From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Taxonomy of stereotypes
Date: 16 Apr 92 21:08:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: remarque.MUFFY.92Apr16140451
	<skdg9INN60f@agate.berkeley.edu>
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <skdg9INN60f@agate.berkeley.edu> bickis@skmath3.pa.dec.com (M. Bickis) writes:
>In article <29EB41AD.12430@ics.uci.edu> tittle@alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu 
>(Cindy Tittle Moore) writes in reply to me:
>["women are nurturing" stereotype]
>>Other applications of this prescription naturally extend to keeping 
>>females at home so they can nurture the kids.

>It depends on how far you want to carry the "positive" label with the
>extension.  Surely you aren't saying that it is a bad thing for women to
>nurture their children?

It can be.  Some people interpret "nurturing" as giving up all of their
own interests in favor of their husband and children.  You speak rather
disparagingly of giving up a career:

>Granted, a woman who stays at home to do so
>makes sacrifices, and such a decision may be "damaging" to her career.
>But I was thinking beyond mere self-interest.

Self-interest is very important.  People have needs which must be taken
care of.  You don't seem to think a career is a need, but I expect that
if you talked to, say, an artist, they would tell you that what they do
is part of themselves.  I feel the same way about my work.  It is *not*
selfishness to try to take care of yourself first - indeed, if you are
in poor shape, how can you take care of anyone else?

In any case, many women don't give up just careers, but *all* their
personal interests.  They have no life except taking care of other
people.  While this may work for some people, it is generally a good
path to unhappiness and mental and emotional problems.  When it comes
right down to it, you CANNOT make another person happy.  If you feel
that you are completely personally responsible for the happiness and
well-being of several other people, you can come to hate yourself very
quickly, since they won't be happy and well-off all the time, and you'll
think it's your fault.

Speaking of "reverence for women," it seems to me that this is a large
and very damaging component of that attitude - the idea that women are
somehow superhuman and can act "beyond mere self-interest."  Choosing to
constantly ignore your needs is not admirable, it's stupid.

>People who put their
>careers ahead of their children shouldn't have children.

Does that include men?

>And "staying
>at home" is not the only way of nurturing.

Theoretically, no, but it's the currently "acceptable" way in our
society.  Remember, "in theory, there is no difference between theory
and practice, but in practice, there is."

>>So I would say that, yes the prescription of nurturing women is
>>damaging.  And I would also say that the tandem absence of one for men
>>is what allows the extension I described above -- since it wouldn't be
>>the man, it'd be the woman. 

>If you ask me to order possible worlds, I would say that

>(Men & women nurturing) > (Women nurturing) > (Nobody nurturing).

>Are you saying that if you can't have the best, you'll settle for the
>worst?

*sigh*.  No, she's not.  It seems to me that you missed the whole point
of her article, which was that prescriptive stereotypes *can* be
COERCIVE (even if they are usually not, as you point out, legislated).
So, your three possible worlds are by no means the only ones, nor do any
of them correspond to the world we have now.  What we really have is a
world where women are EXPECTED to be "nurturing" and any woman who is
not is accused of not being a "real" woman, etc.  Now, you may say that
people should simply ignore the pressure that society puts on them to
conform, but the point is that the pressure does exist.  Sometimes it
takes the form of actual physical attack, which is a little hard for
most poeple to ignore.  For example, without getting into the abortion
issue per se, women going to health clinics (such as Planned Parenthood)
which perform abortions (in addition to other services, including
pre-natal care) are verbally (at least) harassed and sometimes
physically prevented from going in.  The clinics are bombed.  This is
all very hard to ignore.

Meanwhile, men who choose to care for their children are also put down
by society as not being "real" men.  Again, the stereotype isn't just
used to suggest that they really shouldn't want to care for children,
but it is used to insult and hurt them when they go against it.

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy                             muffy@mica.berkeley.edu
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
 sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
 But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn


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