From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: stereotypes - and a request
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 22 Jul 92 06:18:32 GMT

In article <12405@inews.intel.com> pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey) writes:
>In article <1992Jul21.162311.1@fnalo.fnal.gov> 
>holzman@fnalo.fnal.gov (Daniel B. Holzman) writes:
>>Barbara Jordan has gone on record making anti-male (not anti-sexist or
>>anti-patriarchy, but anti-male) statements.
>
>Do you have any examples of this? I have heard this accusation. I suspect her
>anti-male statements are much less in number than the anti-female statements
>from any of the male congressional reps. I suspect a lot of this is just
>that a lot of people want the oppressed to act like Martin Luther King and
>instead they act like Malcolm X. It's an interesting dilema. One thing is
>for sure though, both of those leaders were shot dead. And the more you
>try and push people into a cage with no options, the more they start
>thinking like Malcolm X. Makes sense to me.
>
>>I am suspicious of Faludi's attack on Bly in her book.
>
>She did have some interesting things to say about Bly but I understand that
>they have been verified by others. I suspect that she may have overreacted
>to the guy, but in my opinion he's just a poet. The whole drum beating,
>wilding stuff is interesting. I can't see much in it, if others do, that's
>OK, to a point.

While I agree with the need for a men's movement where what he calls
their Warrior Energy is directed usefully, I'm suspicious of his
treatment of other men.  He talks about momma's boys and stuff like
that, and that "Do this or you're a sissy" is the oldest shaming trick
in the book, used by people to browbeat little boys from day one. 

>>Have you read any of the works of Barbara Walker?  In _Skeptical Feminist_,
>>she calls for a matriarchal society in which social and political power is
>>placed in the hands of women, and in which Goddess worship is used as a social
>>control to keep men under the control of women.

You're inept at crystallizing an entire section of a book into one
sentence.  She says far more than this. 

>Yeah, but do you really think this would happen? Some of this goes back to
>the days of kings and subjects. Subjects could say "kill the king" because any
>good king knew it was a joke. But the king couldn't say kill the subjects,
>because that wasn't a joke. That was real, see what I'm saying? If there is
>equality, then things are different, but there isn't equality now, is there?

The picture painted in what she calls a feminist Utopia -- one woman's
ideal.  And, quite simply, if you read it, it's not man-hating (she does
have man problems elsewhere in the book, but the Utopia is the most
egalitarian thing I've ever envisioned).

>On a related issue, some people have speculated that early Greece was
>matriarchal and the men were forced to worship the Goddess and consult the
>elder matriarch for important decisions like who to marry. The theory goes
>that the men got sick of this and subverted the Goddess by turning her into
>a Goddess of war and the rest was HIStory, as he says. Who knows, maybe women 
>do have a vicious side and have just been pretending to be sweet all these 
>years, I just don't see it.

I'm inclined to doubt this only because I've read TONS of shit on this
and haven't reached this conclusion.  I've seen that it was brought from
the outside.  What references do you cite?  I'd like to read up on this
to understand it more. 

>>Have you read Z. Budapest's _Holy Book of Woman's Mysteries_?  She equates men
>>with death, women with life, and then says that as death must be in service to
>>life, men must be in service to women, and proposes this as a model for
>>societal structure.

Have YOU read anything about Z Budapest's life?  Again, since you are
inept at canalizing an entire book by Walker into one sentence, I
question your ability to do so with Z Budapest.

>Haven't read it. Can't say as I see it as a serious threat. The concept of
>men=death and women=life goes back to the Paleolithic and I can see some
>sense in it, but to say that justifies who is master and who is slave is
>silly. 

The Crone usually symbolized death; look up Kali.

>The bottom line is that women make our children, but they need us, or
>at least our sperm to become mothers. And I suspect we can lend a hand in
>the child rearing process. We need each other. This master/slave stuff is
>really sickening to me, in any form, with the exception of electronic.

You have absolutely GOT to take a hand in it.  We need to provide little
kids with examples of loving and tender and entirely masculine men.

>>Have you seen the latest issue of Green Egg?  A fellow by the name of Bird
>>Brother has called for men to surrender all policy making power to women.

I have to question most people who say things like that.  You mention
three radical or radical type examples out of a movement that spans
years and countries.  There's bound to be some objectionable stuff
flying.  Talking about how dangerous the women's movement is by
mentioning three radical examples is a bit like saying that the civil
rights movement wa and is dangerous because Ice T talks violence.  This
shit will pass.  When someone is squelched to the extent that the
various and sundry minorities have been, there's bound to be anger to
work out.  Do you expect to say to people, "Yay!  No more oppression!"
and have them reply, "Great!  Let's all be friends!"  There's a lot of
anger out there; we also have to get proof from the mainstream that we
have no need for anger any longer.  So far in general we have not seen
this.   

>Yeah, but that's very unlikely, isn't it? I could see the possibility of
>having representatives that don't represent us and can't balance a budget,
>but that's what we have now, right? I suppose we could have a VP who bakes
>cookies instead of plays golf all the time.

On the lighter side -- golf.  YEEEEEECH.  Why is it that people with
money to burn burn it by doing unbelievably BORING things like play
golf?

Blessings,
Janis
 


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