From: Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu (Albert Lunde)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: slamming Women's Bookstores
Followup-To: soc.feminism
Date: 28 Dec 1992 21:57:08 GMT
Organization: Ministry of Silly Walks
Distribution: world
Reply-To: Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu (Albert Lunde)
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <9212272228.AA07724@popov.EE.CORNELL.EDU> seid@popov.ee.cornell.EDU (Steve Seidman) writes:
>I have a bone to pick with a local women's bookstore,
>and I hope that my beef will have implications toward
>certain concepts that will apply to "gender-differences
>between men and women" in books and also net.discussions.

I doubt that gender differences or net discussions are
like bookstores.

>The other day I went into that women's bookstore with a friend.
>He happened to ask for a book that might have fit their
>collection profile.  The clerk [...] said:
>	We don't have that book.  We don't carry books
>	written by men.
[...]
>I don't care whether 99.5% (or even 100%) of their books are by
>women but I think that it is awful that they won't carry books
>by men as a matter of principle.  Here's why:
>
>1) I think that the idea that a book by a man might contain a
>   man's essence that would be poisonous, contaminating, subversive or
>   infiltrating to women,[..]

I've seen no sign of this attitude among the feminist bookstores
I've been in (a minority of feminist writers yes, but not the bookstore
operators.) This includes two bookstores in Chicago I've been to regularly
and four or five others I've visited elsewhere. (including Ithica N.Y. ;)

>2) The idea that this bookstore wants to support women's writers,
>   and than men writers already have an infrastructure of support
>   through the publishing industry and other mainstream bookstores
>   is ridiculous. [...]

You may think this is ridiculous, I would say, to me, it seems obvious.

I can go to a Barnes and Noble which has two stories full
of books, and the section on feminism is a fraction of the size
of the one at my local women's bookstore.

>3) The idea that allowing in male authors will dilute the purchases
>   of books by female authors is nothing more than a perverse insult to
>   the female writers.[..]
>4) Such a store policy may promote the idea of cutting oneself off
>   from a male-dominated world.  [..]

You are trying to make too deep an ideological analysis. Most small
bookstores are started on a shoestring. If a bookstore specializes
in, say, feminist writing, or women's writing, or gay and lesbian writing,
there is not much point in them keeping an inventory outside of their
speciality.

>5) Obviously the differences between men and women are due to some
>   combination of biology and social constructionism, [...]

But this is irrelevant to the economic and political reasons for the
existence of a women's bookstore.

>
>6)  I haven't decided wether women's-only activities are always bad.
>   It may be appropriate in certain sports, and social and educational
>   environments.  But when it comes to the print media (whether books,
>   or net-postings) anything suggesting of "women's-only" will
>   always stick in my craw.

Then you can go elsewhere.  I personally have benefited a great
deal from women's bookstores. They have been a place I could learn
about feminism without imposing on women. And I have found them
quite friendly and willing to sell me books.

Of all the institutions in the "women's community" they are the
among the most accessible to me as a man, so I find your reaction
a bit out of proportion.

The existence of bookstores specializing in women's books no more
deprives you than the existence of bookstores specializing in Yiddish
deprives me.

-- 
 Albert Lunde         | Interfaith  |     *Y*Y*      "A branch on the
 Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu |  Bisexual   |      *Y*        tree of life"
                      |  Feminist   |.......|.........................


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