From: bev@opusc.csd.scarolina.EDU (Beverly Huntsberger)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Women warriors and male myths
Date: 9 Oct 92 16:03:09 GMT
Organization: Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia

In <1an2f0INNdlm@agate.berkeley.edu> bickis@skmath2.pa.dec.com (M. Bickis) writes:

>>|>I maintain that society,
>>|> and consequently all of us, will be better served if these myths are
>>|> *promoted* rather than derided.

>In article <1ad7drINNjj5@agate.berkeley.edu> blchapma@eos.ncsu.edu (BEKKI LYN)
>writes in reply :
>>
>>Tell that to all those women who died in the witch persecutions for
>>4 centuries.  They died for some other person's ideal (or myth if
>>you prefer).  Tell that to all women who now are living with such
>>low self-esteem, or get beaten, battered, and broken for not living
>>up to someone else's ideal.

MB writes:
>thing.  I was talking about a particular gender myth---that men are to
>be courageous and protective whereas women are to be nurturing and
>nonthreatening.  Burned "witches" and battered wives are not the
>consequence of this myth.

First, the segregation of "protective" vs. "nurturing" traits is a
blatant concoction.  Second, you fail to understand that any woman has
the right to be fully human, which includes possessing her own courage
as well as any other emotion whether or not it is deemed by you to be
feminine.  Thirdly, it is quite likely that many witches burned and
many wives are battered because they do possess qualities which have
been determined by SOME men to be qualities which women "should not"
possess because they are of the domain of masculine traits. Therefore
by supporting the "rightness" of these concocted gender "rules", you
feed the violence.

>>The more people make passive victims out of themselves, the more they
>>get abused.  Therefore with such violence, we will see a continuation
>>of the males being the dominators and the women being the victims.

>dismiss either one).  The view that you seem to be espousing is that
>unless you act tough, people will walk all over you.  Women have *not*
...

The statement was made that being a passive victim seems to promote
the abuse.  In it's original intent, I agree with that statement.
Your interpretation of that is that "unless you act tough, ..." you
promote the abuse. What you have missed is the potential of
"assertive" behavior which is based on the concept of equal regard,
basic rights, and is neither passive nor aggressive ("tough"). If you
are not familiar with the real definition of assertiveness you
wouldn't realize that. In other words, you cannot equate non-passive
to blood-thirsty.

>broader perspective, the gains that women have made in the last two
>decades have been IMHO due no less to men's sense of justice than to any
>power plays that women's groups have made.

The same concept is often bombasted about by white liberals trying to
salvage some credit for the liberation of blacks. Frankly, I 've heard
a lot of resentment from civil rights leaders lately that whites are
too busy crowing about what they've done for blacks to notice what
blacks are actually trying to get done. I think it makes a good analogy.

As long as you continue to rely on your "sense of justice" (otherwise
known as The Higher Moral Ground), you will fail to recognise women's own
"sense" as equally valid and deserving of the same respect. I believe
that it is due to many women's sense of compassion and our love of peace
that our self-assertion has not been much more violent.

We are all creating the future together. We have seen from the past that
ideas don't work if they are not truly felt and believed in one's own
heart and soul. For that reason, your ideas may speak of what may serve
your own needs but regarding others, they alone speak for themselves.


--
--

Bev Huntsberger		bev@grover.csd.scarolina.edu
			The University of SOUTH Carolina

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