Why criticize them so much? It is so amusing that people will describe these people as nutcases, religious freaks, etc... and yet fail to apply the same label to the terrorists, religious extremists, etc... that the world faces. Somehow the Duggars, BUsh (someone else inserted him into this thread), etc.. are all more evil than people who really DO enslave women?

There seems to be this mistaken idea that because one is a sincere Christian who believes that children are a blessing, they are evil religious nutcases bent on manufacturing the army of God or whatever. That's crap.

Personally, I don't like children -- I'll probably never have any. But if someone else does, more power to them, as long as they do it without taxpayer cash, I don't really care. And why should you? What does anyone have to fear from the so-called "Jesus Freaks?" Sure, some of them can be annoying. Sure their churches can dominate a landscape... but do these people threaten you? Are they committing some harm against you?

No. Like the Duggars, most of them just go about their own lives, which, granted, are very different from our own, but in no way threatening. 18 kids? Before the days of birth control, that wasn't all that unusual anyway. Some of their kids may continue that way of life, others will probably rebel against it and go down some other path. It's a free country still. Leave it alone.

C-dub: 'Knee-jerk' is no attempt to color the argument. Knee-jerk is basically referring to how fast the decision was reached, and the strong language the Commissioner of the Atlanta Department of Public Works used in addressing the issue. I will refer you to the following quotes:

"...to take immediate measures to phase out any gender-specific signs by crews and contractors performing work for the city," and to "integrate this requirement into the permitting process to ensure compliance by all others working in the city's right of way..."

Immediate measures? Since when does government do anything fast? Actually the commissioner wants the new signs by the the end of July... not very long after the article was published. Granted, this is a relatively minor project and probably didn't need much time or effort, even with changing all of them out right away, but this focus on pleasing the feminists immediately, as soon as they dial your number, is what disturbs me. The commissioner could have simply said "Hey, thanks for pointing that out. We'll replace them when they wear out with better ones." Simple. Effective. Eliminates the issue with a minimum of waste.

Instead it seems rather sensationalist. Yes Ma'am! We will replace them right away! Pronto! Can I kiss your feet? To be fair, this is a rather typical reaction nowadays when a special interest dials a government official, and feminists are certainly not the only ones to get such a reaction. That doesn't make it any less of a knee-jerk reaction, however. Ironically the rapid response to the issue might serve to demonstrate that in many ways, the typical response to feminism has reversed since its early days. Instead of a hateful reaction, or at the very lease a grudging indifference, people often bend over backwards to please feminists. While I don't really agree with that response either, it does serve to demonstrate just how far the country has come in defeating sexism.

At any rate you are right about one thing... We've probably taken this as far as we can. I'm on my side of the issue and you are firmly on yours, but I will say I respect your debating ability and I certainly did a good deal of thinking about the issue which, at least, isn't quite as simple as it may first appear.

C-dub: Do I object to feminist ideology? The answer to that is no, if we are referring to the general principle that women should not be held back, should be paid the same for the same work or not barred from privileges and rights accorded to men.

However that same question can be answered yes, I do object, if it is referring to over-inflating the importance of minor issues, getting angry when a man holds open a door for a woman out of common courtesy (which is likewise accorded to men), deliberately misinterpreting statements to be sexist, the extremist "all men are pigs" belief and other such ridiculous absolutist positions that some feminists subscribe to. Yes that's a run-on sentence, but it should serve to delineate where I draw the line.

Certainly if there was serious complaint about the signs earlier, it would have been wise to state that the signs would be replaced as they aged and left it at that, and if your statement is true, I would fault the government for that error (that still doesn't mean resources need to be wasted, however). And I don't necessarily fault the feminists for calling about the sign either. I think you misunderstand where my frustration is directed. My beef is less with the feminists for acting like, well, feminists.... and more with the local government for the knee-jerk response and the type of behavior that encourages from said feminists.

That isn't to say I don't think many feminists are prone to overreacting and deliberate misunderstanding -- I've indicated that enough times in my arguments to make that position clear. And if you read PINK magazine's statements on the matter I think you might find that attitude to be overreaching. They are "going national" with the issue and saying, as the article states, that they will not allow subtle discrimination like this. It's almost like a little crusade against road construction signs. That is what I find silly. That's why I don't this precedent, not necessarily because I don't subscribe to their ideology. Everyone has a right to complain. That doesn't mean the government should make knee-jerk decisions on a whim, however.

