How seriously are female posters taken on this DIY forum?

[Mary Fisher]

I must say I've sometimes wondered - I assume you're male because of your manly bearing.

Mary

>

[Mary Fisher]

Um. I don't always WANT to be taken seriously.

I'm all woman but a permanently deep ng would be very boring for anyone. I don't know of such a group, even those which discuss terminal diseases have a high proportion of levity.

Mary

[Andy Hall]

I'll give you that.

That notion is in your head only.

[Chris Bacon]

The deraded o-a, occasional appearances only. I take it the one which you allude to is Myra (sp!) ?

[Richard Conway]

I think you and Drivel are one and the same and are just toying with the rest of us :)

[Guy King]

The message from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:

But that's got nothing to do with sex. Perhaps I should rephrase that.

[Doctor Drivel]

Russ, I find that insulting. :-(

[Andy Hall]

We could put around all sorts of rumours like that.

[Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)]

Is it perhaps a case of "If I'm nice to you, will you be nice to me?" :-)

[Richard Conway]

Maybe there is only really two people who ever use this group - me and all the yous :)

[Holly, in France]

I'm surprised that no one has so far mentioned that it's not a forum it's a newsgroup. Perhaps because they thought they were talking to a sensitive female? :-) Note the smiley, that *is* meant to be a joke.

Positive discrimination :-) Seriously, I think in general we/you are. Not to me in particular but yes, I have noticed this in the past.

There are sometimes messages beginning, Hi chaps, Hi guys etc. Both of those could reasonably be said to be aimed at women as well as men these days, but sometimes it's fairly obvious that they are not. Not something which I would bother to comment on though if it hadn't come up.

-- Holly, in France Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Chaps are male, IMHO.

Guys, either - although this tends to be fairly recent change in meaning.

[usenet]

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhh!

(or something)

[Helen Deborah Vecht]

Guy King typed

...says the poster who stated he could be mistaken for a woman In Another Place recently.

[Owain]

...

Are you asking Richard to be nice to you Andy ;-)

Owain

[Geo]

Nope - I was too busy. At the least the OP did not call it a "site"...

Geo

[Guy King]

The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:

No I'm not!

[Guy King]

The message from Helen Deborah Vecht contains these words:

But I didn't say by whom.

[Mary Fisher]

Positive discrimination is discrimination. I think of it as patronising.

LOL! when I had my (asexual toe) surgery recently and complained to the anaesthetist that I didn't like being patronised (he was telling me it would be just a little scratch) he replied, indignantly, "I'm not patronising you, Lovey." He followed it immediately with, "I'm not patronising you, Mrs Fisher." I was amused, he was embarrassed.

Certainly some men on this ng don't take the few women of us seriously - especially me :-) But that's their problem, not ours, as I've said, it says more about them than it does about us and isn't worth contesting.

I think it might be an idea to have a roll call to determine who is and isn't a woman. A few more details about the regulars would also be interesting, it's done on some other groups.

For instance I always assumed that Holly was a woman but sometimes s/he has shown some (what I perceive to be)masculine approaches. Then I remembered that one of the characters in The Third Man was called Holly.

Then there are the folk called Chris and other names which could be androgynous.

I'm not interested in those who don't use real names, I expect those who do to be using their own name, as I do. If they don't it makes me wonder what else they're concealing.

It's an interesting phenomenon about Usenet and I can't understand it. We use our own names everywhere else - don't we?

Nor me.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Well, I do usually say Chaps and Chapesses but I don't mind being called a Chap if there's an associated respect..

From USA, in my experience. I was surprised when I first heard it, twenty years ago.

Mary