h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't think you can refuse, but you can ask for a translator if you dare!

You could ask to have everything in writing - though if s/he's a real doctor that won't help.

Joking aside, it comes back to the availability of resources. It's reasonable to ask, but if there's not one available you have to take what you get.

Noggin

blicky,

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I don't see how you can separate the two.

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Um, then he obviously wouldn't ask for a male doctor . . . or was that a trick question?

Meanwhile, some people seem to be leaping to the conclusion on this thread that women are *demanding their rights* to have female gynaecologists and midwives when we are simply expressing opinions about our personal preferences. And then these leapers are leaping further to say absurd over-the-top stuff like:

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Don't mean to single you out there, honey, just that your posting is closest. Others are also taking the simple statement - I'd prefer to have a female midwife - to the furthest and wonkiest conclusion that they seem able to imagine, which doesn't (to me) seem based at all on what was actually said.

It isn't sexist to prefer a same-sex doctor. It *is* sexist if you will not treat anyone with respect unless they are the same sex as you. See the difference?

Meanwhile, it *is* racist to demand that only white nurses look after your child in a public hospital (or well, anywhere).

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It isn't a matter of correction. You are not a woman so this is possibly why it makes no 'real' sense to you and yet why it is quite important to some. The reasons for my preference are different from what other women have posted here yet they all make sense to me. Not one woman posting her preference here - including Kerr who said she actually preferred male doctors - didn't make 'real' sense to me.

Some things *are* gender specific, blicky, and always will be. That doesn't mean they are necessarily bad or create inequality.

I agree that in most situations a man can do just as good a job as a woman (and vice versa). But with intimate body stuff, most women do feel more comfortable with other women. So?

Gotta get back to w*rk now.

sis
xxxxx

>> ..symptoms of something wrong with that persons world view (perhaps even something wrong with the persons mind). And I think it better to deal with that than to have them hide it away...<<

Absolutely. Bigotry and racism are demons that need to be exorcised carefully never forgetting there's a person in there too.

~jwf~

I agree, ~jwf~ especially the bit about never forgetting there is a person in there too.

>> ..socially unacceptable beliefs and behaviours will be driven underground and hidden to fester and grow until eventually seeping back into the mainstream world in a more dramatic way.. <<

That's why history keeps repating itself repeating itself. Yes, we must exorcise the demons not drive them behind closed doors. Let the sunshine in!

Lies cannot hide from the light of the Truth but if we ignore them and store them in dark places they tend to mushroom.


~jwf~

We live in a socially constructed world and what is bad/illegal/heinous in one place is quite acceptable in another. For instance I heard on the TV this week that the age of consent in Japan is 13. We have people in prison in the UK (quite rightly in my view - but that is influenced by my social upbringing) for what would be lawful in Japan.

If you look at social history religion in England adapted itself to fit with the Industrial Revolution. The work ethic came about because the Industrial Revolution. You should work hard, it is good. I know people who say you should give 100% at work and feel pious about it.

Our difficulty is the balance between rights of the individual v rights for the group. It would be nice if we could choose the person we wanted to treat us. "Choice would be a fine thing." Hopefully an informed choice on the person most suited to deal with our problems.

Our society decided that women working in the mines was a BAD THING and eventually after campaigning and debate it was stopped. Middle class women had never worked in the mines.

Society said that a woman's work was in the home and childcare was paramount. Children had always been with their parents. They played inthe factories or worked along side their parents. Then it was decided that even working class children needed to be educated to serve the needs of the Industrial Revolution.

So we have a situation where upper class, rich people don't have to work, middle class men work in offices, working class men work in industry while women remain unpaid and in the home. Myths develop that women aren't capable of many of the things that men are.

WW1 comes along. Men are sent off to fight and often don't come back. Industry starts to falter - not enough men to do the work required to meet the war needs. Women are recruited into all jobs including heavy industry - Steel smelting, welding EVERYTHING, and they do as good a job as men.

This now undermines the theory that women aren't capable. War over men come back and women working is seen as a BAD THING. Women sent home to do the cooking and child care. Then along comes WW2. Once again women are doing the same work as men.

We sometimes fool ourselves into thinking that our progress is a fight against the wrongs by the powerless. When you look into it things often change because it is convenient for the system. The problems for the system arise when people learn that other ways are possible and that what seemed to be set in stone is in fact negotiable.

Look now at the Tory Party saying that we are NOT allowing enough migrant labourers into the country and that some of the farms that rely on low paid labour may suffer financially as a result. WHAT - not enough immigrants? But last week you said...

Who should we believe?

http://www.ageofconsent.com/japan.htm

Look right through; various passages, from different laws and reports, are inconsistent with each other.

>> ..Some things *are* gender specific.. <<

Yes they are. I'm glad you said that. There are some very surprising results coming out of recent research into the human brain. The CPU of the brain seems to be a resident of the 'hippo campus' and with the new MRIs and other scans we can actually see this little double-bent two-pronged wishbone-shaped area of the central brain sometimes described as 'about the size of a walnut' that looks a bit like the Starship 'Andromeda'.

When a man is put in one machine and a woman in another and they have an argument (married couples work best) you can visibly see the intensity of braincore activity shifting to either the left- or right-brain side. I can't remember which is which, but the pattern applies to most emotional stimulae not just spousal disputes. It is consistent and dramatic. And gender opposite.

This would seem to explain and re-affirm so many of the very gender 'differences' we have been told were simply old wives tales and prejudices about the way men and women think, perceive, react, remember, listen, look and feel in absolutely gender specific ways. Perhaps the day is not far off when I can once again speak the truth as I see it and not be judged politically incorrect.

AS for the rock climbing incident: I wouldn't have complained to the woman holding my rope (for reasons that are justified above) but I'd have a quiet word with the stupid bloke who put a woman in charge of the snake-like apparatus upon which my life is hanging.



~jwf~

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It seems as if the people who demand 'total equality' are also very intolerant in their own way. As though there is something *wrong* with being different. We cannot eliminate all the differences between us. In fact, I think even if this were possible it would remove a lot of what is actually very interesting about individuals.

Acknowledging and even celebrating our differences is not the same thing as pointing out differences in a negative way.


az

Equality to me is having access to the power that money brings and access to freedom from having to do all of the drudge chores - this is as much to do with class as gender.

It isn't about being the same at all. It's about being able to recognise the individual talents of people and celebrate and enhance them to everyone's benefit.

Well said, Vestboy.

I agree.

az

I agree with you Vestboy, about the importance of class, which is not thought of enough...