From: rmg3@grebyn.COM (Robert Grumbine)
Subject: Re: Are issues divisible?
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: 31 Jul 92 19:57:02 GMT

  In the sense of _No Man is An Island_, no, no problem is
divisible.  On the other hand, carrying that out absolutely
would require me to ask the entire rest of the world for
permission to cross the street.  So in practice, yes, some
problems, probably most, can indeed be solved without special
consideration for the rest of the world.  Given the number
of problems in the world versus the amount of time any of us
has to apply, we also necessarily apply some kind of filter
to select which particular problem(s) we work on.

  So, for the most part I'd agree with Muffy.  There are a lot
of problems and you can't deal with them all.  Select one or
three and set to work on them.

  Men's issues versus women's issues is a different matter.
First, it is bad labelling, for exactly the same reasons that
it is bad labelling to refer to engineering as men's work or
nursing as women's work.  It is stereotyping, and it socializes
people away from ranges of issue that they might otherwise
approach.  Consider, then, referring to child care as a women's
issue.

  In the realm of problem solving, this labelling means that
on the women's issues, men's help is considered irrelevant (not
trying to label so as to include men in the problem solving) or
actively unwanted.  The latter has occurred in some marches
against rape, for example, where male volunteers were turned away.
In that respect, the organizers are at least being self-consistent
with their definition of rape as being a women's issue. Defining
something as a women's issue also leaves the ready, though not
logically required, conclusion that the problem is the fault of men.
One outgrowth of this one being the 'men are the root of all evil'
school of feminism.  So this is one class of damage that has
been done by the women's issues versus men's issues.

  Now consider a problem which was falsely treated as a women's
issue.  Spouse beating.  The matter was attacked.  Shelters for
battered women were established.  Information was disseminated
regarding the frequency of occurence, recourses the women could
take, and the like.  All good so far.  Along the way, though,
spouse beating in the information that was disseminated became
wife beating.  Spouse beating on one informational flyer I
saw was defined as when a man beats his wife.  This is a problem.
The trivial part of the problem is that it brands men and induces
paranoia among women.  The serious part is that it has made it
even more difficult for a battered husband to obtain help.  The
image of the battered wife is so firmly ingrained that a beaten
husband is presumed to have been beaten by his wife after some
indefinite, long, period of having beaten his wife so he deserved
it anyhow.  This is not hypothetical.  I'm close friends with a
guy and his fiancee.  His prior wife had beaten him and he ran
into exactly this response.

  By defining the problem wrongly, the wrong solution was found,
and the side effects were indeed to worsen the situation for
the people not considered.  This is a second class of damage
derived from defining things as women's issues versus men's
issues.

  Defining problems as being men's problems versus women's
problems can also blind you to the true nature of the problem.
Anecdotal example regarding the observations that in groups,
people (both men and women) pay less attention to what the
women say.  I attended a university forum on women's issues
which was sponsored by a number of the university women's
groups.  There were 60-70 women there, many officers of
their respective groups, the university president (male), and me
and three or four other men.  There was a PA system there, but
for unknown reasons it was not used.  It should have been.
Almost none of the women were audible, while the university
president (the only man to speak) was easy to hear.  I submit
that it is extremely hard, even armed with the best of intentions,
to pay attention to people whom you can't hear.  This quite
possibly applies to classroom situations as well.  It is hard to
answer a question you can't hear, or include a response that you
didn't know was made.  By defining in terms of men and women, the
problem becomes how to we make men pay attention to women (which
also neglects the fact that women also don't equally partition
their attention).  By looking at the problem without the label,
we see a contributing factor (not the only one) in audibility.
Further audibility helps explain the matter of why women also
commit the transgression.

  A note regarding the breast cancer example.  The argument was
made that donating a million dollars to (women's) breast cancer
research and finding a cure for that would be better than
spending the money on informing women about it and reaching out
to the relatively small population of men who might be affected.
At least this was you have a cure for the larger part of the
population affected, and having a cure for that group, you're
much closer or already there for the second group.  I agree.
I'll note, though, that women's groups are attacking this
presumption in heart disease and other medical research.  The
attacks I've seen have been based on sex, rather than medical
pathology, so those women's groups for consistency should
also attack that assumption regarding breast cancer.

  Please note that I'm _not_ identifying the proponent of the
example with these particular groups.  An extremely easy and
unproductive (but common) rhetorical trick in this line is to
take any opinion expressed by one person, and conflate it with
opinions held by some group which does not necessarily include
the speaker to attack the original speaker.

  So, attack whichever problems you wish, I'm glad that
someone is trying to improve some part of the world.  Much
of the time that problem is sufficiently disconnected that
solving it won't affect (either way) other things.  But,
approaching it through a blinder of men's issues versus
women's issues does set you up in some cases, such at those
I've mentioned, to do active harm to the other group, or to
fail to find a good solution because you've defined the problem
wrong.

Bob Grumbine
rmg3@grebyn.com

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