I get ticked off by Denton privately for
congratulating another member, told by him, again privately,
that "The
Club
Dumas" is out of the question for the foreign-books month
because he
didn't
like it (end of discussion),bombarded with outraged postings
when I
suggested
there may be the "M" word lurking in our midst, including by
a woman who
comes
out of the closet to complain.. Geeez!
Okay. Since I haven't seen any other females commenting on
Reeves'
misogynist suggestion [which seemed more like an accusation
to me, but I'm
not arguing semantics here], I'm assuming that the "woman who
[came] out of
the closet" was me. On September ninth, I sent the following
to Reeves
(privately, since that seemed to be the proper medium for a
personal
comment):
***********
Calm down. I'm a female who's been on the list about a year,
and I haven't
felt discounted because of gender--and, by their account, nor
have the
other women (four or five) from the list whom I've
corresponded
with. (I've been quieter than usual lately, what with one
thing and
another, but I certainly feel comfortable posting when I have
something to
say; also, I know some of the other members well enough to
take discussions
off-list, which is why you probably don't recognize my
name.)
Yours is the first and only complaint about gender bias I've
heard since
I've been here. Perhaps you should take some time to get the
feel of the
list before you spray it with bullets.
*******************
Reeves, since you apparently feel the need to take this
public, I'll ask
you here: do I need to post a certain number of screeds to
the list before
I'm allowed to comment? Do I get participation points taken
off for not
speaking when I don't have anything to say? Am I a misogynist
now because
I don't agree with you (as a matter of fact, my feminist
credentials are in
perfectly good order, thank you very much), or do I get to
call you a
misogynist because you don't agree with me? And if the
earlier
communication was "outraged", how will you characterize this?
In the
future, if you have something to take up with me, please come
to me
directly instead of using the coy approach and taking up
public discussion
time.
The rest of you. . .sorry about this use of public space.
Hope to be
reading and commenting again soon.
Best,
Vicky
vmes@sbt.infi.net
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