Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    
    Dear Bob,
    
    PLTHT-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T!
    
    
    --DE
    

    Putting aside the fact that he's, like, totally whacked, can anyone
    tell me what:
    
    	"I think women were created not in an inferior position
    	but in a role of submission to men."
    
    is supposed to mean? I'd hate to find out what he thinks an
    "inferior position" *is*!
    
    --- jerry

       Professional sports, in the US at least, seems to always be a last
       bastion of social small-mindedness.  The environment where Knepper
       does not, evidently, sense a social stigma attached to making his
       statements (which were, incidentally, refuted by his team's
       management) is the same environment where, just last year, an
       executive of the Los Angeles baseball team said publicly that the
       paucity of blacks in managerial positions in baseball was due to
       the blacks' lack of intelligence.  Indeed, well within the
       lifetime of many readers of this conference, baseball was an
       active practitioner of apartheid: no black man wore a major league
       uniform until 1947, and none wore a Boston Red Sox uniform until
       the late 1950s. 
       
       Pam Postema (I think that's her name) has put in several years
       umpiring in the minor leagues.  If she can make it to the major
       leagues, she'll have overcome some impressive hurdles.
       
       --Mr Topaz

    For a more balanced view on Ms. Postema's qualifications, career,
    and prospects, refer to last week's _Sports Illustrated_.  She has
    already had a successful career by umpiring standards, having umped
    for several years in AAA ball.  Most candidates never make it out
    of industrial leagues. 
    
    Umpiring is a highly competitive profession where seniority and
    experience are of the utmost importance.  Five people are competing for
    only two openings, and Ms. Postema is not the most senior of the
    applicants. So if she isn't chosen, it won't necessarily be for reasons
    of sexism.  
    
    In all likelihood, she will be able to move up to the majors in
    three to five years, when she has a bit more experience.
    
    --bonnie

�	.........................................  I
�	don't think they should be competing with men.  

Well, I suppose someone should notify Susan Butcher of this. She just
won her third straight Iditarod. For those not familiar, the Iditarod
is an 1100+ mile sled-dog race that takes place annually in Alaska. I
don't know if she reached her goal of under 10 days but she still holds
the record.

Jenna (sled-dog race fan)

    
    Oooh gosh, no, of course we can't have us women competing with men.
    I mean we might actually win, and then what would happen !!!

    
    re .6
    
    As the saying goes, 
    
      ALASKA
      Where the men are men,
      and the women win the Iditarod.
    
    
    

    
    Billy's days of getting the last word would be over...

    Me thinks Billy's afraid of competition.
    
    I second .1  PH-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-TH!

       

        It's really no wonder that a man in our culture wouldn't want
        women to compete with men. At least the old fogies amongst us
        were brought up to believe that it would be ungentlemanly to try
        to win against a woman and unmanly to be defeated by one. Faced
        with a choice like that, the obvious choice is to neither win
        nor lose, but to not compete at all.
        
        Of course the real fix is to not set up your definitions so that
        it is unacceptable for a man to win or lose against a woman, but
        it is very hard to turn an intellectual understanding like that
        in to something that you believe in your gut. This kind of
        double-whammy set-up is why many otherwise reasonable men as
        well as many very unthinking and bigotted ones say and do such
        unreasonable things.
        
        This is not to say that men suffer as much from sexism and
        stereotypes as women--that's not true. Rather it is intended to
        show how the unreasonable definitions that we've allowed
        ourseleves to accept affect all of us, and to remind us that we
        can only put a stop to it by refusing to let others define what
        we're supposed to be.
        
        JimB.

    RE: .11
    
    Jim, I don't think it's so much losing to a woman (so far as the
    umpire thing goes) but having a woman make decisions which affect
    their lives so much.
    
    Dawn
    

    re:.12
    
    Already, when the players (or fans) don't like a call, they
    scream, "Kill the umpire!" I can think of what they'll likely
    say to/about a female umpire, and what I can think is not at
    all pleasant.
    
    Along the lines of male/female "competition"...
    
    A friend passed along to me a tid-bit of information from another
    notesfile that was very interesting. It described the results of
    acceleration testing which indicated that women can take high
    accelerations (something like 6 G's) that men just cannot take.
    The upshot is that it could well be the case that the American
    military may find itself in the position of using only female
    pilots in jet fighters simply because men won't be able to take
    the accelerations that result in high-speed manuevering.
    
    --- jerry 

    "Kill" is pleasant?
    
    Any way, in so far as "gentlemanly" behavior goes, chivalry is just
    wanting to have 90% of all the fun.

        RE: 765.12
        
        My comment was more in response to one of the replies that
        suggested that the idea of women compteting with men was
        horrifying because the women might win, than to the precise
        comments of the fellow in the base note.
        
        As to the issue of losing vs. power, I think that in many ways
        attaining power is perceived as being the result of winning a
        comptetition in our society. If someone has power over you,
        you're sort of perceived to have lost to them. If your boss is a
        woman than you lost the competition for her job, even though you
        may never have competed for it. I guess what I'm saying here is
        that winning and losing and having and exercising power are so
        inter-related that it's hard to impossible to say that the issue
        is one or the other. Both are clearly factors.
        
        My own perception, as I am not very competative (although I am
        very aggressive), is that in our society competition has a much
        too exagerated importance, and that he issues of winning and
        losing are extremely over-streesed. I therefore see a lot of
        these problems as being problems related to competetion, and not
        to power, as I am fairly comfortable with power. I suspect
        someone who is more comfortable with the cometetiveness of our
        culture, especially someone who has had troubles related to
        power might see the emphasis quite differently.
        
        JimB.

    RE:.15
    
    Good point, Jim, especially your last paragraph. I suspect those
    who are used to such competition in a society in which (at least)
    one group is BY DEFAULT powerless, might get real antsy when a member
    of that group suddenly has POWER over them.
    
    RE: winners and losers
    
    I think our society has been so used to the "dichotomous thinking"
    and andocentric ideas that if there is a winner, there must be a
    loser, it is difficult to imagine the win-win situations that are
    possible. <just an aside>
    
    --DE
    

    Re:  .16
    
    Two very good points!

    Having been a sports official for a number of years and planning
    on being one for many more, I have followed the Pam Potesma (sp)
    story for some time.  To say the least she has had many more hurdles
    to overcome than 95% of the men she has worked with.  I, for one,
    am pulling for her to make it to the Big Time  THIS  year.
    
    However, from a personal point, I, throught Dawn Evans, sought out
    candidates from this notes file earlier this spring/late winter
    who might be interested in becoming softball umpires.  I truly wanted
    some women to go for it because I, from my experience, have found
    them to be as good as most of the men who are officials.  To be
    honest there are some men as well as some women who are not cut
    out for this type of work/fun but they find that out soon enough.
    The bottom line is that NO one contacted me to even inquire what
    was involved and what type of support system there was for rookie
    officials.  
    
    To say the least, I was disappointed.  I really hoped there would
    be at least one or two of the readership or even maybe one of their
    acquaintances who might give it a try.  Should anyone be interested
    for the future please feel free to contact me.  I really want some
    women to get involved.  After all you are at least equal and possibly
    even better than some of the officials you may have seen working.
    
    JSQ

    	Well, she didn't make it.
    
    	I read in yesterday's Nashua Telegraph that she's going
    	back to the minor league. The person interviewed wasn't
    	specific about why.
    
    	Scott