From: smorine@nyx.cs.du.edu (Suzanne Morine)
Subject: Re: Challenging Gender Roles (kinda long)
Keywords: sex, gender, dogma, gay rights
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 92 20:17:05 GMT

joelp@cs.man.ac.uk (Joel Parthemore || Pharos Project) writes:
>Suzanne (Morine) (smorine@nyx.cs.du.edu) writes:
>>I couldn't figure out what this disagreement was about,
>Hmm, I didn't think it was a disagreement as much as some mental arm
>wrestling.

You say tomaytoe, I say tomahto...  :-)

>>Um  ...turns out I was using an obsolete meaning of the word "awe":
>>"fear or dread"
>>[...]  I did use examples and other words besides for "awe", so,
>>hopefully, I got the idea across already.

>I think you did, too.  I'd like to believe that I was responding to the ideas
>*behind* your words, and only superficially to the words themselves.

Which is why I wanted to hit the nail on the head and find out what the
disagreement was.  It was the different meanings of "awe".  My using "awe"
in sentences read differently to you than what I had meant.

>>Anyway, now the disagreement makes a lot of sense.
>I thought it did already....  :- )  Really, I disagree with people as a way of
>showing respect for them.

(!) Huh.  I don't "get" it.  "Blood is red."  Disagree with that.  I just
don't get it!


Cultivating awe:
>[...]  I think ``awe'' is part of all of us (even
>if we lose sight of it), and I think it's something we *should* (yes,
>directive) cultivate toward such wondrous Mysteries as sex.  Why not let sex
>be both familiar *and* mysterious?  (Why do people treat them as exclusive
>properties?)

I agree with the point that something *can* be both familiar and mysterious.

But I have to wonder about someone telling readers that we should (i.e.
a directive) cultivate awe toward sex.  If you feel it, you feel it; why
is it important to try and direct others?  On the base of it, to just
say to everyone, "Hey, did you notice that there are times that sex is
awe-inspiring?" doesn't carry any other message.  It's an observation
and it may make someone notice something they hadn't quite put their 
finger on before.

But taking this another step further to say to everyone, "You should
find sex awe-inspiring," rings, to me, of handing out unwanted advice.
Taking it another step further and saying to everyone that *we* should
cultivate awe toward sex implies a sort of organized societal
unwanted-advice-giving.  This is the sort of repetitive, yeah-yeah-
ok-I've-heard-it-already, directives that are rude via being unwanted
advice, more rude through affecting large numbers of people, are
annoying as well, via being repetitive, and that are all too common
anyway.  IMNSHO!

Dualities:
>>What other subject is handled this way - divided into the good and
>>the bad, calling the "good" one thing ("sex"), and the "bad" another
>>thing ("rape")?

>Lots of things, I'm afraid:  ``flesh'' versus ``spirit'', ``self-love'' versus
>``altruism'', ``darkness'' versus ``light''....  The society I grew up in
>seems pervasively dualistic.  I am *strongly* anti-dualistic by nature.

I didn't get strong dualities for the things you listed.   And, like sex,
each of them has fuzzy borders - even wide grey areas.


>>Interestingly enough, it's that sort of special treatment of the subject
>>of sex which I was noting in my previous posts!  Nothing directed at you
>>specifically; a lot of people use the "sex = good" equation.

>I don't think I was.

I think you were and there's more evidence in the next paragraph:

>Yes, this means that I find something ``awe-full'' in rape as well.  Just
>because something beautiful is twisted around into something ugly *does* *not*
>*remove* *the* *essential* *beauty* *from* *it*.  To my mind, this makes the
>act of forced sex all the more horrifying.

You are saying there is essential beauty in the particulars of the sex act,
in sex itself.  I mean, you can use a hammer to hammer a nail or you can
use it to bludgeon someone with.  Is the hammer and and the hammering motion
inherently beautiful/ingeneous in both cases?  Rape is an act of violence
that uses sex as it's tool.  Women's bodies get *torn*.  I never realized
the horror of rape until I found that out (not personally - don't send
condolences).  Women's bodies have to physically *heal*.  IMO, there's
nothing beautiful about this rape behavior.  Too, there's nothing beautiful
about bludgeoning someone with a hammer.  Unless you're working from some
principle that "everything in the world is beautiful", I just don't see
what you're saying.


><about gender roles>
>>>Women and men are, at some level, biologically different....
>>No.  Duh.  Really?!  :-)  !!!!

>Hey, I wasn't lecturing, I was weaving a point that people often *do* miss.
>People exaggerate *certain* biological differences and ignore the others....

What do you mean?  Are you referring to non-universal differences, ones that
are more like general observations than definitions?  For example, "the
average man is taller and heavier than the average woman" and "more men
than women experience balding" ?  Of course, to beat a dead horse, here,
that doesn't mean that a tall, balding woman, is less a woman.

More about Directives:
>I think people use ``roles'' in both directive and non-directive senses: i.e.,
>sometimes with a sense of ``what's proper'', and sometimes only with a sense
>of ``what's done''.  Things get worse though:  I may tell you that, in *my*
>opinion, you *should* do something, but you may feel otherwise (a sort of
>non-directive directiveness) or I may tell you that you *should* do something,
>and your own feelings in the matter don't count (a very directive
>directiveness).

I said this above, but again, one is giving unwanted advice, the other
is being bossy - more disrespectful.  I find both rude, myself.  It
seems similar to the Sarver et al, uh, discussion, uh, flamefest.  Of
course anyone can communicate her/his own experience and leave it at that,
or also ask what others' experience is - all without any advice-giving or
directives.  What you call "non-directive directiveness", I call a
directiveness under a completely transparent covering.


Usefulness of observations:
>I think we also might differ though on what is, ultimately, useful.

I meant that, say, if you were to tell me that the Typical American is a
Contented Cow, I'd have a new perspective to consider and might find it
useful to ask myself whether I value contentment too highly.

--
--Suzanne Morine          smorine@nyx.cs.du.edu
--"Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort
--of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle."  Helen Keller
--
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