HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gds@ficus.cs.ucla.EDU (Greg Skinner)
Subject: Re: Those damned magazines (was: clearing something up)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: in your face!
Date: 21 Dec 92 23:47:32 GMT

In article <1gq754INNcnq@agate.berkeley.edu> Bonita Kale writes:
>But, in my experience, it's too late for the boys.  By the time
>they're old enough to be interested in mature (or any!) sexual
>expression in reading, they aren't reading fiction, or at least, not
>much.  There's a whole bunch of boys (of the ones who read at all)
>who go from kid's sports stories to Playboy or nothing.

It's too bad that all the boys you know are like this, because not all
boys are like this.

>In literature, both boys missed a lot of good stuff that my daughter
>read and enjoyed.  They never read about Narnia, or the Black
>Stallion, or Jo March or Heidi, to mention a few books I actually own
>and tried to interest them in.  They seemed to go from picture books
>to nonfiction to Sherlock Holmes and Tolkien--the sexless wonders.
>Now they're adults and read adult books (still, by the way, missing a
>lot of good kid's books that I bring home).

Well, with regards to Tolkien, at least, no one's having sex in the
books, but that's not the point of the books.  However, IMHO they show
women in positions of high regard and respect, and value them for
characteristics that I understand women value in themselves (wisdom,
courage, healing, etc.).

--gregbo

--
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
news group is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.
From: goid@zooid.guild.ORG (Will Steeves)
Subject: A Safe Place
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Date: 21 Dec 92 23:59:04 GMT

ramoss@rpi.edu writes...
RA> This in inresponse to a question posed by  muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu which
RA> s :
RA> [Moderator's note: This question was not posed by me, it was posed by
RA>  Martin Terman. - MB]
RA> >What if men want a "safe space" away from women?

RA>   Men have more than one safe place.  They are safe in the open.
                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Not necessarily, Sylvia.  Indeed, I used to post Men's Movement
flyers, in the open, and was harassed, screamed at, and threatened.

Regardless, the issue of safety in the open, was *not* Martin Terman's
point.  He was asking about whether men should start men-only groups
for healing men, in the same fashion that there are many groups which
are women-only.  Mind you, I am somewhat sceptical of having large
numbers of either sort of group, for the fact that doing so will lead
the genders into even *greater* misunderstandings and arguments, *but*
I also realise that there are times when it is sometimes needed, such
as when women are raped or otherwise abused, and in my case, when I
finally began to face the loss of my (potential) child, ten months
after it happened, around the time that the "mother" chose to leave me
(probably because she realised that I still hadn't gotten over it - I
still resent the lack of emotional support which was offered).  So
indeed, such groups are sometimes necessary, but I think that they
should only be used on a *temporary* basis, rather than as a way for
women and men to run away from each other.

---
Will Steeves, goid@zooid.guild.org                      "Neil Hull is GOiD"
ZOOiD BBS, Toronto, Ontario - The Zoo Of Ids            "GOiDS Rule"
(416) 322-7876

"Cthulhu for President in '92 - Why vote for the _lesser_ of two evils?"
                                                          - Bronis Vidugiris
---
 * SLMR 2.1a * Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

--
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
news group is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.
From: chuckies@cs.mcgill.ca (Charles J. Savoie)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: slamming Women's Bookstores
Date: 2 Jan 1993 09:19:06 GMT
Organization: SOCS - McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <9212311641.AA06160@LL.MIT.EDU> khamsi@ll.mit.EDU (Sarir Khamsi)
writes:
>Just a quick thought on all the discussion on this bookstore...women
>have, for centuries, been excluded by men from many areas of society.
>It seems odd that when this situation is reversed, there is such an
>alarming reaction.

It doesn't to me... Perhaps if I re-write your statement and add a fact,
and let's see how it sounds:

"Women have, for centuries, been excluded by men from many areas of society,
and as a result, there has been an alarming reaction.  It seems odd that
when this situation is reversed, there is such an alarming reaction."

Does it still seem odd?  ODD?  Sadly ironic, at the very most, but not odd.

