From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: soc.men
Subject: Re: Japanese Women's Lib
Date: 14 Apr 92 06:47:51 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Livermore CA

In article <ngxjk-=.sheaffer@netcom.com> sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
>In article <1992Apr11.033859.6114@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) 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:coming', or as 'a relic of outdated Marxist exploitation-thinking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.'

	I don't think you really know what feminism is. There are lots
of women who consider themselves feminists who do not think that men
are necessarily evil and that women should simply take over. My mother
considers herself a feminist and she does NOT hate men. She considers
feminism about having opportunities available for women.

	I don't think that Japanese repression is anything to be proud
of.

: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

	By who??? Feminism is alive and well, like it or not. Not
being a man-hater does not mean that one is not a feminist. Come off
it, bud.

: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

	Maybe they are more accustomed to flirtation than we are :-).
I think that European commentators may have misunderstood the
Hill-Thomas affair.

	For my part, I think that Clarence Thomas was a boor to
discuss the exploits of Long Dong Silver to someone who clearly didn't
enjoy it.

: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

	BALONEY, as I have attempted to show repeatedly.

:own social institutions are crumbling, well, it strikes me as a

	Like how?

:BIT arrogant to shout (as we do) that "ALL OF THE WORLD, AND ALL
:OF HISTORY, ARE WRONG, AND MUST FOLLOW US!!!!!!!".

:::   The amazing thing (to me, at least) is how incredibly *happy* so 
:::   many women seem there, especially the younger ones. (Maybe they're
:::   happy because they know it's the MEN who will end up having to
:::   work so devilishly hard!) I have *never* seen anyplace where the
:::   women laugh and enjoy themselves with such abandon. I don't THINK
:::   you can fake that, it seems too real, too spontaneous and widespread.
::
::	And how can one be sure that this is a case of seeing what one
::wants to see?
:
:The laughter of Japanese women that echoes throughout public places was
:to me the most unexpected thing I encountered during my trip to Japan,     
:expecting to see the American stereotype of Oriental women as
:being some sort of miserable robots. Sure, you can call it a

	They could all be hopelessly giggly airheads.

	Somehow, Margaret Mead's _Coming of Age in Samoa_ comes to mind.

:case of "seeing what one wants to see", but I don't know how you
:could cause all of them to "fake it" so convincingly, and keep doing
:so everywhere, all the time.

	If a lot of them have been made into giggly airheads, then
this is a non sequitur.

::	Looking at this account, I can tell what Robert Sheaffer's
::ideal of womanhood is -- women subservient to him and like-minded men
::such as Chuck Herrick. To exalt the ideal of women being submissive to
::men is clearly a form of misogyny. It is just like exalting the ideal
::of "good" black people as those who are submissive to white people. It
::is rather surprising to realize that the two sexes are actually very
::much alike, at least mentally, so that's why expecting women to be
::subservient to men is unfair to both sexes.
::
::	This is a remarkable view for a self-proclaimed Libertarian.
:
:Well, the choice of the word "subservient" is yours. What is an
:undeniable fact of biology is that males are, ON AVERAGE, more
:aggressive then women. (I assume that I do not need to explain

	MAYBE. But I seriously doubt it.

:to you about two populations having different average values
:of a given trait, but with considerable overlap). Human experience
:shows that it IS possible to build a stable male/female relationship

	Stable? Have you ever heard of the "battle of the sexes"? Why
in the world were ancient Greek killers depicted as Amazon killers? It
is as if the men felt that they had to keep the women under control,
as if they were not naturally submissive.

:with the male playing the more aggressive and dominant role. It
:does NOT give us any examples of the reverse, and there are 
:excellent reasons for believing that it is not a long-term
:stable model. Even in same-sex couples there is generally a
:"dominant" and "submissive" partner: surely you, Loren, who lecture

	Do you have direct experience of same-sex couples??? You could
always hop on the CalTrain at the San Jose Amtrak station and an hour
and a half later, you will be in a place with lots of gay people to
observe at first hand.

:us on that subject, are not unaware of this!  Why should
:opposite-sex couples be different?
:
:Now, it is surely true that nobody HAS to
:be "subservient" to anybody, or even "submissive"; it's all
:voluntary. A woman who wants to live by herself is free to do so.

	"Always free to do so"? Is breaking up a marriage the easiest
thing to do? Is finding a suitable partner? Sheesh.

:A woman who wants to dominate a man is welcome to try her hand
:at it; indeed, given the degree to which American gender has been
:bent, she is actually quite likely to find one. Whether or not
:this leads to a lifelong union is a risk she must assume; should
:the marriage break up when she is in her 40s or later, the man
:will have a far better chance of finding a suitable mate than
:she will. Surely you have not failed to note the great likelihood

	Maybe she might not want to get married.

:that an uncompromising feminist will grow old alone; go to any New Age
:gathering here in the Bay Area, and you will find it filled with
:unattached, intense, and aging Goddess-worshippers, perusing every kind
:of "psychic" flim-flam and "wholistic" twaddle in a desperate
:search for meaning in their lives. A woman I used to be going

	And let us not forget about the housewives who get drunk and
take Valium and become Fundie-type religious maniacs.

:with once said to me, "Oh, that old lady next door is so dependent on
:her husband, just like a typical woman of her generation."
:And I wanted to reply (but held my tongue), "Well, SHE is still
:married, you are not." So it is all voluntary, you see. We all make

	Maybe that one-time girlfriend of yours feels she would rather
select a more suitable partner, rather than be stuck with someone
unpleasant.

:our choices, and then we must live with the consequences of them.
:If a woman chooses to masculize herself, she is free to do so;
:surely no reasonable person could disagree. But I think that
:contemporary feminists are doing her a disservice by presenting
:it as the ONLY reasonable course of action, and as one without
:cost or risk.