From: marty@world.std.com (Marty M HaleEvans)
Subject: Re: another poem
Organization: Cicely Public Access UNIX, Cicely, AK
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 20:54:21 GMT

In article <2AC90089.9638@news.service.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

>>First, let me say that I've experienced the vast majority of what all of you
>>have mentioned. I was ostracized for being smart and fat, rebelled, etc. I do
>>know where you're coming from, and I agree with a lot of it.
>>
>>However, I just can't get around hating what you call "feminine" women. 
>>Aren't you making just as many assumptions about them based on their looks
>>as you resent being made about yourselves? 
>
>No, it's not that I honestly hate anyone; they just grate on my nerves.
>And we're not talking only looks, here.  I've gotten judged by my own
>looks several times -- had guys I was talking to go, "You're a
>PHYSICIST?!?!?!?!?" when the subject comes up (now a linguist).  Or else
>they say, "You don't look like a physicist."  Or, "What are YOU doing in
>physics?" or other such choice comments.  It's not looks we're (or at
>least I'm) talking about.  It's the whole behavior thing.

I realize it's the whole behavior thing, not just looks, but don't you expect
the behavior when you see the looks, right off the bat? Most people do.

>Saying that I and the other women here as feminists have to "just
>accept" and welcome women who are featherbrained idiots or worse, who
>force themselves to act like featherbrained idiots to "get a guy" is
>like saying to a black person that they should just accept that part of
>being black for some people is cringing servility and they should
>welcome this.  Sorry, but no!

I didn't say you had to approve. I just think that polarizing everyone into
subgroups -- us and them, the new and the old, history and future -- doesn't
get us anywhere. You catch more flies with honey, and if you really want to
try to help raise consciousness, you can't just shut people out if you don't
approve of their actions. Women are women. Some of us may be farther along 
than others, but we have to travel ahead together. It just weakens us to tell
other women to catch up or perish. Furthermore, to reject our history is to
forget it. I don't think the actions and mindset should be perpetuated, but
to not recognize it is silly. There is a difference between "welcoming" a way
of doing things, and accepting that it's there. And yes, I'd say the same thing
to a black person; I have no patience for people who want to ban certain movies
from being played because of stereotypes. In the same sense, maybe this wasn't
right, but it did exist, and to look at it is to take away its power.

>
>I can almost bet my meager bank account that you have a mental picture
>of what I look like from the opinions I express, and I can assure you
>with total confidence, it's nothing like what I really look like.

No, I have a mental picture of what you look like from the hints you've given
on the net. Can I trust those?

>Try saying this to a black person who is pissed at seeing pther black
>people in the deep south getting up and giving their seats to white
>people on buses; this does still happen in remote areas.  Say this to an
>Italian-American who is angry at the Mafia.  "That black person is
>expressing their blackness by being servile and scraping, and you should
>welcome that diversity!"  "That Italian American is expressing their
>ethnicity by being crooked and murderous, and you should accept their
>ethnic expression with open arms!"  Don't stay up waiting for it.

Again, the difference between welcoming and recognizing. I support changing
the ideas, but some black people (as you pointed out) still express their
blackness this way. That doesn't make them the rightful lightning rod for some
black kid's anger at white society and what it may have done to her psyche.
In my mind, such an expression is a symbol of lack of understanding, or 
simply ingrained habit. Things change slowly, and some people have a lot of
baggage to overcome before throwing off their shackles to become superwomen.
And some people are just going to be like that until the day they die, and
there's no sense in deriding them for it.

>expects good treatment.  You are far too hung up on looks and are
>assuming that we are, too, and that bothers me.  

Please, no assumptions about me. I'm just responding to all the wailing about
looks I heard from you and the other women in this thread. Actually, I am
hung up on looks, but I don't believe for an instant that none of the rest of
you are. For those of you who are merely toting it around, I *have* read
_The Beauty Myth_.

>Are you sure of that?  Or are you just seeing yourself where it doesn't
>exist, molding my comments and creating a mental image of me, then
>projecting yourself onto it?  

Again, judging from what I've read here, yes I do know. I went through this
crap too, and I cried over the postings in remembrance, thanks. Are you so
scared of having a mental image created of you? This is, what, the third time
you've accused me of it? Of course we all see everything through what we've 
been through and who we are, and that goes in spades for the net.

