From: ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy)
Subject: Re: Sweeping Generalizations About Men By Feminists (Was: Feminism & Women's Studies)
Organization: NMSU Computer Science
	<gpln9r+.payner@netcom.com> <1992Sep3.165031.4382@panix.com>
	<ATAYLOR.92Sep4171409@gauss.nmsu.edu>
	<ZEN.92Sep8111833@death.corp.sun.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 01:03:26 GMT

<In article <ZEN.92Sep8111833@death.corp.sun.com> zen@death.corp.sun.com (d) writes:
<   In article <ATAYLOR.92Sep4171409@gauss.nmsu.edu> ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy) writes:
<   > <In article <1992Sep3.165031.4382@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
<   > <By the way, Nosy, if you're out there: why don't you 
<   > <explain to us why you focus on Dworkin?  You like her
<   > <stuff?  Find it fascinating?
<   > Dworkin speaks to thousands of people every year,
<   > has written several books which seem to sell copies,
<   > appears on various tv/radio programs and has
<   > been instrumental in pushing some of her 
<   > ideas into law...
<   > [...]
<   > If David Duke had gotten some of HIS agenda
<   > made into law, I'd be paying a lot more attention
<   > to him as well....

<     I've got news for you -- many of the laws on the books, far more than
<   andrea dworkin will ever pass, are from people who were, in essense,
<   david duke clones.  

	I envy zen's ability to see into the future; obviously
	reports of the demise of Cassandra were false.

	Perhaps zen can NAME these laws for us?

<Duke could have been president when lots of the laws
<that are still around were passed.

	Which laws, please?

<     BTW, sorry if I missed this -- but what laws did dworkin actually help
<   pass?  E-mail is fine if it's been posted to death, but I keep hearing
<   about this without seeing what she actually did.

	The Minneapolis "anti-porn" law, passed by Dworkin's
	Women Against Pornography (WAP). A court overturned
	it (fortunately) on the grounds that it violated the 1st
	Amendment. 

	Note that Dworkinists are now trying to pass a similar
	law in Massachusetts; there is also the Federal
	"victims of pornography" proposal which, so far, appears
	to be going nowhere, fortunately.

	However, US history contains more than a few examples
	of bad laws that were passed through nothing more than
	perseverance of a cadre. Prohibition of alcohol comes
	to mind....

<   > Ignoring fanatics whose following
<   > is growing can be dangerous, as history shows
<   > to even the most casual reader.

<     The problem is that so many fanatics are so firmly entrenched in our
<   current power structure (e.g. the congress, senate, white house and
<   judicial system, along with corporate america) that most people don't
<   even see them.

	Shrug. Name some, please. Is Bush a fanatic? What is he
	fanatic about?

<   > Is Fitch asserting that Dworkin is of no
<   > importance? Is Fitch going to claim that
<   > he's the "real feminist" and Dworkin isn't?

<     Dworkin is important, as I said earlier this morning... but it seems
<   to me that her import is not as a lucid spokesperson for feminism, but
<   rather as a tool that anti-feminists can use against feminism.  I think
<   that you'd find that many more people (myself included) would prefer
<   fitch's ideas of feminism over dworkin's, since his jibe more along the
<   lines of mainstream feminist ideologies.  

	That's nice. When Fitch begins speaking to thousands of
	women who describe themselves as "feminists" across North
	America, when Fitch appears on national television broadcasts
	proclaiming his message, when Fitch gets his ideas cast into
	law...then I'll take him as seriously as I take Dworkin.

	Until that happens, until women who describe themselves
	as "feminists" pay cash money just to hear Fitch speak,
	pardon me if I regard him as just another net.persona
	and Dworkin as a major player on the national scene.

<Not that I think that anyone
<   *can* speak for all feminists, just like no single person can speak for
<   christians or republicans or whatever -- certainly I disagree with
<   gordon at times, but there's something to be said for someone who
<   actually can speak coherently about their ideas and back them up with
<   facts and references from other reasonable people.  

	Which postings are these, please? The ones in which
	Fitch asserts that concerns about national "feminists"
	who want to destroy the 1st Amendment are "fantasies"?

<Listening to people
<   on the net (not mentioning any names, but frequent posters to
<   alt.feminism would fall in this category...) argue is amazing -- if some
<   jewish people were complaining about their treatment by the germans
<   during WWII, I'm sure we'd see some posts that echoed hitler's rhetoric
<   and wondered why the jews were making such a fuss over it?

	Reading some feminists on the net is not unlike reading
	Lenin in 1905.....