HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: oneil@cwis.unomaha.edu (Sharon O'Neil)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: What's a female "Uncle Tom"?
Date: 27 Jul 92 14:56:58 GMT
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha

gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:

>ak104@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Robert Clark) writes:
>|   I just started reading the book _Backlash:the Undeclared War
>| Against American Women_, by Susan Faludi.

Me too!  After realizing that I was never even going to get near to
the top of the waiting list at the University library, I decided to
shell out the $24.00 and just buy my own copy.  I'm really glad that I
did too.  It's an incredibly absorbing book!

>| I found myself astounded and infuriated by the twisted logic of
>| some of the conservative women in the book. In the chapter, "The
>| Backlash Brain Trust: From Neocons to Neofems", Faludi points out
>| that the "back to the family", "back to traditional values" views
>| that conservative women try to insist on other American women are
>| blindly disregarded by themselves.  I think we need a term for such
>| women who are blind to the fact they are reinforcing a second class
>| status for other women.

And just /why/ are they reinforcing that second class status for other
women?  It seems pretty obvious that most of these "Aunt Phyllises"
(as in Schlafly) are already fairly well-to-do women who want to
maintain WHERE they are in society, but they don't want the
competition from other women.  It also seems obvious that there's a
scapegoat effect coming from the Religious Right, and a lot of men in
that particular movement have selected women as their Source of all
Evil.  Faludi compares this to other backlashes in American history
where Catholics and Jews were selected as the Source of All Evil.  (If
only women would go back to the home, there would be more jobs for
men, if only women would go back to the home, there would be less drug
abuse, etc, etc ad nauseam.  Not surprisingly, these Religious
Rightists don't realize that a number of women have ALWAYS worked in
the US and that there have always been social problems.)

I am about 2/3's of the way through the book.  Although I'm sure that
there have been other discussions of the book here, I'd love to see
some more discussion of "Backlash."

My next read for the summer will probably be "The Closing of the
American Mind" since Faludi spends a good time talking about him.
(Now here's a guy who sounds like he has some deep-rooted personal
problems.)

Sharon O'Neil
oneil@cwis.unomaha.edu


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From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Topfree rallies in Ontario
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: 25 Jul 92 04:56:13 GMT

In article <9207201303.AA16881@gateway.bnr.ca> GLENM@bnr.ca (Glen (G.)Martin ) writes:
>For those who are interested in such things, I saw on the news
>this morning a report on Gwen Jacob's topfreee protest in Ottawa
>yesterday.
>
>It seems to have gone fairly well. Lots of people, several
>topfree women, no arrests. The parts that weren't so pretty were
>some jeering spectators, others with still and video cameras
>(pant, drool), and the like. After the parliament hill rally,
>they went for a walk along several city streets, reportedly turning
>a few heads.
>
>Elsewhere in the news, on Saturday a similar event took place in
>Waterloo, Ont, and there were several (6?) arrests. Looks like
>another test case ...

I just heard on the CBC that a female Member of Parliament is planning
on introducing a Private Member's Bill to change the current law
regarding toplessness in public.  I don't have any more details...

As for the arrests, the Toronto Sun, Toronto's daily equivalent to the
National Enquirer, sunk to new lows in its cover on that day.
Splashed across the front page was one of the bare-breasted protesters
being hauled off by the police, with the headline, stragically placed
(this *is* a family paper after all), that was one word: "BUSTED".  I
have to give them points for cleverness, at least...

- michael




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From: chdunn@cco.caltech.EDU (Christopher Dunn)
Subject: Re: A feminist style socio-economic reform!
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: 25 Jul 92 14:37:44 GMT

	Subbaiah asks whether, after seeing the elucidation of
counter-arguments, the respectfulness of which I do appreciate
in this inflammable newsgroup, I would still sacrifice a
testicle for the privilege of pregnancy.  I maintain that I
would give one, but not two, for I would like also to experience
the joys of fatherhood.
	I believe that we must distinguish between burdens
imposed by society and those imposed by nature.  Subbaiah
disagrees.  That is a question of philosophy, and in this
society of victim worship, I have no doubt which opinion
obtains.
	However, even accepting Subbaiah's view I see this
example as one in which reward is not due.  Others already
have pointed to the population crisis.  I add that, if
scientists ever provide mothers a safe method for artificial
incubation, few will accept the offer.  Some might accept it,
especially if the incubator can be kept at home, but I suspect
that most will want their loved ones as close to their hearts
as possible.
		Cordially,
			Christopher Dunn


