From: ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Sweeping Generalizations About Men By Feminis
Date: 8 Sep 92 17:27:20 GMT
Organization: NMSU Computer Science

<In article <1992Sep8.160434.718@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> moselecw@elec.canterbury.ac.nz (C.W. Moseley) writes:

<   This seems to be a classic case of picking on a radical feminist, 
<   taking selected quotes out of context, and then holding them up
<   as some kind of disproof of a whole ideology.

	Shrug. It's actually a reply to an individual "feminist"
	who asserted that "sweeping generalizations about men
	are ....more or less true".

	Refutation of that assertion was provided by merely
	posting some of the sweeping generalizations that 
	some "feminists" have written about men.

<   NOTE: `the womans room' is a work of fiction. Holding Marilyn French
<   responsible for every sentence in it, and expecting her to support
<   the ideas expressed is lidicrous. Why not do this with (eg) the guy who
<   wrote James Bond? If the quote is not from that book, why use that book
<   as an example?? Why not list the actual source if so??

	Shrug again. James Bond HAS been cited by "feminists" as
	an example of "patriarchy", "sexism" and so forth. 
	
	It's no more unreasonable to cite French's work of fiction
	as an observation of sweeping generalizations about men
	by feminists than it is to cite "Snow White" as an
	example of sweeping generalizations about women by 
	traditionalists.

	Or is it yet again the case that holding "feminists" to
	their words is out of bounds?

<   Also, do you really expect the rebuttal to token radicals to get the
<   same coverage as the token radical? In ANY area? (this is also done to
<   most other pressure groups, esp. in the USA - far out looney ideas make
<   much better news stories)

	Given that no "refutation" of feminism was claimed,
	this argument is moot.

<   Also, the original quote I see
<   (Aldrich) 	"<qualifiers> sweeping generalisations about men
<		    usually are more or less true"

<   why were the words "by feminists" introduced, and how come they are the
<   focus of the debate?? 

	Aldrich is a self-proclaimed member of NOW, for one
	thing. Thus Aldrich IS a "feminist"  by any standards
	one cares to apply.

	Note that Aldrich did NOT assert that sweeping generalizations
	about *people* are more or less true, just the ones about
	men...

<This, to me, looks like a pretty reasonable defence
<of generalisations as a tool for understanding anything.

	Ah, so when the PC right proclaims that "Feminists
	are all out to get men", that's a reasonable tool
	for understanding "feminism"?

	I think not.

	I'm not surprised to see "feminists" defending negative
	stereotypes about men, but it is interesting to see
	how blatantly they do so.

<   as a rule, expecting to demolish an entire philosophy by showing that
<   some few of it's most outspoken advocates sometimes make ill-thought
<   statements is not practical. Otherwise we wouldn't have Dan Quayle
<   in any public position? And whole political parties would vanish
<   rapidly due to the statements of politicians like Bush or Raygun.

	Shrug. Since no claim of "demolishing" feminism was made,
	this argument is a strawman...er, strawperson.
Xref: sparky alt.feminism:1102 rec.arts.startrek.misc:9170