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From: jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Subtle and insidious sexism (or anything else)
Message-ID: <3520@tekecs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Feb-84 19:51:48 EST
Article-I.D.: tekecs.3520
Posted: Fri Feb 17 19:51:48 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Feb-84 08:12:31 EST
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 22

One has to be careful in describing something as "subtle and insidious"
sexism (or racism, or whatever) that one does not fall into the trap
I will illustrate this way:

I can imagine that if I told random Nazis "I have no problems relating
to Jewish people; they seem just as fine as any to me", sooner or
later I would get the response, "that's perfect evidence of the subtle
and insidious powers of persuasion and media manipulation they have."

Personally, if something is so subtle I can't see it, it's not there. 
To believe otherwise is to invite prejudice and paranoia. And if someone
else sees it anyway, it may say more about them than about me. However,
I'm usually willing to listen and think about it.

The question of whether the use of the generic "he" is sexist has been
debated ad nauseum on net.women at least twice since its inception.
It's a controversial topic. I guess I would say that there's enough overt
sexism around to fight without troubling oneself about subtle and
insidious (and questionable) forms of it.

                                           the the the the,
                                               Jeff Winslow