Reverse Discrimination

I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't discriminate against anyone because of their race, religion or gender. I'm a feminist, but though I'm a feminist, I don't believe that women should discriminate against men just to make up the difference, so to speak.

I also have my own Yahoo Group called "F1 Women". We currently have 100 members in our little group, but we would have 101 if it hadn't been for someone who tried to spoil our fun.

Let's call her Jane (as in Jane Doe). Jane joined the group a few weeks back, and immediately stated that she's a big fan of Jacques Villeneuve. That led to the rest of us who are regular contributors introducing ourselves and stating who our favourite F1 drivers are. I said mine are David Coulthard and Mark Webber. Another said her favourite is Fernando Alonso. Yet another said she likes Christian Klien. Jane's response was, "Who are Fernando Alonso and Christian Klien?" Now, she might be forgiven for not knowing who Klien is, as this is only his second year, but Alonso is currently the Championship leader and has been on the podium in all five races so far this year.

The reason I mention this in connection with reverse discrimination is that, although I named my group "F1 Women", men are welcome to join as well. On my homepage for the group, it states: "Who says men are the only ones who can enjoy and understand the world of Formula One? Discuss the F1 world without the hassle of men who think they know it all! However, if you're a man who is open minded enough to discuss F1 with women, you are more than welcome here!" As a result, we have several male members, none of whom have ever been anything but gentlemen.

Evidently Jane doesn't read homepages. One of our male members posted that his girlfriend says he looks like Jacques Villeneuve, and Jane freaked. I got a nasty message from her saying that I was misleading members by calling my group "F1 Women" if I allowed men to join. I politely replied, pointing out the sentence on the homepage welcoming male members. She sent another nasty message restating her view that I was misleading people, and stating that she was going to quit the group because men were allowed.

Only she didn't quit. She kept posting that men shouldn't be allowed. Well, I'm sorry, Jane, but that's not how I work. I started the group because almost every public F1 forum I joined treated women as if we were only interested in what the drivers look like and what their girlfriends/wives wear, and as if we know nothing about the technical side and the rules and regs. But if I were to ban men, that would make me as bad as those sexist pigs. Instead, I banned Jane.

Hopefully Jane has started her own little group where she have a man-free zone of her own making. At least no one can call me a hypocrite.