From: danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR])
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: excerpts from a new book....
Date: 13 Aug 1992 17:26:59 GMT
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(KATHY MCCLOSKEY) writes:

 There's a book out this year entitled _Women Respond to the Men's
 Movement_ edited by Kay Leigh Hagan, and published by Pandora's Books:
 HarperCollins (HarperSanFrancisco), New York, NY.

 "While many single mothers succeed in raising fine sons, the fact
 remains that fatherless boys are at higher risk for antisocial,
 violent behavior.  They often grow up insecure with respect to

I think study after study has shown the above to be true. What is
patently untrue however is:

 they have never met one."  Since it is clear to Bly and his colleagues
 that the real problem, on so many levels, is the absence of an
 involved, nurturant father, whay are they so unconcerned with
 encouraging men to become such fathers?  The likely answer to this

I think this is a distortion. If anything Bly, et al, encourage men
to become whole and work on the process of healing >before< repeating
yet again the destructive cycles of parent-child relationships. I
believe that it is fairly well known that children tend to recreate
the situations that caused them so much grief in childhood once those
children become involved as adults in relationships, particularly
romantic relationships and parental ones. 

It seems clear to me that one must clean one's own house first
in order to break these self-destructive cycles. Men (as women)
have issues particular to their gender in terms of the dominant
culture, which I won't mention here. Bly, et al, were among 
the first to break the taboo of silence around these issues. It
may be that the feminist movement is "further" along then the
"men's" movement. The author continues:

 lack of fathering they got.  My own research has led me to conclude
 that much can be done.  Early education...[can] sensitize boys and

IMO, this is patronizing. Nothing in the quote shows any original
research. What is worse, is that the author apparently does not
understand what's going on with various men's movements, and still
sitting on the sidelines, criticizes these movements for their
supposed lack of results.

 Surely the time has come for the mythopoetic wing of the men's
 movement to take the next step, to move beyond soul searching and the
 focus on ancient rituals themselves based on the absence of involved
 fathers, and to lend active support to workable, concrete, solutions
 to the crisis in fathering."  - Dr. Myriam Miedzian, _"Father Hunger":
 Why Soup Kitchen Fathers Are Not Enough_ - pp. 127-132.

I have two problems with this assertion: the first is that there
even IS a coherent men's movement; the second is it that ignores the
very real work going on in this area, from test programs which 
bring fathers into hospitals to hold and care for ill children
to big brother programs of all kinds.

I think the importance of fathering has gradually dawned on
our society, if only to descrease crime, insanity, and addiction.
It has not been apparently as important as motherhood, but
the consequences of absent fathers has become increasingly
clear from education scores to crime statistics.
 
 a much higher standard of parenting.  The patriarchical ideal of
 fatherhood is sacred.  As such, it usually protects each father from
 the consequences of his actions. The ideal of motherhood is sacred

This is patently false as any look at television commercials 
will show you. Fathers and fatherhood have the image of being
juvenile, helpless, and uneccessary. You will never find 
motherhood being savaged on ANY sitcom, but the reverse is
untrue.

So. What does this all mean for feminism? I think the authors
at least in the excerpts quoted here, take on the tone of
someone at a cocktail party conspiratorially gathering a 
few intimates together and saying: See! We can't trust these
people (the men's movement participants) to do what is right
and so must advise them to what we think they >should< be
doing.

This seems to me to be more divisive than helpful. I think the
excerpts raise some interesting points, but it would have been
more helpful had the authors gone to the men's movement
leaders (whoever they are) and said: Look here, there's some
criticism about your direction and what you are actually
accomplishing; what's your reaction. Or even better, taken
some of the women who had expressed these opinions and
attempted to open a dialogue and report the results.

Dano



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