HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf)
Subject: Re: women in engineering ( help..)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 22:05:40 GMT

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.)

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.
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: sex is sexist? (was Re: Dworkin...)
From: moselecw@elec.canterbury.ac.nz (C.W. Moseley)
Date: 5 Sep 92 15:19:18 +1200
Distribution: world
Organization: Electrical Engineering, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

In article <MUFFY.92Aug29084105@remarque.berkeley.edu>, muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
> In article <=qfn-2.payner@netcom.com> payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
> >My point is more that it is absolutely acceptable to make choices 
> >in this area based upon sex, not that it is absolutely -required-.
> 
> It is also acceptable to make choices based on hair color, body odor,
> height, weight, degree of intelligence, etc.  I think you are using the 
> term "sexism" in a ridiculous way by applying it to matters of personal
> taste.  The danger of sexism is in the oppression of people on the basis
> of their gender; do you think men (sorry, I'm assuming you're
> heterosexual here, but I think that's a fair guess given what you've
> said so far - if you're gay, please change that to "women") are
> *oppressed* because you do not choose them as sexual partners?

Muffy, he might be Bi. (thats a very soc.bi type might be ;-))

and for me, yes, i consider all people who I choose not to have sex with
to be disadvantaged by that choice! (arrogance rules! :-)) Not in a 
sexist way, but by the criteria that I use to define what is attractive.

MOZ
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: holzman@fnalno.fnal.gov (Daniel B. Holzman)
Subject: Re: Star Trek Opening
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Lab
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 18:09:45 GMT
X-Posted-From: fnalno.fnal.gov
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <1992Sep10.060144.26350@leland.Stanford.EDU>, 
farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:

> I still think ST:TNG could go a long way in having women in more
> non-traditional occupations.  Right now we see a female physician and
> a female empath--both very nurturing.  The engineers, the security
> people, and most of the officers are men.  Most of the aliens they
> deal with are male or have male personas.

Then again, Tasha Yar and Ro Laran aren't exactly paragons of nurturance,
either.  Women "extras" have had minor roles as Security (as did Yar),
engineering, helm, Riker's replacement as Number One during the Borg War, and 
Captains of other Starfleet vessels (including the Enterprise-C)

-- 
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: mec6@quads.uchicago.edu (Rini Clarkberg)
Subject: Re: Birth control
Reply-To: mec6@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 19:59:57 GMT

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

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

Err -- no.   "I WILL myself NOT to get pregnant."  Nope.  Doesn't work.

I think you meant "the female has the ultimate choice as to whether 
she will bear children or not."


Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: women in engineering ( help..)
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 02:01:19 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.054723.932@lugb.latrobe.edu.au> 9125113g@lux.latrobe.edu.au (Mitch Davis) writes:
>I would like to suggest that Mead's observation can be reworded:  "What
>we percieve as men's work is nearly always rated higher in status and
>more valuable than what we percieve to be woman's work".

>Why should this be so?  Why do we percieve certain areas as being "men's
>work?"  eg, farm labour, airline pilot, taxi driver, president, etc.

I suspect that it is because the non-parental work women do has to "share"
a woman's attention, while men's work is something men can be a bit more
obsessive about.  Since women have historically been "part-time" workers
in whatever they did (punctuated with bouts of motherhood) their work was
not generally as highly valued.  

I don't buy the theory that female labor is always less highly valued than
male labor, but to the extent that it is true, it is probably due to this
effect.

--Brian
From: gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Choice for men
Date: 10 Sep 92 23:56:29 GMT
Reply-To: gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel)
Organization: Nefolet shel nemushot (Fallout of Wimps)

$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, 

In article <1992Sep10.213020.7218@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> 
gsh7w@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes:

>How sick this philosophy.

Somehow, everyone who tries to force hir "moral" values on other, 
using the state's power, calls every other philosophy "sick."  We 
see it between the anti-abortion guys, and we see it between the 
anti choice-for-men feminists.

The difference between you and me is that I hate the idea of giving
power to the state; sometimes we have to do that, but I hate it.
You, on the other hand, just loves the idea because that's your 
only chance to get get rid off all those "sick philosophies."