In short... this entire thing could have been a lot less sensationalist and handled in a quiet manner without feminists shrilling about it or governments acting rashly. It is, after all, just a sign, and not a representation of systematic bias, lower paychecks, female circumcision or any number of real issues that harm women around the world every day. Handle it in a quiet manner that doesn't waste resources unnecessarily. Unless, of course, people start running over female workers and using the sign as an excuse. As far as I know, that hasn't happened yet.

C-dub: I don't see this as some kind of grand, admirable message. That's the difference between how you and I see this issue. You would have been satisfied with a statement of replacing the signs as needed, as would I and most other people. This is good and well.

Once again the problem here is the reactionary response and elevation of this issue into something larger than it needed to be. Atlanta isn't sending some grand admirable message that sexism isn't tolerated -- any idiot with a brain can see said sexism doesn't exist if so many Public Works employees are women. The sexism is has already been eliminated, all that remains to be changed is some poorly chosen verbiage that isn't doing anyone any real harm. There's no reason to make this any kind of immediate priority. Simply putting it on the "to be replaced as they age" list would have been more than sufficient.

My problem here is that everything has to be treated as a sex, race or orientation issue. Society, far from it's earlier days as a bigoted thing, has gone too far the other way. We are overly sensitive now, and reality has to be somewhere in the middle.

The reason I had a beef with your gun analogy is simple. There is a big difference between an innocent mistake (sign) and willful ignorance (gun). I also wanted to demonstrate another point, and you illustrated it well for me. You didn't like me micro-analyzing your analogy and taking a meaning from it other than the one you intended. I wanted to show how easy it is to do this, and how frustrating it can be for the speaker. Anyone can intentionally ignore, misunderstand or take offense with just about anything, and at some point we have to draw a line and just say "come on... this is just silly now." You said it yourself, "for cripes sake." This is about how I feel about the sign replacement. In fact, those may have been my exact words.

So I don't glorify Atlanta for their decision. Instead I find that they are reactionary, and undoubtedly feminist groups will find more cases of "subtle bias" which the local government will find necessary to change. I don't like the precedent this sets, and while the signs and the $1000 spent don't mean much by themselves (excepting that the money could have gone to things much more useful)... it does signify a disturbing potential for a trend. That trend being that any feminist group that has a beef can call up the local government and make them change things immediately for silly reasons. Now I could be wrong there, and this could wind up being the only incident of this, but I still don't like encouraging that view. I'd rather those feminists go sink their teeth into some of the major problems out there, important causes I wholly support.

C-dub: Unfortunately the argument of shooting a gun up in the air is not really directly comparable to the sign. A gun is, of course, a device that anyone not suffering from mental illness can easily understand as dangerous. There's innocent misunderstanding or overlooking potential problems.. and then there's blatant ignorance. The sign falls under the former category while firing a gun up in the air falls under the latter. I should think the distinction would be obvious to you. And you can hammer away at the whole male/female argument, but you're really reading too much into it. The point is that a person can commit an innocent oversight such as the sign without being biased, because they do not consider all of the political correctness issues that may stem from their remarks. Especially when people are so quick to take offense. The point is also that although word-choice is still important, we must give weight to the speaker's true intent and meaning. In other words a simple "well you could have worded that better" would suffice, instead of "how could you be so sexist?"

I don't argue that intent completely negates everything, that would be a ridiculous absolutist position. Obviously we must draw a line somewhere and realize there are boundaries, even to innocent verbiage. The difference between our respective opinions is thus the location of said boundary. Men working doesn't cross the sexist boundary in my humble opinion simply because it doesn't represent any kind of systematic bias against women. The article states that half of the public works department is now female. That's very impressive when you think about it -- obviously the Men Working sign is no deterrent to them or their continued employment. Thus no real sexism is present and it once again becomes an argument of semantics.

Once again this isn't to say the signs shouldn't be replaced in the natural course of things. Changing them all at once because a Feminist magazine called, however, is simply a knee-jerk reactionary response. There is no need to waste resources on something that is not causing a real problem. In other words, a simple statement that the signs will be replaced with better verbiage as they wear out would have assuaged my concern on the matter. I wager most women would have been perfectly content with that response too. Perhaps even a few feminists could have been thusly satisfied, although I won't put too much weight behind that.

Basically, my beef is with reactionary behavior and blowing issues out of proportion, not with general progress. It's a sign. It's not going to hurt you or anyone else. Don't worry about it so much. I'd worry more that the sign fulfills it's function of warning motorists that workers are ahead. If it doesn't do that, then there's more of a problem. It's not like a motorist will see a woman garbed in reflective road gear and think "well she doesn't count, let's run her over!"

