On 19 Sep 2007 at 10:40:02 -0400, "Armed Blowfish" diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Prohibiting off-topic communication is also discriminatory against the average woman. Men, as a tendency, are often more to-the-point than women.
Making generalizations about what women are like and how it's different from men is also discriminatory against women (average or not).
On 20/09/2007, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
On 19 Sep 2007 at 10:40:02 -0400, "Armed Blowfish" diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Prohibiting off-topic communication is also discriminatory against the average woman. Men, as a tendency, are often more to-the-point than women.
Making generalizations about what women are like and how it's different from men is also discriminatory against women (average or not).
If you take the literal meaning of discrimination (telling things apart), then yes. If you take the more common meaning of discrimination as prejudiced behaviour, then no. Men and women are different, that's a simple statement of fact, it isn't prejudiced in any way.
On 9/20/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/09/2007, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
On 19 Sep 2007 at 10:40:02 -0400, "Armed Blowfish" diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Prohibiting off-topic communication is also discriminatory against the average woman. Men, as a tendency, are often more to-the-point than women.
Making generalizations about what women are like and how it's different from men is also discriminatory against women (average or not).
If you take the literal meaning of discrimination (telling things apart), then yes. If you take the more common meaning of discrimination as prejudiced behaviour, then no. Men and women are different, that's a simple statement of fact, it isn't prejudiced in any way.
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Well I'm female and I find what he said a) incredibly rude and b) untrue. Perhaps not 'discriminatory' but it's still a stupid thing to say (and think). Pretty much any generalisation you make about ~50% of the human population of this planet is a stupid thing to say.
Well I'm female and I find what he said a) incredibly rude and b) untrue. Perhaps not 'discriminatory' but it's still a stupid thing to say (and think). Pretty much any generalisation you make about ~50% of the human population of this planet is a stupid thing to say.
Nonsense. Women are generally shorter than men. Women generally have a higher percentage of body fat that men. Women are generally more susceptible to breast cancer than men. All generalisations, and all true. I doubt you think any of them are stupid. So why is recognising physical differences acceptable, while recognising psychological differences is not?
On 9/20/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Well I'm female and I find what he said a) incredibly rude and b) untrue. Perhaps not 'discriminatory' but it's still a stupid thing to say (and think). Pretty much any generalisation you make about ~50% of the human population of this planet is a stupid thing to say.
Nonsense. Women are generally shorter than men. Women generally have a higher percentage of body fat that men. Women are generally more susceptible to breast cancer than men. All generalisations, and all true. I doubt you think any of them are stupid. So why is recognising physical differences acceptable, while recognising psychological differences is not?
Society's version of WP:V, basically. Our culture accepts distinguishing groups of people based on physically verifiable characteristics; but psychological characteristics are much harder to verify conclusively, so we as a society tend to reject acknowledgement of those differences between groups of people.
--Darkwind
Society's version of WP:V, basically. Our culture accepts distinguishing groups of people based on physically verifiable characteristics; but psychological characteristics are much harder to verify conclusively, so we as a society tend to reject acknowledgement of those differences between groups of people.
I'm not sure how true that really is. Sure, it's easier to observe someone's height than it is to observe their tendency to go off-topic (incidentally, I'm not convinced that is a particularly female tendency), but the difficult part with getting accurate data on either characteristic is getting a large enough sample. People often base generalisations on anecdotal evidence, which is generally not representative. I would imagine generalisations about easily observed characteristics are more likely to based on anecdotal evidence than ones about more difficult to observe characteristics, which are likely to be based on formal studies, since that's the only way of establishing it (of course, this generalisation is, itself, a counter-example...).
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Kamryn Matika wrote:
Well I'm female and I find what he said a) incredibly rude and b) untrue. Perhaps not 'discriminatory' but it's still a stupid thing to say (and think). Pretty much any generalisation you make about ~50% of the human population of this planet is a stupid thing to say.
Women get pregnant more often than men. Fewer women have beards than men. More men have Y-chromosomes than women.
- -- Sean Barrett | However absorbed a commander may be in sean@epoptic.com | the elaboration of his own thoughts, | it is sometimes necessary to take the | enemy into account. --Winston Churchill