HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (Robert Coleman)
Subject: Re: Archetypical anti-anti-porn comment
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.
Date: 23 Jan 93 20:51:43 GMT

cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

>No, porn does not CAUSE people to act like homocidal maniacs.  What it
>DOES do, however, is to affix a target to the body of every woman on the
>street and say "attack here."

	I enjoyed this analysis.  Thanks for contributing some
substance to the discussion.

	I would appreciate it if you could email me your definition of
pornography.

	I agree with you that pornography is a symptom of a repressive
culture...

	However, you've set up the following tree:

	Repressive culture => pornography
	pornography        => targetting of women

	May I suggest that pornography, being a symptom, is probably
not the problem?

			   |=> pornography
	Repressive culture |
			   |=> targetting of women

	In other words, it's not pornography that gives the disorder a
ready-made shape to assume, but the repressive culture.  If
pornography were not available in this otherwise similarly repressive
culture, would the disorder take a different shape?  Historically,
pornography has *not* been ubiquitously available, yet I don't think
I'd get much argument if I said that women have historically been
sexual-crime targets through most of recorded history (certainly well
before the invention of the Gutenberg press made mass distribution of
pornography, by any definition, even possible).

>Please also be aware that porn is not a herald of sexual FREEDOM but
>a symptom of sexual repression.  Why else would there be such
>incredible mystery and such a huge economy surrounding something so
>simple?

	I would say it's both.  I don't think it's existence could be
said to further sexual repression, but rather to act as a backlash to
the repression. Similarly, feminism might be said to be a "symptom" of
a patriarchy.  Feminism is the force fighting against a patriarchy;
pornography is a force fighting against sexual repression.  We
certainly wouldn't then characterize feminism as only a symptom; it
*is* a freedom movement, as well.

>People say this all the time for drugs; why do they never take the
>conceptual leap to sex?  Perhaps we should be screaming
>"Decriminalize sex!" in the streets; I'd do it.  Perhaps also,
>"Decriminalize the female body!"

	100% agreement.  When they legalized pornography in Denmark,
certain kinds of sexual crimes decreased significantly.  One can only
wonder what would happen if we "legitimized" sex itself.  (And
incidentally, we'd have to decriminalize the male body, as well).

Robert C.
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----------------------------------------------
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From: boserj@netcom.COM (Jeffrey Boser)
Subject: Re: P.S. to my message about pressure on women
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: 22 Jan 93 20:52:22 GMT

karen.van.hoek@um.cc.umich.edu writes:
>One grad student whom I knew slightly was always missing class, often
>for what seemed odd reasons -- e.g. someone in the family expected
>her to pick them up at the airport.  No one seemed to think of taking
>a cab; it was expected that she would miss class in order to pick
>them up.

[rest of examples deleted]

I knw what you mean.  I am currently visiting a female friend
who has a brother.  This brother wanted to get away from some
problems so called her up and almost invited himself and his
two kids to live at her place for a few months until he got a
place of his own.  almost only because she stopped him and told
him to get a hotel or his kids would freeze.

Women definitely do seem to get imposed on by alot of people.
Family, friends, other significants, insignificants.  I have
wondered at it from time to time.  About the only thing that
I thought related was a story about a homeless guy who used
to walk up to people and ask for $20 bills, and get them sometimes.
I thought it sounded similar because some people are gonna be
stepped on, and that the steppers learn pretty quick which types
to step on and how to get about the stepping done easily.

So, with a little guilt, shame, discomfort..  many people use
family obligatios to pressure women into doing stuff.  thats
a guess.  I just thought that it seemed like women were better
victims, being taught to always look out for family and such,
that a relationship meant sacrifice and denial.

.....jeff


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From: chris@psych.toronto.EDU (Chris Hitchcock)
Subject: Re: Domestic Violence Action
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Dept. of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: 25 Jan 93 23:46:02 GMT

In article <1jmhekINNiue@transfer.stratus.com> lmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes:
>This came to me via some folks at Digital (yes, there still are folks
>at Digital):
>
>Super Bowl Sunday - which this year is January 31, here in southern
>California at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena - is the single worst day for
>domestic violence in the USA.  There is an increase of as much as 40%
>in the volume handled by domestic violence shelters on this day.

