Saturday, March 10, 2012

Academic Freedom of Expression - Not

I received this message to a post I had sent on the academic mail-list at Hebrew University:

Your request to the SocSci-IL mailing list

Posting of your message titled "Re: [Social Science- IL]: The OTHER Eviction of Women from Busses - the one the Feminists Ignore" has been rejected by the list moderator. The moderator gave the following reason for rejecting your request:

"Your message was deemed inappropriate by the moderator."

Any questions or comments should be directed to the list administrator at: socsci-il-owner@listserver.cc.huji.ac.il

What was my post?

Here:

Yisrael Medad
Mar 6
to socsci-il
just as a matter of correct English. there's a spelling error. the plural of bus is buses.
"busses" is actually an exuberant kiss

Kissing and bussing differ both in this,
We busse our wantons, but our wives we kisse.
[Robert Herrick, "Hesperides," 1648]
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=robert+herrick

I was replying to this:
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 11:41 AM, steven plaut wrote:

Israelis have been terribly upset when one or two bus lines were set up in Ultra-Orthodox chareidi neighborhoods in which the menfolk and womenfolk sat separately. The irony here is that there really is a form of malicious bus-related gender discrimination in Israel, although one about which Israel's feminists have never had anything to say.  Israel may be the only Western country in which there are no (or virtually no) women bus drivers. The reason for this is that, ever since it was created, the Egged monopoly has refused to allow women to be bus drivers. In my 32 years in the country I have seen one or two women bus drivers, and I think they were not even on Egged busses but Dan busses (the Tel Aviv separate bus monopoly). Egged denies it bars women from being drivers but Egged is lying.

In all other countries, women drive busses. And since Egged drivers are grossly overpaid, driving a bus would be a great form of livelihood for women who do not have college educations or technical training, and would even allow divorced and single mothers to raise families. There are also almost no women taxi drivers in Israel...In other words, the feminists are concerned with the advances of the pampered Queen Bees, but working class women have no interest for them.  Israeli women are harmed by the Egged discrimination far more than they were from being asked to sit separately from men on the Chareidi bus line.


Academic freedom.

Freedom of expression.

???

All I was doing was pointing out a spelling error.  One, by the way, which was, to my mind, a bit funny in its context.

Was I boycotted?

^

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Two SS's is the British spelling and is legit. That is not why they rejected it. They routinely censor out poltically incorrect postings

K'Shoshana said...

My British Canadian dictionary says the plural of bus is buses...and Americans use the 'busses' - although I cannot ever remember it being used this in American print media.

re; women bus drivers...I remember seeing this article in Ynet on women bus drivers in Israel -

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3391153,00.html

Rather than discrimination, maybe it is just a profession which doesn't possess much interest for most women.