Conference quark::mennotes

    Do what Dads or Moms of male offspring need to do and organize
    a day for Taking Sons to Work.  What's so hard about that?  The
    groundwork has been done for you already.  Follow the model 
    created or come up with another design.  Involve other sites so
    that it is Digital-wide.  There appears to be interest.  

    AAAaahh! But it is not sanction by the PC club to bring in the male
    offspring. I feel it is in the best interest that all children are
    allowed. 

    I didn't say on that day...you mis-read my note.  Start your 
    own day and exclude daughters as you see it.  

        re .3


>    I didn't say on that day...you mis-read my note.  Start your 
>    own day and exclude daughters as you see it.  

    It would probably just accidentally coincide with "Picket Those
    Bigot Males Day".

    fred();

    re: .3
    
    My point was not to have a day and "exclude daughters". Why do we have
    to have a different days ? 
    
    I'm planning to participate.

One problem is that most schools will excuse girls from classes for the
"daughter" day but won't excuse boys for the same reason.  (At least here
in Nashua it's not an issue because the day falls during vacation week.)

There was an article in the Boston Globe a few days ago about this, saying
that some companies had allowed the event to be more inclusional.

				Steve

    In either way. Boys will later develope a dislike for such a noble
    cause. 

    .3 Yep.. us neanderthals cannot read, write, nor speak the kings
    english.....
    

    Why not just have a children's day, that way either daughter or son
    can participate....Nah too simple.

    
    NO to a childs day. set-up a Sons'day.
    
    
    

hmmmmm...sounds uncomfortably familiar...

    
    I think a "bring your daughter to work day"  is irresponsibly sexist.
    
    Sends a message to our sons that they are ---not as important!---
    
    An exclusive "bring sons to work day" is just as bad!
    
    Lets have a" bring our sons and daughters to work" day and show 
    some badly needed sensitivity to both genders. 
    
                                        Bill 
    
    

    
    
    It would be nice if some of you folks that are complaining here 
    would actually contact the people that are organizing this and 
    express your feelings.  I wondered about these issues last 
    year when everyone had their daughters here at the site, call 
    your personnel rep or something. If I had a son, I would be a 
    bit more active on this issue. 
    
    Shaw

    I would say bring your son to work and let 'them' say something about
    it, be they the school or the company. If they did, explain that if
    they wish to persue this sexist policy that the appropriate news media
    will be calling them to ask for a statement...
    
    Sexism against males MUST STOP! Don't play their games.
    
    
    Steve

    How about bring your "dependents" to work .... ?
    
    Taxes on my mind -

    
    hey, bring your pets to work day too!
    
    Bye
    

    Bring me pet fish? Welp. I don't have a cat license for it!
    

    Personally I don't like the whole idea of bring your daughter to work.  I
    understand the basis for the day is to give young girls the opportunity
    to see what career paths are open to them.  There seems to be the
    belief that young girls are not taught that they have a wide variety of
    career choices, but rather they are held back by consious as well as
    sub-consious teachings of society.
    
    However, what if the parent is a garbage collector, or a utility
    company worker who climbs poles for a living, or a construction worker,
    or a machinist, or any number of other careers where bringing a daughter, 
    or a son for that matter, would not be feasible?  Not that the parent
    *couldn't* take a child to this type of job, but if the parent's job
    required eight hours of working -- actually paying full attention to what
    he/she is doing to get the job done and get paid --  how can he/she
    teach the child anything or supervise the child if the workplace is
    dangerous.  Some places of business probably wouldn't let a child onto
    an assembly floor or similar places where he/she might get hurt or get
    in the way of production.
    
    I believe that this take your child to work idea is discriminatory to
    the parents and the children who can't participate because the parent's
    job does not allow for children to hang around all day.  Most companies
    are small and there is no "diversity committee" to prepare a day's
    worth of interesting things for a child to do.  Why should only the
    children of the white collar office worker be allowed to get the
    benefit of going to work with mom or dad.  Furthermore, last year the
    girls I saw in the office spent the day doodling, making photo copies
    for their parent, and feeling foolish as they were introduced around the 
    office.  Not one child that I saw actually received any worthwhile
    career guidance or even an explanation of what mom or dad did at work.
    
