On Fri, 14 Feb 1997 paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk wrote:

Here I can agree, I personally discriminate on the basis of sex, not in that I believe women inferior to men but rather that I believe each sex better suited to different tasks and vocations. That is not, however, to say that I believe women should be prevented from taking up lines of work that men traditionally hold. They are free to do so, but as in the example you give later I would feel uncomfortable having my car serviced by a woman.

<flame-retardant suit on> Normally I would ignore this sort of comment (which probably belongs in some soc. newsgroup), but I feel obliged to point out that: - The female <mechanic / scientist / engineer>, in addition to passing the same exams as her male classmates, has probably had to put up with a fair load of B.S. questioning her right and ability to be there. The ones that keep at it long enough to graduate are the ones that *really* want to do whatever it is, and IMHO are more likely to try harder. - If she has been in business for a while, this means she has attracted and kept customers in spite of the attitude displayed in previous posts. There are no "quotas" in the marketplace. - I wonder whether the garage owners have any preference. In my military experience (Signals officer), the (older male) sergeants and chiefs, when given a choice, preferred female radar / radio technicians to male because, in general, they were harder working, had thicker skins, and were more pleasant to deal with. Chicken and Egg: How much of "each sex [is] better suited to different tasks" is due to little girls being pulled away from the Lego and toy trucks, and encouraged to play with Barbies? Being told that they are *pretty* not *smart* as a form of approval? Cynthia =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng. E-mail: cynthb@iosphere.net | PGP Key: See Home Page Home Page: http://www.iosphere.net/~cynthb/ Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. Klein bottle for rent; enquire within.