From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: soc.women
Subject: A digression on bitterness
Date: 7 Jan 93 07:06:34 GMT
Reply-To: rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Software Maintenance & Development Systems, Inc.

In article <1993Jan6.023032.18712@Princeton.EDU> smaxwell@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Sara Maxwell) writes:
>In article <1idd0cINN5qf@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com> regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) writes:

>>Just as we see people on this net regularly DISMISS women as 'bitter'
>>(Hi, Muriel!), and therefore consider themselves to be above answering
>>that woman's VERY REAL comment.  (Not that a whole lot of us, who are 
>>on to this particular tactic, are fooled.  But it happens all the time.)

>To digress--that "bitter" thing is interesting.  Back when I used to
>post more, I would get that too--sometimes in sweet, well-intentioned
>letters from nice boys who felt bad for me because i was "bitter." It's
>not a gender-exclusive epithet, but it seems to be used against women in
>a special way.  Specifically, it seems to be provoked by feminist
>positions.  I wonder if it's tying in to some idea of barrenness (a la
>"bitter harvest")?     

It's been quite some time since I've been a boy, and I'm not so sure that
I was very nice even then.   Be that as it may...

If one simply tallies the roster of bitter people in the soc.men/women
groups [which, given the amount of cross-posting are much the same] I get
the impression that the proportion by gender of bitter people [judging
by their postings] is much the same as that of the posters in general
-- most are men.

Now me, I would expect that feminism *like many other movements advocating
social change* would be suffused by a certain amount of bitterness.
Most people do not seriously advocate social change and work for it out
of an abstract sense of justice; their "conciousness is raised" by
personal experience.  Really effective conciousness raising is seldom
pleasant.  And it does seem that people who are bitter and unhappy by
nature post to usenet, er are often attracted to movements.  And I say,
so what.  Vegetables plant no fields.  People who are contented with
their lot do not end slavery, overthrow tyrants, or risk their lives
in civil rights movements [with notable exceptions.]

Be that as it may, I think you may be misreading the tea leaves.  What
I think you are seeing (re the nice boys) is a male predisposition to
believe that women are nice.  Men's view of women is inherently biased
by their sexual drives; the syllogism runs like this:

	Women are desirable.
	What is desirable is good.
	Therefore women are good.

It seems unreasonable that an intrinsically desirable creature, the source
of happiness, should herself be unhappy.  Now I grant that the slightest
amount of experience should suggest that this view is so much moonshine,
but that's the way unconcious biases run.  [You will grant me, won't
you, that men are capable of unconcious bias?]

What I think is happening is that you are interpreting men's actions
through women's symbology, e.g. barrenness and bitter harvest.  This is
right and proper, and natural enough -- for your own world view.  But
it is rightly misleading to do so.  Barrenness and fertility simply do
not have the same meaning for men as for women.  At least, that's my
view.
-- 
Richard Harter: SMDS Inc.  Net address: rh@smds.com Phone: 508-369-7398 
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742.    Fax: 508-369-8272
In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.
Newsgroups: soc.women,sci.skeptic