    Maybe a better idea is to have a career day at school where people from
    different businesses in the community came to the school to discuss
    with the children the types of work they do.  By doing it this way all
    the children would benefit instead of only a few, the information
    they received would be from a multitude of businesses rather than being
    limited to one, and the presenters would have time to actually explain
    the business and the job they do rather than having to spend the time doing
    the job and leaving the child to look on with a limited understanding
    and interest.
    
    I guess I've rembled on more than enough, especially since I'm just a
    read-only.  But, it's some more food for thought.
    
    Sue

      I think the "Stow Diversity Committee"  should remove the
     word "diversity" from their name.
    
    

    
    One more thought..... this is 1995. Not 1955.  You would think that
    the days of "promoting" one gender over the other are behind us.
    
    Jack
    

I heard a news item (I think it was on WBUR) that some companies in the Boston
area tried to make this gender-free (take your child(ren) to work), and they
received complaints from the national organization that promotes the take your
daughters to work concept.

Rich

    The latest memo to come out just now to SHR employees refers
    to "the children that you are bringing" and "the child"...
    hmmmm....I wonder if that menas they are opening it up.
    
    Sue

The organizers of this "day" are strongly resisting making it more
inclusionary, though they say that if you want to bring your son to work,
that's fine.  I have read reports that when boys are included, they tend to
"take over" and push the girls to the background - just as they tend to do
in school (and many other areas of life).

While I agree completely that there is a serious problem of girls feeling
pressured to not reach out for the best jobs and careers, I feel that the
TODTW day does nothing to help girls and may even make things worse.  What
actually happens is that the majority of the parents who take advantage of
this are middle-level white collar workers.  Those few women who have "made it"
are far too busy (just like the men) to sit around and watch their daughters
munch doughnuts and play with the copier, while the blue-collar workers either
can't or wouldn't want to bring their daughters to work.  So what does this
teach the girls?

					Steve

> I have read reports that when boys are included, they tend to
> "take over" and push the girls to the background - just as they tend to do
> in school (and many other areas of life).
    
    Hmmmm... yes, I've seen this argument used to justify women's-only
    events and environments, and I can't quite buy it.  If the problem
    is that males (or, more accurately, SOME males) are pushy and hog
    the attention, then we're better served by dealing with THAT problem.
    To do otherwise is to throw up our hands and say that there's no
    way to deal with pushy males and the best we can do is exclude *all*
    males as a result.
    
    I guess I'm a bit sensitive on this subject because when I was growing
    up I faced a number of the problems that I'm told girls face all
    the time... I was shy, I was self-effacing, I had rock-bottom
    self-esteem, I wasn't pushy, and so on.  When I hear arguments like
    the above to justify womens-only events, I think: "Okay, we'll let
    the pushy guys be pushy, and we'll pay special attention to the
    women because they need it.  But what about me??!!".  I feel hurt,
    excluded, and most important *invalidated* when this happens...
    
    Of course, It's only recently that I've even been able to give
    voice to these sentiments.  Let's face it... by definition wimpy 
    guys are not about to launch protest marches to call attention
    to THEIR plight!
    
    
    --jim
    
    

    What about those so-called wimpy boys that are now adult 
    males turning around and working for programs that ensure
    self-esteem issues are taught to all boys since usually
    self-esteem is also an issue for those pushy boys???

> I have read reports that when boys are included, they tend to
> "take over" and push the girls to the background 

what crossed my mind reading this is that when on such a "bring your daughter 
to work day" the pushy girls take over and push the less pushy girls into the 
background that's ok, yet when...


i mean if we are going to give our kids selective treatment how about having
a "bring the less-pushy-kids-who-need-encouragement to work day"!!!  


andreas.

 > i mean if we are going to give our kids selective treatment how about having
 > a "bring the less-pushy-kids-who-need-encouragement to work day"!!!  
    
    Sounds like that would solve most of the problems. How to implement
    it is the tricky bit.
    
    How's about ...
    
