From: scottm@intime.intime.COM (Scott Michel)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Dworkin and her positive contributions to feminism?
Date: 11 Sep 92 17:30:06 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: IntelliMED Corporation, Santa Monica, CA

In article <1992Sep11.135003.19159@news.nd.edu> slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen) writes:
>In article <BuE6HA.Dt9@intime.intime.COM> scottm@intime.intime.COM (Scott Michel) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep10.213005.964@news.nd.edu> slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen) writes:
>>>In article <ZEN.92Sep10120207@death.corp.sun.com> zen@death.corp.sun.com (d) writes:
>>[ ... truncated ... ]
>>
[ ... truncated (again) ... ]
>Actually, I think that moderate and less extreme feminists are 
>out there attempting to change perceptions.  You see it out  
>on the net every day.  

Yes, but the net isn't the popular press. Even in the tilted Los Angeles
Times (no they don't report news, they constantly anal-yse it for me),
you don't get anything about the moderate feminists at all.

>As for Dworkin herself, the most disturbing aspect of her writing 
>to me was not so much her rants about sexuality.  I felt while 
>reading her this constant drum in my head "you are woman, you 
>have no free will."  In fact, during her presentation she wrote 
>something to the effect that even if a woman never marries she is 
>still subjected to and under control of the marital slave systems.
>Marriage as slavery may have existed in the past and may very well 
>exist in the global community, but Dworkin is obviously writing to 
>a modern American audience, an audience for which the mechanisms of 
>change are available:  vote, jobs, property rights, courts, laws. 
>I feel that she has taken a "paternalistic" attitude toward women 
>by claiming we are *still* enslaved, but just aren't bright enough 
>to realize it.

Don't know whether or not I could agree with that sentiment at all.
Hypothetically speaking, doesn't a woman exercise free will and makes
a choice when entering into the state of marriage? Is a woman bound
and gagged, and mentally subjugated when entering a state of marriage?
Or rather, does a woman accept a new set of responsibilities when
entering into marriage, just as a man also must?

I know it's an emotionally charged issue, but I do think there is a way 
of balancing the biological, social, and business resposibilities. For 
example, let's take the bill passed yesterday makes maternity leave 
mandatory. Let's also assume that a woman made the choice with her husband
to have a child, regardless of wether or not she wanted to have the child
but more fundamentally they both made a choice to create a family. Is
it fair to a business to hold her job while she cares for an infant? By
the same token, is it fair for my company to be made to hold my job just
because the TransPac fleet is sailing from CA to Hawaii, and I want to do
that? At a fundamental level, both the woman and myself have made a choice
to suspend our business activities for a period of time. It simply requires
one to take responsibility for making a choice.

We've opened the scope of oppurtunity for women, which is a Good Thing.
What has become a Bad Thing is the notion that woment can have their cake
and eat it too, vis a vis having a career and a family too. Each is a
tremendous undertaking, and irrespective of present economic conditions,
each is a seperate and full time endeavour. In fact, a colleague of mine
has a family and a career, but took eight (8!) years off to raise her
family before coming back into her career. I applaud and respect that
because she recognised the choices she made and has taken responsiblity
for them.

BTW: You should know you're debating an Ayn Rand'er. I know most feminists
don't like her, but I've found her philosophy more intellectually appealing
than any others simply because it doesn't require me to reconsile
fundamentally opposite concepts. (A can be non-A at the same time concepts)

>
>Sue Larsen
>slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu

-scottm
Newsgroups: alt.feminism