From: zen@death.corp.sun.com (d)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: _Backlash_ ( Sort of )
Followup-To: alt.feminism
Date: 26 Sep 92 15:24:39
Organization: savage hackers
	<oneil.717224759@cwis> <22538@galaxy.ucr.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: death.corp.sun.com
In-reply-to: starbuck@ucrmath.ucr.edu's message of 25 Sep 92 14:37:01 GMT

In article <22538@galaxy.ucr.edu> starbuck@ucrmath.ucr.edu (starbuck) writes:
> Feminist thought, social and political, is faulty.

 (I'm skipping ahead a bit, then will go back to the beginning...)

  Tell us what you think that feminist thought is all about?  To most
feminists, it's about equality.  What is so awful about this that you
want to deny it to women?  Or anyone else?  You'll probably say that to
most feminists, equality is not what they want -- well, show me where it
says that feminists believe that -- certainly not any feminist on the
net, not faludi, etc.  Equality *is* synonymous to feminism.

> In article <oneil.717224759@cwis> oneil@cwis.unomaha.edu (Sharon O'Neil) writes:
> >I came away from the book realizing that women's lives really are
> >considered worth less than men's.

  Yup...

> Negitive statements like "women's lives are really considered worth less
> then men" is politically biased rhetoric.

  No, it's an opinion of an intelligent and well informed writer who
shares it with many other people (you can count me in here, too,
surprise surprise).  She has an impressive amount of facts and examples
to back up her rhetoric -- where's your proof?

  I can see it coming... someone is sure to say something like "well,
how about the old 'women and children first'" type of sayings and
ideals in our society?"  We protect and cherish and own, er, prize, our
women.  Doesn't that say that we put them above us?  That we value their
lives more?

> And biased political rhetoric
> is the basis of Faludi book.  She gives a very unbalanced view of women
> today.

  No she doesn't... she does, however, give a view that men in
particular don't like (check out the statistics -- it's the *men* who
don't like the woman's movement, *not* the women, and it's by a wide
margin....)  Anyone who has read the book should get *something* out of
it -- some surprising things.  Like some of the statistical myths that
were demolished.  By denying everything in it, you're just showing your
inflexibility and prejudice against women (and possibly the author, I
guess.)

>  Her purpose is to divide and disturb women.

  No, her purpose was to show that women are getting the proverbial
shaft in our country, and that the women's movement is getting attacked
by, not surprisingly, the same people who benefit least from it -- men.

> Feminist's like Faludi are in moral bankruptcy.  "They just don't get it".
> There are opportunities for women everywhere and women are succeeding in
> significant numbers especially white women.  Feminist's like Faludi fail to
> see that women have to take resoncibility for their own success and 
> failures.  (And "get a clue" women have to face their problems like
> successful men do", like it or not.)

  It's amazing... she says exactly this -- that men are saying "hey, the
opportunities are there, and you're not taking them, or you just can't
handle being in the man's world."  The facts show otherwise.  Programs
and aid are being (and have been) cut (primarily by the good ol'
republicans in power over the last dozen+ years), state governments
aren't following laws against discrimination, etc., etc., etc.  It goes
on and on.  What do you mean by "moral bankruptcy"?  Do you mean she
wants equality and she wants men to stop oppressing women?  That *is*
pretty bankrupt, at least if you're in power.  It's just like blacks and
other oppressed groups; people in power continue to squash them, and
then point to the few that squeek through the barriers that are set up
(getting less money, power, and prestige than their white male
counterparts, of course -- this are facts, again supported in the book--
show me other stats against this if you want to argue, or tell me why
the stats are wrong), and say "see?  *They* made it.  There must be
something wrong with you.  You just can't cut it in a man's world."

> Books like Faludi's do nothing to help "heal and nuture" a society that is
> wounded.  It's does nothing but promote hate and distrust.

  If you call education hate and distrust, you're right.  Sometimes the
truth hurts -- examine the lessons of martin luther king, ghandi, etc.
Faludi is nothing like those luminaries, don't get me wrong -- but she
does have some interesting things to say, and rightfully points out the
problems and predicts that people like you will say these things and why.

> Feminist are not happy
> with having to being challenge.

  It's true.  It'd be so much nicer if people would just accept equality
as a premise, and then work for it.  I'm sure that if anyone replies to
this article, they'll be bitching (pardon the phrase) about men being
oppressed and how women don't care about them.  Bullshit.  There are
problems in the world for both sexes -- but the men are so busy trying
to keep the women in their place that they don't try to solve their
*own* problems.  If men would stop the oppression, stop asking feminists
to solve men's problems and just *do* something about their own
problems, then I think most of the problems would just go away.
Instead, it's a constant battle.  Men not recognizing women's problems,
trying to keep the status quo, and women battling a constant uphill
battle.

> They are not "happy campers".

  No shit.  Wonder why.

 -- d