From: farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf)
Subject: Re: men's issues vs. women's issues
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: 27 Jul 92 14:45:33 GMT

To the moderators:  If this is too flamey, I can tone it down.  I
really am pissed about this post, though.

In article <14odc7INN7s6@agate.berkeley.edu> uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Robert Coleman) writes:
I've deleted quite a bit.

>	It's very easy to look at "the enemy" and see only their
>advantages, especially if you're not interested enough to ask them
>how they feel.  It's human not to try to look through someone else's
>eyes; everyone feels that they have enough of their own problems
>without trying to understand someone else's.  It's easy to ignore
>your own advantages and concentrate on the things about your life
>that your don't like.

This sounds suspiciously to me like the "white man's burden."  How
difficult it is to be in a position of power, how limiting that
position is.

I agree to some extent, but it angers me that women are supposed to
have so much sympathy for the power that men as a class can abuse.

>	Contrariwise, I feel that women's point of view has been
>expostulated upon endlessly for 20+ years; it's only recently that
>some men have gained the ability to look within themselves and
>discover that being a man isn't all it's cracked up to be.  It's easy
>to go with the simple "Well, there's *lots* of talk about women's
>problems, and almost no talk about men's problems; where there's
>smoke, there's fire, right?" explanation, but part of the problem is
>that men aren't permitted to "smoke".

"Women's point of view has been expostulated upon endlessly..."  By
whom?  By women, by women writing, talking, working together.  By
women losing the fight for the ERA, losing political races.  Fighting
like hell.  Not by men.  I've been reading Marcia Cohen's _The
Sisterhood_.  Do you know that Betty Friedan nearly missed a
demonstration because her husband had battered her and she didn't want
to be seen in public with a black eye and bruised face?  Where was her
support, from her husband?

And now it seems to me that you're saying, "Look, we (men) listened to
you for 20 years, now it's our (men's) turn."  Did men listen?  Do
women have the same rights that you do?  Our country is on the verge
of outlawing abortion.  Have you been listening to that, are you
helping in that fight?

>	I beg you, give a listen to some of the men who've had a
>chance to do that emotional introspection.  You've heard women's
>views for 20 years.  You live a woman's life.  Give yourself a chance
>to learn something past the stereotypes about men, and maybe you'll
>find that our progress isn't very different, that our problems are
>linked to your problems, and our problems are worth your time for
>that reason if nothing else.

Women listen to men.  Women constantly hear men's views.  Women is
still the "other," where masculine pronouns are generic.  But you
still insist that women should now be quiet (after centuries of being
silent and silenced) and listen to men who have had a time to be
introspective.  Once again, women are asked to put their needs on the
back burner.  Abigail Addams talked to her husband about the need for
women's rights, but the fight against the British and for the rights
of American men were too important to worry about women's rights.  The
fight against slavery was more important than women's rights.  So,
black men received the right to vote (albeit often negated), but women
didn't.  Woman, the eternal care giver.  She has to fight her own
fights and those of everyone else.

Perhaps if more women felt that more men had actually listened to them
(for anything near the 20+ years you stated) and took their worries,
complaints, abuses to heart, you'd find more women willing to believe
you when write of your problems being women's problems.  All I see is
women being told once again that their needs should take second place.


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