From: dantonio@magick.tay2.dec.com (David D'Antonio)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Gender Differences (was Re: masonic morals & dogma)
Date: 16 Apr 92 21:08:16 GMT
Reply-To: dantonio@flashy.tay2.dec.com
Organization: None to speak of...


In article <1992Apr16.185843.20953@acsu.buffalo.edu>, oispeggy@ubvmsc.cc.buffalo.edu (Peggy Brown) writes:

[much deleted]

|>>I'm currently reading "You Just Don't Understand" by Dr. Tannen (I
|>>forget the first name). She points out that there are MAJOR
|>>differences in how men and women communicate and how they see
|>>relationships. Failure to understand these differences usually leads
|>>to arguments and frustration when trying to do "cross-cultural
|>>communication" (as she puts it). My personal guess for the tendency
|>>toward single-gender groups has more to do with ease of communication
|>>and comfort than hunting and inability to have babies.
|>>
|>
|>I've heard about this theory.  There's an amusing essay, "He Said She Said," 
|>that gets into this too.  Maybe its a valid theory, maybe not.  Not my area 
|>of expertise and I don't care how it works anyway.  For what its worth, my 
|>personal experience does not support this theory.  For me, "ease of 
|>communication," does not correlate with gender at all.  Maybe because people I
|>usually choose to communicate with can do so on more than one level.

I think that "He Said, She Said" was taken from her book; not sure,
though...It's not the levels of communication, it's the purpose and
implied assumptions of communication that makes it so tricky. If you
are talking to a person for a specific reason and they are listening
with an entirely different set of assumptions for why you are
communicating with them, you're gonna have problems. 

|>>I think this has more to do with how our culture views sex and
|>>relationships that might lead to sex, than anything else. If I want a
|>>social club, thats one thing. If I want a group I have (mostly :-)
|>>total trust in for magickal work, then the ease of communication and
|>>shared experiences is paramount. The Masons may deal with this by
|>>having single-gender groups (but, as Shava has pointed out, this
|>>probably isn't the real reason). I deal with it by learning how to
|>>communicate and finding folks I trust. Regardless of gender.
|>
|>I suspect the ideal does not always hold up here.

The ideal rarely holds up. :-( I'm not sure to what you were refering,
though.

|>>|>>And perhaps to compensate for their inability to bear
|>>|>>children.
|>> 
|>>Yea, right...And why do women get together?
|>
|>Wait a minute.  *John* posted the "inability to bear children comment," not 
|>me.  Ask him why women get together.

I tried to leave in all the attribution lines to make it clear to whom
I was responding. Guess it didn't work, though. Yes, I was asking John
this, not you..

|>I don't think men (in general) are the least bit concerned about their 
|>inability to bear children.  Of course, you could open the can of worms about 
|>bearing children is the ultimate creative act and men can't do it so they did 
|>away with matriarchal societies and created patriarchies and then turned 
|>themselves into priest so they could *give birth* at a higher level - the 
|>spiritual not the physical, so they outdid women anyway...and this change is 
|>depicted in the treatment of the females goddesses from as Macha, through 
|>Brigit and Mary....blah blah blah....But I think this is a lot of 
|>oversimplified nonsense (so don't start misquoting me) so you'll have 
|>to beat this dead horse with someone else's help. 

I agree that it's nonsense of one sort or another and have no desire
to injure horses of any type over it. :-)

|>- Peggy -
|>
|>                Get some National Geographic films on baboons.  They will
|>                teach you everything you wanted to know about human
|>                interactions.   
|>                                  - Josh

It would be funnier if it weren't true!

--
dantonio@magick.tay2.dec.com -or- dantonio@sword1.enet.dec.com
  I've tried to dance with what life had to hand me
    My partner's been pleasure, my partner's been pain
				-Stevie Nicks