From: usubrama@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Uma M Subramanian)
Subject: Re: Excluding men
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 22:41:35 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.181305.715@cirrus.com> venu@cirrus.com (Venu Nayar) writes:
>>In <1992Nov16.140428.12218@midway.uchicago.edu> moh2@quads.uchicago.edu
>>(Kateri/Mary Anne) writes: 
>
>I am cross-posting this to sci since that was where the newsgroup
>originated. At the time, I followed up suggesting various ways in which men
>could be a part of the group but still preserve the charter of providing a
>forum where women could post free of men (among them being a initially just
>allowing men to receive but not to post, etc). However, my suggestions were
>not considered (according to me). At that point, there was no reason to
>carry on the discussion since mailing lists are private lists and if the
>moderator(s) don't listen to you, that's it!
>
>I suppose it is now up to the participants to discuss it now.

The question of male membership (as well as the question of cross-posting
of articles to other newsgroups such as sci with the poster's
permission) was submitted to the members of the discussion group
for south asian women. There were many reponses, and as one can imagine,
the responses were varied. There were some women who felt that it's
ok and in fact good for men to be members. (BTW, the read-only
membership for men was also suggested as one of the possibilities
when inviting input from members on this issue.) But, many other
women felt very strongly that this discussion group ought to be
a private space for women to discuss whatever concerns them. Here
are some reasons that various members gave for keeping this
exclusively   an all-women group. I want to emphasize
that the moderators didn't themsleves  write any further on this
topic except to submit to the group the two issues mentioned
above. So the following reasons are all culled from the 
responses fo the members alone. The moderators didn't ta make any
policy decisions without input from teh members.

1. The presence of men (even as read-only members) could be an inhibiting
factor. It could inhibit full participation from the women members.
If men were also allowed to post articles, it could prevent
women from participating fully and even from becoming members.

2. The men could easily outnumber the women.

3. If input from men is what is needed, a forum such as SCI would
suffice.

4. This is a private space for women to validate their experiences
and perceptions and the primary focus is and must be on the women, 
not on how these issues affect men or the society. An all-women
forum can and should meet a need that is not met otherwise -- it
should be a forum for women to talk about how various issues affect
them, without having to analyze how it affects others.

5. There are other arenas for men to discuss woen's issues, with
women's inpu, whereas there is none for women to just network
with other women, be as outspoken as they'd like to be without being
watched. In this sense this is really not excluding men in the way
women are excluded from many spaces. The analogy the poster drew
was a support group for Black Engineering Students at a prestigious public
univ. which excludes whites and others. Is this exclusion or
not? Should the black students feel obliged to include others?

6. If the men who want to join the discussion group are really 
interested in discussing women's issues along with women, why
doesn't someone start a group meant to do just that? The 
presence of this discussion group doesn't exclude any other
group which includes men, and which has women's issues on its
agenda.

Now, as I said before, there were many members who felt it's
ok to have men as members. And at least one member rasied the question of
whether it is fair to exclude men. 

As a member of this group, and not as one of the moderators, I would like
to say the following: I personally don't mind men as being members,
and I thought a forum with men is essentially the same as one without
men all things being equal. But the first week of participating
in an all-women forum has taught me that there is a fundamental
difference between teh two kinds of forum. I've been vociferous
on women's issues on SCI and I never considered myself as timid
or shy while writing on SCI and I've been painfully outspoken
on SCI. But being a member of an all-women group has been a 
very different, much more supportive experience for me. When
I'm outspoken on this email group, it's not because I'm provoked by people
constantly discounting women's expereiences; it's not because I'm so
angeredthat I feel someone ought to speak out even at the cost of
speaking out about things that they'd rather not discuss with
strangers, and if that someone has to be me, so be it. But
this is strictly my personal opinion as a member, not as a moderator.

Hope this  suffices to show that the decision (as things stand now)
that this is an all-women forum is not just reached by the
moderators. The moderators have simply made it possible for
the members to express their opinion on this matter and decided
that as long as some women feel that it ought to be an all-women
group, their preferences have to to be respected.

Uma Subramanian

PS: A few things to be clarified in teh light of Amirthi's post that
Venu Nayar has cross-posted:

1. The email group for south asian women was announced soon after
it was set up on soc.culture.pakistan, soc.culture.tamil., 
soc.culture.bangladesh, soc.culture.asian.american (?), soc.feminism,
alt.culture.indian.american (?) etc. (The ? indicates that I 
don't remember the exact name of the group as I'm writing this
post, right now)

2. No one was personally invited to join the email list, except for
teh announcements in the various newsgroups no one was personally
asked by teh moderators to join the group. The members of this 
group became members on their own free will.

3. This is certainly no secret cult. Announcing it in so many 
newsgroups is certainly a very inefficient way of forming a 
secret cult.

>I have left
>Amirthi's postin in its enirity since I am cross-posting it to SCI.
>
>>Hi guys.....here's something that's been disturbing me - tell me what
>>you think.
>
>>I was recently invited to subscribe to a mailing list for discussing
>>concerns of Indian women in the US.  Ok, well and good.  It's a
>>moderated list, with nightly digests sent out by the moderators, who
>>will rotate.  I think it grew out of soc.culture.india, because the
>>discussions on it appear to have been going for a while.
>
>>Now, my problem with the list is that men are excluded.  In fact, now
>>that I think about it, I'm not even sure that you're supposed to know
>>it exists, but that feels far too much like secret societies and the
>>KKK for me to be comfortable with it.  So I'm telling you about it.
>
>>At the moment, men are not allowed to read or post to the list...nor
>>are we supposed to crosspost to newsgroups, although that's up for
>>discussion.  What do you think?   This feels to me like
>>discrimination, despite the practical reasons for doing so.  (Those
>>being:  1)  women who are shy and afraid to speak around men, 2) men
>>who are loud and take over the conversation, 3) the focus of the group
>>turning away from women's issues and becoming another s.c.i., 4)
>>providing a safe space for women to discuss personal lives without
>>fears of their husband's friends hearing about it, or possible their
>>husbands, etc....)
>
>> - Amirthi (who gets a very uneasy feeling at *any* form of exclusion
>>or separatism)
>>-- 
>>More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads.  One
>>path leads to despair and utter hopelessness.  The other to total
>>extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
>>						 - Woody Allen
>-- 
>Venu Nayar			|		Internet: venu@cirrus.com
>Cirrus Logic Inc.		|		(510)-226-2100 X3737 
>For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
>and wrong.