From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Why I Am a Feminist
Date: 5 Nov 92 02:21:35 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

gf:
| > Actually, according to the dictionary, the primary meaning
| > is "politics seeking the equality of women."  I give it a
| > somewhat broader meaning based on what I observe of the
| > majority of those who call themselves feminists, although
| > not the totality.

gk:
| Dictionaries are not notorious for their currency.  Today, "feminism" is
| whatever a "feminist" wants it to be, which is a handy debating tool (see
| the absurd attack on Rich Payne by some dickhead earlier in this thread).

A "dickhead"?  A "_dickhead_"???  Garry, are you
deprecating male physiology?

gf:
| > Everyone thinks their views are intellectually and morally
| > superior, do they not?  (If they think they can be ranked.)
| > So this is not a distinction.

gk:
| I'm not so sure of that.  Views associated with an "ism" often have a
| particularly self-righteous tone to them.

Aren't you being self-righteous about not being self-
righteous here?

gk:
| I think Hillel Gazit is ahead of the curve.  Many other people argue points
| which may have had relevance thirty years ago.

Hillel isn't on a curve.  I've been observing him on the
net for several years, and he's been flogging the same line
the whole time.  When the discussion of an issue no longer
appears to be useful as a tool to attack feminism, he drops
it, and goes on to another; when he's used all of them, he
starts over again.  I have no doubt that this behavior
predicts a future, but I hope it is the future of not too
many people, because it's not a very interesting future.

It's odd, this fixated engagement with feminism.  One is
tempted to psychoanalyze, but as I already gave Kenn Barry
a hard time about psychoanalyzing I have to lay off.

gk: [ on who is worst off ]
| As Hillel has pointed out, it ain't a statistical fact.  The homeless men
| post pretty much says it all.

The homeless-men thing is an interesting discussion to me
because it gets at something I have not yet found it
possible to construct a coherent theory about: why it is
virtually forbidden to men to act (traditionally)
feminine.  That is now running in a different thread.
It's also interesting in another sense: it has been used
as another stick to beat feminism with, and I hope to
examine that use in the near future.

gf: [ describes hierarchical society ]

gk:
| You diverted the point here.  What about dam-building, provision of
| electricity, pharmaceutical development etc, etc, etc.  How are they "least
| constructive".

Are you saying you have to have a penis and a hierarchical
society to build a dam?

[ Ah, ah, AA ]
gk:
| > | No.  The usual argument against affirmative action is unfairness ...
gf:
| > In the theory which supports affirmative action of the more
| > compulsory kinds, the procedure takes place in a situation
| > where there is undeserved special treatment of people as
| > group members _already_ going on, which is statistically
| > or otherwise demonstrable.

gk:
| No, not *already* going on, but going on *in the past*.

I'm talking about the _theory_.  Are you saying that
affirmative action is a good thing when undeserved special
treatment _is_ going on in the present?  In that case, you
may be more favorable to it than I; I see it as a last-
ditch kludge when all else has failed.

gf:
| > The actions taken are supposed to rectify the imbalance and
| > make the treatment theoretically fairer.  That is, they are
| > to reduce the aggregate level of unfairness in the system
| > where they are applied.

gk:
| Not so.  The *aggregate* level of unfairness *could not* be reduced by
| favouring minorities.

Yes, it could, if the policy of favoring a given group
were introduced into a situation where another group was
already favored.  The problem with this sort of thing is
that it's going to be very hard to fine-tune the favoring so
it just happens to balance the prior favoring.

gf:
| > To say that the individual is treated unfairly is
| > significant only if individuals are not treated unfairly
| > absent the affirmative action.  But individuals are almost
| > always treated unfairly except where fairness is defined in
| > a very limited, very rigorously imposed way, as on certain
| > Civil Service tests.  For instance, in hiring in a private
| > business, the usual procedure is for one or more persons to
| > interview the prospective employees and intuit which one(s)
| > will fit in best with the business.  This is not fair, but
| > it's the only reasonable way to get the job done.

gk:
| No.  "Fairness" is a general idea that most people appreciate at an
| intuitive level.  For example, women could not have entered previously
| all-male settings without many men holding this intuitive concept.

