From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: "Computers graphic when it comes to porn"
Date: 9 Sep 92 15:54:07 GMT
	<1992Aug12.071230.2392@aston.ac.uk>
	<1992Aug13.152104.3300@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <3726@ecicrl.ocunix.on.ca>
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca's message of 17 Aug 92 05:12:34 GMT


Getting in a little late here...just caught the summary of this on
a.c.a-f.news.

In article <3726@ecicrl.ocunix.on.ca> clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) writes:
>In article <1992Aug13.152104.3300@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:

>>What infuriates me is the double standard.

>>For example, in the _Globe and Mail_ story, Lionel Tolan, Simon
>>Fraser's director of academic computer services, said "It's the same
>>as if somebody wants Playboy or Penthouse.  We don't have them in the
>>university library." When in fact, _Playboy_ *is* in the SFU library.

>I don't believe that there is a double standard.  The material at hand
>isn't Playboy or Penthouse material.  The material that caused the problems
>in a.s.b are hardly things that would be found in either magazine.

In fact, there *is* a double standard, but the one I see is very
different.  Most of the material that is posted in a.s.b is useful and
informative.  If you want to start censoring ideas which are dangerous
to women, check out soc.men, soc.women, and, most recently,
alt.feminism.  That's where I see hatred of women being generated, not
in some stupid story that is promptly objected to.  In alt.sex.bondage,
if someone posts a story in which a woman is tortured, people object.
In alt.feminism, when someone says that all feminists are out to oppress
men or that women are taking away jobs from more qualified men, there is
a chorus of agreement.

>Furthermore, on a more general level, most universities have constitutions
>or codes of ethics that require them to be more selective of material than
>the law would necessarily require them to.  Even in the USA.

Well, then, they should be honest about it, and actually *examine* the
material in *every* newsgroup, rather than just blasting any group with
"sex" in the name and saying "okay, we've done our job."  Sex is *not*
inherently dangerous to women.  The idea that a woman who gets a job
programming computers must have been hired because she was female and
couldn't possibly be competent is a heck of a lot more pervasive and
dangerous than some story, which many of us are able to recognize as
*fiction*, and, in most cases, not very good fiction.

I don't believe in censorship, so I'm not recommending this, but I would
believe you were honestly trying to help women if you censored
alt.feminism or soc.men.  If you have *read* alt.sex.bondage, you'd know
that the attitude towards women is *great* there, especially compared to
most of the net.  (I'm afraid I can't say the same of alt.sex, although
it's still not as hate-filled as other groups.)

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