The fact that there is increased volume in domestic violence shelters
during the SuperBowl may reflect the fact that it is one of the few
times when many men are definitely going to be busy, and so women
who want to may take the opportunity to leave during those few
hours.

Which my no means negates the problem; I just get tired of seeing this
statistic misinterpreted to mean that the SuperBowl causes violence.
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but this statistic doesn't help us.

Chris Hitchcock.

--
Chris Hitchcock, Dept. of Psychology     chris@psych.toronto.edu
University of Toronto      in my new life: clh@vax.ox.ac.uk
Toronto, Ontario          UseNet:  I only read it for the
CANADA  M5S 1A1                         .signatures

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Newsgroups: soc.feminism
From: JBrandt@aaa.uoregon.edu (Pegasus)
Subject: Re: Archetypical anti-anti-porn comment
Followup-To: soc.feminism
Organization: The Polyhedron Group
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 19:29:13 GMT

 
 It is hard to study the cultures the preceeded this one with out the bias
that the curent cultures morals brings to it.  There are many things in the
earlier cultures that we might call porn, but was considdered normal and
respectable at the time they were created.  That is why it is hard to get
your hands on most of the popular literature of earlier times, that has not
been edited for the modern senceibilities.  The idea of what is porn
changes, at one timecertian styles of pianos had to have drapes covering
their legs called skirts.  Because it was considered porn to show any legs,
womens or pianos.

Pegasus


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From: emiddlec@nic.gac.EDU (Eric Middlecamp)
Subject: Re: Women's and men's safety
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Gustavus Adolphus College
Date: 23 Jan 93 20:48:11 GMT

In article <1job5o$15p@agate.berkeley.edu>  writes:
>...
>For a man, the risk of going out at night appears to be more like a
>personal train crash.  --Messy and painful, but generally repairable.
>But for a woman, going out alone at night might appear more like a
>personal Chernobyl.  --An utter disaster that cannot be undone.
>...

I would say that what you are talking about is this: men are trained
to fight. Women are not. A common question asked to female rape
victims by men is this: "why didn't you scream?" or "why didn't you
tear out his eyes?" etc. Again, we tend to assume that others have the
same experience that we do.


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From: falk@peregrine.Sun.COM (Ed Falk)
Subject: Re: Institutional Re-Cognition of Gender-hood
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Sun
Date: 21 Jan 93 05:55:23 GMT

In article <C0zJCr.J1w@cs.mcgill.ca> chuckies@cs.mcgill.ca (Charles J Savoie) writes:
>
>When it's celebrated in boys but not girls, it contributes
>to women's oppression.  When it's celebrated in girls but not boys,
>it contributes to women's oppression.  What then, must be done?

And the answer is... (drumroll please)

	Treat boys and girls equally.

bet you never would have guessed.

		-ed falk, sun microsystems
		 sun!falk, falk@sun.com
To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags
-- that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal (Mark Twain).

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From: julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.GOV (Julie Kangas)
Subject: Re: Women-Only / Men-Only Groups
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Date: 27 Jan 93 19:14:56 GMT

I've got just one more thing to say about this subject.
(What happens when you reply too fast, oh well).

Letting men join all-women groups that concern themselves
with the advancement of women has another good side
effect:  Education!  The men who join these groups will
be sympathetic but may also have slightly different
opinions (to be realistic, not all the women will have
the same opinions either.  Just look at the various
opinions of the women who post to this group and
alt.feminism).  But this is a wonderful chance to *educate*
them!  And if they try to shout you down, SHOUT BACK!
There is *nothing* stopping women from being as loud-mouthed
and assertive as any man might be!

Women can sit around in women-only groups and talk
and bring laws into existance, but that is only a
very short term solution.  The only long term solution
is education.  Having men in organizations such as
NOW or SWE will educate them and some of that just
might "rub off" onto people they come in contact with,
from a football buddy to how they raise their sons
and daughters.

(On the education sidnote:  It's also extremely important
to educate women too.  I've seen professional women who
have children and treat sons and daughters very different.
I have seen them quiet their daughters down but allow
the sons to be loud and unruly.  They don't even try!
They just say "it's a fundamental difference" and continue
raising daughters who will be hesitant to speak out.  I know
people will disagree with me on this, but I have seen
mothers 'shush' the daughter when she opens her mouth
but ignore or encourage the son.  I feel a lot of the
ideas of women being quiet and unassuming and men being
loud and agressive comes from this kind of upbringing.  It
gets passed from generation to generation and both men
and women must be educated in order to break the cycle.)

