From: gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit)
Newsgroups: soc.men,alt.feminism,talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Feminists "analysis" of men (Was Re: Double standards )
Date: 11 Jan 93 04:32:58 GMT
Reply-To: gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel)
Followup-To: soc.men,alt.feminism
Organization: Nefolet shel nemushot (Fallout of Wimps)

Gordon had the following suggestion for me:

>Your problem is that you think of feminists as the other
>team.  What I've suggested, about this topic as well
>as about many others, is that you use feminist analysis
>on men's problems.  

Long time ago (60's) when feminists had something to gain by a real
analysis some good ones were produced ("The Feminine Mystique," 
for example).  Later women's situation was improved, and they can
get more by "analysis" with no internal logic that uses different
standards on different situation (depends what standard can 
benefit women most) than by real analysis.

There are some exceptions (e.g. Joanna Russ and Pat Califia), but
they certainly don't belong to the main stream of feminism and
they get a lot of contempt from it.

And now for another example of feminist "analysis" by Gordon:

In article <C0nBJF.87v@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>In article <726644164@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes:

| In the debate about abortion rights, feminists used many times the slogan:
| 
| "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be [a] sacrament."

>Hillel, do you know the difference between sloganeering and
>analysis?  "If men could get pregnant ..." was a clever
>aphorism, but -- in my opinion -- is too hyperbolic to be
>anything but a wisecrack.  

That's a good description of the standard feminist analysis
(e.g.  MacKinnon's analysis of prono; please read it sometimes).

| Today, the political institutions (at least according to feminism)
| are men's based.  Still, abortion is legal and "no choice for men"
| is the law of the land.

>I think I've explained about four times now that the lack of
>choice for men derives from classical-liberal concepts of
>individual responsibility.  When something goes wrong, you
>find some individual to sue or put in jail.  

Putting people who own money in jail is not a standard practice in
our society.  E.g. if I send the IRS my 1040 with a note that I
have no intention to pay even a penny of my taxes they can't put
me in jail - just to go after my property (if I lie then the
story is different).

But the issue is feminist "analysis."

You say that a man who had a birth control failure, and notifies the
woman immediately that he does not want any rights and responsibilities
toward the future baby is *responsible* and should *pay* for that.

Do you use similar criteria for women?

A woman who had a birth control failure, and knowing very well that the
the future father does not want any rights or responsibilities toward
the baby, decided not to have an abortion and not to give the baby up
to adoption behaves in a much more irresponsible way.

You take him to the cleaner in the name of responsibility and give
her money in the name of child's rights.

Both positions can make sense *if* you treat everybody by the
same standards.  You have no intention to enforce the same standards
of responsibility on both of them because you use feminists analysis.

That's why main-steam feminist analysis is so useful for you
and it is so useless for me.

My analysis of the situation is that main-stream feminists and 
most traditionalists think that men should be punished for 
"commitment free" sex, and taking them to the cleaners is the
appropriate punishment.  Feminists have this feeling because they
grew up in the same traditional society that all of us know, and
they don't have the integrity to look inside and see their very
own sexism and do something about that.  They can recognize sexism
only when it hurts women, that's why their analysis is so useless
for men.

>I've agreed
>that it seems unfair, and I'd tell you once again what I
>think better alternatives are, were I not afraid you'd print
>that dumb story again.  

Carole's suggestion will work better than everything that the NYC
liberals have tried for the last 30 years.

> )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(

Hillel                                         gazit@cs.duke.edu

"There is a crucial distinction between the personal and the political.
The former leads to the latter but not automatically or without hard work."
                                         --   Joanna Russ
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,soc.couples,soc.singles