Re: Is racism worse than sexism? Your choice of evils

Danny Yee (danny@STAFF.CS.SU.OZ.AU)
Fri, 13 Jan 1995 13:00:59 +1000

Ruby Rohrlich wrote:
> The rape of the Bosnian women seems to be an example of a thorough
> integration of racism/sexism, as was also the case of Bangladeshi women
> some years ago. Violating women is practically always involved with
> "cleansing."

Marius Johnson replied:
> What is
> suprising is that the writer generalizes "cleansing" to *all* rapes
> ("violating women").

Are you blind, or just being wilfully stupid? Ruby did *not* say that
"cleansing" is associated with all rapes; she said that rape is almost
always associated with ethnic "cleansing". A => B is very different
to B => A.

> In any event I stand ready to be corrected over my opposition to the
> generalization: :"Violating women is practically always involved with
> 'cleansing.'"

Consider yourself corrected. I'm not sure whether I agree with Ruby --
I'm pretty sure ethnic "cleansing" or genocide almost always involves
rape and sexual brutality, but I suspect it is often incidental --
but your argument is just irrelevant.

Danny Yee.

P.S. I was going to give this up, but logic that bad is just asking
for it.