    Bring all the kids to work. Put a sign above the door "Bring Your
    Kids To Work Tour Starts Here". Pushy kids get the the front of the
    line, and are siphoned off to a holding tank (okay, to a seminar on
    being less pushy) while the remainder of the kids from the back get
    the real tour.

    Seems to me I remember about twenty years ago that women raised a HUGE
    movement over equal rights between males and females. (Admittedly, many
    of the complaints were justified).
    
    It suprises me that women don't see that they are doing the same thing
    they accused men of a while back.  Can you imagine men trying to start a
    'bring your son to work day' WITHOUT including the daughters right up
    front? Riiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhhhtttttt!
    
    So, guys, this must be what it felt like to the women a while back.
    (At least men didn't have the excuse of ALREADY KNOWING what it feels
    like.
    
    
    Jeff

    I think there remains a difference between being discriminated
    against while you're positioned far behind the leaders, and being
    discriminated against while you're still the leader (though perhaps
    not as far ahead as you were a few years ago).
    
    It doesn't feel right to be discriminated against in either case.
    But I doubt you can say that men (on average) now know what it felt
    like to be women (on average) "a while back".

RE  .30               "Taking our daughter to work"                 30 of 30
HANNAH::BECK "Paul Beck, MicroPeripherals"            
    
    
>    I think there remains a difference between being discriminated
>    against 
    
    
    WHY? discrimination is discrimination!
    
    Change the discriminated party to women, blacks, jews, etc and see how 
    far it flies...
    

    
    There was an article in one of the newspapers about todtw day. Two
    high profile type women were interviewed.  They commented that
    it was alright to bring your son to work on todtw day. 
      Maybe they see the the potential for litigation if they exclude our
    sons from participating.    I'm surprised no one has challanged todtw
    day in court!   Maybe it's in the process.   
    Good comment a few noters back that  -women are doing what men were
    doing 20+ years ago-  and the "payback time for men" attitude seems
    to be still relevent in the Ms foundation who started and promoted 
    the project.  
      Obviously there must be more creative and less discriminatory ways
    to encourage young girls to establish positive career paths then the
    todtw day program. 
                                            Bill  
    

    .30 Nor do women know what is was like to be a man sometime ago. Women,
    are now experiencing some common men probles on the job training you
    can call it. Stress, heart attacks, layoff's, gee. Ain't it just a fun
    place to be.:) Infact some women are even paying child support and face
    going to jail like the rest of us rasputain, knuckle draggers.:)
    Percentage wise not number wise, there are more deadbeat moms than
    dads, its going to be real funny to see who our adminastration 
    handles that issue. More jails for women!! Equal cell counts!! 
    

    
>    It doesn't feel right to be discriminated against in either case.
>    But I doubt you can say that men (on average) now know what it felt
>    like to be women (on average) "a while back".
    
    I wonder if you ask men (and women) in the 17-25 age category that
    question what kind of answers you get.  Young men that age are
    explicitly discriminated against getting into college, getting
    scholarships, getting into grad school, getting recruited for their
    first job.  Have and do women face discrimination ... absolutely yes
    ... but what is like for an 18 year old women today compared to an 18
    year old women of 25 years ago.  It seems to me the young men today are
    paying the price for the injuries to older women and the actions of
    older men (and women).
          
    Greg
     
    

For what it's worth, I wasn't trying to claim that discrimination is warranted 
in either case; I was focusing my comment on the "know how it feels" part. I'm 
certainly not proposing any kind of "payback time for men" attitude.
 
I'll stand by my assertion that the situation men are in today is sufficiently 
different from the situation women were in some years back (and to a large 
extent still are, considering glass ceiling and the like) that it's misleading 
to say "now we know how they felt". (And all generalities can fall when applied 
to the right specific cases.)

As for the "kids to work" issue, I've got no particular opinion (beyond not 
liking kids of any sort around the office).

    No problem. I am going to vote for the women to be considered for the
    draft when it comes around.
    
    

    re .36,
    
    And I will vote to prevent the draft from ever becoming a reality again
    if possible, for men or women.
    
    meg