From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 21 Nov 92 01:32:49 GMT

In article <lgqpn5INNl96@news.bbn.com> dhardin@bbn.com (Dawn Hardin) writes:
>cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>
>> Because women have been so shit on for so long and done nothing about
>> it through swallowing all the drek about our victimized powerlessness
>> that it is necessary to weigh down a little harder on our side.  
>
>Yep, yep, yep.  I've been shit on and I plan on SHITTING back.  Pass the
>prune juice when you're done with it, Janis, it seems to have done wonders
>for you.  

Excuse me, but where the fuck did I say anything about shitting back?
ALL I said was that we're going to hard to work harder to get the idea
across that women are creatures of value.  You can't just tell people,
"Okay, dears, now we're going to treat women like valuable people," and
expect them to do it.  You need role models, and we're going to need a
lot of them.

>I don't know, maybe this post won't seem so obnoxious if I re-read it
>later.  But I've read it twice now and it certainly seems like the least
>lucid diatribe you've gone on in a while.  I don't really see what point
>you're trying to make except that you'd like to be on top for a while.

I do not "want to be on top."  You are completely misreading what I am
saying.  All I am saying is that we need to beat people over the heads
with the concept that women are valuable and important human beings for
a while before it sinks in.  If we don't actively dismantle the current
paradigm, anything we work to supplant it with is not going to work.
You can't just say, "Now, let's all play nice," and expect anything to
be done.  Sure, it would be nice to imagine it, but face it -- it's not
going to work.  We're going to have to push to say things like, "This
year is the political year of the woman" and all that shit, or else it's
just not going to last.

That is the point I'm trying to make.  When a society has lasted for two
millenia saying that women just aren't worth much, you can't honestly
say that people will just wake up and suddenly say, "My God, we've been
shortchanging women all this time!  Honey, let's get out the checkbook
and get a subscription to Ms."  PEOPLE WILL PURSUE WHATEVER THE CURRENT
PARADIGM IS WITH A NEW LABEL UNLESS IT IS ACTIVELY DEMONSTRATED THAT IT
IS FALSE AND POORLY CONCEIVED.

To take an example, people are bitching and whining about having to
expand college reading lists and stuff.  Other people are talking a lot
about including _The Color Purple_ and such books.  The people in charge
are complaining, saying, "We've talked about that for too long, now
let's get back to real literature, shall we?" despite the fact that
they've been discussing and dissecting Charles Dickens for years and
only went to a twenty-minute workshop on Alice Walker.  

After the workshop, the inequity remains.  They walk away still thinking
that all the "real" culture and literature is by white Englishmen and
still don't want to talk about TCP in class.  If you tell those people,
"I think you should expand your horizons a little," they will say, "Oh,
I agree," and go right back to reading littrachaw by white northern
Europeans.  You pretty much have to shove Alice Walker and Maya Angelou
AT them -- push those books and authors harder at first -- before they
are even going to gain recognition.  THIS is what I mean by weighing
hard down on one side for a while.  I'm not fucking talking about
supplanting ALL white authors' works, but we're going to have to push
hard for a bit on the side of the underdog before we reach parity.  I
believe it's called affirmative action.  (Awaiting the flames on THIS
one.) 

Two groups of people are running a race, one free and the other with
ankle hobbles on.  After the race is half over, you take the hobbles
off, and tell the second group to start running.  Of course, they are
about three laps behind the first group.  What do you do?  You pick up
the group that wore the hobbles and plop them down next to the first
that has been running free all this time.  THAT is a fair race.  I'm not
advocating putting the other group IN FRONT of the first -- just giving
them a boost to make them even.  Is this so hard to understand? 

Blessings,
Janis