it.

The biggest problem I had with the story was that it tended to reinforce
the idea that homosexuality is an 'ilness' or can be 'cured' - especially
by something that sounds suspiciously like psychological therapy
('psychotectic').  There is no current evidence that this is possible (IMO).
With an advanced technology, it might be possible, I suppose, but it seems
to me that it will be just as possible to cure the 'illness' of, say,
disloyalty to the state.  Adding this element (advanced psychology and
medicine as social control) and making it more direct (it was already
implied, IMO) would have made the story a lot stronger but probably a
lot less acceptable to the mass audience.

Some other poster mentioned some of the sterotyped roles that the story
portrayed for men and women as well, I winced at a few of those too.
It's too bad that the woman didn't ask Data about the differnces and then
have him wander around the ship asking about it :-) (as he's done in other
episodes about other issues) - we got only a small set of views the way they
did it, they gave it only a superficial treatment.  Just showing different
people having different viewpoints about the issue (including Whorf's, of
course :-)) would have been very worthwhile, IMO.
From: payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Dworkin...
Date: 8 Sep 92 14:21:28 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Sep8.162645.720@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> moselecw@elec.canterbury.ac.nz (C.W. Moseley) writes:
>In article <63hns+c.payner@netcom.com>, payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
>> Tell me, how is -anyone- influenced by history? We live with what history
>						  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> has left us, but that is day-to-day reality, not the past. 
>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>You are born, you grow up. That has already happened, it is history. The
>fact that `it has always been that way' is an artifact of history that I deal
>with quite often, even in engineering work. What is seen as the historical
>norm has a lot of power with most people, and changes to accomodate the
>passions of the day. I think it is important to see where we come from
>and what is driving people, in order to understand them and get on with
>my life, as well as interacting with other people. But then, I'm not 
>exactly a `historically normative' person.

You seem to be confusing -my- history, and histroy. My history defines
who I am today, and it is very real to me. Not so for the battle of
Normandy, the Crusades, daily life in a Roman city, etc...

And it is less important to look back than look forward. I have dealt with
many people who were se wrapped up in "where they are coming from" that
they cannot see where they are going. 

>> >Hmmm...  So, if she is a fanatic, what then?  Instant dismissal of all
>> >her ideas?
>> 
>> You would uncritically accept the writings of a fanatic? (I'd use the
>> word extremist here BTW). Rather, take with a few metric tons of salt.
>> If you have the time and inclination, the best thing to do would be to
>> check things out and draw your own conclusions. But there is not enough
>> time in life to do this for every extremist/fanatic/whatever. It is
>> simpler to ignore most of these things, or dismiss them out of hand.
>
>alternatively, wait and see if other people begin taking some of it
>seriously, then investigate. Christ and Hitler are figures who spring to mind.

You first mention "wait and see if other people begin taking some of it
seriously", then mention two cases where going along with the crowd may
not have been such a great idea. Hitler had many followers, so what. I
do not see what you are trying to say here.

>Uncritical acceptance is different from reading, and trying to see what drives
>the fanatic.

Is this not a necessary given? Why did you even bother posting this? 


Rich

payner@netcom.com
From: muller@noao.edu (Beatrice Muller)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Freshm*n
Date: 9 Sep 92 16:47:14 GMT
Organization: National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson, AZ, USA

In article <1992Sep8.203245.11460@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> jlinder@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Jeffrey S Linder) writes:
>
>There seems to be some confusion about "man" and "Mann" in 
>German.  "Mann" is male gender and means a male person, 
>usually an adult. "man" means one or you and is not gender 
>specific.
>
I mentioned this before! Man means one that's true but it was derived 
from Mann and linguists and feminists try to avoid man or write man/frau
in German!

Beatrice (native (Swiss)German speaker)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: grey@bnr.ca (Bryan Miller)
Subject: Re: flame naming (ataylor's inconsistency)
Reply-To: grey@bnr.ca (Bryan Miller)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 20:20:26 GMT

I would point out that that single posting by ataylor has
a completely different ordering and format of the 
newgroups/path/sender/etc. lines

It hardly seems likely that his news poster would change
at the same time his tone did.

ataylor (nosy) you'd better investigate this
From: zen@death.corp.sun.com (d)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Choice for men
Date: 10 Sep 92 11:11:35
Organization: savage hackers
	<716017129@lear.cs.duke.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: death.corp.sun.com
In-reply-to: gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu's message of 9 Sep 92 05:38:50 GMT


In article <716017129@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes:
> If you want to finance irresponsible girls, who multiply before they
> know how to add, feel free to do just that with your very own money.

  Why is it that it's the "girls" that are irresponsible?  Why are they
the only ones that come up ("un-wed mothers", etc. -- you never hear
"un-wed fathers") when talking about these irresponsible youths?  How
about the boys?  Didn't they have some small role here too?

> >What if *your* parents had felt this way?
> What if most of the money of your parents was robbed to finance 
> irresponsible girls who keep having kids that they can't support?

  Again, blame the girls for everything.  Why not advocate education
instead of persecution?  Or, if you insiste on blame, blame *both* parents.

 -- d
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.men
From: sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart)
Subject: Re: a programmer is not an engineer, indeed
Organization: my opinions only
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 21:16:51 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.165503.27617@news.nd.edu>
slarsen@schumann.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen) writes:

>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 every company where I've had something to do with hiring (even if
just for a small part of the company), it has been based only on
ability to do the job.  Of course, when your pay depends on the
productivity of the people working for you, you tend to hire the best
people you can find.

>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.

That sounds more like "equal opportunity" than "affirmative action".

