From: mwasson@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.EDU (Michael Wasson)
Subject: soc.feminism
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Date: 1 Sep 92 23:42:50 GMT

>jyanowitz@hamp.hampshire.EDU writes...
>JY> Origin: This mailing list came about because of my desire to talk
>JY> about these issues on the internet and the lack of a forum to do so
>JY> in.  It didn't seem appropriate to use soc.feminism for this
>JY> discussion, as that would be repeating a common pattern of male
>JY> co-optation of women's spaces (although men post there, it's often
>
>While I laud your efforts to do something to advance the cause of
>feminism, which you feel strongly about, I do not think much of your
>attempt to collectively bash men as people who apparently by nature
>are "co-opting women's spaces".  Indeed on Usenet there are *no*
>women's spaces and no *men's* spaces, either.  There are, however,
>*discussion groups* for men and women to talk openly, and if there
>happen to be more men than women, then please kindly do not blame men
>in general for it.

cooptation is a funny thing tho. I went to a "gifted children" (i.e.,
test well :-)) high school that had been all-girls for many years but
then was co-ed. When it was all-girls the chess club, math club, and
the like were (obviously) composed entirely of girls. When the school
became co-ed, these clubs didn't become 50/50 female/male ... instead
they became all male.  Presumably the boys didn't _mean_ to drive out
the girls. It would be interesting to know exactly what happened ...
but the end result is that the clubs were, in fact, coopted.

Recent linguistic theories on gender & language may help explain what
happens when men and women engage in dialogue; probably both genders
should become more aware of the dynamics. But remember that women have
been kept out of the dominant culture's dialogue for a long time ...
so the work each gender needs to do is different.

>JY> done to dialogue (ugh, I can't believe I used that as a verb)
>JY> with women).  And of course, soc.men (aka soc.patriarchy,
>JY> soc.not.my.fault, soc.bash.women, soc.kill.fags,
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>JY> soc.i'm.so.oppressed) wasn't exactly a friendly forum.
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Hold on a second... While there have been "patriarchal" posters and
>heterosexistposters, these are *not* the majority, not by far.

I went to the trouble of re-subscribing to soc.men and reading (most
of) the posts. They *are* the majority!, at least recently, and that
is not to say there aren't notable exceptions. But *I* don't feel
especially welcome there, why should most women??

send flames to alt.flame pleeeeeeze.

_______________________________________________________________________________
"There was nothing to be    |  Michael Wasson     | "'Dead-on balls accurate'?"
done; a circumstance that   |  U of Hawaii        | "It's an industry term."
happily suited our disin-   |     and             | (from My Cousin Vinny)
clination to do anything."  |  Fat Messiah Games, |____________________________
--Herman Melville           |  S. Pacific HQ      | [standard disclaimer]
_______________________________________________________________________________

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