From: levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Damned Souls (was Re: Version Five)
Date: 27 Dec 1992 17:53:49 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine) writes:

>gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes:

>>In article <199212212056.AA24308@altair.math.uiuc.edu> 
>>levine@symcom.math.uiuc.EDU (Lenore Levine) writes:

>>>I think the fourth category of antifeminist posters is not as obvious.
>>>I suspect that many of the male posters, complaining how they
>>>have been mistreated (on the job, in academia, or in the courts),
>>>actually have been. They are wrong only when they attribute this
>>>mistreatment to women (in general), affirmative action, or feminism.

>>How do you know?

>>What do you know about my life that you can say so surely that I'm 
>>wrong when I say that I was discriminated against by affirmative action?

>Read more closely. I did not say that any *specific* poster was wrong,
>when they said they were discriminated against by affirmative action.

Let me add, present a believable case (*with details*) and I'll believe it.  

>I said that I *suspected* *many* of them were wrong -- but wrong for
>reasons not particularly to their discredit. 

>I certainly know of at least one case where these suspicions are *very*
>likely to have a base in reality. (A friend of a friend lost custody
>of his child to a slick female user, and attributed the loss to
>discrimination against males. I observed that this person was very
>inarticulate and socially inept; and for these reasons, I suspected he
>was more the victim of an imperceptive judge than a sexist judge.)

>By the way, turn about is fair play. I think that some women who
>complain about sexism in the business world, just don't know how
>to defend themselves against backstabbers.

Let me not forget, of course, that many women *are* really victims of
sexism.

>Hillel, can you really deny that people in this culture fall too quickly
>for a slick sound byte? That they too often evaluate a situation by 
>appearances, and do not take the time to find out what is really
>happening?

>Lenore Levine

Note: I restored the original title of this posting.

I would also like to remind readers of soc.feminism of the following
scenario, which I suspect is not unlikely, and which may add greatly to
the confusion about affirmative action:

Some company (department, agency) wishes to hire a token woman (black,
disabled, etc.) to show off how wonderful they are. Therefore, they
don't pick any of the well-qualified white males available for this
position. However, they don't pick the *best-qualified* woman. Instead,
they pick a woman who makes a good photo op -- attractive, smiling and
noncontroversial.

End result: Men feel discriminated against because they are men, women 
feel discriminated against because they are women, there's another flamewar 
in soc.feminism. And there's an upbeat article in the company newspaper, 
featuring the new hire, and the company president.

What about the new hire? Either she's the yuppie backstabber they
thought she was, in which case she adds her quota's worth of bad energy
to the institution -- or she's not, and she wastes years of her life in
a company that's not set up to take her contributions seriously.   

Let me add -- that as a middle-aged curmudgeon, I think my chances of 
being hired as anyone's token are slimmer than a snowball's in hell.
(Not to worry though; I suspect I'll do just fine on my own merits.)

Yours (somewhat) cynically,
Lenore Levine


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