Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"

[Cynthia H. Brown]

On Fri, 14 Feb 1997 paul at 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

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		   Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng.
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