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From: mccla_d@daffodil.cs.odu.edu (dennis mcclain-furmanski)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Request for Expansion on Irigaray's Psychoanalitics
Date: 26 Jul 1992 02:53:56 GMT
Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA
Distribution: world
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Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

I've recently finished a course in intergender communications which included
as a text Irigaray's _This Sex Which Is Not One_. I am persisting in trying to
decipher her deconstruction of Freud (not a tough thing in itself, but her
particular deconstruction is superb). I'm in psych myself, so I'm familiar 
with the theory. But I'm still at a loss to comprehend some of her work. I 
assume that's due in part for her tendency to write in a style which precludes
the use of phallo-centric terminology. I'm hoping someone out there has read
and digested this work, and understands both this work and psychoanalytic
theory enough to relieve my frustration by filling me in. If anyone is tempted
to tackle this, please e-mail me. I'll be glad to post the results should I get
the response I hope to. 

I'd also be glad to share a paper I did for the above 
mentioned course which analyzed a specific newsgroup (a Fidonet echo) to find
possible reasons why in that group Tannen's contention that female experts
tend to say less than male experts in mixed groups was found not to hold true;
females in that group posted exactly the same amount of 'expert' material.
It's a communications paper at a very low level of technobabble, but a very
interesting look at what I find to be a pleasant direction being followed
through use of computer mediated communications.

Please e-mail me at mccla_d@cs.odu.edu. Thanks.



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From: danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR])
Subject: Re: The King of Spain, or: Is Womanizing Sexist?
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: bloop
Date: 23 Jul 92 16:56:21 GMT

(Lenore Levine) writes:

>1) For those of you who have some acquaintance with upper-class life:
>Are these stories true? Do most upper-class men regard sexual candy
>as their right, and legitimate privilege (and are they put under
>extreme temptation to do so)? Is this more true of the men in such
>circles, than the women?

It has been my experience that some women are attracted to men
who have positions of power. I for instance was amazed how much
more atttractive I became to women in junior college (lo those
many years ago) as soon as I became the General Manager of the
college radio station.

It may be that men who feel/are powerful are more confident of
themselves and that in itself can be "sexy"; it is also true
that if you are "looking for a protector", someone who seems
to have more power may be instantly more attractive to you
without your quite knowing why.

Dano


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From: kaarts@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Kenneth John Aarts)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: men's issues vs. women's issues
Date: 24 Jul 1992 15:56:21 GMT
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Distribution: world
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In <14mrhtINNpso@agate.berkeley.edu> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:

>I think by "humanist" "liberal" (in the classical sense) is
>meant.  Is a feminist just a humanist or a classical liberal?
>We can approach this question by noting that 495 of the 500
>CEOs of the Fortune 500 are male, as are eight of the nine
>Supreme Court justices, and 98 of 100 U.S. senators.  We
>know that most versions of feminism believe these figures
>are evidence of some kind of problem, but does humanism or
>classical liberalism?  After all, all those males are at
>least allegedly human beings, and most of them probably
>got where they are through legal exercise of their powers
>in a liberal state.  What is the humanist take on the
>situation?  How come we don't know already, as we do when
>we say "feminist"?

This humanist couldn't give you the take on this issue right away.  It is
not at all clear cut to me.  Many people have noticed how many women prefer
co-operative interactions while many men prefer competative interactions.
How can these co-operative styled women place someone at the top, where they
will be distinct from the rest of the group?
	I think the sexism is in the socializing of women away from
competition.

	I have found the threads on female only schools interesting.  It
appears to me that they are providing an environment where females can
compete with each other, and not face the social stigmas.

