From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Misogyny was (veggies, women, fear)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 22 Jul 92 06:04:12 GMT

In article <12402@inews.intel.com> pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey) writes:
>In article <711627331.F00001@therose.pdx.com> 
>Frank.Perricone@f814.n355.z1.therose.pdx.com (Frank Perricone) writes:
>>WHAT IS IT ABOUT WOMEN THAT MEN FEAR?
>
>That's what I'd like to know too. Is it because they are allied with the
>snake and forced us to eat the fruit of knowledge from the garden of Eden?
>Women just don't seem threatening to me. Are they just pretending? Will
>they become evil slave masters when they get the chance? If they get
>machine guns, will we have to call them SIR or MAM. I really can't
>remember the last time I felt threatened by a woman. Even in school. Sure
>they are good at word games and the subtle dig but threatening? I just
>don't know. Maybe if you went to Catholic school and were harassed as a
>child by a nun. Maybe if your mother was cruel. There must be some cruel
>mothers. 

There sure are.  Usually cruel men are just called "strict
disciplinarians," though.

YOu do raise an interesting point, though.  Up until VERRRRRY recently
(what with the sudden spate I see of men carrying babies and feeding
them, which might just be what this damned world needs), the only time
men dealt with women in positions of authority is when the woman is a
mother, or a schoolteacher.  

Unfortunately, this then casts the man in the role of little boy.
Hopefully now that men are taking an active part in raising their kids
and not just doling out punishment, this will change, and men will see
examples of loving fathers, and will not be so afraid of female power.

Think of it -- the ONLY powerful women a man sees, really powerful, are
when he is a child and she exerts a tremendous amount of power over
HIM (as mother or teacher).  WE MUST GET MEN INVOLVED IN THIS KID STUFF.
(Which is why I'm so happy to see men really taking part in raising the
kids nowdays.)

>Sure there have been lots of women I would have liked to gotten
>to know better, if you know what I mean, and sure I've been turned down or
>given the old not tonight line. I've done the same to women, that's to be
>expected isn't it? Just because you find yourself attracted to a woman at
>a certain time doesn't mean it's the right time or that she will be attracted
>to you. What reasons can there be for fearing women? That I'd really like
>to know. If you women have any ideas, please jump right in. 

I guess you would have expected me to leap in.  I honestly think that
what I said above plays a large part (not the whole part, but a large
part).  Again, the only powerful women that most men are really familiar
with are mothers and teachers, and both of those situations cast the man
in the role of helpless little boy, child with no real control over his
fate -- his fate being in the hands of adults.  He learns to distrust us
and grows up where other men (who have felt the same thing) then take
over and tell him the same thing, and tell him that to prevent his being
recast as tiny tot, he must put women under his heel and keep them
there.

Again, I'm glad to see men taking part in raising kids.  This is VITAL.

>My tone may
>sound sarcastic, 

Nope.

>but I'm really just curious. If you fear follow-up 
>retribution, just put the message "pharvey don't follow-up" in your post and 
>you have my word I will not. That goes for either sex.

Nah.  Follow up all you want.  I also think that sometimes they
subconsciously understand what women have been through through the years
(centuries) and fear what they think is righteous anger.  

Blessings,
Janis
Newsgroups: alt.pagan