From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: Re: Boycotts (was Re: Why are many low-income women fat?)
Summary: I HATE NETLAG 
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 03:40:44 GMT

In article <BzvzLz.FL9@news.cso.uiuc.edu> levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine) writes:
>rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:
>
>>	I tend to get joint problems when I put on weight, and
>>	I feel shortness of breath and the whole deal.  Slim, I feel
>>	wonderful--full of energy, active, better ableto study and 
>>	concentrate.  
>
>You may feel that way, but remember many people do not. I feel *more*
>wonderful when I *do* pursue a healthy lifestyle, but not when I
>try to diet. 


	I never said otherwise.  My parents are very healthyT?q{
	despite their weight--their blood pressure and cholestorol
	are both very low.  Dieting, for them, would be a long and
	grueling experiance with few health benefits, and probably
	more negatives.


>>	You're right.  I find voluntary ignorance revolting.  When I'm
>>	I _do_ find it disgusting--I cannot imagine feeling any other
>>	way towards these people.  They remind me, very much, of Joe
>>	Bully on the playground who bullies the other kids with his
>>	pre-mature growth and then, when they've all grown too and
>>	ignore him, cries about how unfair life is.  

	[those who arejoinging in late should join in further
	back in the thread--the above is very condensed]

>>	_blame_ the rest of _us_ for _their_ failure.  And it can be
>>	no one elses than theirs!

>>	I almost compulsively state things using very strong
>>	wording and fanatic presentation, and I am aware of this,
>>	but it is the only way I know to get across the urgency I 
>>	feel on certain problems.  So take the above with a grain
>>	of salt--I do feel *sorry* for them, but that doesn't mean
>>	I feel _responsible_ for their problems or any desire to
>>	pay for their failure.

>Yamanari (is this how I should address you)? I am aware that you feel

	The alias is to aid friends in locating me.  For this reason,
	I have made my .plan available:  Robert Stephen Rodgers


>strongly about these matters. But your language is not
>necessarily the most effective way to present your case.


	To be honest, I understand this.  Generally, I prefer 
	understatement.  It is a testament to the urgency that
	this issue gives me that I don't compulsively fill the
	message with "I think" "I feel" "It seems" "to me" 
	"for me" "I consider" "it appears/looks/seems/etc"
	etc. etc. etc.  


>I feel very strongly about most of the things I write about; and I
>am trying very hard to convey the strength of my feelings without
>alienating people unnecessarily. 


	Good point.


>End result -- you may not have
>ended up *agreeing* with the things I say, but I'm sure you've
>come away with more respect and understanding for feminist positions --
>or at least *my* feminist positions -- because of them.  


	The best thing to gain respect is respectable--that is,
	strong or well thought out--arguments.

	OTOH, I find your arguments a refreshing break from the
	shrill nonsense that I am getting elsewhere on this same 
	thread.  I'm surprised someoneisn't screaming baby killer.

	:-)


>Of course I have a chronological advantage -- maybe about 20 more
>years on this earth, *trying* to learn how to write. But don't worry -- a
>chronological challenge is self-correcting. :-)  


	I heard "Chronologically inclined" onthe radio recently
	in a *serious* news report.  Made me feel kind of ill.


>And, by the way, in my 43 years I've faced adversities you couldn't
>begin to imagine -- and as much as I've faced, I have a friend who faced
>many times more. But people who have been through hard experiences and
>faced them successfully, typically have more sympathy with those who
>can't face them than you do (although, of course, not unlimited
>sympathy).


	Some people just happen to have more sympathy, I am not
	one of them.  I have made it my task to be honest with
	myself--if I do nothing else--and I have seen situations
	that I would like to pin on others ["you didn't push me
	hard enough!"  "You didn't encourage me"] but refused to
	do so.  It takes a little practice, but I've found it to
	be quite effective.  I have yet to blame society for
	anything.


	[good teacher bad learning, bad teacher good learning deleted]

>Here at this university, there are teachers who manage to get on the
>wavelength of originally unmotivated students *without* giving them a
>free ride. 


	there are a few here, too--but most of them are still
	(what I consider) a little too easy to influence.


>I know I was more on the wavelength of my spring 1992 class than I was
>on that of the fall 1992 class. And my spring students *did* do better.
>They were more willing to seek help.