Ken


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From: lubkin@msri.ORG (Sharon Lubkin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: soc.feminism, women in science
Date: 23 Jul 92 16:59:50 GMT

In article <1992Jul8.072705.9801@fys.ruu.nl> johnston@fys.ruu.nl (Helen
Johnston) writes:

>Actually, the primary variable appears to be the prevalence of
>single-sex education at the school level; thus Italy, France and
>Ireland have a higher percentage of women physicists than England or
>Germany, though the strength of this correlation varies quite a bit
>from country to country. They noted, for instance, that 70% of the
>women physicists in England went to single-sex schools, whereas the
>national rate is only 15%.

I have often heard the fact that a large percentage of successful
women (in physics, in math, and indeed in many non-scientific fields)
come from single-sex colleges, but I have never seen such figures
backed up by a control for _age_. If you think about it, a person's
"success" goes up the older she gets, so we should expect that most
"successful" career women are, say, 40-60 years old. A woman who is 40
today probably finished college in 1974, which I believe is right
after the majority of colleges that weren't already coed went coed. A
woman who is 50 today probably graduated college in 1964, when the
odds of her being at a coed school as compared to being at an
all-female school were substantially lower.

So if we see an overwhelming number of successful women with degrees
from women's colleges, we may simply be being fooled by the changing
prevalence of coeducation. Does anybody have more precise figures?

Sharon Lubkin


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From: maxtal@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (John MAX Skaller)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: A feminist style socio-economic reform!
Date: 22 Jul 92 01:43:19 GMT
Organization: MAXTAL P/L C/- University Computing Centre, Sydney
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Jul20.010819.29064@lugb.latrobe.edu.au> AGRSS@lure.latrobe.edu.au ("SUBBAIAH,Santharam") writes:
>	I plan to propose a series of reforms that could be considered
>by a feminist when he or she becomes the president of the USA, or
>better still, when he or she becomes an influencial leader of the
>strongest lobby in the corridors of White House.
>
>REFORM 1.
>	"All women who deliver normal children should be compensated
>in monetory terms for their child bearing services".
>

	"Counter proposal: all people who create new children
should be severely fined for bringing even more people into
an overcrowded world."

	You're assuming it's a service. You can assume that,
dont dare foist that assumption on me. Why should the woman
be compensated for something she freely chose of her own volition?
[Assume we're not dealing with a case of rape]

	The idea that we must "populate or perish" may well
have been true once. Indeed I once though as you do.
But I am not so sure anymore. I tend to think those who
bring children into the world who cannot afford to keep them
have something to answer for.



	
-- 
;----------------------------------------------------------------------
        JOHN (MAX) SKALLER,         maxtal@extro.ucc.su.oz.au
	Maxtal Pty Ltd, 6 MacKay St ASHFIELD, NSW 2131, AUSTRALIA
;--------------- SCIENTIFIC AND ENGINEERING SOFTWARE ------------------


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From: tittle@alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle Moore)
Subject: Re: men's issues vs. women's issues
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Date: 30 Jul 92 21:52:01 GMT

In <1992Jul30.180227.2445@Veritas.COM> rdh@veritas.COM (Robert Hartman) writes:

>In article <2A773B7D.15723@ics.uci.edu> tittle@alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle Moore) writes:
>>In <robert.712443872@labyrinth> uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (Robert Coleman) writes:
>>
>>>	One of the results of a feminism focussed on "women's issues"
>>>is the obvious power imbalance involved in the draft.  We solve the
>>>"women's voting" problem, but since the draft is a "responsibility",
>>>and "negative effect" instead of something to be gained, the feminist
>>>movement, on the whole, passes this issue by.
>>>	This is part of my overall problem with the "women first"
>>>approach of feminism.
>>
>>You are ignoring two very real facts: one is that women have been
>>involved in probably almost every war in history.  There is a long
>>record of women disguising themselves as men, working alongside men
>>(perhaps as nurses or other "non-soldier" capacity, but running
>>similar risks to being killed), and so forth.  The other is that there
>>are hundreds of thousands of women trying to make their careers in the
>>military.

