From: uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (Robert Coleman)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: men's issues vs. women's issues
Date: 30 Jul 92 17:56:37 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:
>In article <14odc7INN7s6@agate.berkeley.edu> uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Robert Coleman) writes:

>>	It's very easy to look at "the enemy" and see only their
>>advantages, especially if you're not interested enough to ask them
>>how they feel.  It's human not to try to look through someone else's
>>eyes; everyone feels that they have enough of their own problems
>>without trying to understand someone else's.  It's easy to ignore
>>your own advantages and concentrate on the things about your life
>>that your don't like.

>This sounds suspiciously to me like the "white man's burden."  How
>difficult it is to be in a position of power, how limiting that
>position is.

	Like "dead"?  I understand the temptation to apply a label to
a new idea instead of actually thinking about it, but let's avoid that
situation by giving a concrete example; in fact, to tie a bow on it,
let's take the "white" out of it altogether (though I recognize that
that wasn't really your point).
	If you were a black 18 year old in the sixties with a draft
notice in your hand, would you have traded your right to vote and all
future chance at political power for removing your name from the draft
list?

	It's not an easy decision, is it?  It's hard to utilize all that
wonderful power when you're buried six feet under the ground.

>I agree to some extent, but it angers me that women are supposed to
>have so much sympathy for the power that men as a class can abuse.

	Is it upsetting to suggest that you have some sympathy for
those 50000 "powerful" men who, selected for death by their gender, in
all probability didn't get to live even as long as you have?  Is it
upsetting to suggest that rather than sympathize with men as a class,
you look at each man individually and ask whether "all that power" has
worked, on the whole, to his benefit or detriment?  Is it upsetting to
ask you to consider that there are more kinds of power than the
political, and a man who has all the imaginable political power in the
world has led a wasted and unenviable existance if he lives and dies a
lonely, hollow, and "emotionless" life?

>>	Contrariwise, I feel that women's point of view has been
>>expostulated upon endlessly for 20+ years; it's only recently that
>>some men have gained the ability to look within themselves and
>>discover that being a man isn't all it's cracked up to be.  It's
>>easy to go with the simple "Well, there's *lots* of talk about
>>women's problems, and almost no talk about men's problems; where
>>there's smoke, there's fire, right?" explanation, but part of the
>>problem is that men aren't permitted to "smoke".

>"Women's point of view has been expostulated upon endlessly..."  By
>whom?  By women, by women writing, talking, working together.  By
>women losing the fight for the ERA, losing political races.  Fighting
>like hell.  Not by men.

	...Wherein you manage to totally miss my point.  The point was
that women don't really know men's viewpoint, because men themselves
haven't given any thought to their real situation; whereas, women have
thought about and expressed their feelings about their real situation
for 20 years.  I feel that I have a much better understanding of women
than you, personally, will ever have of men, because you've talked and
I've listened.  In contrast, I talk and you essentially tell me to
shut up.

>I've been reading Marcia Cohen's _The Sisterhood_.  Do you know that
>Betty Friedan nearly missed a demonstration because her husband had
>battered her and she didn't want to be seen in public with a black
>eye and bruised face?  Where was her support, from her husband?

	Are some men rotten?  Yes.  What's your point?  Are you
suggesting that this shows that there have never been any men involved
in the feminist movement, or that there have never been men in power
fair enough to listen to what women have to say?  I can assure you, if
men really run everything, you'd never have gotten anywhere, from the
vote on down, without male help.

	And you mention the ERA; that's a great example of another
point that I've been making.  Suppose men though that the ERA might
really equalize the situation for men as well as women?  Would that
improve the chances of an ERA approval?
	Instead, we have historical context that convinces me, at
least, that the law would be interpreted as "If women are on the
down-side of an unequal situation, that must be rectified, but since
men have it so good, we'll just ignore any situation where they are
unequal".  Much of this context is directly related to feminist
lobbying for interpretation of these laws; in other words, feminists
have actively and successfully lobbied for this interpretation of
non-constitutional versions of this law, so I don't want a
constitutional version.  If feminists had ever shown an interest in
genuine gender equality, I would support such a bill 100%.
	So we work against each other, and this time you lose, and
another time we'll lose.  Isn't it empowering to maintain a lack of
sympathy for men?

>And now it seems to me that you're saying, "Look, we (men) listened
>to you for 20 years, now it's our (men's) turn."  Did men listen?  Do
>women have the same rights that you do?  Our country is on the verge
>of outlawing abortion.  Have you been listening to that, are you
>helping in that fight?

	Well, that isn't what I was saying at all.  What I was saying
is that we have had the opportunity to see through your eyes, and
listen to you if we were receptive; you've never had a chance to see
through our eyes, because we have blind spots we've never even
noticed.

>>	I beg you, give a listen to some of the men who've had a
>>chance to do that emotional introspection.  You've heard women's
>>views for 20 years.  You live a woman's life.  Give yourself a
>>chance to learn something past the stereotypes about men, and maybe
>>you'll find that our progress isn't very different, that our
>>problems are linked to your problems, and our problems are worth
>>your time for that reason if nothing else.

>Women listen to men.  Women constantly hear men's views.

	This is the reaction I predicted in another posting.  You've
"heard it all", because you "live in a Man's World".  But what if
we're blinded, the way women were blinded 50 years ago, by an
unthinking acceptance of the status quo?  You can't hear what we're
not saying; you can't understand us if we're pretending to be someone
we're not.

	And you're certainly not listening to *me*.  I'm not
convinced, based on some of your interpretations of my postings, that
you're even reading them all the way through.

>Women is still the "other," where masculine pronouns are generic.
>But you still insist that women should now be quiet (after centuries
>of being silent and silenced)

	...And here's an example.  I write perhaps 300 lines of
postings all saying that we should work together on all gender issues
regardless of the victims, and you interpret that as telling you to be
quiet.  I say lets stop fighting each other so we can solve all of our
problems quicker, and you hear "put the woman-stuff on the back
burner".

	Just for fun, I challenge you to show where I asked women to
be quiet or make "women's issues" *secondary* to "men's issues".
Should be interesting, since I claim there's no such thing as women's
issues or men's issues, that there are only gender issues, and that we
should work on all of them together regardless of the victims.

>and listen to men who have had a time to be introspective.  Once
>again, women are asked to put their needs on the back burner.

>Woman, the eternal care giver.  She has to fight her own fights and
>those of everyone else.

	...Only if she's interested in justice.  Only if she wants to
get to her goals quicker.  Only if she wants me to do the same.

>Perhaps if more women felt that more men had actually listened to
>them (for anything near the 20+ years you stated) and took their
>worries, complaints, abuses to heart, you'd find more women willing
>to believe you when write of your problems being women's problems.

	Every step you've made forward has been against the resistance
of *and* with the help of men.  It was a male court that asserted Roe
vs. Wade.  It was a strongly conservative male court that asserted it
again.  It was a male political body that ratified the right of women
to vote.

	You're so quick to point to the small subset of men who wield
power and assert that therefore men, as a group, are powerful.  That's
really poor logic, but if you must use logic like that, perhaps you
could apply that same thinking to the minority of men who have helped
the cause of feminism over the years.

>All I see is women being told once again that their needs should take
>second place.
                                                           ^^^^^^

	Where?  C'mon, back this up.  Did you actually read anything I
wrote?  I'm not interested in reading anything else from you on this
topic until you retract this claim or back it up.
	Yes.  I'm angry.  I type 300+ lines, trying to make sure I
can't possibly be misunderstood, but I guess there's no way to get a
message across to someone who has absolutely no interest in listening.

Robert C.

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