Julie
DISCLAIMER:  All opinions here belong to my cat and no one else


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From: chris@psych.toronto.edu (Chris Hitchcock)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Someone Convince Me
Date: 26 Jan 93 18:22:04 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Psychology, University of Toronto

In article <199301252339.AA02184@news.service.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.UCI.EDU (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>In article <2B647488.22630@ics.uci.edu> tittle@alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle Moore) writes:
>>In <1993Jan23.155518.27659@wam.umd.edu> rsrodger@wam.umd.EDU (Yamanari) writes:
>>
>>>	Take, for instance, claims that blacks are inferior to whites.
>>>	Science can show that blacks and whites seem to have equal
>>>	capacity.
>
>You haven't studied as much anthropology as you should ave before making
>this statement.  Science for a century was used to explain the natural
>black inferiority, using cranial capacity and genetics.  Women were
>similarly shown to be naturally mentally inferior to men by the same
>methods.

Here's another isn't-it-amazing-what-science-has-done story:

Before Darwinian thought, it was believed that there was an ideal
example of the species, and that variation within a species was a 
results of copying errors. Variation was a bad thing, and women were
declared (scientifically demonstrated :-) ) to be more variable than
men. After Darwin, it became clear that variability was the engine
of evolution, the necessary fuel for change, and so very important
to what we are as a species. Suddenly, men were more variable. Women 
were uninterestingly uniform, relative to men.                       

Can get you the reference in a week, when I get back to Oxford and my 
library.

I think the reason these things happen is because, to be accepted,
it's important that a scientific theory account for facts that everyone
'knows'. At that time, the inferiority of women and blacks was a
"fact", and a theory which failed to "confirm" that would be dismissed
as unsound. Scientific theories get accepted for a lot of reasons that
have to do with feelings; if the theory resonates with the wisdom
of the field (and if it's "sold" the right way, if the politics are 
played right) it becomes part of the fabric of the field. 

Chris.
-- 
Chris Hitchcock, Dept. of Psychology     chris@psych.toronto.edu
University of Toronto      in my new life: clh@vax.ox.ac.uk                 



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From: tittle@alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle Moore)
Subject: Re: Archetypical anti-anti-porn comment
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Date: 25 Jan 93 23:03:41 GMT

In <robert.727750054@labyrinth> uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (Robert Coleman) writes:

>	May I suggest that pornography, being a symptom, is probably
>not the problem?

>			   |=> pornography
>	Repressive culture |
>			   |=> targetting of women

I've often thought that pornography is a symptom.  I've called it a
"mirror" -- one that shows us what is wrong with this culture.  I
don't like pornography one bit, but that's because when I look at it,
I see a lot of stuff that shows me just how sick and twisted we can
be.  That doesn't mean I'm for censoring pornography (you know, it's
tiresome to say that explicitly everytime when discussing this
subject); it means that I think when we get rid of a lot of unhealthy
attitudes we have about women, men, and sex in general, the
pornography will change to reflect *that*.  Breaking the mirror
(outlawing the symptom) won't cause that change to happen, though.
[I'm encouraged by the presence of porn like On Our Backs, Yellow
Silk, and others, hopefully this is a sign of changes taking place on
a deeper level than the more superficial legalistic level.]

Which actually kind of leads to the thought that maybe the reason men
*in general* like pornography is that they're much more comfortable
with this culture [which at least celebrates their sexuality, however
twisted it's become] than women *in general* [because their sexuality
has been twisted in such a way that they're not even supposed to enjoy
it] are and who *in general* do not enjoy pornography.

Yes, you could argue that it's one of the sicknesses of this culture
that women are not supposed to like sex and therefore condemn it.  But
is it because they've been raised to be prudish WRT sex or because
they recognize, however unconsciously, that it puts a target on them,
as Janis so cogently pointed out?

--Cindy
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From: chris@psych.toronto.EDU (Chris Hitchcock)
Subject: Re: Archetypical anti-anti-porn comment
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Dept. of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: 27 Jan 93 19:08:05 GMT

In article <2B6471CD.20987@ics.uci.edu> tittle@alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu
(Cindy Tittle Moore) writes:
>
>Which actually kind of leads to the thought that maybe the reason men
>*in general* like pornography is that they're much more comfortable
>with this culture [which at least celebrates their sexuality, however
>twisted it's become] than women *in general* [because their sexuality
>has been twisted in such a way that they're not even supposed to enjoy
>it] are and who *in general* do not enjoy pornography.

