Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!hocda!houxm!houxz!vax135!floyd!harpo!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot From: chabot@amber.DEC (Lisa Chabot) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: fishing for bicycles Message-ID: <1085@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Mon, 4-Jun-84 15:56:26 EDT Article-I.D.: decwrl.1085 Posted: Mon Jun 4 15:56:26 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 6-Jun-84 05:44:06 EDT Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 48 The point of fish and bicycles is that fish can get along just fine without bicycles: they don't need them to get from one end of the lake to the other, they don't need them for speed, they don't need them to be just fish. But that's not to say that the lives of fish and bicycles don't intersect: here in the Hub, I've walked along the Charles River and seen more that one submerged bicycle with a school of minnows hanging around it. As with many analogies, this one falls apart if you stretch it past the point of "fish are fish with or without bicycles". For instance, here are a lot of things I wouldn't want to imply by the statement. Women are smarter than men, since fish think more than bicycles. (Or at least, fish have brains, and bikes don't.) Women reproduce by spawning, but you get men from a store. A group of women need 1 man for protection (just like the minnows hiding out in the Charles River). [Also, although there is a strong correlation between the minnows growing larger and the bicycle rusting, I doubt that much can be determined from this to predict human behavior.] Men are totally unsuitable for women, since fish can't reach the pedals of most bicycles. Women and men perform their proper functions (sin, tan, or whatever) in separate environments, since most fish can't breathe without being in water and most bicycles don't operate well unless on land. A fish isn't just half a fish if it doesn't have a bicycle, and a woman isn't less of a person because she isn't attached to a man. This silly little sentence, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle", is actually pretty uplifting to women, because it ridicules prejudices about "spinsters" and widows and divorcees. You could switch the order of "woman" and "man", and that's okay with me. It's kind of like like the phrase "Black is beautiful": it's not to imply the white isn't beautiful (or that men aren't persons without women), but it is (or was) going against the status quo that ONLY white is beautiful (or that men can be people without women, but women can't be people without men). Got any fours? Lisa Chabot UUCP: ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot ARPA: ...chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA USFail: DEC, MR03-1/K20, 2 Iron Way, Marlborough, Marshachusetts 01752 shadow: ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-avalon!chabot