>I see both of these as exceptions to the societal expectations Robert
>C describes.  Your examples do not disprove the rule.  Robert's point
>on this is very well taken I think, and I would hate to see it
>dismissed.  It is the "male mystique" that is at issue, not the fact
>that some women are high-minded WRT men in spite of that mystique.

I was not intending to "disprove" his point, you deleted the next
paragraph where I said that I think the feminist stand is
problematical.  The point I was addressing was the implication that
women will not take the responsibility for participating in war, and I
was pointing out that women have regularly participated in war despite
men's best efforts to keep them out.

--Cindy

--
	"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what
	feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist
	whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a
	doormat, or a prostitute."  -- Rebecca West, 1913
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From: mmartin%sunspot.nosc.mil@nosc.mil
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Patterns...
Date: 28 Jul 1992 18:51:45 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: world
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Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

[Moderator's note: excessive included text trimmed.]

In article 9999@zooid.guild.org, goid@zooid.guild.ORG (Will Steeves) writes:
> Mik Bickis writes...
> (many lines deleted...)
> 
> MB> But even if there *is* a pattern, does that justify an
> MB> "overreaction"?  Let's switch genders.  I read in the paper a
> MB> while ago about a man who punched his wife because "she cut the
> MB> toast wrong".  (He liked it cut diagonally, she cut it laterally).
> MB> A brutal overreaction?  But suppose it was part of a pattern.
> MB> Suppose she had systematically ignored his preferences for many
> MB> years.  She always bought the kind of beer he didn't like. She
> MB> would cook dishes she knew he abhored.  She bought him shirts in
> MB> colours he didn't like wearing.  And then one day *again*, she cut
> MB> the toast wrong.  Is his reaction justified?
> 
> I would obviously say "no," but I would say however, that the story AT
> LEAST provides an explantion that the husband is NOT an evil brute,
> but had severely lost control.

The only thing he actually lost control of here was his toast, right?
It seems to me that he could have taken his toast back without punching 
anyone.  He could have just ignored any toast she made in her constant
efforts to ruin his day.  He could have made his own toast.  

> No, this behavior is NOT justified, but the issue of *circumstances*
> has been all but ignored by feminists eager to show men as
> "patriarchal oppressors," and indeed, in this case, the circumstances
> clearly show a *pattern* of provocation.

The above *circumstances* make both the woman and the man look bad here.
He broke the law.  She is either terribly insecure to go on with a man
who cares more about his toast than her jaw, or she is, as outlined
above, a masochist who wanted her husband to hit her.

> [...]  domestic violence where women are the victims, into a black and
> white case of "he did it because she was a woman and he wanted to
> control her".
> 
> In the case that Mik described, though, the desire for control seems
> quite obviously on the other side...

Once again, if she really was controlling him, she must be a masochist.
At least she wasn't "asking for it," she just made *it* happen.  A real
"take-charge" attitude!  What a woman!


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From: uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (Robert Coleman)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: men's issues vs. women's issues
Date: 30 Jul 92 00:18:46 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

muffy@mica.berkeley.EDU (Muffy Barkocy) writes:

>Well, as an example, look at the times when women couldn't vote.  That
>was an injustice to women, but there was no corresponding injustice to
>men (ignoring the issue of race, which is not relevant to my example).

	No?  Tell me, what are your responsibilities when you are a
participant in governmental decisions?  Could one of those
responsibilities be putting your number into the lottery when that
government decides on military action?
	I think the decision that men should be the only voters and
the decision that men should be the only soldiers are part and parcel
of the same mindset: that men are *responsible*.  It is unfair for men
to be the only targets of the draft, but it was equally unfair for
women not to vote; however, both situations were balanced by having
only men vote, and women not facing the ravages of war and military
thinking.

	One of the results of a feminism focussed on "women's issues"
is the obvious power imbalance involved in the draft.  We solve the
"women's voting" problem, but since the draft is a "responsibility",
and "negative effect" instead of something to be gained, the feminist
movement, on the whole, passes this issue by.
	This is part of my overall problem with the "women first"
approach of feminism.  Women have had the vote for IDunnoHowManyYears,
yet they've never had to bear the responsibility, the way men do, for
paying the ultimate price for the freedom to vote.

Robert C.
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