Churchill

Mina Kumar wejazzjune at hotmail.com
Sun Oct 21 01:32:43 PDT 2001



>From: Rob Schaap <rws at comedu.canberra.edu.au>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Churchill
>Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 16:05:15 +1100
>
>G'day Mina,
>
> >You're coming across as deeply foolish and boorish.
>
>Well, I'm certainly boorish. I hope I am not as consistently foolish.
>
> >The only reason you could possibly not doubt you could live with it just
> >fine >is because you haven't the faintest idea what it is like to be
> >inappropriately >sexualized in workplace settings.
>
>'Inappropriate' needs elaboration here. As does the implicit proposition
>that chaps are never 'inappropriately sexualised'.

Uh, read carefully. I said *you*. *You* haven't the faintest idea, given the evidence of your remarks. "Chaps" are a set larger than *you*.

I do suspect women are
>more likely to be so where men predominate, especially in senior ranks. I
>just think that, to the degree it's irksome, it's like being foreignly
>exotic or some such, and hardly intolerable. Of course, if things go
>beyond being looked at and called 'beautiful', well, things can and do get
>ghastly, I don't doubt.
>
> >And I think, forgetting the salient fact that such
> >behavior exists only to demean someone as a worker and as a woman.
>
>If at all, and this is a theory (ie. I can see how it could be wielded to
>help demean someone) rather than a 'salient fact', then 'only' is not
>warranted. People do look at lovely people because they're lovely. It's a
>rather lovely reason, I think. Australian chaps, except those who are
>getting drunk in the company of their mates and building up to competitive
>ostentatious alpha-maleness (and that is, I admit, not a pretty picture -
>my boorishness does have its limits), tend to opt for the furtive glance.
>I remember my wife, an Australian, being very uncomfortable in Italy, for
>instance, where people appreciate each other's charms much more candidly.
>Perhaps we need to allow for a little cultural variety on this one.

Perhaps *you* need to allow for the getting of a clue. The salient fact is salient precisely because this is what makes sexual harassment sexual harassment. That you feel you could live with it is because a) you haven't experienced it, and b) you cannot conceptualize it. b) is further evidenced by your gibberish about furtive glances. As far as I see, neither Kelley nor I were discussing furtive glances.

How old are you, for god's sake? You know, there's been thirty or so years of discussion of this issue, and all you can come up with is, "Gee, what are you girls getting so annoyed about just because something thinks you're lovely. Aw shucks." ?? "Hardly intolerable" like being "foreignly exotic"! Do you not understand that sexual harassment, just like the harassment of people of color, exists to regulate the work force? It's a mechanism of social control.

I have to say I applaud Kelley's courage in being forthcoming about personal situations in the face of such foolishness. It isn't easy to speak from experience to someone so dismissive of what a) he hasn't experienced, and b) cannot imagine.

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