There is no hypocrisy involved here.  If there is to be equality, then
there must be equality EVERYWHERE*, or there is no equality.  On this
particular subject, my opinion is this:  the store should be able to
discriminate *grin* on ANY CRITERION on the type of books it carries,
but IF and ONLY IF other stores may discriminate on any criterion
themselves, even if the criterion chosen is not P -- uh -- I mean generally
accepted...  Seems logical and fair to me.

* by "everywhere" of course I mean within the bounds of one governing
body, not the whole world...  I doubt there will ever be "equality"
everywhere everywhere.

Charles

-- 

,.. .  . .  . ,.. . . ... ,.. ,..   =====================================
|   |--| |  | |   |<   |  |-  `-.   Charles Savoie  chuckies@cs.mcgill.ca
`'' '  ' `''' `'' ' ` ''' `'' '''   =====================================


-- 
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
newsgroup is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.
From: chris@psych.toronto.EDU (Chris Hitchcock)
Subject: Re: Expression of attract
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: 23 Dec 92 18:19:43 GMT

In article <92Dec19.125418edt.54564@zooid.guild.org> goid@zooid.guild.ORG (Will Steeves) writes:

>Women athletes also generally *demand* the right to privacy, and male
>reporters may not enter their locker rooms until they are *fully*
>clothed.  Why do male athletes not receive this same right?

You probably know this already. It's because male reporters were
allowed in, but female reporters were not. I imagine that an equally
acceptable arrangement would be to let the players get dressed before
interviews with anyone (as it sounds like the women players do).

Chris Hitchcock.

--
Chris Hitchcock, Dept. of Psychology     chris@psych.toronto.edu
University of Toronto      in my new life: clh@vax.ox.ac.uk
Toronto, Ontario          UseNet:  I only read it for the
CANADA  M5S 1A1                         .signatures

--
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
news group is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.
From: uunet!infmx!hartman@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Robert Hartman)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: men crossing the street at night to avoid frightening
Date: 28 Dec 1992 23:07:53 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

[Moderator's note: excessive included text trimmed.]

In article <1hcnc5INNrdd@agate.berkeley.edu> mara@panix.com (Mara Chibnik) writes:
>I was around for at least one major
>hammering out of the question of whether a guy should cross the
>street to avoid frightening a woman walking alone at night
>jj@alice.att.com (jj, curmudgeon and all-around grouch) writes:
> >I'm also very sensitive to this sort of suggestion.  A few
> >years ago on nutnoise this topic was hammered to death.  The
> >'feminist concensus' at that time [...]
> >was that NOT doing it was some kind of harrassment or assault.

>Not at all.  I think it's a helpful suggestion, and I'm glad that
>some men do it, but I would not-- and never have, and would dispute
>anybody who said it was-- characterise failure to cross the street
>as either harassment or assault.

> >I took issue with this, to the result that I was branded
> >a woman-hater, rapist, and other nasty things, simply
> >because I refused to act like I was a criminal. [...]

As a man, I must say that I don't have any problem with keeping a wide
berth when I see a woman walking alone at night.  If I'm by myself, and
I'm not in a huge hurry, it's just not that big a deal to adjust my
pace to maintain a constant, respectable distance.  I don't consider it
"acting like a criminal" to acknowlege that a woman might feel more at
risk with me than I might feel with her.  I know that she's safe in my
presence, and since I can easily communicate that with a slight
adjustment that doesn't inconvenience me in any substantial way, why
not do it?

-r


-- 
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
newsgroup is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.
From: goid@zooid.guild.ORG (Will Steeves)
Subject: Re: Women on net et. al.
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Date: 21 Dec 92 23:59:53 GMT

celeste%express@freedom.msfc.nasa.gov (Celeste) writes...
CE> Personally, I find the most male thinking is "exclutionary" while
CE> most female thinking (seperatives excluded!) is "inclusive".

This in itself is an exclusionary belief, as is presupposes the character
of men's opinions.

