From: williamt@athena.Eng.Sun.COM (Dances with Drums)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Attack of the Seperatists
Date: 17 Dec 1992 17:20:08 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, CA
Reply-To: williamt@athena.Eng.sun.com (Dances with Drums)
NNTP-Posting-Host: athena

In article <iw.724556720@tosser> iw@tosser.Rational.COM (The_Devine_Dolly) writes:
>
>I do think that because mens experiences growing up in soceity are
>very different to womens, that men cannot fully appreciate the depth
>of hurt women are caused.  So I will continue to claim that you
>can not truly understand.  However I would never claim to understand
>what it is like to be male.
---
	I agree with what you are saying.  What I do find in my experiences
with women of various sorts, be they feminists, lesbians, straight who
are recovering from childhood or adult sexual abuse is the feeling that
their pain is *worse* than mine is for me.  That they have it worse
than me.  

	You have just said you don't claim to understand what it is like to
be a male -- many of the women I have talked with would add "but it isn't
anywhere near the pain I have suffered as a woman."  Then often is added:
"As a result, because my pain and suffering greater, you should do X for
me to compensate."

	This is where I step back and in a stupidly reactionary mode, begin
to attack their experiences as being over-reactive or whatever.  When I
have tried to tell them that they just don't understand men's experience
and tried to put my pain as a male into words, they have some deprecating
remark(s) about what I relate, or at best then say, "well, that may be
your experience, but *most* men are X."  I like that -- they can speak
for most men better than me.


>But what bothers me most, in discussions with anti-feminists, is 
>a constant insistence that feminism is an anti-male movement.

---
	To hot water, cold water may seem pretty "anti-hot".

	
>  To
>me, feminism is a movement about women, for women.
---
	Women do not live in a vacuum separate from men.  If feminism were
to state that women should be making world policy decisions and control
world wealth, it would affect men and the movement is therefore about 
more than "just" women.

    The rise of women in the workforce has not caused a dramatic increase
in the standard of living for most people -- in fact the only segment of
the population that has been financially better off due to this rise are
childless single women.  Men have suffered financially and have lower
standards of living as well as married women or women with children.

	There are fixed assets in the world -- if you have twice as many
people competing for them, then it requires twice as many people
to purchase the same things.  It is fast becomign a rarity to see a
sole-supporter of a family of 4.  Two income household -- something that
used to be a way of bringing in "extra" cash and used to be a way of
"getting ahead", are becoming a requirement to "stay even".

	Anyway, in some ways, I feel qualified to talk about female gender
oppression issues at least more so than the average male.  Case in point
was a men's gathering I attended in So. Cal last May where I wore a 
skirt around the camp.  The attendance was about 80% gay (taken by hand
vote at one of the orientation meetings).  Of the gathering of about 400
men, I was one of two males that chose to wear a skirt at all during
the weekend -- the other guy wore one for about 2 hours -- I wore mine
for most of the weekend.  As a result, most gays assumed I was as well.
Imagine the stereo-typing that goes on with straight folks about me if
most gays stereotype in this manner.  The reactions among the gays were
varied, with at least one being angry that I was sending off the
wrong messages and that if I wasn't gay, I shouldn't be wearing a skirt.
I've gotten alot of other messages of that type -- like I shouldn't
be wearing my hair in a braid, since that is a woman's style -- this
comment from women and men.  One of the women who really put me down
for that was a stripper, which I thought was an interesting dicotomy.

	Anyway, it goes on and on -- everyone claiming that anyone who is
not of their group can't possibly understand what it is like to be
of that group while doing the same things they complain of being subjected
to -- to others.

-wat-
--
1935 will go down in history.  For the first time, a civilized nation has
full gun registration.  Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient,
and the world will follow our lead into the future.
                         --Adolf Hitler