RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31763, 21 August 1968, Page 18

RANDOM REMINDER

SHE We are in receipt of a letter attached to which is a newspaper cutting describing a system whereby Auckland businessmen may avail themselves of the services of a prodigiously clever, London-based computer. Answers to complexmathematical problems submitted to the machine’s Auckland representative will be received from London by teletypewriter. From New Zealand to London is an awfully long way to go to contact a computer, but our correspondent thinks they have gone altogether too far in calling the system “Jean.”

He says it has always been a source of amusement the way most things with any go or action in them are usually, ridiculously, referred to as “her,” but this biased sexing of the inanimate has been going on for centuries, probably longer, with Man, in his indomitable placidity and self-effacing gallantry, doing little about it apart from covertly sniggering at the incongruous associations.

But now that this foolish feminising of material objects has advanced from the field of movement and action

to the realms of reason and thought, he wonders if it is not part of some vast propaganda campaign, even universally conceived, for the final overthrow of the already dwarfed and subdued male. He Is of the strong opinion that something drastic must be done about it; Man, he says, must be rudely shaken from his puerile submissiveness before it is too late. Man is indeed a lethargic animal, we agree, and should reason to rouse him arise we strongly recommend our crusading correspondent to call in the services of a woman.