CE> At times I find some ratical feminist (and I am regulary accused
CE> by co-workers of being a radical feminist or femi-nazi)
CE> thinking to "emulating" the either-or, exclutionary thinking of men.
                                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
CE> I like the following example of exclutionary thinking:
CE> "There are two kinds of people in the world.
CE>  Those the divide everyone into two groups and those that don't"
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I realise that I am going to be slammed for saying this, but saying
that there is generally a "male" way of speaking, and a "female," (and
presumably better) way of speaking is in itself invoking the "there
are two kinds of X" thinking which you consider to be exclusionary,
and indeed, only the province of males.

CE> "Just think of Relativity applied to Gender."

This is how *try* to think, in spite of the handicap of my gender.  :-)

---
Will Steeves, goid@zooid.guild.org                      "Neil Hull is GOiD"
ZOOiD BBS, Toronto, Ontario - The Zoo Of Ids            "GOiDS Rule"
(416) 322-7876

"Cthulhu for President in '92 - Why vote for the _lesser_ of two evils?"
                                                          - Bronis Vidugiris
---
 * SLMR 2.1a * Why ask Why?  Because it tastes like water!

--
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
news group is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.
From: "Professor WHO?"@bourbaki.mit.EDU
Subject: Re: my two cents about on
Summary: I wonder
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Reply-To: yangboy@ccms.ntu.edu.tw
Organization: Ayatollah's Correct Bidding Lessons
Keywords: discrimination
Date: 28 Dec 92 00:43:55 GMT

[Martin Terman, the Mutant--- his posting is truncated leaving only the tail:]

[On all-women groups and all-men groups, someone offering a reason
why the former might be "good" in some sense while the latter is not,
under certain circumstances.]

>Your whole argument is based on the fact that women are less powerful
>than men, hence women-only organizations can't do any of the things
>that male-only organizations can do.

They can, just not as efficiently.

>Remembering that one should never confuse virtue with lack of opportunity
>to sin, the question is as women improve their status will this situation
>always be the case?

It won't.  However, laws can be changed.  "Protective" legislation can
always be rescinded, amended, or otherwise rendered equitable--- when the
situation is indeed equitable elsewhere.

>Also, if we are to have any pretense of equality under the law,
>laws about exclusionary organizations have to be written in such
>a form that distinct genders aren't written, we have to have some
>sort of policy on single-gender groups. Which way should the law
>fall, for or against them?

I think that Martin is labouring under a slight misuse of logic; the
_major_premiss_ is far from established in the above syllogism.  Distinct
genders _SHOULD_ be written if the circumstances warrants it.  Look at the
caste system in India-- any law designed to protect the Untouchables from
the Brahmins will have to proscribe certain bonding behaviour of the latter
while allowing for suitable self-help groups of the former to be efficient
(I know I am lacking myself in not proving this assertion, but I can't
do it... I can only appeal to your sense of what is "obvious") _UNTIL_ such
time as we see the discrimination has died down for the most part.

As long as men still dominates certain non-gender-neutral laws will be
logical and appropriate, _provided_ that we see equality of the sexes,
defined as equalised opportunity, as a worthwhile goal.



--
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
news group is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.
From: rhb@world.std.com (Robert H Brueckner)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Version Five -- I better shut up!
Date: 31 Dec 1992 02:43:45 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Distribution: world
	<1hslm4INNkpm@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <1hslm4INNkpm@agate.berkeley.edu> djohns@elm.circa.ufl.edu (David A. Johns) writes:

   In article <1hfsncINN6kb@agate.berkeley.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu
   (Hillel) writes:

   # What do you know about my life that you can say so surely that I'm
   # wrong when I say that I was discriminated against by affirmative
   # action?

   Two points, neither of which *necessarily* applies to you:

   First, if 10 males are turned down for a position that a woman gets,
   all 10 can't claim they lost the job to affirmative action.  Nine of
   them would have lost it anyway.

It doesn't matter. The fact that any discrimination took place would
be wrong (although it would have to be proven, not merely
conjectured). Your argument is about as relevant as defending yourself
on a murder charge by saying you only intended to kill *one* person in
the group, not all ten.

