From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: equality of despair (was: Why are many low-income women fat? (was Re: Separate but Equal?)
Summary: Life's bad all over
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:12:10 GMT

(part 1 of 2, part two got out ahead of this one)
--------
rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:
> and >>> as well as indents (new)
 
while in article <Bzq9q5.78w@news.cso.uiuc.edu> levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Le
vine) writes:
>> and new> (latest)
---------
        To show the attribution:
 
>>me>     Blha blah blah.  Men have *exactly* the same fear.  "Are my
>>me>     breasts too small?" "Is my penis too small?" "Am I too fat?"
>>me>     "Am I too fat?" (harder for men, BTW, since women canbe fleshy--
>>me>     men are supposed to be *hard* which cannot be accomplished
>>me>     just by dieting) "Is my nose too big?" (both) blah blah..
>len>
>len>Of course men have the same fears. Does this make such fears OK?
 
>me   Yes, that is precisely what it does.  Every person has
>me   these fears -- people who feel them are not freaks.
 
new>I am not saying that these fears will ever be *eliminated*. But I
new>think they are encouraged in this culture to an inappropriate extent.
new>Once again, read Redbook...
 
        <starting to look like a cascade>
 
        I can't agree because we obviously define appropriate
        differently.  The culture defines "appropriate" and thus
        the *media* might be said to overly encourage
        a fixation on beauty, but a *culture* cannot do such a thing.
 
 
>>>     I think it was.  A woman does not *have* to submit to judgement
>>>     by appearance, while if she could not keep an adequate home,
>>>     she was liable to be divorced (with no alternate means of
>>>     support, other than leeching).
>>
>>A woman might be divorced (then or now) if she does not keep an adequate
>>standard of appearance.
 
> Men too, but I think the incidence of both is pretty low.
 
new>I think you're an optimist.
 
        I think that the source of most divorces is basic incompatibility--
        most divorces happen too early on to be the result of a change in
        looks, simply because it takes >5 years (at least) for any really
        significant change (other than, say, rapid weight gain, crippling
        injury, whatever).  
 
 
>>And many women nowadays are still in situations
>>where their economic options are extremely limited.
 
>       Want to back this one up?  None of that $.69/$1, please,
>       as we all know the validity of *that* statistic.
 
new>I am not talking about discrimination, which is a separate issue. Just
new>the fact that many women don't realize that acquiring a job skill is
new>important;
 
        True.  Feminists should probably be spending their time
        promoting the importance of job skills instead of blaming-
        men-skills, but that's not the present reality.  In fact, I can't
        ever recall anything even *similiar* to self-sufficiency mentioned
        in any of the WMST classes I took/sat in on.
 
 
new> and these women end up with small children, no man, and
new> no leisure to acquire the skill they should have acquired before they
new> acquired the children.
 
 
        [my opinions of people who have children that can't handle them,
        already given, ommitted]
 
 
new> In particular, I am a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois.
new> There are too many women in my classes who obviously aren't serious
new> about their education; 
 
        To contrast this:  In classes that serious people take, that
        is, classes other than psychology, sociology, WMST, 
        and the other voodoo "I really shouldn't be in college
        anyway so I'm taking emotion stuff" classes--women
        that I've met have been some of the most serious and
        dedicated students out there.  Many of the hardest workers
        have been women.  This is not my complaint--my complaint
        is their approach is both time wasting and ineffective.  They
        have the dedication, just not (from my point of view) the
        willingness to commit/hard-hittingness necessary to do
        the job right.
 
 
new>who feel they are cute enough they don't
new> need to learn anything. It really breaks my heart. I know a decade
new> from now, many of these women will be on the welfare rolls...
 
        Good thing we voted for a democratic president to expand
        benefits, huh.
 
 
new> Of course, this is just my personal experiences. But you said you
new> did not want statistics.
 
 
        Well, I didn't want to hear the old "Women make $.69 for every
        $1 a man makes!" because it has been clearly, repeatedly
        debunked.  
 
 
>>But part of feminism *is* educating women to take advantage of
>>options the society does offer them. In particular, I think that even
>>women who plan on being homemakers should have other job skills, so
>>they are not too economically dependent.
 
>>I also think it unfortunate that romanticism is not highly valued.
 
> I find it a bit more disturbing that certain kinds of
> romanticism are still held on to, even if no man can live
> up to them.
 
new> There is romanticism and romanticism. I suspect we would be in
new> agreement on which kinds are reasonable.
 
        It's funny to agree, but I suspect we would.  You
        cite redbook for appearance pushing, I cite 
        Harlequin (sp?) and the rest of the romance 
        novel crowd for my side.
 
 
>About "scraping the bottom of the bucket"; I wish you had made
>it more clear, that your use of this language to describe
>.people with limited social options, in no way reflected your own views.
                 ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^
 
        Much better way to put it.  Thank you.
 
>>You seem to be saying, that sexual attraction is only in proportion to
>>beauty. I don't think so; if this were true, we would all be sleeping
>>with 15-year-old Mexican schoolgirls, or snow leopards.
 
> Everyone has their own little fetishes.  Some of mine
>are ghastly thinness, long hair and self-centeredness.
>What is important is, outside of these, what I find attractive
>is what is generally considered attractive--health, beauty,
>etc. etc.
 
new>Your preference for "ghastly thinness" and "self-centeredness" does
new>not seem a preference for health and beauty.
 
        Right--that was my point.  Much like a hunchback isn't
        the sign of good health, or a long neck isn't the sign of anything,
        or real-pale skin can be the sign of illness (nut not health).  
 
 
new>Some people are naturally extremely thin; one of my closest friends is.
new>But many young women are ghastly thin, because they have eating
new>disorders...
 
        Last I read, men are starting to get up there in reported 
        eating disorders--and I suspect underreporting for this is
        MUCH higher than it is on the woman side.
 
        <read: this doesn't change the fact that it's depressing,
        but it does seem to say that there isn't much that can
        be done to correct the situation any more than you can
        teach people to be purely logical or whatever>
 
 
>>For more expert information on human sexual fantasies, I suggest
>>you post to alt.sex for individual accounts, and written references.
 
> Read it.  It strikes me that a lot of what you read on a.sex.*
> is either pure fiction or adulterated in some way.  It certainly
> isn't real life.
 
 
new> I am not saying that the stories on alt.sex are true; just that
new> they represent the *fantasies* of the persons posting on them.
 
        Lesse, judging from the last 4 months, the big thing on 
        alt.sex was a discussion of homosexuality, an airplane
        raping a woman, and penis size (always a thread).  
 
        :-)
        
>I've never read alt.sex; I OD'ed on reader-written sexual fantasies a
>long time ago. But when I read them, I did note, that they are much
>less standardized than people think.
 
        We must be reading different types of stories.  Most of them
        can be summed up in a dozen or two cliches.
 
<continue with #2>
RSR

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			Equality is a delusion.
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