[pct-l] Sad News

[mkwart at gci.net]

I was in Mexico when I followed the entire "History of Backpacking" 
debacle on this list serve earlier this month. The origin was a post by 
Rheinhold Metzger that was only loosely about hiking, but mostly a 
political rant by a "conservative" targeting "liberals". I kept track of 
all the responses and give and take, although did not get involved with 
a response although I felt the post was a thinly veiled attempt at a 
poltitical post on a hiking site.

  The man Rheinhold Metzger has offended many people who participate in 
this forum with his political rants and demeaning jokes about women. It 
is not just "difference of opinion" but goes beyond that to gender 
harrassment. I have learned to just scroll through his posts (and the 
answering posts from Swithback). I have felt repeatedly demeaned and 
offended by his re-occurring jokes about women. In the general work a 
day society, which most people who contribute to this list exist in, 
comments that he posts on this website about women would be grounds for 
filing gender harrassment suits at work. But not on this website. It is 
important that the manager of the website have zero tolerance for gender 
harrassment, which does not exist on this list serve. Without the 
support of the manager of the website, there is no use in complaining 
about Rheinhold's demeaning jokes. That is the "sad news" for me.

So I continue to monitor this list serve for the valuable information 
that is available here, Sometime Rheinhold has valuable information. 
Because of his practice of demeaning jokes and rants, I just as a matter 
of habit scroll through his messages. I won't block him from my inbox. 
What he does when he makes demeaning and stereotyped comments about 
women is wrong by any standard outside of this list serve and I won't 
shut my eyes to it.

I am not the "brother" of anyone who makes demeaning jokes about women. 
Although I am not the person who submitted his name for deletion from 
this list serve, I can wholeheartedly understand the reasoning that led 
the person to do this.

Oh yeah--this is for Brick---I do not have cabin fever--having just 
returned from a trip to Mexico and also two days ago hiked 8 miles on 
the PCT near Ashland, Oregon.

--Fireweed