From: paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
To: “Cynthia H. Brown” <cynthb@sonetis.com>
Message Hash: d3e12901ef5ddc6e27f419e052dfd191771cb55ddc3cf95cc6cb1c46e3d7aee3
Message ID: <856035210.710275.0@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1997-02-15 19:40:27 UTC
Raw Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 11:40:27 -0800 (PST)
From: paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 11:40:27 -0800 (PST)
To: "Cynthia H. Brown" <cynthb@sonetis.com>
Subject: Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
Message-ID: <856035210.710275.0@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
> > Here I can agree, I personally discriminate on the basis of sex, not
> > in that I believe women inferior to men but rather that I believe
> > each sex better suited to different tasks and vocations.
> > That is not, however, to say that I believe women should be prevented
> > from taking up lines of work that men traditionally hold.
> > They are free to do so, but as in the example you give later
> > I would feel uncomfortable having my car serviced by a woman.
>
> <flame-retardant suit on>
>
> Normally I would ignore this sort of comment (which probably belongs in
> some soc. newsgroup), but I feel obliged to point out that:
>
> - The female <mechanic / scientist / engineer>, in addition to passing the
> same exams as her male classmates, has probably had to put up with a fair
> load of B.S. questioning her right and ability to be there. The ones that
> keep at it long enough to graduate are the ones that *really* want to do
> whatever it is, and IMHO are more likely to try harder.
Not my point, I didn`t say I would refuse, as in my example, to have
my car serviced by a woman, rather, that I would not feel comfortable
doing so. This is not prejudice, it is a statistical judgement based
on the fact that, as a percentage, I know few women who are competent
car mechanics but I know a number of men who, by the same criteria, I
would call competent.
> Chicken and Egg: How much of "each sex [is] better suited to different
> tasks" is due to little girls being pulled away from the Lego and toy
> trucks, and encouraged to play with Barbies? Being told that they are
> *pretty* not *smart* as a form of approval?
Very much so, I did not intend, even though my post may have appeared
that way, for one minute to suggest that women were *unable* to carry
out certain tasks, just that they seem less suited to certain
vocations that others. For example, I know a number of good female
History or English students but very few good female mathematics
or computer science students. This is not, I believe, because women are
not "suited" to computer science rather that they have never been encouraged
at high school etc. to learn about such subjects which are seen as male preserves.
I wholeheartedly believe this should not be the case, and my original
post may have been misleading, I just believe that in the current
system very few women do become good at science/technical subjects.
Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security
Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org
Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1
"Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"
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1997-02-15 (Sat, 15 Feb 1997 11:40:27 -0800 (PST)) - Re: Moderation experiment almost over; “put up or shut up” - paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk