From: lynch@ils.nwu.edu (Richard Lynch)
Subject: Re: Catharine MacKinnon, Playboy and feminist propaganda
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 18:42:33 GMT

gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes:         >[HG]
lynch@ils.nwu.edu (Richard Lynch) writes:  >[RL]   [RL] for new stuff.
Catharine MacKinnon [posted by HG]     #[CM]

>[HG]
Feminists like MacKinnon may pay some lips service to the equality, but
they don't care about that; the nice talk is just a way to get support.

>[RL]
All I've seen so far from what you quoted seemed like pro-equality.

>[HG]
She claimed that ERA will prevent men-only draft.  This is not true
because in a war time the president can ignore parts of the Constitution
using the war powers act.  Therefore the president will have no problem
to draft only men.  (And the president can also draft women today...)

[RL]
There's something fundamentally wrong with an argument that says that a law
that we are arguing about doesn't apply under the extreme condition of the
President suspended the Constitution using the War Powers Act.
NO LAW could possibly prevent ANY kind of draft in those conditions.
[But public opinion might.]
[No President would be dumb enough to try a blue-eyed only draft, for example.]
It certainly *does* make a male-only draft illegal under normal circumstances.
[Although by the time the lawyers and Supreme Court get done interpreting...]
The ERA (had it passed) would have made a male-only draft far less likely.
By its very proposal and discussion it has made a male-only draft less likely,
IMO.


#[CM]
#Women are poor, and pay is at least as far from being sex-equal as it
#was before the passage of legislation guaranteeing equality by law.

>[RL]
When was this written?  Data posted from recent studies would indicate this to
be wrong.

>[HG] 1987.

>[RL]
So her statement is old enough that it may have been true then, no?

>[HG]
No.  (Read sometimes about 1964 if you still miss the point.)

I could waste a lot of time reading a lot of things about 1964.  Why don't you
just tell me your point?  I presume it's not that pay was sex-equal in 1987?
Or do you mean that her comparison is between 1964 and 1987 and that there was
some improvement?
In that case, send me more.  Maybe she has some number-crunching to show that
while women's pay improved, so did men's and the net effect was less.
[Now that would be really scary, but I could see where somebody might look at
data in a certain way and believe that.]
I'm tired of second-guessing your arguments, though.

#[CM]
#Under the rule of gender neutrality, the law of custody and divorce has
#been transformed, giving men an equal chance at custody of children 
#and alimony.

>[HG]
(Equality is when in 90% of the cases women have sole custody...) [sarcasm,RL]

>[RL]
Perhaps the law has been transformed, but the judges haven't yet.  A cheap out,
I will admit, but it seems to me it's improving slowly but steadily.

>[HG]
"A cheap out" is the main-stream feminists way of dealing with
discrimination against men.  They look for ways that will look like
equality while preserving all women's extra rights.

>[RL]
What extra rights?  
Custody?  Again time will take care of this.  

>[HG]
Custody, no draft, priority for life-boats, priority for less
qualified women via affirmative action, choice-for-women and
no-choice-for-men.

But MacKinnon claimed that it [custody] has already been done...

[RL]
Custody below.  Draft, above.  AA below.
Life-boats?  Any preference given to who gets in a life-boat first is certainly
not a legal rule.  If you're really concerned with this issue, wouldn't the ERA
have covered it?
I've already posted in other threads that I'm not too keen on the current
potential loophole for injustice re mens-choice.

But nobody cares what I think, anyway.
The issue here is your labeling stuff garbage.  Let's see some garbage feminist
cow-shit [see below] on these very issues.


>[RL]
I'll bet that
custody rights (when contested) are done 50/50 at about the same time as
hiring of women who are equally qualified hits that mark.  

>[HG]
With affirmative action that will take a long time...

[RL]
I'd be happy to see affirmative action die...and non-discrimination stay/come.
But don't try to kill AA and revert to discrimination.

>[RL]
Or I'll bet that the custody goes 50/50 when half the judges are women.  

>[HG]
Feminist Cow-shit.

[RL]
No comment.

>[RL]
Take your pick.  The LAWS are there, now it's time for the people to change.

>[HG]
And that will happen all by itself when so many feminists claim
that men have nothing to complain about...

[RL]
It certainly wasn't happening all by itself when feminists weren't complaining.
Most feminists I know make no such broad claim.

>[RL]
While we're at it, she's *already* made a pro-equality statement here.  
ie, the laws are [and should be] unbiased by gender in custody cases.  

>[HG]
Talk is *cheap*.

She claimed that men have an equal chance in custody, not just that 
the laws are unbiased.  Can you see the difference?

[RL]
You're the one who is all worked up about her talk.
She said that the law had been changed to give men an equal chance.  I wouldn't
expect that to mean that society was going to change overnight and make judges
award custody 50/50.  You've got an equal chance by the law.  Then you gotta go
fight with society's mind-set.  Sound familiar?

