From: bickis@skmath3.usask.ca (M. Bickis)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Net discussion styles and gender
Date: 14 Dec 1992 21:47:51 GMT
Organization: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

Some comments on replies to my posting:

>>A few months ago I received a lot of flak for raising the possibility
>>that the essence of gender differences was that masculine=agressive,
>>feminine=nurturing.  Now I see many postings, mostly from women, which
>>suggest that the male style of net-talk is argumentative,
>>"point-counterpoint" whereas the female style is more supportive and
>>sharing. Is my earlier hypothesis then vindicated?  

David desJardins <uunet!idacrd!desj@ncar.UCAR.EDU> replies:
>I don't think that anyone questions that men tend to be more aggressive
>than women in our society.  The point on which you received a lot of
>flak was when you claimed that this (1) was an inherent difference
>between the sexes, and (2) that this difference could be used to justify
>discrimination, rather than being an unfortunate effect of
>discrimination.

Janis Maria Cortese <cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu> writes:

>For ME, the thing I found irritating about your posts about how men are
>one way and women are the other was that you claimed it was *innate* and
>defended it on the basis of, "My myth says so," or at least it seemed
>that way.    [...]
>Mike, men and women DO statistically behave
>differently.  I'm not going to disagree with you on that.  What I'm
>saying -- and I think what many women are saying -- is that this is
>CULTURALLY caused, and not due to a myth, or a hormone.

Anna Lubiw <alubiw@maytag.uwaterloo.ca> writes:

>You wanted to extend your observations about
>how men and women behave to what men and women "ought" to do (namely
>to follow the distinct roles that society has laid out for them).
>If anyone had suggested that it is a valuable distinction imposed
>by society that men "argue" and women "discuss", and that we should adhere
>to these distinctions--then you'd have seen some vociferous disagreement.

These replies say similar things, so I will comment on them in one posting.

On the issue of the difference being innate or inherent:  I have an open mind
on this question.  I don't see why one has to come down strongly on one
side of the nature/nurture controversy.  My gut feeling is that it is
probably due to *both*.  I do think that the possibility of an inherent 
difference should not be dismissed dogmatically, as both David and
Janis seem to be doing.  I believe there is within feminism itself a
dispute between the "essentialists" and the "existentialists", but I
haven't seen much essentialist views expressed in this newsgroup.

IMHO a more important question than the source of the difference is is how we
respond to it.  I can see three viewpoints:

1) The difference is good, and should be preserved.
2) The difference is bad, and should be eliminated.
3) The difference is merely a fact, and has no moral bearing.

1) and 2) could be further specified by asking whether it is good or bad
for the individual, or for society generally.  

One can't make these judgments across the board, of course, since the
response would depend on what difference we are talking about.  My own
*general* tendency, however, is to respond to most such differences as in 3).
On the agression/nurture question, though, I lean toward 1) for reasons
that I have already discussed, and will not repeat.  Let me just add
that I believe these differences are good both for the individual *and*
society, but the social benefits seem to maintain the stronger argument.
It is this belief that prompted me talk about myths and "ought"s which
Janis and Anna appear to dislike.

The prevailing view in soc.feminism seems to be 2).  I can certainly
support this if the differences relate to things like personal worth,
general respect, legal rights, social status, self-esteem etc.

But to return to the issue of (net) discussion styles--  I don't recall
the postings I refer to as making the essential point that these different
styles were culturally imposed (although that might have been implicit
in the posters' minds).  Was it the intent of these postings that such
differences were *bad*?  Some of the male posters did insinuate that the
"male" style was better and that the women ought to adopt that style. 
>From some of the women, I got the feeling that they thought the "female"
style was more suitable for what *they* wanted from the newsgroup.  I
did not get much of a sense that these women wanted the men to adopt
"their" style, but rather that the men just *couldn't* share like the
women could, and that perhaps the men should stop being so vociferous
and let the women do more sharing.  From this perspective, it seems like
these men are responding as 2) and these women as 1).

On the question (DdJ) of whether such gender differences should be used 
to justify discrimination--Much of the feminist agenda involves
precisely such discrimination:  Affirmative action, separate "women's
groups", women's studies departments, laws about violence against women,
maternity leave, mentoring programs for women, TBTN marches,
conciousness raising groups, rape shield laws, etc.  All of these things are
discriminatory, and they are mostly justifying the discrimination on the
basis of the sorts of differences we are talking about.

Although I don't unequivocally support *all* of the above, I certainly
don't think they are univerally bad just because they are
discriminatory.  I believe most of them are positive forces for women. 
The word "discrimination" has acquired a bad name from keeping bad
company.  It usually has meant discriminating for the sake of excluding
people.  I see nothing wrong with discriminating so that one can assist
those who need assistance. 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>bickis@math.usask.ca<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Mik Bickis       \,,,       .*#*.  \    University of Saskatchewan
Department of        \,,,  ^\\|//^  ```\   Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Mathematics & Statistics \   )|(        ```\   Canada      S7N 0W0
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<S|A|S|K|A|T|C|H|E|W|A|N|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>



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