>Advocating deadbeat fathers, as long as they skip out quickly? 
>Or using economic pressure to pressure women into abortions. 

If you want to finance irresponsible women, who keep having babies
that they can't support, then feel free to do that with your very own
money.  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.

>Excuse me, but the attitude you are espousing make me sick. 

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"?

>-Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia

Hillel                                          gazit@cs.duke.edu

"There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over."
From: zen@death.corp.sun.com (d)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Women vs. men... who is oppressed?
Date: 13 Sep 92 14:24:01 GMT
Organization: savage hackers
NNTP-Posting-Host: death.corp.sun.com
In-reply-to: sheaffer@netcom.com's message of 13 Sep 92 05:55:27 GMT


In article <#=xn+b=.sheaffer@netcom.com> sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
> What absolute codswollop to call women "the oppressed" in America today!
> They have far more rights and far more options than men do, both in
> law and in social custom. 

   Well, this pretty much sums up this group.

> 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.

  *laugh*  Well, it's not really funny, but I just had to laugh.  It's
really quite sad.

  This is why women have gotten, and get, almost nowhere in the world,
and why they will continue to have almost insurmountable problems.
People like this.

 -- d
From: awerling@nmsu.edu (WERLING)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Grading papers
Date: 8 Sep 92 22:36:01 GMT
	<1992Sep4.213851.2740@burrhus.harvard.edu>
	<1992Sep8.154304.717@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> <1+rn=0f.payner@netcom.com>
	<1992Sep8.073740.21012@cco.caltech.edu>
Organization: NMSU Computer Science

In article <1992Sep8.073740.21012@cco.caltech.edu> keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider) writes:

- Are you saying that because I use "he" as the gender neutral pronoun that 
- I feel that men are the norm and that women are abnormal?  Well, I do not
- think this.  When I hear or write "he who laughs last laughs best," I am
- not thinking of "he" as a necessarily male person.  I am just thinking of
- him as a person.

But it's still a "him," you see.  Communication means to consider your
audience.  Your audience has a potentially high percentage of females.
To effectively communicate would be to do your best NOT to allow your
pronouns to alienate such a huge percentage of your audience.  

- Although, if you said "she who laughs..."  I would think that you 
- were talking about a female.  Hmm..  mabye we males need our own 
- private pronoun.

Males have "he."  We need a new gender-neutral pronoun.  I prefer
"it," but I figure that would never fly. ;-)

- Someone said something about Christians (I accidently deleted it).
- Participating in Christian activities (Christmas, attending church, etc.)
- does not make one (note that one is a truely gender neutral word -- use it
- as much as possible, eh?) a Christian.

Doesn't make one a Christian, but it is certain that if a
non-Christian celebrates Christmas, they are not doing it because of
the birth of Christ.  And when you use "he," you are inadvertantly
either excluding women or, perhaps more probably, making them feel
like second-class individuals.

- I think that a sexist is one who believes that women (or men, as the case may
- be) are inferior in some way to the other sex.  My using "he" as an
- unspecific pronoun does not imply that I feel this way.

This is true.  It is not sexist to disagree about this issue.  I agree
with you.  However, the continued usage of "he" maintains the inherent
sexism of the language, whether or not you are sexist.

--
Andrew Werling   awerling@nmsu.edu   yip@rever.nmsu.edu
"Jesus is coming, look busy."
          --from a button I bought in an Albuquerque bookstore.
From: baba@samadhi.Tymnet.COM (Duane Hentrich)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Defining terms
Date: 9 Sep 92 21:21:47 GMT
Organization: BT North America (Tymnet)

In article <MUFFY.92Sep8173712@remarque.berkeley.edu> muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
>In article <2458@tymix.Tymnet.COM> baba@Tymnet.com (Duane Hentrich) writes:
>>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"?

If the thoeretical underpinnings of Feminism are true, we can look at
anyone in our society as being opressed or oppressing. Sort of a slave/
master type of thingy. 

The passage from slave to free human is long. I see feminism as one
waypoint, possibly necessary, for some. It stops short of freedom
by, one way or another, claiming womanhood to be the oppressed,
whereas, men are also oppressed. I mean, _Take Back The Night_ from
who? 

