HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.GOV (Julie Kangas)
Subject: Re: >slamming Women's Bookstores
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Date: 29 Dec 92 00:03:00 GMT

In article <1hmc15INNob5@agate.berkeley.edu> WALKER@bigvax.alfred.edu writes:
<...>
>
>n+1) Here's another point which is closely related you your
>point 6.  The store's policy is reverse discrimination, and
>reverse discrimination is icky.  Reverse discrimination
>creates the impression that the goal is separate-but-equal
>rather than equality.
>
>I haven't decided whether any separate-but-equal activity is
>always bad.  But I do assume that it will never be equal so
>there has to be a very good reason before insisting on
>separation.  But I respect reverse discrimination as a even
>when I suffer for it. The world is already unequal.  We
>already have separation that excludes women.  Minorities
>won't be included in the mainstream until some of their
>members prove themselves, and I see reverse discrimination
>as useful tempory measure that gives them the chance to do
>so.

This is off the original subject slightly but I had to reply to
this.  In no way is reverse discrimination *ever* justified.  As
a woman I have encountered discrimination from some men.  However,
I do not see discrimination against men as a way for me to
"be included in the mainstream".  Such a policy or attitude
punishes the innocent -- the men who never discriminated against
me or other women.  This attitude also creates bad feelings
and resentment against women.  I believe this attitude does more
harm than good.  (It is also too close to the idea of "original
sin".  Punishing all men because of what some men have done
or are doing).

I also doubt whether any sort of discrimination can truly
be "temporary".  What happens after a generation of discrimination
against men?  They want equality and see discrimination against
women as a temporary measure until they enter the mainstream.
And the cycle just continues.

It would be better by far to make sure that laws upholding equality
are enforced (and written in the first place) and to educate
people that all races, genders, etc. are all equal and none are
better or worse than another.  How is this done? It can't be done
by saying "we're all equal, except for little Johnny over there who
happens to be a boy."  True equality cannot be achieved by
discriminating against anyone.


Julie
DISCLAIMER:  All opinions here belong to my cat and no one else

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From: sfjr@wam.umd.EDU (Steve Russell)
Subject: Mythopoetic Groups
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: 21 Dec 92 23:33:13 GMT

	I would like to thank the posters who have answered my
questions about "men's groups".

	From what I read it sounds like the little I thought I knew
were generalizations/characteurizations of the sort people view
feminism through, having gathered such images from the worst examples.

	These groups sound like they may have something to offer and
they seem less unreasonable to me now.

	I might just try one of them someday, for now Ill just think
about it.  My own "personal myth" is a sort of a recycled
transcendentalism that if I can look at life totally as it is, without
help, I must just get to somewhere interesting.  Having attempted this
for years, I honestly cant deny anyone or laugh at anyone who has
found something to help them cope with life in general.  More power to
you.

	Thanks again for the informative responses

Steve R

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From: harikuma@enterprise.ifp.uiuc.edu (G. Harikumar)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Version Five -- I better shut up!
Date: 24 Dec 1992 00:50:00 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
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levine@symcom.math.uiuc.EDU (Lenore Levine) writes:

>In conclusion, I would like to suggest two New Year's resolutions, for
>myself and the readers of soc.feminism. The one is to *pay attention* to
>people's true characters -- to try to figure out what's going on behind
>the mask. The other is, not to thrust daggers of unwarranted blame into
>ourselves, when we should be blaming society.

In other words, what you are suggesting is the following. 
If you hear someone criticizing the feminist movement or
one of its proponents, you merely categorize him into
on of the following groups:

1) Those with psychological problems

2) Those who use women and want to continue doing so.  

3) Those undergoing a "paradigm shift", ie, confused. 

4) Those who have been given the short shift in a professional/
	social environment and are angry, confused and 
	mistakenly blaming their travails on feminism.
	(I read: Immature).

How convenient. A very nice way of escaping criticism/scrutiny.
"Anyone who criticizes what I believe in is not worth listening 
to, anyway." I'm sorry, but I do not agree with you. 

I agree with most of what feminists say; but I do believe that
they have gone overboard a lot of times. Constructive criticism,
scrutiny and a healthy transfusion of common sense will not
hurt feminism; it will only strengthen it. 

Let me point out specifically what is wrong with your  reasoning. 
Your classification is not different in principle from the
right wing classification of feminists as belonging to one of 
the following classes.

1) Lesbians.

2) Unattractive women who are trying to come into mainstream
society, who have  smelled power and who are not going to 
let go without a fight.

