"Alex B. Shepardsen" <abs@squig.org> wrote:

Does this list have any male members who aren't misogynists? Sheesh. Aimee's post seems to have flushed them out of the woodwork.

Alexandra

You are confusing misogyny with insufferance for fools and trolls. The nominal purpose of the cypherpunks list is to discuss cryptography, privacy, and social issues relating to them. Ms. Farr has done pitifully little of that, instead choosing to introduce silly "gender correctness" tests and the like. In spite of Ms. Farr's "I am a cypherpunk" statement, she doesn't appear to "get" the rudiments as reproduced below. I suppose it's to be expected from someone who got her bachelor's in "environmental studies" (Baylor, 1993) and then went on to a law degree. It can take a long time to repair the damage from such indoctrination. Alexandra, what you're interpreting as misogyny is merely contempt for anything that smacks of stupidity and political correctness. When the people on this list--some of whom *are* female--treat an equally clueless male in a similar fashion (and there have been many, many instances of this), why do you not then complain about misandry? Despite some politically correct ideas to the contrary, defending women who are clueless simply because they are female does _not_ help the status of women. To the contrary, it degrades those who do have a clue, forcing them into the same category with the inept. If you want to see a level playing field in terms of equality of opportunity, lumping all women together into one lowest-common- denominator class will not achieve that. Neither will making knee- jerk accusations of "misogyny" when somebody makes a fool of herself and is called on it. Frankly, Alexandra, Ms. Farr was given considerably more latitude than most men on the list ever see. Even Tim May was quite civil to her for an unusually generous period after her initial tortured- English introduction. Rather kid-glove treatment, I'd say, for a list that has a well-known reputation of being tough on bullshit. Perhaps you should accuse at least some of the men on the list of "excessive gynophilia" instead. That makes about as much sense. Emily Sandblade ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date sent: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 06:19:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Welcome to cypherpunks Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing and wish there were more of it. Cypherpunks acknowledge that those who want privacy must create it for themselves and not expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant them privacy out of beneficence. Cypherpunks know that people have been creating their own privacy for centuries with whispers, envelopes, closed doors, and couriers. Cypherpunks do not seek to prevent other people from speaking about their experiences or their opinions. The most important means to the defense of privacy is encryption. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy. But to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Cypherpunks hope that all people desiring privacy will learn how best to defend it. Cypherpunks are therefore devoted to cryptography. Cypherpunks wish to learn about it, to teach it, to implement it, and to make more of it. Cypherpunks know that cryptographic protocols make social structures. Cypherpunks know how to attack a system and how to defend it. Cypherpunks know just how hard it is to make good cryptosystems. Cypherpunks love to practice. They love to play with public key cryptography. They love to play with anonymous and pseudonymous mail forwarding and delivery. They love to play with DC-nets. They love to play with secure communications of all kinds. Cypherpunks write code. They know that someone has to write code to defend privacy, and since it's their privacy, they're going to write it. Cypherpunks publish their code so that their fellow cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Cypherpunks realize that security is not built in a day and are patient with incremental progress. Cypherpunks don't care if you don't like the software they write. Cypherpunks know that software can't be destroyed. Cypherpunks know that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down. Cypherpunks will make the networks safe for privacy.