To all those who understood and appreciated my recent informative posts, I thank you for your understanding and for your expressions of support and appreciation. I genuinely appreciate you and especially those who took the time and effort to express yourselves in a positive way, privately and/or publicly.
To those of you who chose to publicly reprimand me, I have a few questions for you (and these are not rhetorical questions):
1 - Is it really necessary, do you think, to clog up the list with so many negative attacks on a fellow list member and fellow Coupe owner? To what purpose?
2 - Don't you think it would be far more effective and more considerate towards the entire Coupe Community to simply send private responses when you have an objection to something another member posts?
3 - Do you really want new members who read through the list Archives to see such negative attacks publicly posted against well-intentioned fellow list members/concerned Coupe owners who are simply trying to help ensure that ~all~ list members are aware of topics which may be of vital interest to at least some of the list members?
4 - Don't some of you ever stop thinking of just your own selves and your own interests and make an effort to see the greater good which some of us are attempting to create, which can only be beneficial to everyone (including you) in some way in the long run?
I chose to send the appropriate most important/relevant articles as individual emails first because it makes it easier to keep each topic separate should any discussions about them get started, and secondly because I was in "pro-active working/research/education mode" and therefore copying and sending as I finished reading each article and determined if it would be of interest or concern to the various members of the Coupe Community. So I never got a chance to read any objecting emails until I was finished with my research and efforts to help educate/inform members of the list.
On the horse lists I am simply a member of (as well as those I own or help run), it is always acceptable to post anything that is of general interest to horse people. Even on the breed-specific lists, anything that is relevant to horses and horse ownership is warmly welcomed and appreciated, regardless of who posts it.
I had thought the same basic rule applied to the Coupe lists - that the majority of the conversations would be about Ercoupes, but when something came up which could make a huge difference to at least some members of the Coupe Community that it would be OK to share it in order to help educate, and to help stimulate discussion, and possibly stir some people affected into being pro-active in a timely manner so they would not find themselves adversely affected via ignorance of the existence of these issues which do affect so many General Aviation members.
The Reality is that Coupers are members of General Aviation, and not everyone is ~always~ aware of ~all~ aspects affecting General Aviation without someone else bringing it to their attention.
Some Coupers at least have expressed appreciation and their desire to know about things that could affect their freedom to fly in and out of local GA airports, or the insurance industry's latest round of creating more expensive and difficult situations for GA aircraft owners, or the FAA's upcoming meeting later this month about aging aircraft concerns (of vital importance now due to the potential for an AD affecting all Ercoupes, especially in the wake of that recent Ercoupe crash).
I love my Coupe, and I would like to be a good member of the Coupe Community, but I'm finding it difficult to understand what is acceptable and what isn't. I would find it helpful to have some sort of guidelines as to what is less likely to generate criticisms if I decide to post. I'm almost starting to wonder if my posts would have been considered more acceptable if some of you didn't know I was a woman posting them?
I sure don't read many complaints about posts from the male members of the community (including the decidedly non-Ercoupe-specific and rather derogatory "Why airplanes are better than women" post, or the many-times-around old joke about how many list members it takes to change a light bulb), yet both Spook and I seem to come under attack when we post far more often than when male members post, even when some of those "male-member posts" are in - at best - questionable taste.
And then some of you wonder why women, such as some of your wives or other female relatives or friends, aren't more actively involved in aviation...? You might consider how condescending and arrogantly self-righteous some of you come across via emails, when a person cannot see your facial expressions or body language or hear the tone of your voice or the expression in your eyes as you communicate which could help soften the impact and help create greater understanding. I am, of course, here giving ~some~ of you the benefit of the doubt that you are not really as bad as you tend to come across in your public emails.
I just now looked back through the various messages I've received since joining recently, and found several which were at best only mildly related to Ercoupes (such as our favorite colors or names for our aircraft, or posts about various GPS's for sale, or the decidedly non-Ercoupe-related post about the WWII glider project needing some help, or cell phone use in the air), but no one publicly complained about any of them. So why are some of you now complaining about my non-Ercoupe-specific but aviation-oriented educational/informative posts?
Why so many public complaints and borderline-personal-attacks when I post things that are specifically related to General Aviation and therefore peripherally and importantly related to Ercoupes (which is realistically a segment of General Aviation and therefore affected by things which affect General Aviation) as well as the very public demands made to me that the only permissible posts are ones that specifically have to do with Ercoupes? You don't seem to hold your male members to such strict standards, so why are you demanding this now of me? Am I really being singled out simply because I am a woman (as it seems)? Or is there some other reason I'm missing here? Don't you ~want~ more women to join General Aviation and the Coupe Community, and to bring our individual talents to work to benefit all of you?
I don't want to retreat into "lurkdom" and simply read and never post, and I sure don't want to resign from the lists, but I find myself feeling on the verge of this now.
I just would very much like to understand how I might avoid getting blasted everytime I post something other than my introduction to the list about how much I enjoyed my first flight in my beautiful Coupe, or post suggestions for the Sun'n'Fun gathering which I volunteered to help with.
If we have other women members other than Spook and me, I'm sure they are wondering the same thing. I now fully understand why Spook and other women members rarely post. I'm thinking now that they must have been through this same sort of experience and found it just as unpleasant and distasteful as I do now.
Any assistance anyone can provide in helping me understand what's appropriate and what isn't would be very much appreciated. I'm getting very tired of being blasted.
My initial impression of the Couper Community as being a warm and friendly and welcoming one is now being seriously questioned based on my recent experiences on this list and my recent treatment by some too-quick-to-publicly-post members of this list.
I've noticed several unsubscribe requests posted to this list lately - you may want to consider why this is happening, and what you can each do as an individual to help build up the Coupe Community (and General Aviation) rather than drive people away from it.
And this applies doubly so if you would like to see your wives and female friends and female relatives get more involved in enjoying your passion for aviation and flying, and to use their unique talents and abilities to help keep General Aviation alive and well (and free of the currently proposed and often enacted overly-burdensome restrictions) for all of us aviators and aviation aficionados to enjoy.
Blue skies and happy landings,
Susan
On Mar 9, 2006, at 11:39 PM, Dr. B. wrote:
<x-tad-bigger>A private note off the list; thanks for your trouble in sending these things. I greatly enjoy them and I’ve said so to the rest of the list. I wanted to say so to you individually as well.</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>Robert Beeman</x-tad-bigger>===================================
"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - Francis of Assisi
"It is much better to live in a world that you have participated in defining, than in one that has been defined for you." - Susan Horton
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
"As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at peril of being judged not to have lived." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
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