From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Subject: Re: Honest Question -- No flames please
Organization: LLNL
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 00:24:43 GMT

In article <83312@ut-emx.uucp> tzeking@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (chan tze-king) writes:
>	Now, perhaps I'm just a bit traditional, but doesn't it bother you,
>in some way, morally or religiously, to stand behind such a counter-productive
>ideology?  I mean, it seems to me that women, having been given the mech-
>anism for bearing children also hold a certain responsibility to uphold.
>As they do in lower animals, women should feel nothing but obliged to fulfill
>their reproductive responsibility to the species, bearing as many children
>as it is within their means to produce.  Along with this production go the
>duties of feeding their offspring until they are self sufficient, and remaining
>at the home caring for the children until they are past beyond the age at
>which they can reproduce consistantly viable offspring.  The counterpart to
>your role as child-barers of the species is the protective and provident role
>of men, whose duty, of course, is to father children according to their 
>ability, by perhaps dozens of women if they are of sturdy stock.  So, this in
>mind, shouldn't you all just find a good, strong man that can provide for you
>and remain at home to raise his (and yours of course) children until you are
>beyond prime reproductive age?

	First off, that is a misreading of what goes on in the animal
kingdom. Female animals are seldom economically dependent on male
animals after the pattern of many human societies. Female animals are
usually their own "providers", and when one sex is economically
dependent on the other, it is the male that is dependent on the
female. Consider certain deep-sea fish, where the males attach
themselves by biting the skins of females much bigger than they. And
all the hymenopteran social insects: males are there just to breed
with freshly emerged queens, and are fed by the workers, which are all
female. Among solitary animals, and even among many social animals,
each individual is its own provider, whatever sex it is. Among social
hunters, like wolves, both sexes participate in hunting, and among
lions, it is the females that do most of the hunting.

I think the examplum for your behaviour is
>clear, in the animal kingdom, as well as in the religious philosophies of your
>western culture.  And please, I don't mean to reflect on your worth as persons
>, quite the opposite... if you fulfill your role as child barers of the species
>you are of paramount importance.  I only want to remind you of what most see
>to be your obligation to wellbeing of the race.  So stop fighting the system 
>and return to your roles, beside your man, providing for your children until
>your role in this function has passed.

	Would you like the gender roles of the beehive instead?

	Even in many human societies, women make significant economic
contributions. And in our own, which has traditionally idolized
housewifery, women often work. Indeed, the emerging ideal of a
gender-egalitarian society (despite certain unavoidable asymmetries)
is more closely parallel to much of the animal kingdom than the
housewife ideal for women. Maybe future generations will look upon the
housewife ideal as one of the detours of centuries past, something
like the old Chinese tradition of binding women's feet.

>	Many Thanks for your time, and good wishes to your fertile future.

	And may your command of the English language improve.