NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/feminism/7598

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-25 | 1.8 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!news.ysu.edu!psuvm!cunyvm!ripbc
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center
Date: Sunday, 24 Jan 1993 19:47:09 EST
From: <[e-mail]>
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Male Men Bashers
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
 <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Lines: 33

I said:

->  My last point is however that there ARE indeed biological differences
->between men and women (of a statistical but very significant nature) and
->a plan for a good society that ignores these differnces is bound not to
->work and to create at least as many problems as it solves.
-
To which Lenore Levine responds:

-Any plan that ignores individual *human* differences is bound not to
-work.
-
-There's an ancient Greek legend of a bandit, Procrustes, who had
-a bed to which he tied unwary travelers. If they were shorter than the
-bed he stretched them on the rack, thus killing them -- and he took
-their money. If they were taller than the bed, he cut their heads off --
-and took their money. (History does not record what he did if they were
-exactly right.)
-
-Well, if Procrustes had had *two* beds -- one for men, and one for women
--- would what he did have been any better?
-
-Lenore Levine

  This a good point.  If he had had two beds, one for short people and one
for tall people, that would have been better.  But would he then have had
complaints that there was not an equal distribution of sexes on the two
beds - that the `tall' bed had more men and the `short' bed had more women?
It certainly makes sense to divide by tall and short rather than by male
and female, but if one really demands symmetry, then one is no better off
than with one bed!!

Rohit Parikh