Promoting the subtle bias that women aren't suited to construction jobs... that's an interesting choice of words. First of all, man or woman, anyone looking around for a construction job is unlikely to be put off by a "subtle bias" assuming it even exists. Sweat, blood and muscle is unlikely to be deterred by a Men Working sign.

Imagine for a moment a tough woman who likes working with her hands. She doesn't want a cushy office job answering telephones all day, she wants to get her hands dirty. Maybe she was raised on a farm, maybe her father built houses for a living, who knows, but no matter her origins she is determined to make a living for herself in construction. Her work makes her strong, as the hot midday sun above gives her face a solid tan and her deodorant a real test of endurance. She puts up with the mildly insensitive remarks some of her obtrusive male coworkers sling at her and each other. Male camaraderie is a mysterious thing sometimes, but she's learned to put up with it. After work she heads to the bar with the guys and downs a cold one before climbing into the cab of her pickup truck. As she's driving down the road on her way home, she sees a men working sign.

Is this the kind of woman who will burst into tears at the sexist establishment? Or will she just laugh and think to herself "yeah right, like those lazy asses ever work."

I don't say that the signs shouldn't be phased out as they wear out. Sure. When some drunken moron takes out one of the signs.. replace it with a Construction Workers Ahead, or whatever other term is appropriate. Don't waste resources repainting and replacing all of the signs just because someone got a call from a feminist, however.

And though that was an excellent attempt at baiting with the male/female remark, I'm afraid it doesn't quite reason out that way. Remember that one can come to a particular phrase through any number of methods of reasoning, which don't necessarily have to match yours. One can think "These signs were always Men Working before. Why change them?" Or perhaps someone reasoned "Men working... yeah, men in the generic human sense. Okay, that's fine." Or maybe no one really noticed, because no one was offended or discriminated against. I imagine if the local construction companies and municipal government were really discriminating against women, that sign would become a rallying cry. Instead no one cares except the feminists.

The point is that a sexist reason is not required in order to make such a sign, and one cannot expect everyone, especially those without a literary bent, to anticipate the myriad of ways a sign could offend someone or be misinterpreted. Thus we should stick to the obvious intended meaning, instead of trying to word-chop it to death looking for the hidden, super-secret, mostly likely non-existent, subtle-bias.

It's not a matter of simply ignoring small issues. I question whether this is even an "issue" to begin with. At the risk of repeating myself, the key here is the intent of the sign to convey warning.

Does it do this?

Yes.

Is the signing in some way harming women's chances at obtaining a construction job? Does it indicate a practice on behalf of construction companies and municipal government in systematic discrimination against women?

No.

Therefore I don't really see the problem. It's essentially arguing semantics, and my point is that's hardly worth spending money on. For instance one could argue that "men" is in the generic, non-gendered human sense. One could also argue that it's reflective of a bias that no longer exists.

Or it could just be a sign. It won't eat you. It won't sneak into the local HR department and move all female resumes to the bottom of the pile. It won't lurk in the payroll department and reduce female paychecks.

Our disagreement, then, is one of meaning and intent versus semantics and word-choice. I argue that the intent and meaning, in full context, is more important than the choice of words. Why? Because anyone, at any time, could say something without considering it in a politically correct context, and accidentally offend someone who's looking for offense. We are overly sensitive to word-choice, while the real bigots get free pass if they use the right words. That isn't to say word choice isn't important, if the sign said "ONLY Men Working" then there would be a problem. But if we are to have meaningful discourse, we must elevate intent and meaning over vocabulary and semantics.

I doubt the maker of that sign ever thought down the road (sorry, bad pun) it would be subjected to controversy. In perfect innocence, said sign-maker probably just figured a stock phrase like "men working" would do the trick and notify drivers a work crew was ahead. And if the signs do that without hurting anybody, why change them when it's not necessary? If someone said "You know what, when these signs wear out or get to old, we'll replace them with something a little better" that would be fine. But instead they get trashed and more tax-payer money gets spent on something that doesn't do the job any better.

Oh no. The men working signs of doom will steal all female souls and make them into happy-happy submissive housewife slaves of doom shackled to the paternalistic logocentric establishment (okay that was over the top, but amusing to write :). At any rate that's how I see it. If a hospital put up "women working" signs at nurse stations, I wouldn't be offended. And that doesn't even has the neutral gender argument of "men" in the generic sense. Remember everyone. It's a person-hole-cover. Don't forget David Letter-person.

As for the N-word. It does carry weight, but like all things it too has changed with the times. In the black community it's a harmless greeting. In the white community, once a derogatory descriptor of black people, it is now anathema, the word-that-can't-be-said. Those who do say it get publicly humiliated for it. Remember Dog the Bounty Hunter... and that was ostensibly a private conversation.