By focusing on only (at best) half of the human condition, feminism 
fails to be a "real world" solution. IMHO

On the "other side" I found that people of all sexes are being maltreated.
I found I am not "men". I am a man. I am also human. And I share that
with all other men and women. I found that solutions written for a minority
cause as many problems as they solve. I found a way to look at anyone
without labeling them, except for their personal foibles. (I believe
that _asshole_ is a gender neutral insult)

I found out that William Burroughs(sp?), Philip K. Dick, and Robert
Anton Wilson are novelists and not historians. Conspiracies exists.
Fnord. But men don't conspire against women.

	"Them that's got
	Shall get.
	Them that's not
	Shall lose.
	So the Bible says,
	And it still isn't news."

	_God Bless The Child_ (thats got his own)

-- 
d'baba Duane M. Hentrich	baba@Tymnet.Com

We have yet to learn that the thing uttered in words is not therefore affirmed. It must affirm itself, or no forms of logic or of oath can give it evidence. 
The sentence must also contain its own apology for being spoken. - R.W.Emerson
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Pro-LIFE feminists???
Date: 8 Sep 92 21:53:09 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
| >>> The theory itself is vacuous, since the issue is not whether
| >>> abortion is good or bad but whether the state has, or ought
| >>> to have, the power to prevent it and force childbearing.

dholtsin@nyx.cs.du.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
| >> Some people believe that abortion concerns both issues, not just
| >> the latter issue.  

gf:
| > True; but I was writing on the basis of the liberal principle
| > that state power must be justified by some strong public
| > interest, and therefore has no business interfering with
| > people's personal moral decisions.  

dh:
| You presume that there can be no strong public interest
| in protecting human life.  To support that presumption, 
| you must argue the first issue, i.e. that abortion is
| not "bad". 

No, I don't.  Many "bad" things are permitted by the state
because the invasion of privacy necessary to prevent them
is even worse than the supposed badness of the bad thing.
Surely I need not give examples.

The first sentence displays the sort of sleazy use of
language I generally see in anti-choice arguments.  Many
people will not agree that an embryo is a full-fledged
human being, especially in that, in its early stages, it
is indistinguishable from a pig or a fish to all but a
highly trained eye.  However, it is human, and it is
alive, therefore it can be called a human life.  So,
of course, can a wart.  I recommend you use a higher
standard here.  
-- 
 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
From: ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy)
Subject: Word Games (Was: Freshm*n)
Organization: NMSU Computer Science
	<1992Sep3.123528.23642@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
	<YIP.92Sep4151138@rever.acca>
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 22:47:41 GMT

<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:

<> English is essentially a Germanic Language.  "Man" (in German) is not gender
<> specific.  The term "freshman" in English is not gender specific.  Those who 
<>say it does are grasping at straws so try and demonstrate some systemic sexism 
<>in Western culture my looking for "MAN" in every word and then assumming that 
<> excludes female.  

<   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....
Xref: sparky alt.feminism:1051 soc.women:16513
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women
Subject: Re: women in engineering ( help..)
Date: 12 Sep 92 13:13:13 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

In article <5cjh03G681rX00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> christil@uts.amdahl.com (Christine Lee) writes:
| 
| In article <1992Sep10.162436.11851@panix.com>, gcf@panix.com (Gordon
| Fitch) writes: 
|  
| > | Hmmmmmm, maybe women _are_ smarter than men.  :-)
| 
| What do you mean "maybe"?  *Of course* women are smarter - that's why
| men are paid more.  It makes them feel better, because we all know
| women are smarter than men.  We don't need to prove it. 

I didn't write that.  Some people are awfully sensitive
about one kind of people being smarter than another kind
of people, or even thinking about it, and it's best not
to stir them up.  I prefer the classical observation that
intelligence must be very evenly distributed, because
everyone thinks they have enough and no one thinks they
have too much.  Samuel Johnson?  I can't remember the
original words, either.
-- 
 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: MEN-BASHING
From: smithm@vax.sonoma.edu
Date: 15 Sep 92 10:57:15 -0800
Organization: Sonoma State University

One thing I can't understand is how women can be men-bashers.  I am a 
woman, and I think I am very liberal, but i am no man-basher.  What 
is the point?  Isn't that what they have been doing to us and what 
you are fighting against?

