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Conference turris::womannotes-v2

Title:ARCHIVE-- Topics of Interest to Women, Volume 2 --ARCHIVE
Notice:V2 is closed. TURRIS::WOMANNOTES-V5 is open.
Moderator:REGENT::BROOMHEAD
Created:Thu Jan 30 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 30 1995
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1105
Total number of notes:36379

464.0. "The Jury is Out" by WMOIS::A_STYVES () Wed Feb 22 1989 11:55

               Boston Dailey Record May 23, 1945
                    copied without permission
    
       When the provenly able women of the Bay State wish to serve
    on juries they will have to move to the South or West.
    
       Reviving and apparently placing considerable faith in the old
    theory that woman's place is in the kitchen, the Massachusetts
    Senate recently voted 20 - 14 to prohibit jury service for the
    feminine portion of the population.
    
       Various members, participating in an argument that recalled
    the hypocrisy of the Gay Nineties contended that women's tender
    ears should be spared the harsh realities of the courtroom.
    
       Ladies ought to be protected, they said, and not exposed to
    grim situations that only men can tolerate.
    
       If that were true, we would have no women in the medical and
    legal professions; none in business and industry, and none in the
    armed forces at home and abroad.
    
       And we certainly would not have women in hospitals assisting
    at surgical operations or nursing the sick and dying.
    
       Instead, women would be wearing hoop skirts and carrying smelling
    salts like their repressed great-grandmothers.
    
                . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
    
    The above article was taken from the editorial page of a newspaper
    that I came across, the Boston Daily Record Wed May 23, 1945.
    Now almost 44 years later what are your thoughts, if any?
    
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464.12EASY::PIKETWed Feb 22 1989 12:0413
    
    Actually, I was impressed by the outrage expressed by the paper.
    I was half-way into the second paragraph before I looked at the
    date, realizing something had to be fishy.
    
    It's interesting that the article was written right after WWII,
    during which women were involved in industry to a greater extent
    than ever before, because all the men were off fighting. I wonder
    if the outrage expressed would have been the same had the article
    been written five years earlier.
    
    Roberta
           
464.2We've come a long way, baby.BURREN::FAHELAmalthea, the Silver UnicornWed Feb 22 1989 12:271
    
464.3ULTRA::ZURKOWords like winter snowflakesWed Feb 22 1989 12:588
Nice.
I actually believed it! Shows you how much confidence _I_ have in progress.
It helps to realize we've taken steps backward before.

Of course, I come from the state the voted the human as it's state animal (all
the representatives woke up with a hangover the next morning and promptly voted
in the whale to replace it!).
	Mez
464.4Uh-oh, I'm thinkin' againELESYS::JASNIEWSKIjust a revolutionary with a pseudonymWed Feb 22 1989 12:5939
    
    	I've got to wonder that *some* of the "men's attitude toward women"
    ala the "Oh this, this, this, this, this, & this are too much for
    "tender little you"" is an attempt on men's part to compensate for 
    something men cannot come to terms with, the pain a woman bears in the 
    birthing process.
    
    	From any account of this I've ever heard, giving birth is no
    picnic - it can kill you, possibly, as a matter of fact. What does
    the man go through in actually sharing (his part of the feeling) this 
    particular pain? I dare say, in the "classic" sense, nothing. He just
    sits and waits for the event to be over - nothing he can do - while
    the "midwife" and "doctor" are present during the delivery. (I am
    aware that more and more men *are* sharing the event with their
    women these days)
    
    	Realizing this, (and likely doing all the wrong things) men try
    to compensate for this subtle truth, perhaps going way overboard
    in doing so. They try to "ease" whatever other pains a woman might
    have to go through - that they can comprehend. Maybe this is where
    the idea of "That's a man's job" comes from. Certainly relieving
    women from "having to go through" certain things by telling them
    what they can and what they cannot to do is within the realm of a 
    man's ability. 
    
    	That it's really only compensation for what a man cannot face
    within himself (How her pain really makes him feel) is I'm sure what 
    eventually bugs most women. That it really is an enabling_women_to
    _do_nothing_else kind of thing must generate resentment from them, 
    eventually.
    
    	I wonder if this has anything to do with "war" a classic thing
    that men_only do that can be real painful and maybe kill you?
    
