From: mlloyd@ocf.berkeley.edu (M. Lloyd)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Attack of the Seperatists
Date: 19 Dec 1992 09:44:27 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: tsunami.berkeley.edu

williamt@athena.Eng.sun.com (Dances with Drums) writes:
>iw@tosser.Rational.COM (The_Devine_Dolly) writes:
>>To me, feminism is a movement about women, for women.
>
>	Women do not live in a vacuum separate from men.  If feminism were
>to state that women should be making world policy decisions and control
>world wealth, it would affect men and the movement is therefore about 
>more than "just" women.

Seems a bit incomplete.  What if feminists *aren't* saying that?  (I'm
taking it that the exclusivity implicit in "control", rather than "share
control", is deliberate.)  Even if you plug that gap, why does this run
contrary to Iseult's assertion that feminism is about, and for, women?

A feminist theory which failed to mention men at any point would be
pretty ridiculous.  I think you'd have a hard time finding one.  But it
seems that there is an issue of focus, of energy expenditure (which,
again, Iseult has already addressed).  I think it's fair to say that
western culture to date has been for and about men.  Feminism is the
entirely justified corrective response to that.  Come the day that the
playing field is fair, we can all treat each other as people, and the
lesbian separatists won't be seen as any different from a club of het
pigeon-fanciers, say.  That's a fair way off, though, if not an
altogether cloud-cuckoo target (a bit like "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to
All Men[sic]" - nice idea, shame we're not like that).

>    The rise of women in the workforce has not caused a dramatic increase
>in the standard of living for most people -- in fact the only segment of
>the population that has been financially better off due to this rise are
>childless single women.  Men have suffered financially and have lower
>standards of living as well as married women or women with children.

Oooch.  Ouch.  Eech.  <The sound of hot buttons being pushed>

This sounds disturbingly close to the line taken by those who want to
put the women back where they belong, barefoot and pregnant.  That may
not be your attitue, but be aware that it's the spectre you raise here.
Nuff said.

I also happen to have sensitive spots over the number of Americans I
know who complain bitterly about the state of the economy and the tax
burden, or more particularly, the way they can't keep up with the pace
being set.  Once I get used to this place I'll calm down about it, but
while the memory of my life in some of the richest countries in the
world still pales into insignificance against the prosperity of most
people in this society, I lack patience.  I *know* it's getting harder;
nobody likes that, and complaint is natural.  The temtation to
Shadenfreude for the non-American is intense, though.

OK, so this isn't answering your point head on.  I'm not sure that's a
good idea.  I'm not at all sure the point is relevant to start with.
I'm just running up a few flags now in case you want to work this area
some more.  Personally, I advise against.

>	Anyway, it goes on and on -- everyone claiming that anyone who is
>not of their group can't possibly understand what it is like to be
>of that group while doing the same things they complain of being subjected
>to -- to others.

Does it?  Is it really like that?  It's a fair first-order picture of
some people's reactions, but I think there's more to it.  What's to do
once you observe this behaviour?  Throw up your hands over all
line-drawing, even if the lines are fuzzy and grey?  Distinctions exist;
our ability to draw them is one thing that makes us human.  Women are
different from men, and their life roles have observable, dissectable,
*general* differences which never fit all the cases but are of enormous
validity all the same.

It's possible to argue, in science, that the nature of randomness, of
"noise" (or even Chaos if we have to suffer the trendy) means that
prediction is impossible - all conclusions are unsure, so don't draw
any.  Statisticians like me (soon to be ex,) trump that with a heavy dose
of theory which eventually rectifies the problem: you draw *general*
pictures, and quantify your uncertainty, controlling it.

Do you see why I think this is analogous?  Anyone who starts a sentence
"All men" or "All womyn" probably lacks a little maturity of thought,
and should be cut slack or reigned in as appropriate.  The excesses of
these people which you seem to be referring to do not invalidate the
idea that, say, women cannot generally look to men for the same
understanding they can obtain from other women.  This is a rather fairer
statement than "men are congenitally unable to comprehend."  It's my
experience that many women are *understood* to say the latter when they
haven't (and this misapprehension applies in a vast number of other
areas too).  Note Vikki's recent post.

So I agree that what you describe is a bad state of affairs.  I'm not
convinced, though, that it's an adequate description of the typical
dynamic between feminists and men (for instance).

Mike
-- 
Mike Lloyd, B0/1 h- f- t w- g+ k+ s m- e? |    "Bloody nose and burning eyes
      Retro-hippy, music nut, bi and      |  Raised in laughter to the skies"
          backrubber of devotion          |                 - Bruce Cockburn
               --The end of confusion is the beginning of death--
Newsgroups: soc.bi