It's easy for us of high education and/or literary intelligence to debate the finer points of language. Those without the gift of words don't have our ability to dance around words, to access a tremendous vocabulary of synonyms, etc etc... That isn't to say they are stupid, quite the contrary for many, but not everyone can be as precise. So we must allow remember that above all, language is for communication, and deliberately reading an erroneous meaning and intent into a perfectly innocent statement doesn't help anyone.

Even politicians, who speak for a living, make grievous misstatements from time to time, sometimes not even realizing they have done so. Does that make them racist or sexist or ten-eyed-polygamous-hermaphroditic-space-alien-from-saturnist? Or did they just not realize the myriad of ways their words could be interpreted? PC culture angers me not because it's designed to avoid offense, which is certainly a good thing, but rather because it encourages people to become offended where offense is not intended. Men working wasn't intended to offend you. Let it be.

Lenore, the word was used in a derogatory connotation even then. Slaveowners used it as a means of both identifying the black person and demeaning them at the same time. To say "Black" or "Negro" (which means black, of course) was the non-derogatory word in that era, but even then those words could still be used sarcastically or in demeaning way. The N-word was never used by slaveowners in anything like a respectful manner. The intent was bad. In other words, the fact that people generally do not use the N-word nearly as often in a derogatory sense is a definite improvement. That doesn't reflect a change in language as much as as it reflect a change in attitude. Everyone knows what the N-word means, and what idea lay behind it. They'd just rather not espouse that kind of bigotry.

Beagle, I definitely agree. Men and women deserve to be treated with respect and thought of as equals. Yet equals doesn't mean "identical." There will probably always be more female nurses than male nurses, and more male construction workers than female. Yet I likewise believe that in either case, if the less-represented sex is capable and willing, there should be no barrier to entry. We don't have to look to sexism to explain every disparity, because men and women are different, with different needs, goals and ideas.

This is actually a good thing, when you really sit down and think about it. My girlfriend helps me where I have my failings. I can't plan trip or show up on time for much of anything outside of work. So she helps me there by planning our trips, vacations and such. And she couldn't work a wrench or a hammer if her life depended on it. So when the toilet breaks or the electric goes on the fritz, that's where I come in. And we both work hard, her with animals and me with machines. Does that make me a sexist? I'd like to think not.

Iggy, the lack of malicious intent has everything to do with this debate. The message of the sign is not to oppress women, it's to warn drivers. Most children could figure that out, and yet here we are, as adults, trying to read into a simple warning sign far too much. Take the message it so blatantly offers you, don't try to read sexism into it. There's plenty of real sexism in the world for you to sink your teeth into.

No one is playing the white male victim card here. In fact this is quite the opposite. It's silly and downright idiotic to rename everything for gender neutrality because of imaginary sexism.

For instance, I am well aware of various feminist groups who hate the word "history" because it breaks down into "his-story." So they begin referring to the word as "herstory." Not only is that a hypocritical stance, it also ignores that irregardless of the etymological breakdown of the word, history simply means "story of the past" now, and using the word doesn't make you a sexist. Yet some feminists honestly believe that. Of course by the same logic, "herstory" would be sexist too, but that little point doesn't mean anything to these feminists.

Certainly not all, or even a majority of, feminists believe that, but nonetheless it serves to demonstrate how far you can take this sort of thing. We would have to sanitize our entire language, to rewrite it from the ground up, and burn all of history to make everything truly gender-neutral. Or we can just show each other respect and acknowledge that word-chopping for sake of imaginary discrimination is rather idiotic.

Please note that if a construction company refused to hire willing, competent and capable women, I would be right there with you calling those morons bigots. But a warning sign? Harmless. I don't care if it's one cent or one billion dollars. It's a waste of money.

I'm sure both men and women alike prefer not to be run over by speeding motorists. The sign accomplishes its purpose. Leave it alone.

The N-word was never a pleasant word. It may have once been acceptable among certain disreputable company, but the intent and idea behind the word wasn't just an innocent descriptor saying "you're black." Ironically, of course, much of the Black community uses this word in everyday discourse. Hey N-word, wassup? They must be insulting each other, right? Once again, you have to separate the literal meaning and the point the speaker, sign, book, whatever.. is attempting to convey. In the case of two black men referring to each other as N-word as a greeting, the intent is not the same as a white-slave owner from 1850 using the same word. The words themselves are not as important as the meaning they are conveying.

