From: obermark@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Jon Obermark)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Vintage Ann Landers ... and thought experiments.
Date: 10 Sep 1992 01:05:03 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine) writes:

>I just read a vintage Ann Landers column (described as one of her

<< Sad Sister column deleted >>

>This column illustrates the way women were traditionally brought up
>to act as social police of other women; to penalize nonstandard
>appearance, lifestyle choices or behavior in their female counterparts.

    Do women do this mostly to other women?  I have been adequately so
penalized, and usually by women.  I think that issues of proper
behavior, personal morality, etc. are considered a proper place for
women to voice their opinions about other people in general in our
society, not just other women.
    Somehow this fits in with the concept of "motherliness", since such 
judgements are supposedly made for the judged persons own
good.  What gives me this idea is that boys in fact often gain status 
by being judged harshly by women and not being affected by this criticism. 
I.e. boys gain status by denying, refusing, or resisting being "mothered".
Also, "reading" people, judging their dress, behavior, etc. is a
form of gay performance behavior.  These behaviors usually are composed
of something societally female laid over something societally male.  In
this case the policing of social and personal behavior laid over loud
performance, defiance, and space controlling patterns.
     Boys themselves "trash folks out" but the judgements used are not
based upon societally accepted forms of behavior, etc.  They are simply
matters of taste.  And the entire interaction is not intended to change
the behavior "trashed" so much as to set up a battle of wills between
trashee and trasher or to demonstrate the trasher's social power.  Girls
on the other hand often take distinctly moral stances, and judge their
acceptance in their circle by how much others there seek to avoid
offending them.  (This latter is obviously an outsider's view, my never
having been a girl, but I have enough younger female relatives,
and have spent enough time around them, to have some confidence in such
statements.  Also, both sexes DO use both ploys, but the one ascribed to
boys works better in all-male circles, the one ascribed to girls, in
all-female circles.  And there is a large class of children, of which I
was one, who avoid single-sex circles to avoid just that form of behavior
prescribed for their own sex.)
     An experiment for folks interested: Collect a bunch of ordinary 
children, best about 7th grade, and involve them in discussions of 
morality.  (I am "lucky" here, my father and I co-taught catechism,
since I am gay therefore no longer Roman, he keeps me aprised of 
developments in the field).  You can pick out who runs in what
groups by their ability to make and defend moral decisions.  The girls
outshine the boys, but the boys who run in mixed circles can at
least defend themselves reasonably.  The boys who run in all-male
circles HAVE ethics, they know what bothers them, but they cannot
articulate them or use them to influence other people very well.  A
positive note on this is that I am told the distance between the boys
and girls shrinking, and the number of folks running in mixed groups
growing.
    In my book, this is all part of the good girl/bad boy stuff that 
comes from the fact that almost everyone is raised by a woman.

>My question is: To what extent do you think this sort of behavior occurs
>today, among contemporary women with feminist sensibilities? 

    I think this is quite common in general, but less common among
feminist women.  The same sort of women who think a great deal about
gender issues are also independent and aware enough that this sort of 
manipulation is obvious to them.   Most of those I have dealt with are
principled enough to avoid it, and to point it out when it is going on.
So it stops working and slides away.  It still survives as a sort of
edge on their communication about such things however, which many men I
know pick up as an air of female moral superiority.


>Lenore Levine
>levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu

>                              I tried to imagine myself going to
>a large symposium or conference.

>Now: thought experiment one. I'm going to a math conference. 
...
>                      Some Neanderthal talk, "Ug! Look at waitress!" 

Uh, er, yeah.  When my roommate comments on men's looks in a crowd I do 
NOT consider him a Neanderthal.  That isn't often the sort of
conversation I am interested in, but it can be, as long as it is short.
I don't see why sexual interest is not an acceptable topic of discussion,
it just isn't very deep.
>(You get the idea.)  
<< uncomfortable but acceptable conclusion >>
...
>Thought experiment two. A feminist conference. 
...
>This thought experiment doesn't work out very well.
...

     I understand what you are saying, but, Lenore, you ARE a
mathematician, not a graduate student in feminst criticism.  I went to 
the Queer Studies conference here at UIUC to listen to the speakers, 
but I never thought I would fit into the sort of crowd who are used 
to discussing these things daily.  Deep theorists are interesting but 
I am not one of them.  And I don't think you are either.  At a math
conference either of us could prove we existed in ways other than the
typical social interaction, we could use our interests to forge social
bonds.  At a feminist or a Queer Studies conference we would have to
reverse this, use our social skills to get close to the people whose
ideas we are interested in.  Something both of us are obviously rather
chary of.

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