Sure they could.  Most of the working-class people I knew in
the '50s and '60s considered the Black push for equality to
be unfair -- because "everyone knew" that Blacks were lazy,
dirty, insubordinate, and incompetent -- but in the end it
was more trouble to resist than to make some concessions.

I think this is the usual mechanism for such things.  The
bourgeoisie may have subsequently rationalized or glorified
their decisions as being made for the sake of fairness or
justice, but in general I think their computations involve
more down-to-earth matters, balancing profit, power,
trouble, and expense.  You'll notice that nobody decides to
be fair until a conflict develops -- yet there's nothing
holding them back, is there?  How come we didn't have
"racial justice" in 1910?

I don't mean to deprecate the many idealists, including
people from the upper classes, who have struggled and even
given their lives for their ideas of what was right, but I
just don't think most people -- especially those with power
and influence -- are into it.  They're _busy_.  You have to
get their attention.

gk:
                                                                     Your
| argument trivializes its importance, but you need to, since applying old
| evils in new guises requires more than a bit of semantic re-tuning.

But I am not a fan of affirmative action; I have merely
reported some of the theory behind it.  Now you will have to
reverse your argument and show why I must trivialize
fairness for the opposite reason.

gf:
| > ... I believe the concept of "merit" is entirely a social
| > artifice, ...

gk:
| Almost everything is a social construction.  On one level, the kind of
| argument you make is very sophisticated.  On another, it is profoundly
| trivial, and can cause its proponent to disappear up their own arsehole.  I
| try to avoid this stuff, which appears to be very popular amongst academics
| in the humanities.
| Suffice it to say that concepts of ultimate subjectivity are usually evoked
| when someone wishes to get their own way.

_Everyone_ wishes to get their own way.  Admitting to
subjectivity at least avoids ringing in God and The
Ultimate Truth on your side, which I think only polite.
People with God on their side are dreadfully tedious,
don't you think?

By the way, I like the idea of something being "pro-
foundly trivial."  Although it's sort of a heist from
Andy Warhol.

gk:
| > | Early in this thread, you spoke of men as "them".  I thought it a curious
| > | way to speak of a group to which you belong, particularly when you seem to
| > | be so group-oriented, so I thought that maybe you've decided you don't
| > | belong.

gf:
| > It might have been an error, as where I change a sentence
| > around and forget to get all the pronouns.  Except when
| > suffering severe bouts of alienation, I think of myself as
| > belonging to the set of male human beings.  However, one
| > might be putting oneself at a distance stylistically: "Men
| > differ from women in several ways.  They [ we ] are often
| > taller and heavier...."  Is it important?

gk:
| Could be.  I've seen a good deal of male self-hatred about lately.  From Al
| Gore, who has declared that he feels guilty about men's activities, to a
| professor who wrote to the New York Times announcing his shame for his sex
| due to Woody Allen's actions.  I gotta tell ya, I've always held the
| prejudice that the US is a weird country for men, and nothing has shaken it
| yet.

I guess I _am_ pretty alienated.  I've never felt
responsible for men's deeds or attitudes in general.
Most of the things men do as such bore me, so I guess that
keeps me out of trouble.  I've felt responsible for things
like the U.S. bombing other countries, but that was because
it was my tax money and done in my name.  However, you
should take Al and the professor with a grain of salt.
Both of them are in politics, one in government, the other
in Academia.  My guess is that they think they're going to
get something out of saying certain things to certain
people at certain times.  Right now, I'll bet ol' Al is
not feeling a scintilla of self-hatred -- what do you
think?

If I had to point out men with a real case of self-hatred
I'd pick on some of the people in this newsgroup.  They seem
to feel threatened or overpowered by women, as if the women
had, you know, _powers_, while they themselves were weak and
helpless.  Big, evil Mommies; poor helpless babies.  Look at
the discussion of the draft, where NOW was supposed to get
out in front for them while they hung out.  Strange stuff.

I concede that it must be more difficult to become a man in
these times than a generation or two ago.  When I was a boy,
everyone knew what a real man was like: John Wayne.  Today,
while the culture is ready to tell men they're wrong, it
doesn't tell them what's right.  The gender system doesn't
fit our lives any more, yet few seem to want to just drop
it or invent a new one.
-- 

 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )