Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00475)

Tom:
<I fail to see the relevance of this to what I said.>

This is not surprising to me.  You are a male, and for
you to say that women are more compassionate sounds
like an excuse for why you are not being more compassionate
yourself.

<How is my statement one-sided?>

It suggests that women are more compassionate than men.
You are apparently neglecting all of the compassionate
men in the world.  What do I do, wait until I am born
female to develop compassion?  Give me a break.


<I don't see how our impressions being different makes my statement 
sexist and yours not.>

Mine are not because I see both men and women being compassionate.


<If I said that men are physically stronger than women, would you also 
consider that to be a sexist remark?...>

Viva la difference!  Actually men are only stronger with
the upper body, but I am not trying to argue that differences
don't exist.  My argument is with compassion.  If you said
that women were generally more nurturing, I probably would
agree.  But compassion is something that all humanity shares.

As a writer and practictioner of magic, I am very familiar
with male and female differences, masculine and feminine
differences, and so on.  Sexism is not seeing differences
but in see superiorities.  If you want to say that
compassion, for example, is feminine, I would probably
go along, but this has nothing to do with women being
more compassionate than men, which is not a true statement.

Jerry S.
Member, TI