Which, as we will all agree, is BS.

G. Harikumar 
	


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From: levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Shaming men's sexuali
Date: 21 Dec 1992 21:53:29 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
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Will Steeves <goid@zooid.guild.org> writes:

(re Prince Charles)

>In other words, I don't feel that a man attracted to a beautiful woman should
>feel as though he is treating women like objects, as long as he at least
>realises that there are other elements to his feelings for her, than her
>appearance.

Of course not. I never said otherwise. I think something was left out
of your quote of my posting, but I'm not sure. 

In any case, there are a great many upper class men who are *only*
interested in beautiful women, who go out with a great *many* of them,
who obviously are treating them like blow-up dolls. My point was
that if Prince Charles had been one of these men, the media would
have treated him with more respect. Don't you think this *is* an
example of shaming men's sexuality?

I also notice that many men are more willing to attribute depth of
character and goodness of spirit to a beautiful women (whether
they are involved with her or not), and not to an unattractive one. 
I will give you the respect of assuming you are not one of them.

>Mind you, a lot of women *also* get involved with men who are "hunks" (which
>unfortunately, I am *not* ; note my words carefully...I said "unfortunately".
>Shameful as it may sound, I am also a victim of the beauty myth, proving also
>that it doesn't exclusively oppress women) does this mean that they necessarily
>consider men to be objects?

I'm glad you brought this up. A member of my family, who is in
her 30's, and very brilliant (although screwed up), is married to a
mediocre, irresponsible nonentity whose only virtue is that he is
quite handsome. They have a wonderful little girl. The whole situation
is making me very upset, because I suspect that one of these days,
when he is bored with the responsibility of a small person, this loser 
is going to up and leave his wife. Well, it may serve *her* right,
but what about the little girl (who I love very much)? This is going to 
break my heart... 

What am I going to do? What can I do? 

I *wish* that people (men and women both) would give more thought to who 
the parents of their children should be!!! If you mistake the possessor
of a cute ass, for a wonderful human being, it's not only *yourself*
you're hurting! Not if you have kids!!!

>---
>Will Steeves, goid@zooid.guild.org                      "Neil Hull is GOiD"
>"Cthulhu for President in '92 - Why vote for the _lesser_ of two evils?"

Lenore Levine
Levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu


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From: pw@panix.COM (Paul Wallich)
Subject: Re: Mythopoetic ritual
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Trivializers R Us
Date: 23 Dec 92 18:12:51 GMT

In article <1h51fhINNfga@agate.berkeley.edu> Will Steeves <goid@zooid.guild.org> writes:
>vanhoek@bend.UCSD.EDU (Karen van Hoek) writes...
>KVH> Me again, on the subject of reclaiming sexuality.  In the book
>KVH> "Women Respond to the Men's Movement" p. 4, Ursula LeGuin writes
>KVH> about a gathering she was at where Robert Bly told her, "The
>KVH> Men have raised a Great Phallus farther up the river. ... I'd
>KVH> show you, but it's off limits to the Women...."
>
>It seems, given this remark and some of the others you made later on
>in this message, that you rather resent the exclusion of women.  To
>this, I'd respond with an inquiry of sorts - Were men not also
>excluded from Judy Chicago's notorious and celebrated exposition of
>female-genitals-on-dinner-plates?  (I was under the impression that
>men *had* been excluded, though I could be mistaken...).
...
>Indeed, perhaps the main reason why Judy Chicago excluded men from
>her dinner gathering / exhibit, was because she was concerned that
>men would "degrade" the exhibit by either gawking or what have you

Huh? Double Huh? Well, I guess men were excluded from _The Dinner
Party_ in the sense that there weren't any plates with men's names on
them, or men's signatures on the tile floor under the table, but egad
no, zillions of men have seen it. (And frankly,
"female-genitals-on-dinner-plates" is not a particularly clueful way
of looking at the exhibit, sorta like describing Michelangelo's
_David_ as "one of those nude- guy-standing-up sculptures")

I find it interesting that in a discussion about men excluding women,
someone should "remember" women excluding men and proceed to base an
argument on same. One of the whole points of feminism, imho, is not
simply to reverse the symmetry of domination and exclusion, but to get
rid of it.

paul    who knows which tee shirt he's wearing this weekend :-)


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From: tp0x+@cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Price)
Subject: Re: Mythopoetic ritual (a possibly Very Weird topic)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: 2 Jan 93 05:23:12 GMT

>>Me again, on the subject of reclaiming sexuality.  In the book
>>"Women Respond to the Men's Movement" p. 4, Ursula LeGuin writes
>>about a gathering she was at where Robert Bly told her, "The
>>Men have raised a Great Phallus farther up the river. ... I'd
>>show you, but it's off limits to the Women...."  When I read
>
>The "women aren't allowed" comment seems quite childish, and sadly,
>quite in character for Bly.  There was no point in telling her about
>it if she wasn't invited to participate.  But that's so typical of
>him.

