From: sherw@ocf.berkeley.edu (Gregory Sherwin)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.sex
Subject: Re: Gay rights, etc.
Date: 14 Dec 92 22:15:57 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.32.234.16

In article <DRW.92Dec12162456@euclid.mit.edu> drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>For example, there is a substantial prejudice against fat people in
>this country.  But I don't think that it is strong enough or universal
>enough to prevent fat people from getting about the same income, etc.
>as everybody else.  So it is not time to add them to the
>anti-discrimination laws.
>
Good point.  I think what we need to realize here is that people discriminate
left and right - sometimes it is more subtle, sometimes more obvious.
To think that discrimination is something that is unique and only valid
in the context of a group of "socially accepted oppressed groups" is to
be extremely naive.  But studies *have* shown that the taller the person, the
greater the income on average - and yet we have no legislation or discussion
about the "oppression of short people by taller ones" (as if it really matters,
let it be known that I am 6'6").  It is also true of "ugly" people, "fat"
people, people with speech impediments, people who are socially meek
(aka "wimps"), people with physical disabilities, people with foreign
accents, you can even go so far as to point out something really trivial
like even Walt Disney has a policy that does not hire employees with
facial hair (and though I don't agree with this policy, it is their right).

Some of these areas of discrimination might be argued because they may be
things people have a choice over, such as whether or not to grow facial
hair versus things like sex or race or sexual orientation.  But nobody
gets to choose thier height, and some studies indicate that body weight
has definite genetic influences.

Sometimes "discrimination" of a certain group is trivialized in our
society because it is not recognized as one of the socially accepted oppressed
groups - and that isn't entirely right either.  The sexual harassment
someone experiences at work may or may not be as emotionally scarring as
that of the steroetyped "nerdy freshman" who is the subject of daily
ridicule at his or her new high school.  I believe some manifestations of
sexual harrassment are just that - people being bullied around by ex-high
school bullies, and their gender becomes an easy target for jokes,
harrassment, and ridicule.  If not a woman in the case of some of these
bullies, then maybe they are Jewish, or are gay, or are fat, etc.  Of
course this is only one manifestation of harassment that I address here,
but there is discrimination and harassment that is equally as harmful as
that experienced by that of socially accepted oppressed groups that doesn't
fall into any of these categories.  this is where I begin to disagree
some with Dale.

I am against discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, sex,
whatever - but I also think we should recognize the danger in when we
can say "this group is disciminated against, but this one isn't so bad".
Unfortunately a lot of this is rather subjective.

There is also danger in the abuse of using the "socially accepted oppressed
group" banner.  An interesting book out of late is called "The Nation of
Victims" (author I unfortunately forgot here) that addresses the dangers
of a society that gets so bent on identifying with a "victim" or
"oppressed" status that no one is personally responsible anymore and
blame is shifted on someone or something else -- that being an oppressed
victim has a certain merit where it can be used as an excuse.  Sen.
Packwood first pinned his charges of his alleged sexual harrassment on
alcoholism (it wasn't me - it was that damn bottle!), Eddie Murphy -
a rich, affluent, relatively powerful black man - is not registered to
vote because of his excuse that "the world is run by rich, white people
anyway", right-wing extremist Israeli officials abused their victim status
of the Holocost as a means of thwarting criticism when they made massive
land grabs in the disputed territories, Palestinians use their victim status
to avoid making any moves to help rectify their situation, ACT UP - the
gay AIDS activist group - will shout down anyone they don't particularly agree
with or like (which I find to be an attempt at censorship of differing
opinions) and yet seem to do little to address the fact that even with all
the warnings and information something like 1/3 of gays still practice
unsafe/unprotected sex.

It's a fine line.  Discimination exists and is wrong, but then the same can
be said of abuses by people who fall into the discriminated-against status.
Walking this line can be very difficult, and I am afraid that I - like
many others - are at a loss for the perfect solution at the moment.  All
we can hope for is that people's attitudes will change with time and the
generations and that people will stand up, take responsibility, and be held
accountable for themselves.

greg
Newsgroups: alt.politics.sex