From: rdh@veritas.com (Robert Hartman)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: men's issues vs. (1)
Date: 28 Aug 1992 20:46:05 GMT
Organization: VERITAS Software
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <17j1i1INNmmd@agate.berkeley.edu> Will Steeves <goid@zooid.guild.org> writes:
>farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes...

>LJ> I agree to some extent, but it angers me that women are supposed to
>LJ> have so much sympathy for the power that men as a class can abuse.
>
>Robert and people like him (myself included) are *not* asking women to have
>sympathy for the result of men's "power abuses" ;  we are asking that men and
>women work together to understand the problems of *both* genders, rather than
>denying each other's problems.

I largely agree with what Will has to say.  However, I do have some quibbles.

> ... In fact, to tell men that
>our problems are our own, is like telling a woman who has been raped, that
>"it's your fault".

In kind perhaps, but not necessarily in degree.  I find being told that
to be extremely annoying, but not as devastating as it would be had I
been raped.

>There have been plenty of men interested in women's causes.  Why have you
>negated their input?

Yes, this is very difficult.  If a man asks for some credit, then he's
presumed to be hogging the glory.  If he contributes selflessly and
anonymously, there's no track record for him or other men to cite.
Quite the little double-bind.  ;^(  Personally, I'm sick of it.  So
when you all can tell me what an appropriate level of recognition for a
man's efforts might be, I'll consider what an appropriate contribution
>from a man might be.

> ... to use [one] example
>to say that men are in fact not interested in women's issues, but in fact,
>or openly hostile, is quite misplaced.

Nevertheless, we cannot discount the fact that a lot of men have been
openly hostile throughout the course of the feminist movement in every
era.  And an even larger proportion of men have been disinterested.
Men interested in contributing to feminism are certainly in the minority.

>LJ> And now it seems to me that you're saying, "Look, we (men) listened to
>LJ> you for 20 years, now it's our (men's) turn."  Did men listen?  Do
>LJ> women have the same rights that you do?
>
>No, but conversely, there are also some rights which women have, that men do
>not.

I think that ljf's point is important here.  I hate "yes but" and "no but"
answers in general.  No.  Most men did not listen.  Did some men listen?
Yes.  Some men did.  And some of those who did listen discovered that they
too had issues.  Funny how that works.  So what are those men supposed to do?
Just shut up and go away?  Apparently so.  ;^P

> ... Also, the huge
>number of custody cases decided in favour of the mother, seems to be
>indicative of a judicial bias in women's favour and men's disfavour.

The statistics quoted here lately seem to indicate that most men win
_contested_ custody cases.  Women win custody in the vast majority of
cases by default--because the father doesn't  _want_ custody.  But when
he wants it badly enough to fight for it, he tends to get it.  So this
isn't a very good example.

>What we need to do, is work on *all* inequities, not just men's or just women's.

Well, OK.  So how 'bout if we all get together and divvy up the
issues.  Otherwise, we'll just stumble all over each other.  Who gets
to work which issues?  Why don't we give each issue to whoever's most
interested.  If we let people have their first choice, I suspect that
the women will gravitate toward "women's" issues, and the men to
"men's."  What might be nice is if, after having divvied them up like
this, we all kept each other posted and stayed available to come to
each other's aid as needed.

Yeah.  That's the ticket.  Why didn't _I_ think of that?  ;^)

>LJ> Women listen to men.  Women constantly hear men's views.  

Women constantly hear the views of the dominant culture, which are cast
as male views.  This does not mean that those views are necessarily "male."
It does not mean that any given male subscribes to those views, either
explicitly or implicitly.

>LJ>  ... Women is
>LJ> still the "other," where masculine pronouns are generic.

And men who've done their emotional work are yet another "other" where
both the dominant patriarchal culture and a narrow feminism that equates
"male" with "patriarchy" are concerned.  I understand that this can be
difficult to see, but "otherness" is not a simple binary condition.

>LJ> ... But you
>LJ> still insist that women should now be quiet (after centuries of being
>LJ> silent and silenced) and listen to men who have had a time to be
>LJ> introspective.  Once again, women are asked to put their needs on the
>LJ> back burner.

For so long I've heard women say that they want to enter into a
constructive dialogue with men.  Well, in a dialogue, sometimes one
talks and sometimes one listens, and sometimes, one doesn't like what
one hears.  But when that happens, one has a chance to say so, and
that's when the constructive work begins.  Or am I missing something here?

>*Nobody* is asking for women's issues to take a back seat.  Robert is only
>asking that we at least be allowed into the car!

Well, at this point I'd just as soon let Robert C. say what he's asking
for.  I hear that _you'd_ like to be allowed into the car.  As for me, I'd
like to know who's driving, and what route they're taking, before I get in.

>Will Steeves, goid@zooid.guild.org

-r


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