	True enough for math--but try to apply that to something
	like what I take, like languages.  If students do not keep
	up and do not practice,they will require hours and hours
	of special help to catch up, if that's at all possible.
	Unfair to the teacher--teachers shouldn't have to correct
	the laziness of their students. 

>>	It has to be a two sided affair.  You can't teach someone
>>	that doesn't want to learn, no matter how badly you wish to do
>>	so.
>
>You can't teach someone who doesn't want to learn, but you can motivate
>people to want to learn. Not all the time, of course...


	Agreed.


>>>By the way, I would like to hear from people on this group who've worked
>>>with teenagers, particularly female teenagers. Have you been able to 
>>>convince them that studying is important? What methods did you use?
>
>>	Why the focus on young women?
>
>There is no intellectual reason for this focus. I brought up *female*
>teenagers in specific, for two reasons:
>
>1) This is a discussion group (supposedly) focused on women's issues.
>
>2) For personal, emotional reasons, it particularly hurts me (in many
>cases) to see bright young women ruining their lives in this manner. 
>I guess I tend to see them as the daughters I never had.


	My question was more rhetorical so that I could point out
	what I later did, but your response is quite reasonable.


>>Something I have never understood is how feminists can miss what
>>is so painfully obvious to me:  You cannot change something as
>>entrenched in society as, say, the self-centered mindset of youth
>>that allows them to blow off their duty to learn by focusing on
>>only 1/2 of the problem.  
>
>Entrenched? It's amazing how many institutions and values that seemed
>entrenched, in 1992, will have disappeared by 2022.


	Wishful thinking.  I have seen very good arguments that
	show economics as a prime mover behind the civil rights 
	movement and not civil disobedience and protest.  These
	types of arguments are a lot more concrete than the nebulous
	arguments that are based on guilt, giving in and whatnot,
	and I have seen similar ones on advances in womens rights.
	The only real concrete achievement of the people who claim
	to be the workers of equality are the fanatical rape laws
	(mono-sex definitions of rape, reducing the defendants right
	to a fair trial..) and the abortion laws.  While these may or
	not be noble things, it is very hard to show that these 
	organizations achieved anything but a lot of empty litigation
	and handwaving.  The real drive behind getting women into 
	the workforce (which I consider the biggest single 
	factor in social equality) was economics.  


 
>>	Focusing on young women only is pointless--not only will you
>>	be fighting the mindset that they hold, you will be indirectly
>>	fighting that of the young men around them who they see 
>>	"getting away" with not doing anything and just gliding through.
>
>So you think the best way to focus on people, to help them, is to let
>them "get away" with things? 


	No, I think the focus should be on _everyone_ in the minimal
	group, which happns to be students, not +female students.

	Otherwise, failure is assured.

>You're right, though, that educational personnel should behave
>impartially with their students. 

	I have observed that they tend to do anything but,though.
	
	In grade school, sexism was rampant--the girls were favored,
	the boys were disbelieved, assumed liars, and labelled for
	mistreatment.  In Jr. high, the same--but since we finally
	got one or two male teachers, we saw classes with equal 
	treatment and classes (run by women) still stacked against
	the boys.

	In HS, I didn't see much of anything--most of my teachers
	were between 24 and 36, and many were still students.  That
	was a special case--from what I've heard, normal HS is 
	pretty much even bigotry on both sides of the table, with
	some male teachers going over the ropes in a sad attempt
	to impress the girls and build their egos (if not fill their
	beds).

	College is different.  The teachers (outside ofthe voodoo
	departments) are generally there because they enjoy what they do and
	want to continue to learn and research and so on.  They
	have preferences for individuals which do not seem based
	on gender at all. (Race, looks, etc., though...) 

	In WMST, SOCY, AMST--I saw plenty of anti-male *sexism*--
	it can be labelled nothing else.  

	I have never seen sexism on the job, although I've always
	worked entry or unimportant (computer work, data entry,
	WP, DTP, whatever) stuff with no politics.
-- 
       "If you can't eat sand, why the hell are you living in a desert?"
      Only a true failure tries to hid his own faults by blaming the world.
     Equality is a delusion, suffering is a fairy tale and God is a fantasy.
       Blaming society for inequality is like blaming the sky for rain.
Newsgroups: alt.feminism