From: payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Dworkin...
Date: 1 Sep 92 18:35:50 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Sep01.135145.1040@NeoSoft.com> jbrandt@NeoSoft.com (J Brandt) writes:
>In article <5phn19=.payner@netcom.com>, payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
>> 
>> Well, you probably percieve the material in a different light than I.
>> By the standards of Dworkin, I should do all in my power to make this
>> sexist material go away, I think.
>> 
>> But were I to make the claims about -you- that she makes about all men,
>> would you take me seriously? Or would you think me sexist and deranged?
>> 
>> Rich
>> payner@netcom.com
>> 
>I would hope that you could distinguish between broad [even sweeping]
>sociosexual phenomena and a personal attack.  

There is a difference between a "personal attack", and that which can
be taken personally, even though no names are mentioned. If I made a point
of saying -all women are evil-, etc... whenever you were around, but
never mentioned your name, would you not notice that you were a member of
the group containing "all women", and that everything said also applied
to you?

It need not be a personal attack to be taken personally. 

>                                             It's clear when you read the
>book that she isn't talking about individual men and every single
>relationship.  

How does she exclude men from her book. I would assume that she is
talking about 'every man", rather than any individual man. What's the
difference?

>              She's talking about ideas.  

That women are being discriminated is just an -idea-. So? There is nothing
to which you cannot apply the idea label, how does this change anything?


>                                        As somebody else pointed out, a
>lot of the material is from literature and history.  With that kind of
>stuff, there is either something there that interests you or there isn't.

And I question the direct relevance of the historical data. I accept
that it could show how we got to where we are today, but not that it
describes our situation now.

>When you look at broad social issues (the topic of her book is intercourse
>as an "institution", 

You mean the "idea" of "intercourse as an institution".

>                   according to the book jacket), you have to make a few
>generalizations.  One of the things I really like about the book is that
>she makes these confident, sweeping assumptions and you have to decide how
>much to accept.  

How much did you accept? There are different ways to go about things. One
way, favored by fundamentalists, is to start with a -fact- they are already
100% certain about, and look for data to 'prove' it. Since they already
know the answer, any data that does not fit is tossed or ignored. The 
other way is to gather all relevant data possible, and see what conclusions
can be drawn from it. Which has Dworkin done? 
  
>  "There is a deep recognition in culture and in experience that
>intercourse is both the normal use of a woman, her human potentiality

Again you mean an "idea". You have not specified what you meant above
when you stated that Dworkin was just "talking about ideas". What do
you mean? 

>affirmed by it, and a violative abuse, her privacy irredeemably
>compromised, her selfhood changed in a way that is irrevocable,
>unrecoverable." (p122)

This follows only if you make a number of rather callous assumptions.
   
>So, to answer your question, yes, I can see that some of her conclusions
>might be offensive to you, depending on how personally you take what she
>is saying.  Remember, 90% of the book is analysis of novels and historical
>events.  So how is that about you?  
>
>I hear generalizations about women all the time.  Most of them don't seem
>to fit me very well, but I don't have to destroy the source.  I like to
>watch the TV sitcom "Northern Exposure," for example.  Last night, on a
>rerun, a couple of the characters were going on and on about how women
>are illogical and fuzzy-headed.  And how women have more complicated needs
>than men.  And when I look at myself and the men I know, I have to say
>that I honestly think that there is an equal amount of fuzzy logic emitted
>by us as individuals.  But that doesn't mean that there wasn't something
>interesting about the TV scene.  The astronaut was saying, "Yeah, we men
>are controlled by two things, our penises and our stomachs.  But when a
>woman gets involved in the situation, everything gets more complicated."
>(or something like that).  Well, that statement isn't really true of
>individuals, but it's an idea that you can weigh against your experience
>and decide if it's interesting or not.
>  
>If we destroy all broad observations about people as groups because the
>observations are unfair to individuals, we eliminate the opportunity to
>think about very large social issues.

Is it also not possible that by such classification, we create the
conditions necessary for abuse? In fact, is this not more of less the
same claim made about the current situation. Those other posters who
answered the question about blatant sexism all posted instances
where such "sweeping generalizations" were made about females, and
about them by implication. Is it right to make such generalizations
about men, but wrong to make similar generalizations about women?

>Jaclyn Brandt
>jbrandt@NeoSoft.com


Rich

payner@netcom.com
Newsgroups: alt.feminism