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- From: barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry)
- Newsgroups: soc.women
- Subject: Re: Sexist? Dangerous?
- Message-ID: <1992Nov16.210017.11701@netcom.com>
- Date: 16 Nov 92 21:00:17 GMT
- Article-I.D.: netcom.1992Nov16.210017.11701
- References: <1992Nov13.100559.16318@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1992Nov16.075243.8338@netcom.com> <1992Nov16.185741.3181@asuvax.eas.asu.edu>
- Organization: QQQCLC
- Lines: 45
-
- In article <1992Nov16.185741.3181@asuvax.eas.asu.edu> ra@asuvax.eas.asu.edu (Starcap'n Ra) writes:
- >barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry) writes:
- >> Yes, but that's not what I'm disputing. What you _said_ was that
- >> "compliments on appearance are rude".
- >
- > You know Kenn, this may or may not surprise you,
- >but I would pretty much go along with that. For one
- >thing, so-called etiquette experts such as Miss
- >Manners do hold that it's rude, even though many
- >people (particularly women) do it anyway. I would
- >agree with Miss Manners, if for no other reason than
- >it tends to make the recipient self-conscious.
-
- Time, place and manner, Huck. Appeals to Miss Manners (can
- anyone email me the actual quote? I'm curious to know precisely what she
- _did_ saying about compliments from strangers) look to me like attempts
- to slough off responsibility for making a personal judgement.
-
- > Perhaps this is because most of us males who
- >aren't famous musicians, or whatever, are so
- >infrequently treated as sex objects that we enjoy
- >it when it occasionally occurs. I am, however, as
- >sure as I can be (short of being one) that if I were
- >a woman I would tell some man clueless enough to
- >walk up to me as a total stranger and remark about
- >my appearance to fuck off.
-
- Suppose it was at a costume party; Halloween, perhaps, or the
- Hooker's Ball? Suppose it was at a single's event, where meeting
- strangers is the name of the game? Or from a "safe" distance, like
- across the street, and in an innocuous manner? Suppose "nice hat" is a
- lead-in to asking where you bought it, because he'd like to get one just
- like it?
-
- I think "appeals to the referee" in such trivial matters of
- social etiquette are just a way of avoiding responsibility for making a
- personal judgement of the situation, and further poison a social
- atmosphere which is often pretty poisonous already. Tell me one needs to
- exercise judgement and I'll agree with you; tell me a compliment that
- was well-meant and well-received is a social sin by definition, and I
- won't, no matter what Miss Manners says.
-
- - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
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