Women who hate men don't realize what they are doing.  All of our 
lives we have been fighting for equality.  By "burning our bridges" 
so to speak we will never get anywhere.  No matter how much you may 
not like it, men control the world.  The only way we can get anywhere 
is with the help of men.  If we make them mad, they will do 
everything they can to make our lives miserable.

I feel that women should be liberal to an extent.  What's wrong with 
being a house mother?  I know a lot of women that stay home woth 
their children and love it.  In fact, most of them quit their job to 
stay home.  I think it's nice to know that if I don't have a job my 
husband will support me.  

We are taught to love our neighbor.  Does that only refer to 
neighbors that are women?
From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: birth control (was Re: Choice for men)
Date: 14 Sep 92 15:58:40 GMT
	<716147821@lear.cs.duke.edu> <ZEN.92Sep10121954@death.corp.sun.com>
	<nancyo.716158932@sfu.ca> <1992Sep14.174232.9069@javelin.sim.es.com>
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: biesel@javelin.sim.es.com's message of 14 Sep 92 17:42:32 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.174232.9069@javelin.sim.es.com> biesel@javelin.sim.es.com (Heiner Biesel) writes:
>nancyo@fraser.sfu.ca (Nancy Patricia O'Connor) writes:
>>[...] there isn't the same
>>demand for a male method of hormonally (for example) controlling
>>reproduction as there is for women.  Surprise, surprise.

>Presumably the goal of birth control is the prevention of fertilization
>of a specific female.

Why do you presume this?  It seems to me that the goal of birth control
is the prevention of the production of a child by a particular *couple*.
As an example, I currently have two male lovers.  With one of them, we
think we would like to raise a child (not right now, but in the next few
years).  With the other, I have not yet developed a relationship where
children would make sense, and we may never want them.  So, it is not
necessarily that I do not wish children at all, but that I do not wish
them with specific partners.

Since it currently takes a man and a woman to produce a child, birth
control for either member of each such pair would work.

 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.

However, if the woman only has one partner, but the man has several, it
would be more "efficient" (in terms of preventing children) to prevent
*him* fertilizing any of them.

Basically, it would seem to be best if both men and women had several
possible methods of birth control available to them, so that each
individual could select the most appropriate one according to their
circumstances.

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy                               muffy@mica.berkeley.edu
~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: peri@cco.caltech.edu (Michal Leah Peri)
Subject: Re: Choice for men
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 22:50:02 GMT

nancyo@fraser.sfu.ca (Nancy Patricia O'Connor) writes:

>I recently read an article about alternative methods of birth control
>for MEN (I think it was in an old issue of MS.), and it seemed to
>suggest that while there are many forms that have been thought of
>and probably even researched to a degree, there isn't the same
>demand for a male method of hormonally (for example) controlling
>reproduction as there is for women.  Surprise, surprise.

>Apparently these methods have been found to be safer and easier than
>the female methods also.   

I remember reading that article.  The primary complaint by the
men on whom the method had been tested was it made them nauseus 
and gave them headaches.  Funny, but many women who take the 
pill suffer the same complaints.  But I guess it's OK for women
to suffer....

						--  Michal
From: gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Pro-LIFE feminists???
Date: 8 Sep 92 00:37:31 GMT
Reply-To: gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel)
Organization: Nefolet shel nemushot (Fallout of Wimps)

#True; but I was writing on the basis of the liberal principle
#that state power must be justified by some strong public interest

In article<1992Sep7.153632.11616@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:

>I was using the term _liberal_ in its classical sense; 

The meaning of words is changed over time.  E.g. when "liberal"
had the "classical" meaning "computer" meant something else than
what it means today.  But when you say computer I assume that
you talk about a machine and not about a person.  Conclusion: 
if you want to use words in a "classical" sense then say so.
Newsgroups: alt.feminism