Conference turris::womannotes-v2

I've thought about this some, and, as a moderator seeing an explosion per day
this week, who could really stand to have more free time for work, honey, pussy
cats, and more positive notes, I have a suggestion. Women could post things
they found abusive, but that they got _elsewhere_. Now, this sounds a little
like an extension of 'Sexism is alive...', but I don't think anyone has posted
anything abusive there. Perhaps quotes from conversations, personal (paper or
electronic) mail? With absolutely _no_ way to identify the sender. Sort of like
those Russian novels.

	Mez

        Good suggestion, Mez - that would at least give some insight.
        
        This is  hard to phrase - I haven't seen women _abused_ in this
        conference;  abused,  that  is  by  my  definition.  (No flames
        please,  this  is  perceived!)    There    are   notes  stating
        categorically that 'men abuse women  in  this conference'.  I'm
        questioning this assertion, which has been  allowed to stand in
        numerous  notes  without  question, because I don't  understand
        what the so-called abuse consists of.  (The last 'abuser' I can
        think  of left the company over a year ago,  and  there  hasn't
        been anything similar since that I've seen here.)
        
        Can anyone justify the quotation?
        
        Andy
        

    Fine.  Could you first stop using right margin justification?
    It is hard to read on monspaced devices.  Thank you.
    
    						Ann B.

    NOTE:  I would request that no one actually try to go looking
    for my examples.  Those men who just happened to be part of
    them should not be singled out; it would not be fair.  I feel
    that no one entry (as yet undeleted) referred to is deserving
    of anything more than a "tsk-tsk"; the abused feelings come
    from the largeness of the sum of the parts.

    Andy,

    As you should have noticed, even before you posted 272.3, the
    women who replied to the suggestion mostly said "No", and this
    included two moderators.

    So, here is our first example:  You will not take "No" as an
    answer from women.

    One woman firmly pointed out, as I did on another occasion, that
    she did not feel like spending the time and effort on the research.

    So, here is our second example:  You are willing to ask women to
    go to efforts on your behalf without so much as a please, and
    with the implication that they are obliged to do so.  (The
    implication comes from the use of terms such as "so-called abuse"
    and "justify".)

    Now, I will define the term "abuse", since you did not.  First,
    although abuse can be physical or mental (a.k.a. emotional), it
    must be obvious that in a notefile only the latter is possible.
    Mental abuse has as its primary characteristic a denial of reality.
    E.g., "I am beating you for your own good.", "I am not seeing
    anyone else!  You must be crazy!", "I don't know what happened to
    the last cupcake.", "He's my best friend!  Of course he didn't
    mean to do that."  (I could go on forever.  How repulsive.  I
    hope you get the picture?)

    As a *very soft* example, the entry message for this conference
    has been "Topics of interest to women".  (It isn't now; don't
    bother to check.)  Yet a lot of the topic notes are entered by
    men.  Now, some of the men make it clear that they are asking for
    enlightenment, and that is just fine.  Others, however, are
    downright shocked at the idea that topics that *they* create and
    that interest *them* might not be of interest to women.  That
    denies the reality that women in this society have opinions that
    differ from those of men.

    Here's another example.  There was (inevitably) a note on the
    earning differential between women and men.  (That it exists was
    conceded, although I remember (somewhere) having to point out that
    the numbers we were using came from Department of Labor statistics
    before one man would accept them.)  Some men claimed that it was
    only because women were mostly in lower-paid jobs than men.  This
    denied the reality (mentioned in the Digital Way of Life notefile
    just a few days ago) that women in good jobs in this company are
    being paid significantly less than men at or below their level.
    (Oh, not *always*, of course.  It's just true statistically.)
    When it was stated that women who were qualified for high level
    positions were shunted into low level positions, some men denied
    the reality of this occuring.  When examples were given, one man
    insisted that he couldn't understand what was being "proved",
    thereby trying to twist reality to claim that demonstrations
    contrary to his claim were insufficient to demonstrate that he
    was mistaken.  (It's funny, though.  When it was pointed out that
    men in such traditionally women-dominated fields as nursing and
    secretarial work were paid more than the women in them, the entire
    discussion sort of faded out.)

    This is the last example.  --  Nope.  I changed my mind.  If you
    want it, I'll mail it to you.
    
    							Ann B.

    Eagle, not only can invalidation happen around feelings:
    
    "You can't possibly feel that way about what happened." 
    
    ...but it can happen around experience:
    
    "What you are experiencing doesn't happen."
    
    --DE
    

    I think abuse comes in when a woman expresses a sad/bad/horrible
    experience that they are trying to deal with, and express a present
    fear or hurt, some men and a couple of women will jump in there
    and write that "just because it happened once by one man doesn't
    mean all men are like that".  no where in the original note did
    the woman say that.  the feeling I get is the orginator then has
    to defend herself because a "man" did whatever it was. 
    that to me is abuse.
    
    vivian
    

    RE: .9
    
            Right on! Just this past week I had to delete 2 replys because
    of an "angry reply" on my account causing another noter to respond
    in a like manner. I am trying to "cool" down before typing reply.
            But I do believe that the very "anger" I sometimes causes
    me to look very hard at the percieved problem....so it does have
    some redeaming features. :-)
    
    Dave

    in re 272.5
    
    um, Ann, it still says "Topics of Interest To Women" when
    you open womannotes, or it did just a minute ago. Am I
    misunderstanding what you wrote?
    
    Bonnie

    You're not misunderstanding.  It looks like I'm wrong.  But I
    really thought that, when opening =wn= last week, what I was
    getting was the same comment being used as the conference
    `subtitle'.  (Naturally, the one time I tried to look, I learned
    that I had just received a MAIL message...  Sigh.)
    
    							Ann B.

    re .12:
    
    Ann, the conference 'subtitle' is officially known as the conference 
    "notice" and *is* printed on the line below the "Notes>" prompt upon 
    entering the conference.
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    How about the ever-so-subtle reply (in notes and in face-to-face):
    
    			"Are you sure?"
    
    THAT is the one that is an insult to ANYONE, IMO.
    
    K.C.

>    			"Are you sure?"
    
>    THAT is the one that is an insult to ANYONE, IMO.

oh dear; I use that fairly often with no insult intended! I mean, people say
things that they're not sure about; that's OK. I'm just looking for, well, a
sureness index.
	Mez