From: levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine)
Subject: Re: Gender differences - Sophie Germain
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:01:58 GMT

<RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:

>-
>-In the long run it won't matter.  But in the short run, there is still
>-pressure in our culture against women becoming a part of scientific
>-fields.  This cultural pressure is a leftover from the days when women
>-didn't enjoy the same rights men did.  Its slowly dissappearing, but it
>-
>-    Michael Stanley (michael@glia.biostr.washington.edu)

>  Here is an interesting bit from the Colliers Encyplodia about the Titanic
>disater, 1912.  Of the women and children on the ship 70% got into lifeboats
>and survived.  Of the men on the ship, 20% survived.  Of crew members,
>24% survived.  Among the dead were several quite well known, wealthy and
>powerful men.   But there were not enough lifeboats and women were
>given preference over men.

>  Being a man isn't always piece of cake.  True, most of the senators are
>men, but so are most of the people in prisons - and there are far more
>people in prisons than in the senate!   Women do earn les than men do, but
>I suspect that the rate of death and injury from employment is much higher
>for men than it is for women.  So let us for heaven's sake, look for the
>welfare of BOTH sexes and stop pretending that men are living in some
>kind of paradise that women are denied access to.

>    Rohit Parikh

Mr. Parikh, no sensible feminist would deny that men, as well as women,
are oppressed because of their gender. (Have you seen the discussions
of this topic in soc.feminism? I encourage you to read that newsgroup
too, if you can get it.)

We are just saying two things:

1) Women are, on the average, *more* oppressed because of their gender
   than men. 
   
   We note that this difference in oppression varies tremendously, 
   from culture to culture and from institution to institution. 
   For example (and I would be curious to hear specific details, 
   if you have the time to contribute them) I have heard that in some 
   parts of India women are much more oppressed than in others. E.g., 
   in Kerala the status of women is supposed to be relatively high.

   I note that, as a graduate student in the Department of Mathematics,
   at the University of Illinois, I have not faced inordinate
   sexism. However, I have heard that this is not the case at other
   universities, and I do believe that at *some* mathematics
   departments in this country, sexism is indeed a real problem.
   (There was a woman who cited a particular department, again on
   soc.feminism.)

2) There are specific ways in which women are oppressed, because
   they are women, and specific ways this oppression can be fought.
   Because of this, there will be people whose conscience leads
   them to fight these specific battles, and organizations specifically
   dedicated to fighting them.

   If I am a feminist, I am not anti-men. If I am more interested in
   fat liberation than in gay liberation, it is not because I wish
   to deny civil rights to homosexuals. If there are relief workers
   in Somalia, risking their life and health in this effort, it is
   not because they wish to deny similar relief to Bosnia. 
   

Lenore Levine
levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu

P.S. I really encourage you to read soc.feminism too. 
Newsgroups: alt.feminism