From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: Tavris & Goldberg at CSICOP Conference
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 00:36:14 GMT

In article <1992Nov14.074722.3868@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:

>
>	His critics _have_ provided some significant counterexamples.
>Just read Eleanor Leacock and her _Myths of Male Dominance_.

Her principal "evidence" was the anecdotal accounts of 17th-century
missionaries, not actual ethnographies. Goldberg and Leacock debated
this back and forth in _The American Anthropologist_ circa 1974.
In fact, Leacock's 1970s claims about the Naskapi contradict the very
ethnography *she herself* wrote in the 1950s about this society, a
point she passes over without explaining. Bad anthropology, but good
propaganda for "Womens Studies". But like so much of that stuff, it
will last only so long as it remains unchallenged.

>
>>In the end, Tavris did *not* challenge Goldberg's facts, although of
>>course she differed as to how to interpret them. They both agreed that:
>
>>     A), All known societies are patriarchal; leadership is
>>         associated with the male.
>
>	Counterexamples abound, though in the form of both sexes
>sharing leadership responsibilities.

Such as? I hope you can cite some ethnographies to back this up.
(Leacock et al never could). Remember that "patriarchy" does not
imply that leadership is exclusively male, only that there is a
significant correlation between being a leader and being male.

>
>>     B), In all known societies, the raising and nurturing of
>>         children is associated with the female, and
>
>	Haven't you *ever* heard of men raising children?

Once again for the benefit of the statistically-impaired, all this claim
means is that those raising children are predominantly female. It
does NOT mean that no men ever raise children, as Loren seems to think.

>	Goldberg may gloat, but I don't see him disputing Tavris's
>evidence for similarities in the two sexes' temperaments. If _he_
>conceding something?

Goldberg noted this point, and said something like "Yes, and there
are a *whole lot* of similarities between a human being and a horse.
Both have two eyes, one head, etc." Yes, men and women are quite
"similar" when compared to cats or pigs. No one will deny that there
are many similarities in the temperaments of men and women. But only
a feminist would deny that they exist, or that they can be significant.


>
>	If this is a fair summary of the goings-on, then I'm
>disappointed in Tavris. 

I suspect that many of her fans who were listening felt the same way,
especially since she got off to such a rousing start - and would have
closed on the same note, had she remained (as is the ususal, I'm sure)
unchallenged.


-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

       "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
        Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
        broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or
        where it will end."
                               - Emerson: Essay, "Circles"