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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Samer, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>It's hard to explain to you in just how many ways that last email was offensive to me, both as a stove promoter and someone very concerned about improving the quality of life for women around the world. But I'm going to set aside my outrage and tackle some points you raised. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Let's talk about that stove study from India. We've already analyzed it to death in this forum. Long story short, that India study rightly pointed out that if you disseminate a stove that doesn't address the needs of the women in the community that you are distributing stoves to, it will be abandoned. The legitimate point from the study is to make sure that you understand the needs of the community you are attempting to serve. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>It's a much more fair point to say that the community of people that use stoves (not just women) is diverse, that they prefer stoves based on metrics that are not obvious to those that are outside their community - but as Christa and others have proven over and over and over again those needs can be readily ascertained through careful cooperation with stove users. Improved stoves are tricky bits of engineering and must be tailored to address specific community needs. Often multiple stoves are needed. There are farm scale and household scale needs tasks that often must be performed by the same community members, and they may need a stove for each one.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>This particular email discussion is more than 10 years old, and the community of people working on these issues is a lot older. We've seen a lot of bad ideas come and go, and this particular meme (the rape meme) is probably one of them. I'd like to stop that particular discussion right here, and I'd like to encourage you, Samer, to go off and do your own homework into women's issues as I don't have time to explain to you why your email may have been offensive to the many women we have on this list.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Erin Rasmussen<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>erin@trmiles.com <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>Computer wizard in charge of the software that runs the Biomass Stoves Discussion List<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></body></html>