    	From the 13th moon of Jupiter,
    
    	Joe Jas
                                                                    
    
464.5New York, 1970ULTRA::WITTENBERGSecure Systems for Insecure PeopleWed Feb 22 1989 13:199
    Around 1970  New  York  still allowed any woman to be excused from
    Jury  duty  "as  a  woman". For a man to be excused he had to show
    that his work was particularly vital. My mother used this after my
    father was called for jury duty but not chosen for any juries. She
    figured that her time was better spent in the laboratory.

    I believe that this rule has been changed, but I'm not certain.

--David
464.6DMGDTA::WASKOMWed Feb 22 1989 16:3310
    re .4
    
    Interesting thesis, and one I'd never considered before.  Might
    even have some validity (and I'll think on it).
    
    I also read the article thinking that it was possibly 'current'.
     Reassuring to realize at the end that it is a sign of progress.
    
    Alison
    
464.7Cobwebs on the brain.LOWLIF::HUXTABLEWho enters the dance must dance.Wed Feb 22 1989 18:467
    I read in, ummm, some book or another recently that women
    were not allowed to serve on juries in Alabama until 1966,
    and not until 1968 in Mississippi.  (Approximate dates.)

    And I agree--good to see such outrage expressed in 1945!

    -- Linda
464.8Jury duty isn't much of a privilege anyhowCADSYS::RICHARDSONThu Feb 23 1989 12:2837
    I'm not so sure it is much of a privilege to serve on a jury...I live
    in a one-day-or-one-trial county, and they call me up for jury duty
    once every three years like clockwork, that being the minimum legal
    interval (my husband has never been called up - but when he lived in
    Hartford, CT, he served once - and there, it is ONE MONTH!).  To be
    truthful, once you show up as ordered at some miles-and-miles-away
    courthouse (I usually walk to work; driving to East Cambridge for an 8
    AM jury duty summons is a real drag from way out where I live) real
    early in the morning, the court employees are *very* nice to you - I
    guess they realize that to most people it is a major inconvenience.
    On the other hand, you get to see what kind of silly frivolous cases
    are appealed for jury trial - mostly people trying to reverse their
    speeding tickets or their drunk driving convictions (all the trials
    I've been on were one or the other of those) - thus wasting not only
    the court's time, but the time of the folks on the jury as well, and
    their own of course.  (But if you got one of the rare "important"
    cases, you could be tied up for weeks! - How'd you like to be on the
    Oliver North jury??  Me, neither!) But everyone is called up - cops,
    judges, lawyers, doctors, software engineers, *everyone*.  Of course in
    practice, a cop or judge or the spouse of one never actually gets
    empanelled since the defendant's lawyer always challenges them, and
    those folks always get to go home at the end of the day (in my
    experience; the form the lawyers get to see has your occupation on it
    and asks about your spouse as well).  So, the system is equitable and
    inconveniences everyone in the same way - although I still don't like
    it that one alleged drunk driver can waste a whole day or more of not
    only my time but that of several other people and a judge!
    
    
    Apparently in Connecticut, at least when Paul served jury duty there
    before he moved up here, most anyone could get themself excused, since
    it was for a month - they let off doctors, store owners, cops, judges,
    parents, etc.  He had to serve because he was job-hunting at the time
    and thus couldn't show that his work was "critical" - he also never got
    empanelled in the entire month!  He spent most of it playing cards with
    the other "captives"/jurors who weren't empanelled.  What a waste of
    time...
464.9ASABET::BOYAJIANAh ah, ee ee, tookie tookieFri Feb 24 1989 03:0712
    re:.8
    
    As far as "miles-and-miles-away" courthouses go, in Middlesex
    County at least, you can request to go to a closer courthouse
    if the one listed on your notice is inconvenient. I don't think
    you even need to supply a reason. So, instead of going to
    Cambridge, you could've called the Court and asked to go to
    Framingham instead. Unfortunately, I didn't think of this when
    I got called for duty and drove into Cambridge when Lowell is a
    lot closer.
    
    --- jerry
464.10You can move it, but you can't get out of it/CADSYS::RICHARDSONFri Feb 24 1989 11:576
    Yes, Jerry, I did that the most recent time I got called up, but I
    still had to drive into Framingham from here (45 minutes or so, at that
    time of day), in the snow on a day when I was recuperating from the
    flu, in order to listen to some guy challenge his drunk driving
    conviction.  Bleah.  When they let me out of there (around 3 pm), I
    went home and back into bed.