From: farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf)
Subject: Re: Women as Victims/Backlas/AA
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 02:31:58 GMT

In article <1992Oct11.232218.1@cc.curtin.edu.au> nmurrayr@cc.curtin.edu.au writes:
>   True. And I doubt very much that there's anyone reading this who would
>dispute the fact (oh, all right, there is _one_, but he only does it to annoy
>[to paraphrase Douglas Adams]). Apparently you haven't yet caught on to the
>fact that the entire discussion is about whether or not sexism, in the guise of
>AA, is a valid answer to this, or whether AA proponents are guilty of forcing
>on us the very thing they're claiming to be combatting. The latter is
>hypocrisy in my book.

No, I know that some people want to say that any preferential
treatment is sexism or racism.  What the discussion really is about is
how preferential treatment of white hetero men was bad in the past,
but good in the present and future when young white hetero men benefit
from it.

>   Sexism in reverse is still sexism, whatever else you want to call it. You
>can attempt to cover up its true nature by hanging fancy names like "AA" on it,
>but deep down they're all just euphemisms. It's still just plain sexism.
>It would be better if feminists were a little more honest about this, but then
>porcine quadrupeds may attain orbital velocity.

It, of course, depends on your definition of sexism.  If one sees
sexism as institutional power, discrimination against men by a few
colleges or businesses is not sexism.

I'm not even sure that the AA I've seen practiced is discrimination.
The only kind of AA that I've seen in both a national lab and here at
Stanford has been an effort to increase the number and diversity of
applicants.  Before the lack of funds freezed hiring, all I saw of AA
is that one woman and a few non-Anglo men were interviewed for jobs
and Anglo men were hired.  (I'm speaking from my personal experiences,
of course, and not for Stanford.)

Even if I do agree, yes, it's sexist, what then?  If men or whites or
Anglos are getting into the better law schools (whatever) on virtue of
better scores and grades, then everything is equal, so we are happy
with that?

Let's take a person who comes from a poor background.  Student X goes
to a public high school where fewer than 5% of the students go on to
college.  S/he goes to a state college by working at a Kmart and on
loans.  S/he applies to law school, takes the LSAT, does well, but not
top-notch.  This person is up against the son or daughter (student Y)
of a judge, someone who went to private schools, a private college,
worked in the summers at a law office for experience, has a higher
LSAT score and higher grades, and has recommendations from lawyers and
other judges.  Whom do you choose?  And if student X is Latino, or
black, or female, does make any difference?  Is student Y such a
better choice because of the experience in a law office, the better
grades and LSAT score?

>   It comes down to this: How can any claim to "equality" be taken seriously
>when the solution proffered advocates inequality? Is it any wonder that many
>men (myself included) distrust feminism (as practised) when it suggests that
>men be deprived of rights in favour of women? Do you wonder, then, why some
>men suspect that many women only call themselves "feminists" because it's
>likely to get them a free ride home? Because it's likely to get them a
>high-paying job without them having to put in the years of ground-work that
>men have usually had to do to get to the same position?

Do you see that happening?  I haven't.  In fact, in the time I've been
a grad student here at Stanford, I've seen fewer women entering
engineering.  If things are getting so much better, where are the
women?  Are women becoming profs, receiving tenure?  Very few.  I've
attended conferences, meetings, dinners, lunches where women were so
few, most speakers greeted the "gentlemen."  Where are the women who
have managed to leap-frog past those years of groundwork that only men
have to do?

We must be living in different worlds, because I don't see it.  And I
deliberately look for women, lesbigays, non-Anglos or non-Asians in
engineering.  I'm looking for them, but they don't seem to be here.

If there were so much discrimination for women going on, wouldn't we
see some effects by now?  Wouldn't we see a lot more women in the
government, as judges, as professors, as chairs of businesses, as
CEOs?

>   Oh dear. You almost had it there, too, but then you blew it. Of *course*
>AA is preferential treatment. You seem to have completely missed the point:
>that neither I (nor, probably, Robert) are trying to claim that preferential
>treatment was a Good Thing when men were benefitting from it, any more than
>it is when women benefit from it.

So, as I said in another post.  You'd be perfectly happy to be greeted
by a panel of black lesbian women every damn time you went for a
college interview, a job, a job promotion?  You'd be assured that your
superior grades, scores, and performance would win out?

>   Of course, if you're only out for revenge (perhaps disguised as "redress
>for past wrongs done to women"), as seems at least possible from your last
>paragraph, then you're unlikely to listen to any other point of view. It would,
>however, be preferable if you could be at least honest about it. Even with
>yourself.

And I'd think more highly of you if you would give an alternative to
AA which doesn't seem to be more of the preferential treatment for
white hetero men and more of the shaft for the rest of us.

I haven't seen you or Scheaffer (a request Fitch has made) or the man
who suggested that white men, by virtue of their "genetics and
upbringing," are better suited for success come up with anything other
than AA is sexist.

If you're ten steps ahead of me because of past preferential treatment
and then you suddenly yell, "Now everyone is equal and we will all be
judged the same," pardon me if I don't see you as anything more than a
protector of your privilege.

Xref: sparky alt.feminism:2468 soc.men:17635