And quite the contrary to your statement, Lenore, the word is used by that very same Black community all the time nowadays. It is quite common in everyday usage. Does that mean black people are racist against themselves? Doubtful.

Essentially what people are doing here is deliberately misunderstanding the point. One person compared "White Only" signs to the "Men at work" sign. But here's the difference between the two:

The intent of the white only sign was to discriminate, to segregate and to demean. Thus it was wrong. The idea behind it was a discriminatory one, and it was intentionally designed that way.

The intent of the Men at Work sign is only to inform you that workers are ahead (probably so you don't run over them). I highly doubt there was any deliberate intention to demean women. So if you take it in that context, you are essentially -TRYING- to be offended. Try hard enough, and anything will offend you.

Language is a fluid thing. The meaning of words change over time, the ideas conveyed by them are highly dependent on context and situation. And maybe there are a few people who really would completely misinterpret the point of the sign and think of it as a discriminatory device, but for the other 99% of us... well, we just slow down a bit.

*Enters the Fray*

I have a logic question for those of you who think fixing these signs is a real priority. What do you fix first? Big problems or little ones? Imagine your country is at war with three other nations, one that has nukes, one that has guns and one that has sticks and stones. Which deserves your focus? With that said... which do you fix first? 50 Men at work signs in Atlanta... or female circumcision in large numbers?

There's a serious flaw in all of this gender-neutral stuff. It has never been about equality. Men and women are not the same, for instance Men are far more likely to become alcoholic. Is beer sexist? Women are more likely to become nurses. Is the medical profession sexist? Or maybe is it because men and women really are different, and are thus attracted to different careers, different past-times and the like?

The key is not to make everything in the world gender-neutral. The key is to have respect for your fellow humans no matter the sex or what they choose to do. If I saw a woman digging ditches in the 90 degree heat for some new freeway, I'd actually have a lot of respect for her. That's some seriously hard work. Of course the same respect goes out to man doing the same work. And of course the sign itself is meaningless next to that.

You know what's amusing? There's been a ton of logic-chopping about whether or not language is sexist, whether or not language can create sexism... but no one bothered to define what language is. Language is just sounds (or letters) that we attach meaning to. The letters and sounds are just the means we use to convey our thoughts. When you see "Men at work" on an orange sign in a construction zone... what idea is that conveying?

Is it a:) Only Men for the paternalistic logocentric feminazi-hating establishment of sexist morons bent on world domination are working here.

Or is it b:) This is a F'in construction zone, slow down so you don't run over workers.

You can read into anything and attach a sexist or racist meaning behind it. What if the sign said "humans working." Well the word "human" must be sexist, because it only says "hu-MAN." What if the sign said "Men and Women working." That's sexist because Men were listed first. Right? What if it said "Construction zone" and had a picture of a little stick-man digging? Sexist, because it's obviously a MALE stick-figure. What if it just says construction zone without any figure whatsoever? Well maybe that's sexist because it omits a reference to women. Or maybe that's perfectly gender-neutral, so now the focus wiill go on the fact that construction workers are 90% male. That must mean it's a sexist industry, right?

Or you can just drop the subject entirely, stop focusing on the specific wording of everything and just try to get the point the sign is trying to convey....

Don't hit a F'in worker with your car. Please? K thx.

Oh and to whomever is comparing this sign to the N-word. Come on. Omission of a gender term is NOT the same thing as calling someone by the N-word. Trolling, much?

Reversing bias by introducing bias is not a solution to racism. Two wrongs don't make a right.

The money factor isn't as strong as one would think. Sure there are many gold diggers out there, and for them money and status are everything. But for the great majority of women.. it's not that they are looking for money, it's more a case of the man with more money can have more fun. In other words, guy #1 takes the girl to a generic and a movie... while guy #2 can take her to much more fun and interesting places (but expensive). It sets the mood and makes it easier to woo the girl, even if she's not looking for the money or status specifically.

And many women like confidence and dominance in a guy. Bad boys shows these traits to the untrained eye. They seem confident (most aren't, actually, but they fake it well) and they seem dominant around their fellow men, either through physical prowess or putting other men down. It's "Alpha Male" syndrome. Many nice guys don't help the situation, because they act timid and submissive, the opposite of what most women want. She sees confident dominant guy and timid submissive guy. Which would YOU choose?

Eventually though most smart women see through the Bad Boy thing, and at the same time many nice guys learn to display real confidence (especially if they are smart/educated and start making good money). So the Bad boys win in high school, college and through much of their 20's. But after that... they are left with with very little. The nice guys, so long as they learn confidence, stand a better chance in the long haul.