Nuts & Volts

READER FEEDBACK
Continued from page 6
column, I state that women have a larger vocabulary for
colors than men. This is a fact. I state that women are "more
colorful and fashionable then men." This is also a fact. (In
birds, the male is usually more colorful; in humans, it's the
female.) I suggested that this motivation is transferred to
other things. This is fundamental human psychology. I would
encourage Anonymous that some psychology courses or a
literature search would be useful. There are differences
between men and women. Addressing those differences does
not make me "misogynist, prejudicial, and hateful."
It's probably important to know that when I created an
engineering department in a large defense contracting company,
two of the eight electrical engineers I hired were women.
Before that time, out of the dozens of electrical engineers
working for the company, NONE were women. And my name
is Gerard, not Gerald.
The second point I must address is editorial. Several
months ago when I was told that N&V was dropping my
column, I realized that they would be publishing critical
letters. This is a typical practice to condition the readers for
the change. However, I was surprised and disappointed that
a reputable magazine such as Nuts & Volts would print an
anonymous editorial/letter (very different from "name withheld").
This is simply not done (and has not been done for
at least the three-plus years that I have been a Contributing
Editor). It's inappropriate and unprofessional. Additionally,
when such a scathing editorial/letter is going to be published,
the accepted form is for the editor to allow the author to
respond in the same issue. This is a courtesy to both the
readers and the author. Poorly done N&V. Poorly done.
Gerard Fonte
Critical — as well as complimentary — letters are
printed all the time and are in no way an attempt to
“condition” the audience for anything. If enough readers are
not interested in a topic, it only makes sense to move on.
Columns do come and go.
Normally, a critical letter would be sent to the writer for
comment, but apparently it was overlooked in this case.
For that we apologize.
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98 April 2006