>THen you would have refused to trust the one woman who has had the most
>profound impact on my own spiritual awakening -- Sally Gutierrez.  Her
>husband calls her Blondiferous.  Bluntly put, you would have alos
>probably had a very negative reaction toward me as well. 

As I pointed out, I am working on this, and hope to reduce it more and more,
especially when I realize just how many positive influences it has possibly
cost me. My whole point in posting was an attempt to reduce prejudice. You
don't reduce prejudice by reacting against; you do it by absorbing and moving
beyond. We are now in the stage of expressing Gay Pride and White Pride and 
Black Pride and Woman Power and every-other-subgroup Power. I THINK THIS IS
A GOOD THING. The danger is that we can either progress toward saying "we're
okay and everyone who messed us up sucks" and creating an infinite number
of independent-living splinters, or we can all look around and say "gee, we're
all proud, we're all okay, let's share our strengths". Obviously, I support
the latter, and I think you do, too. It's just very difficult to recognize
one's own prejudices (notice I'm not directing this at you personally, Janis).

>You are hung up on saying that we are all plain and don't like pretty
>women.  Again, I'm not TALKING about looks; I've been pursued enough not

Again, I continued my former argument in the same metaphor. So shoot me. I 
never said I thought you were all plain, but most of you do seem angry, and 
expressed doubts in the past about attractiveness. Doubts that can seep up
in a lot of different ways.

>who deliberately act stupid to get a guy, who say "I'm not a feminist,
>but . . . "  I can't stand women who put up with abusive boyfriends
>becase, "He needs me," mostly because I don't know what to say to
>convince them to dump him; I don't know how to help them.

Frankly, I can't either on pretty much all of these counts, but I've gently 
convinced other women that using their boyfriends is wrong, that they *are*
feminists, that abusive husbands don't need them and they'd be better off 
without them. It's precisely because I came at them with as much understanding
as I could muster, and not anger, that I was successful at all these things.

>This is what I *A*M* saying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  When women
>pull these kind of stupid games with men and themselves, they are
>pulling the rug out from under ALL of us, and THAT is what makes me
>angry.  THAT is what I hate.  You are hung up on saying that we hate
>pretty women.  What I hate is women who amputate parts of themselves to
>serve as societally defined women, thus making it hard on the rest of us
>to say that that is painful.

I agree. Just don't forget to fight the symptoms and the causes, not the woman.

>And as far as proving people wrong about me, it is hardly my fault if a
>guy looks at me and thinks I am a pliant pet and is shocked out of his
>shoes when I open my mouth and express myself forcefully, spandex dress,
>jewelry, thin legs, long hair, perfume, and even occasional cosmetics, 
>high heels, and all.  He and many men and women misjudge me because of
>what I look like, and that's just too damned bad for them.

Honestly, Janis, you were one of the ones who went on about how GOOOOOODD
it feels to prove people wrong about you.

>feminist, but I'm not going to start wearing camouflage boxer shorts and
>not shaving my legs just to fit into the commonly defined stereotype of
>feminism.  I am NOT what "other people" think of as a feminist; they are
>thus proven wrong by their own narrow folly.  I only like to see their
>eyes get wide; it's going to happen and I'm not going to stress over it.

So you're telling me you like to avoid one stereotype you seen to accept, by
adopting another, opposite one? You're the one who just defined feminist
looks by boxer shorts and not shaving, then deciding that's what "other people"
think of as feminist. I think everyone should look how they want to look. 
Myself, I do what feels comfortable and end up a cross between the two poles.

>No, you're not getting flamed, hon.  I think you're just maybe
>recognizing your unhappy path where it doesn't exist and projecting it
>onto us.

It's hard to have an intelligent conversation with someone who insists on being
condescending, "hon". Don't forget that a lot of paths go through underbrush
and unmapped territory, and look like they don't exist. (this is beginning to
sound like the tree falling in the forest -- if a path runs unmapped, does
it exist?)

Let's not snipe, let's talk.

Marty

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
"Another beer, and then he eyes                 marty@world.std.com
The barmaid's legs and waist and thighs.        Marty Hale-Evans
'Needs to lose some weight,' he grunts,         89 Mass. Ave., Suite 199
'But just the same, I'd fuck her once.'         Boston, MA  02115
He orders pizza, buys a round,              M    @    *    O    %    8    U
Gains an appetizing pound."                \|/  \|/  \|/  \|/  \|/  \|/  \|/