>[HG]
Very different criteria were used for the statements.  By the "logic" of
statement 2) women had equality after the EEO was passed in 1964.  The
double standards show, in *my* opinion, that MacKinnon is not honest.
The EEO of 1964 out-lawed discrimination against women, but MacKinnon 
claimed in 1987 that no difference happened.  Then she goes to say
that because the custody laws were changed then men have "equal chance."

Don't you see that as a double standard?

[RL]
Was her claim that custody had improved in real-terms for men but that pay for
women had not?
Send me the whole text if that's what you think, and I'll agree and shut up.

What I see:
The real take-home pay in 1987 was the same (or maybe worse) despite the law.
The same law gives men an equal chance at custody.

I interepreted the statement about custody as a reason [sop, if you want] so
that men would see the need for doing more.


#[CM]
#She becomes 
#something to be used by him, especially, an object for his sexual use.

>[HG]
A similar attack can be used against every form of employment because
most employers look for profit by using other people.  The
solution for the 19'th century sweat shops was not going back to non-
industrial society, but regulations.  Out-lawing of Playboy, as 
MacKinnon wants, will be a step backward.  The mafia will be quite
a happy with that, for the same reasons the Prohibition helped the
mafia so much, but MacKinnon doesn't even realize that.

>[RL]
So do you want to regulate what can and can't be in Playboy?  

>[HG]
NO.

The regulation of the textile industry working condition tried to prevent
sweat-shop style working conditions, not to say what can be written
on a T shirt.

Regulation can reduce the exploitation on the porno industry, 
and quite a few people (e.g. Califia and COYOTE) had made the 
point long before MacKinnon posted her "analysis."

[RL]
You say no, but then suggest regulation to reduce exploitation.  If I didn't
know better, I'd think it was double-speak.:-)
I assume you are speaking of consent forms and the like.
But this does not address the "problem" MacKinnon is concerned about:
The unequal treatment of women as sex objects, ie more often than men.


[Deleted one-sidedness discussion as it's covered elsewhere.]

[Agreed Free speech del'd.  HG sez MacKinnon is saying sumpin' new; RL don't.]


>[RL]
that _Playboy_ really shouldn't exist in that better world we all yearn for.>

>[HG]
1) Please put me out of yours "all."

>[RL]
:-)  :-)   You want I should kill ya?  :-)  :-)

>[HG]
No, just create your own commune and run there your experiments
with people who want to be there.

[RL]
No thanks.  I'll stick around and make sure the world is one I can live in.
As I expect you to.


>[RL]
I should explain that in my world you would be perfectly free to look at
playboy all you wanted,... I just think it unlikely that there would be 
as much demand for porno.

>[HG]
You will be surprised.

>[RL]
By better world, I'm thinking of one where nudity and pornography are not an
issue because it's no big deal because people aren't hung up about it from
illogical training.

>[HG]
There would always be fantasies that porno can supply.


[RL]
Hey, I've got no problem with that.  My prediction was that with more equality,
and more mutual respect between men and women, and more frank discussion, etc
people will be happier with reality and fantasize less.


>[RL]
civil rights of sexual minorities
(presumably gay, lesbian, bisexual, and polyamorous [tried real hard not to
miss any, probably did])

>[HG]
What about S&M people?  

>[RL]
Damn.  Knew I missed somebody.  Sorry.

>[HG]
Will they have any right to play as they damn like in your perfect world?

>[RL]
Yep.  Consenting adults who want to hurt each other and enjoy being hurt is
fine by me.  S&M seems kinda sick to me, but I'm not gonna get in their way

>[HG]
30 years ago good liberals said something like "homosexuals seem kinda 
sick to me, but I'm not gonna get in their way;" today the good
liberals (and vanilla gays...) preserve the attitude to S&M.

Do you have any guess why I don't want to be in your "perfect world"?


[RL]
Not really.  I've made it clear that things that I don't like that are none of
my business are just that.  none of my business.


>[HG]
I bet that in a violence-free world there will be more S&M.

[RL]
Maybe.  Maybe more S&M would CAUSE less violence.


>[HG]
It is one thing to ignore a group with a just cause, and another
to ignore a group which its causes help your causes.

>[RL]
But they all do that.  

>[HG]
I'm well known all over the net as an MCP, and I still fight in 
talk.abortion for choice-for-women every now and then.


[RL]
That's nice, but every now and then isn't very often, and I suspect not many
MCP's (other than you and me) do that very often.

>[RL]
When was the last time the gay rights supporters helped
feminist causes that would help them?

>[HG]
Check soc.motss sometimes.

I would, but alt.feminism is already taking too much time.  :-)
-- 
"TANSTAAFL"     lynch@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.feminism