Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    hey i lift weights 
    but I don't have a tatoo
    do i need to get one?
    

{RE .0} - I agree, labels are useless.
 <_Jym_>

    re:1
    If you feel the need to compete with a perfectly normal
    healthy woman, go for it.  As for my tattoo's, I got 
    them cause I chose to, not because I felt the need to 
    conform!  It's sad to see that's all you got from my
    comments.  
    
    
    

    	Minor point:  Aliens was one of my favorite movies to date,
    and Vasquez was my favorite character.  If one is going to find
    nobility in soldiering, one is going to find it in people like that.
    
    Major point:
    
    Vivian's concerns are legitimate.  I share them to a very great
    degree, although as a white Anglo-Saxon male my understanding of
    the situation in relationship to hers is probably somewhat limited.
    
    However, I feel the need to point out that labels do not always
    spring from the ignorant and insensitive like Athena from the brow
    of Zeus (how's that for a mixed metaphor).  There are plenty of
    cases where people do want to be labeled as one thing or another,
    and they promote any behavior that does label them.
    
    It boils down to treating people as they wish to be treated, which
    leaves us with the responsibility of finding out just what that
    is.
    
    DFW

    .1
    
    	Kerry, I don't think they're talking about 12 ounce weights.
    
    Bahama Mama

    
    RE: .2  <_Jym_>
    
    I disagree, labels are not useless.
    
    
    
    They are very useful for getting your underwear on right. :-)
    

    The thing with labels, like any habit, is that they actually are
    useful for something.  They relieve the person doing the labelling
    of the necessity of treating each person as an individual every
    time the labeller has to deal with an example of the "label".  Now
    that can be good or bad.  I can label someone who aggressively cuts
    me off in traffic as a "dangerously aggressive driver" and keep
    my eyes on that car for further dangerous maneuvers so long as the
    car is near mine in traffic.  Usually that sort of labelling is
    useful, since it allows me to make a quick judgment about which
    vehicles need more than the usual amount of attention.  On the other
    hand, like any label, I could be wrong.  Maybe the person was avoiding
    an obstacle I didn't see, was about to miss the last exit for twenty
    miles, or some other similar thing, and does not normally drive
    dangerously.  So, I may have misjudged the person.  In this example,
    that is probably harmless, since I will probably never see the person
    again anyways.  However, the same thing can happen in person, which
    is why we worry about first impressions, right?  It's a natural
    human tendency to categorize things, while changing our ideas of
    a person or thing based on new evidence has to be learned.
    
    /Charlotte

    Sadly but true, labels have there place.  We seem to be evolving
    very slowly with women and men both expanding into new areas and
    arenas.  We either cope or suffer shock.  Still, making people aware
    of our feelings about sterotyping is necessary.
                                                            
     Mikie?

Set /opinion=personal
    
    Labels only seem to be viewed as bad when they reflect a part of
    you that either you don't realize is there or you don't want to
    be associated with. For instance, I lift weights (more than 12
    ounces) and have tattoos, but being labeled as a dyke doesn't
    bother me - I have been called worse things and survived. We seem
    to spend the better part of our lives looking for something to identify
    with, a label  to hang on ourselves.  These labels are acceptable
    to us, but those that others hang on us may not be.
    
    I guess the point of this rambling is that I see labels as a necessary
    evil in any society.  I can't think of a culture that has gotten
    by without them.  The labels themselves are not bad, the predjudice
    that goes with them is.
    
    Maureen
    
    
    

        But labels are a part of prejudice, because they're
        abstractions, but people tend to hang personal attributes on the
        abstractions.  Certainly, there are some labels everyone likes
        to have hung on them. But even "good" labels usually have some
        negative prejudices associated with them.  Personally I rather
        like "software engineer"... but I've been told that they walk
        into walls a lot and live mostly on twinkies. 
        
        "Software engineer" is a nice abstraction.  It tells you
        what I do.  But when I use the label for myself, or when
        someone else applies it to me, it's a *useful* label only
        if the other person knows what it means.  And not if it conveys
        personal attributes to that person, because those attributes
        probably don't apply to me.  When it comes down to it, I'm
        *not* "a software engineer"... I'm a unique individual person,
        who happens to do software engineering part of the time,
        and "software engineer" really tells you very little about
        me.
        
        That's fine... but most people insist on imagining that it tells
        them something useful about my *personal* nature.  That's
        prejudice, and it's usually not very helpful.
        
        A label like "software engineer", or "engineering manager"
        carries a fair amount of useful data, so perhaps they can
        be classified as "necessary evils".  Labels like "dyke" contain
        large amounts of personal connotations unlikely to apply
        to any individual, and virtually no useful data.  They're
        not by any stretch of my imagination "necessary evils"...
        they're merely "evils".
        
        	/dave

    re .11
    
    Maybe I'm getting thick skinned as I get older, but labels just
    don't bug me the way they used to. I spent a lot of time in my
    youth avoiding applying them to anyone else.  Somehow I figured
    that other people had a right to pick their own labels, and I could
    pick mine.  The labels others applied to me just went in one ear
    and out the other (they still do).  
    
    I spent some time today trying to imagine life without labels (and
    ans extension of labels, symbols).  I was real confusing.  With
    the number of people and situations I dealt with, the amount of
    detailed information soon got to be unwieldy.  I think labeling
    to some extent serves a societal filing system (quite a bizarre
    concept in itself).  Or maybe mind has just gotten lazy.
    
    On another vent, I wonder how stereotypes evolve?  They're much
    more complex than just a label.  Who decides what to stereotype,
    much less what criteria are used to define the beasts. The other
    amazing thing is the geographical area to which a given stereotype
    applies.  With no formal definition or communication, people on
    either side of the continent seem to recognize the same stereotypes.
    
    Enough babbling for now.  Got to go find a twinky.
    
    Maureen
   

      If Vivian's tatoos and as attractive as her personality, then
    they must be an asset to her looks.  Femininity is as much how
    you present yourself as why.   It's nice to know some who cares
    enough about herself to be an individual yet sensitive enough to
    know she is part of a community.
    
    
    [why does Colorado have to be so blasted far away?]
    GRG

    Vivian is a pretty good person, just a bit nutty at times (most
    of the time?)
    
    :^}
    
    M-L