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From: mokhtar@ubc-vision.UUCP (Farzin Mokhtarian)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Changing Roles
Message-ID: <1005@ubc-vision.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 20:31:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.1005
Posted: Mon Jul 15 20:31:18 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 23:42:48 EDT
Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 37

>> Quite interesting to see this come from a woman who stands for women's
>> rights. Do you really believe that women are simply "just different"?
>> Do you know that the respected psychologists and thinkers of the last
>> century also argued that women were not inferior, just different. Each
>> sex was best fit/suited for specific things. Women's difference made 
>> them more suitable for being housewives and taking care of the children
>> and men's differences made them more suitable for the outside world and
>> more "intellectual" activities. To say that men were more intelectually
>> inclined was not to say that they were superior, "just different". 

> I am not a feminist.  I am a humanist.  I stand for *people's* rights.
  
Well, I did not say that you were a feminist. I did say that you stood for
women's rights and that is included in `people', isn't it?
   
> To say that there are no differences between men and women (apart from
> the anatomical) is absurd.
   
Why is it absurd?
  
>			     Your implication is that all differences
> are inherent to the sex of a person.  Rather, they are a part of the
> gender role learning that begins at the moment our parents learn our
> sex.  And therefore, these characteristics are somewhat more easily
> modified.

> Moira Mallison
> tektronix!moiram

If you believe that these differences are due to gender role learning, (which
I agree with), then
you can't say that women are `just different' because that implies that the
reasons for the difference can not even be explained.
   
   Farzin Mokhtarian
   ubc-vision!mokhtar