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From: charlie@cca.UUCP (Charlie Kaufman)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Stereotypes
Message-ID: <6655@cca.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-Feb-84 18:46:19 EST
Article-I.D.: cca.6655
Posted: Mon Feb  6 18:46:19 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Feb-84 08:33:23 EST
Lines: 40

Are men inherently better musicians?  Are women inherently better child
nurturers?  

Are stereotypes inherently wrong?

Stereotypes are in fact almost always "right", in the sense that if a
stereotype says "all Xs are Y", you come up with a reasonably objective
measure of Y, and you run a study, you will find a statistically
significant relationship between membership in group X and having
characteristic Y.

Now, you can debate until you are blue in the face *why* that
relationship exists.  The goal is usually to prove that it is not the Xs
fault that they have characteristic Y (or not the non-Xs fault they lack
it).  The purpose of such an argument is to establish that since society
is at fault, society owes the Xs (or non-Xs) some compensation, like
ignoring characteristic Y in situations where it is not ludicrous to do
so.  If you can make such an argument, you are said to have "refuted"
the stereotype.

Bullfeathers.

The evil of stereotypes is assuming that correlations are perfect when
in fact they never are.  For years, courts routinely awarded custody to
mothers in divorce cases because everyone knows women are better
nurturers.  It would be no less evil to change the policy to award
custody to fathers in 50% of the cases because the stereotype is wrong.

Far too much significance is given to questions of whether men are
inherently better musicians/chess players/computer programmers/whatever
than women.  What difference does it make?  What is important is that
people who would be good at Z get a chance to try and be encouraged to
do so.

Don't argue that stereotypes are false.  You'll always lose.  Argue that
they are true but not useful, and perhaps in fact harmful.

                          --Charlie Kaufman
                            charlie@cca
                            ...decvax!cca!charlie