It is quite in keeping with the exclusive nature of the initiation
rituals of primitive peoples, both for males and females. Do you have
a well thought out opinion that they are childish too? Or do you just
not know what you're talking about?

>Everything I've heard or read about Bly would seem to indicate that he
>is a woman-basher of the first order.

It's a better idea to read things *by* someone you wish to criticize
than it is to read things *about* them.

>...  The thought occurs to me that the defensiveness men display
>whenever the topic of rape comes up might also be due to the fact
>that men feel this sadness and don't know how to acknowledge or
>express it...  male socialization dictates that personal losses are
>not to be suffered or accepted, and that grief is to be defended
>against at all costs.
>
>I think that there is a lot of grief over this among men.  But since
>men can't really deal with it in a culturally acceptable way, the
>walls build up, and they are awfully hard to break through.

It is my understanding that part of the purpose of these fruity rituals
is to acknowledge grief.

>Sometimes I think that if we could just teach men how to grieve, a
>lot of our other problems would start to resolve themselves.

Curiously enough, Bly identifies an affinity for grief as the
fundamental aspect of masculinity (he identifies an affinity for pain
as the fundamental aspect of femininity, and for love as the
fundamental of the human). All this is in _Iron_John_.

Disclaimer: I have no connection with the men's movement. I respect
Robert Bly as a poet and did so before the men's movement began. It
just burns my beans to see such sloppy thinking as the above. Doesn't
anybody actually read source material? Is *every* opinion second-hand?


      Tom Price   |    tp0x@cs.cmu.edu   |   Free will? What free will?
 *****************************************************************************
  plutoniumsurveillanceterroristCIAassassinationIranContrawirefraudcryptology



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From: rhb@world.std.COM (Robert H Brueckner)
Subject: Re: Why I will *not* be wearing a white ribbon...*ever*
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: 21 Dec 92 23:43:00 GMT

In article <92Dec15.072001edt.11758@zooid.guild.org> goid@zooid.guild.ORG (Will Steeves) writes:

QUOTE
   I was very sad that these women had been the victims of some insane
   anger toward women in general, but when I started to notice that
   the country's mainstream feminist organisations (NACSW, CACSW,
   WLEAF, etc.) were USING this sad event as a method of labelling all
   those with philosophical objections with certain aspects of
   feminism, as *sympathisers* of this raving lunatic (ie., "He killed
   fourteen women, in an 'anti-feminist' rage"), and furthermore, that
   he was *not* insane, but was just acting out "the anger and hatred
   that all men harbour against women," as a message that all men are
   to some degree misognyist and "potentially violent against women,"
   I was absolutely INFURIATED!

   My feeling was therefore - let us mourn and remember the victims,
   NOT use them as some sort of propaganda tool in order to send out
   the message that ALL men are "misogynist to some degree"

END QUOTE

I agree. I think you could equally say that all women are misandrist
to some degree. And I think this incident says more about the need for
gun control than the need for non-violent men (the vast majority, I
believe) to search their souls and feel shame.

RB
--
|"The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who  |
| have loved it." -- George Santayana  // Opinions expressed here, when |
| clear and persuasive, are my own. --Rob Brueckner (rhb@world.std.com) |


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From: seid@popov.EE.CORNELL.EDU (Steve Seidman)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Subverting the Beauty Myth
Date: 3 Jan 1993 01:19:16 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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I hope people will start posting stories about films (and books)
that are subversive to the so-called beauty myth.

I recently saw a film that really fills the bill.
It was a John Waters film called "Hairspray"
Besides being a good film in the ordinary sense, it
featured a really fat girl as the main star.
She was presented as beautiful and glamorous and fat,
and no apologies about it.  At no time did the film
say anything like "She can still be beautiful INSPITE
of being fat"  (that would be too HollyWood, and too apologetic)
Rather, she was shown, through the story and the dancing
and her poise that she was the beauty queen in no uncertain
terms.  I found this really unprecedented, and therefore
really subversive to the idea that we will always tend to
identify best with the conventionally thin and beautiful starlets.

