From: ash@sumex-aim.stanford.edu (David Ash)
Subject: Re: Japanese Women's Lib 
Originator: dash@Xenon.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 01:50:28 GMT

In article <ngxjk-=.sheaffer@netcom.com> sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:

>>	My understanding is that companies there tend to fire women who
>>get married and have children. Japan still has a long way to go in the
>>field of feminism.
>
>Either that, or we've gone a long way down the wrong road, and need
>to switch gears quickly to get back to where they are. It depends
>on whether you think of feminism as 'a great new idea whose time is
>coming', or as 'a relic of outdated Marxist exploitation-thinking
>whose time has gone.'
>
>In any case, keep this in mind: the feminism we are so propagandized
>by here is a PURELY American phenomenon. There are women who call
>themselves "feminists" elsewhere, but the intensity
>and degree of male-bashing we are accustomed to exists NOWHERE else.
>In Europe, Asia, wherever, women are MUCH more into the "feminine"
>traits that feminists despise, and in Europe feminism is regarded
>as a tired old 1960s idea, like the New Left and LSD. Europeans
>can't see what all the fuss was about over Clarence Thomas and
>Anita Hill; her charges, even if true, strike them as something FUNNY, not
>as something horrendous. ONLY here in the U.S. of A. do we portray
>men as the enemy of women, only here do we blather endlessly
>finding 'sex discrimination' and 'sex harassment' in ambiguous
>or even totally innocent situations. It is possible that we, and
>we alone, know what is right and what is wrong in relations between
>the sexes, but when ONE country veers so far from not only its
>cultural neighbors, but all of human history as well, and given that its
>own social institutions are crumbling, well, it strikes me as a
>BIT arrogant to shout (as we do) that "ALL OF THE WORLD, AND ALL
>OF HISTORY, ARE WRONG, AND MUST FOLLOW US!!!!!!!".

Feminism is just as strong in Canada if not more so.  Especially in the
wake of the Marc Lepine shootings in Montreal.  In fact the NDP, the left
wing party which really separates Canada from the U.S., has a policy of
favoring women in selecting its candidates, and it has gained in power in
recent years.  The NDP is therefore a powerful feminist force lacking any
counterpart in the U.S.

My father is being sued by a woman he fired for being incompetent, and because
he's a white man he'll probably lose.  My brother reports that the radical
feminist element on his campus is repeatedly making death threats against those
men they don't like (a group often encompassing all men).  My best friend (a
man) makes the unqualified assertion that "men are the problem (in society)".

No, feminism has a strong toehold in Canada.  The funny thing is that if you're
otherwise right and feminism is a U.S./Canada thing, it would be highly
ironic because the feminists in Canada are among the first to shout about
how different Canada is from the U.S.
-- 
David W. Ash               | "What profits a man if he keeps his eternal soul
ash@sumex-aim.stanford.edu |  when he could have lived life to the full and
HOME: (415) 497-1629       |  been forgiven at the end of it all anyway?"
WORK: (415) 725-3859       |         --David Merritt, a.k.a. THE RED SHARK
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,talk.politics.misc,alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.correct