Seth		sethb@fid.morgan.com
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: women in engineering ( help..)
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 92 06:22:58 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Sep8.161054.16762@panix.com> pw@panix.com (Paul Wallich) writes:
>
>This sounds a lot like the practice of medicine in the old
>pre-professional days, when women as healers were as common
>as men, and when most births were handled by midwives. Then
>academic medicine came in, the women were shut out (and a
>fair amount of herbal knowledge lost) and, as a minor side
>effect, deaths after childbirth soared, because the doctors
>came to attend labor directly after treating other patients or
>even after doing autopsies, without sanitary precautions. (No
>analogy is implied, of course, to the performance of systems
>specified by engineers rather than by people who know the task
>the system is supposed to perform.)

Yes, that's why the average lifespan is now 30 years, and it used
to be 70+ years back in those wonderful days of "pre-professional"
medicine. (NOT!) Yes, life sure used to be fine back when "women
healers" took care of your broken bones, appendicitis, etc., but
health care went into the pits when those nasty men invented
"academic medicine."

Paul, there are still many places in Africa and South America where
medicine is still in its pristine, pre-professional state. Maybe
you should visit those areas, and give us a first-hand acccount of
the fantastic health care and lifespan those people enjoy.
>
-- 
  
        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: payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne)
Subject: Re: Feminism & Women's Studies
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 92 14:35:14 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Sep8.170739.728@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> moselecw@elec.canterbury.ac.nz (C.W. Moseley) writes:
>
>> smeyer@panix.com (Seth Meyer) writes:
>>I tried taking a women's studies class in college.  I thought it would
>>be interesting to see what I could do to help reduce sexism in our
>>society.
>
>rich replied:
>>To play devils advocate here, is not the very subject of "women's studies"
>>sexist given that there are no 'men's studies". I rather suspect that
>>anyone proposing tha latter subject would be laughed out of the room.
> 
>probably by you, from the sound of it. A couple of Canadian places do
>gender studies.

It must be great to be one of the gifted who gets so much more out of text
than was posted. You are not qualified to judge what I might or might
not do.
 
>Also, there is no literature on which to base a `mens studies' course on.
>If you can come up with ideas for a syllabus I would be interested to 
>hear them.

So? I suppose using the same logic, since there is no basis for non-sexism
in our society, there is no need to bother with it any further. 
 
>Do you personally feel disadvantaged by there being a womans studies couse?
>how?
> 
>do you feel men in general are disadvantaged by these courses?
>
>if not, then how are they sexist?

If you have a spare moment some time, I suggest you look up "devils
advocate". You are misreading me, and trying to pick a fight it seems.
 
>(sexist: discrimination by gender with negative results for the group
>discriminated against)

That part about "negative results" is not necessary for sexism. This 
explains the content of your post, but not the tone.
 
>MOZ

Rich

payner@netcom.com


Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: simon@fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de (Julia Simon)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Bathroom symbols
Date: 14 Sep 92 11:51:29 GMT
Organization: Fachschaft Computerlinguistik, U of Saarland, FRG

peri@cco.caltech.edu (Michal Leah Peri) writes:
> 
> What bathroom symbols do they use in Scotland???

MAD Magazine once published a cartoon with a Scotsman wearing a kilt and a
young woman wearing trousers standing outside the bathrooms (doors with the
traditional human-with-skirt and human-without-skirt signs), both looking very
helpless about which bathroom to use.

			Julia 8-)

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
				Julia Simon

 Fachschaftsrat Computerlinguistik	DIaLOGIKa GmbH
 Fachbereich 8.7, Bau 17, Zi. 201
 Universita"t des Saarlandes		Albertstr., Pascalschacht
 D-W-6600 Saarbru"cken, Germany		D-W-6602 Dudweiler, Germany

			email: simon@fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de
			       sileas@coli.uni-sb.de
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: starbuck@ucrmath.ucr.edu (starbuck)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: flame naming (ataylor's inconsistency)
Date: 9 Sep 92 22:51:04 GMT
Organization: University of California, Riverside

In article <ATAYLOR.92Sep08152113@gray.nmsu.edu> ataylor@nmsu.edu (Alan Taylor) writes:

[ on the name Muffy ]

At first I thought I was reading a "classic" in alt.flame, but then I had
selected alt.feminism and I stopped laughing.

There is one thing about Muffy that I think should be aparent and that is
she is sincere.  Even if you disagree with her most of the time like I do
you still can find things that you will agree with her on.

I think Muffy is a worthy advesary because she gets into the fray and stands
up for what she believes.  Agian like myself you may not agree with her on
most things. But alt.flame is the only place for flames such as the one you
wrote. A Real Man (tm) would aplogize.

Muffy is part of this group and has been since the start.  She had a rep
as a wisegal moderator but that was soc.feminism and this is (Da da )
alt.feminism.  She has taken her knocks and more than proved herself a
worthy adversary. 

starbuck
From: muller@noao.edu (Beatrice Muller)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Word Games (Was: Freshm*n)
Date: 4 Sep 92 23:41:41 GMT
Organization: National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson, AZ, USA

In article <ATAYLOR.92Sep4154741@gauss.nmsu.edu> ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy) writes:
><In article <YIP.92Sep4151138@rever.acca> yip@rever.acca (Happy-happy-happyfag!) writes:
><In article <1992Sep3.123528.23642@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> jlinder@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Jeffrey S Linder) 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.
>
>	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".
>
><   Well, dear, it *is* a serious issue, with or without your decree.
>
>	Thank you for another example of feminist patronization....

Thank you for another example of stupidity.....

Beatrice