BTW: Anyone can watch this film, it's really vanilla, so
don't worry.  Of course there are some subcultural features
to the film but people not clued into it just simply won't
see it at all.  I happened to see the film as a video with a
mixed audience (to say the least) and *everyone* enjoyed it.

PS:  I really think that the standard beauty images are visually
transmitted so that cinema is really the *only* medium that can
subvert the standard image.  Photos, and paintings might work too,
but I'm not sure if books will cut the mustard.


Steve Seidman (starting the new years right)
seid@ee.cornell.edu



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From: goid@zooid.guild.ORG (Will Steeves)
Subject: Re: Shaming men's sexuali
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Date: 22 Dec 92 00:02:08 GMT

av23+@andrew.cmu.edu (Annette Van) writes...
AMV> Granted, there are men who may feel their sexuality's "being shamed"
AMV> but, other than normal human anxieties and neuroses, I'm inclined to
                                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
AMV> believe that the outcry in defense of male sexuality (whatever that is)
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^?!?!?!?!?^^^^
AMV> is a product of the backlash.  I feel this suspicion regarding some
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

First of all, I consider your attempted discreditation of the Men's
Movement's defence of male sexuality to be somewhat counterproductive.
Indeed, if I wanted to use a similar tactic, I could categorise your
remarks as "a part of the backlash against the Men's Movement".  Even
so, my point is that people should try to solve the problems which they
consider important, rather than demeaning other people's problems by
calling them a "backlash" against their own particular concerns.

Second, I take a certain amount of umbrage to your parenthetical question
of "whatever that (male sexuality) is".  Wouldn't you feel offended if
I were to summarily dismiss any sort of analysis of female sexuality by
saying "whatever that is"?  Considering this, the fact that men and women
so often misunderstand each other's sexuality, should be cause for further
*non-judgemental* analysis, rather than just giving up and seeming to not
care.

---
Will Steeves, goid@zooid.guild.org                      "Neil Hull is GOiD"
ZOOiD BBS, Toronto, Ontario - The Zoo Of Ids            "GOiDS Rule"
(416) 322-7876

"Cthulhu for President in '92 - Why vote for the _lesser_ of two evils?"
                                                          - Bronis Vidugiris
---
 * SLMR 2.1a * GOiDS Rule!  What the DEVIL is a GOiD?

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From: seggev@unssun.scs.unr.EDU (Guy Seggev)
Subject: Re: Motivations for Gender-Neutral Terminology
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Reply-To: Guy Seggev <uunet!unr!unssun!seggev@ncar.ucar.EDU>
Organization: University of Nevada-Reno
Date: 21 Dec 92 23:51:04 GMT

In article <1gt2kiINN463@agate.berkeley.edu> hwt@bnr.ca (Henry (H.W.) Troup) writes:
>Someone wrote:
>
>> I have been wondering about the motivation behind gender-neutral
>> terminology.  There have been many changes to classic works (such as
>> the Bible) to conform to this idea.  I am not against these
>
>And a little bell went off.  There are cases where the original,
>non-english source is gender-neutral, but the lack of good english
>equivalents creates a different message.  Case in point, Latin has two
>words both translated to English 'man': homo and vir.  But homo, as in
>homo sapiens, means human, the human race.  Vir (root of virile) means
>a male human being.
>
>Which puts a different light on "Ecce homo", for instance.

But the original text for the New Testament was written in Greek, and
the latin transltion had some holes in it.  I am not proficient in
Greek at all, so I can't tell you what the original was really like.
But the Bible was written in Hebrew, which I both speak and read.  It
is NOT a gender neutral language in any way.  There are different
tenses based on gender for both second and thrid person, and even
first person plural (which makes for 11 different conjugations just in
present tense.. Hebrew is not an easy language).  And like modern
english, the male forms of verbs were used for mixed groups.  I
personally would like translations to be accurate, but the fact is
that biblical hebrew is not entirely similar to modern hebrew, and the
meanings of some words are lost, or can only be found through looking
at earlier commentaries, such as Rashi's.  But I don't see why anyone
should take the bible literally at fact value all the time: Realize
that the culture was very male dominated at the time, and that things
have changed since then.  Certain sacrifices are specified in the
bible.  No one performs these anymore (not since the destrucion of the
second temple in the first century C.E.), but that doesn't detract
from the work itself.

Guy Seggev
seggev@unr.nevada.edu

p.s.  I use 'bible' to refer to what many consider the 'old testament'.  I
suppose that my bias (jewish) is showing, but no offense is intended.


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