I think part of it is that the fantasy genre is almost exclusively
dominated by male fantasies. Thinking to myself, I realized that I
don't even know what a female fantasy would look like. (in mainstream
media, things like Risky Business are typical adolescent male
fantasies.  Things like Witches of Eastwick seemed to me to be an
ageing male fantasy.  The last erotic film I saw had the (usual thin)
plotline of photographers helper pretending to be the photographer,
and having sex with a number of models who 'understood' that
intercourse was part of the interviewing process. A veneer of consent
(heck, no lack of consent at all), but hard for me as a woman to even
pretend to believe. Talk about condoning sexual harassment on the
job!). It's not that I don't have fantasies, it's not that they don't
work for me ;-), it's just that I feel like I take my cues from a
fantasy culture dominated by males.

(Yes, I've read Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden, and I've read Anais
Niin, although the latter's work seems to be a collection of stories
designed to 'work', but also to express her anger at having to earn a
living that way. Am I the only one who feels somewhat sickened by what
I find arousing in her work?).

I guess that the romance genre is a female fantasy extravaganza.
Somehow *it* doesn't speak to me either. Oh well, I suppose I'll just
suffer with DIY, but I would be interested to hear of any
(non-lesbian) female-congruent erotica. (and to hear if this resonates
with anyone else).

Chris.


--
Chris Hitchcock, Dept. of Psychology     chris@psych.toronto.edu
University of Toronto      in my new life: clh@vax.ox.ac.uk
Toronto, Ontario          UseNet:  I only read it for the
CANADA  M5S 1A1                         .signatures

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From: mwasson@nyx.cs.du.edu (mike wasson)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: soc.fem
Date: 27 Jan 93 20:52:13 GMT
Organization: Trivializers R Us

[oops -- attribution lost]
[Moderator's note: and excessive included text trimmed -- pw]
>Continuing with further summary and comments about
>the book "Women's Realities" by Anne Wilson Schaef,

>Women are in an inferior position in the WMS (a system of *thought*)
>The feelings of inferiority, or inferior position lead to anger and
>rage which is dealt with in some combination of the following ways:

>-become chemically dependent, or overweight (passive anger w/self-destruction)
                                  ^^^^^^^^^^
Let's not forget the converse of this, continual heavy dieting (with
anorexia nervosa at the extreme of the spectrum) when no real
weight problem exists. In my experience, women who don't fit the
"supermodel" look are *very* prone to feel "fat" (where"fat" ==
"inadequate"). 

Any number of friends have decided to let themselves settle into
a stable, natural weight level, and have spoken of how
liberating that was, and how it was the beginning of a process 
of accepting their own body rathe than the media ideal.

...mike





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Newsgroups: soc.feminism
From: infmx!robert@uunet.UUCP (Robert Coleman)
Subject: Economist stats: the working man/woman
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 23:48:30 GMT

	Trends on gender/race employment,  US,

	From "The Economist", January 9th-15th 1993, pg 26

1960
	% of all jobs held by white men: 66%
1990                                     45%

1980    % of workforce, women:           42%
1990   					 45.7%

1980    % of women in executive/managerial posts:      30.3%
1990                                                   42.2%
						       !!!!!

1980-1990 increase % blacks in managerial positions:   79%
   men                                                 45%
   women                                               120%

1990  % of administrative support jobs, women:  77%
      % of police/fire service, women:          16%

	Comments: data analyzed by Knight-Ridder newspapers, taken from the
	last census.

	A great decade for women, altogether.  Although percentage of workforce
only increase 3.7%, representation in management increased 11.9%!  We're
very close to appropriate representation of women in management (that is,
where women's % representation in management = % representation in workforce.)

	Note that no attempt was made to determine "type" of management
representation; as has been pointed out before, the women could all be low
level managers.  However, that's not really the point of these stats; what
they do demonstrate is a trend that should make feminists--and equalists--very 
happy.  Things are improving, and at an impressive rate.  

Robert C.
-- 
----------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: My company has not yet seen fit to
	    elect me as spokesperson. Hmmpf.


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