   Second, if the assumptions underlying affirmative action are correct
   -- that women and minorities have been systematically excluded from
   certain positions -- then the position you thought you lost to
   affirmative action wouldn't have been available at all if that
   discrimination hadn't taken place.

Another bit of questionable logic. Even setting aside the conditional
nature of the premise, the certainty in this conclusion is far from
warranted unless it could be shown that *every* woman or minority who
didn't get a job had been discriminated against ("systematically
excluded") or that they all *would* have been hired on their own
merits in a utopian society.

Sorry if these look like flames. I actually agree with what I think
you're saying, but I couldn't let these lapses go unquestioned.

RB
-- 
|"The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who  |
| have loved it." -- George Santayana  // Opinions expressed here, when |
| clear and persuasive, are my own. --Rob Brueckner (rhb@world.std.com) |



-- 
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
newsgroup is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Faludi on neurotic single men: lapse?
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: 23 Dec 92 18:17:26 GMT

In "Backlash" Susan Faludi seems at one point potentially guilty of
the same error she uncovered in the shoddy work of others:  assuming
that correlation implies causality.  She quotes statistics (p.17) to
show that single men are more depressed, passive, and susceptible
to nervous breakdowns; experience more nightmares, fainting, insomnia;
and in general are more neurotic than single women.  She concludes that
"the institution of marriage has an overwhelmingly salutary effect
on men's mental health."
	What I don't see is evidence to rule out the possibility
that neurotic behavior keeps you single, rather than her implicit
assumption that marriage improves mental health.  Perhaps this
evidence is in the many references she cites, and which I have not
read.  I'd appreciate clarification from anyone who knows the
statistics.

--
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
news group is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.
From: Lenore Levine <levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: The BEM Test
Date: 29 Dec 1992 17:09:40 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

On the back of scratch paper from a campus recycling area, I found a
psychological test called the Bem Sex Role Inventory. This test lists
sixty adjectives that refer to human beings, some "masculine," some
"feminine," and some neutral (but you don't know which are which until
you complete the test). You are asked how well these adjectives describe
you; and whether you assign yourself a preponderance of masculine or
feminine adjectives, determines your "sex type."

The fact that I found this test, suggests that it was in use some time
in the past ten years. I am curious when and how it was devised, whether
it's still in use, and for what clients it's intended.

Following are the adjectives of significance in this test.

Feminine: yielding, cheerful, shy, affectionate, flatterable, loyal,
feminine, sympathetic, sensitive to the needs of others, understanding,
compassionate, eager to soothe hurt feelings, soft spoken, warm, tender,
gullible, childlike, does not use harsh language, loves children,
gentle.

Masculine: self-reliant, defends own beliefs, independent, athletic,
assertive, strong personality, forceful, analytical, has leadership
abilities, willing to take risks, makes decisions easily,
self-sufficient, dominant, masculine, willing to take a stand,
aggressive, acts as a leader, individualistic, competitive, ambitious. 

I urge you to draw your own conclusions from this test.

Lenore Levine


-- 
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
newsgroup is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.
From: muffy@mica.berkeley.EDU (Muffy Barkocy)
Subject: Re: Fucking and making love  (was: ... models of heterosex)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
Date: 31 Dec 92 19:22:36 GMT

In article <1g56s8INNeuj@agate.berkeley.edu> mvwjf@mvgpf.att.com (William J Fallon) writes:
>In article <1g3c6pINN62q@agate.berkeley.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
>>This triggered no small dose of irony when I read it.  There are
>>quite a few women for whom feminism, in part, meant that they
>>could like to fuck.  Not make love: that is what good women were
>>allowed to do with a particular beloved man from the start of the
>>west.  But to fuck: with friends and acquaintances, for the
>>eroticism and the high and the fun and the art and the kink and
>>the sweat of it.  And they could do this without being sluts
>>because feminism meant, in part, breaking the double standard
>>that reserved this activity to men and degraded women.

>Ah, you've been reading Cosmo again.

Well, I'm afraid I've never read Cosmo.  Nonetheless, I also find it sad
that so many feminists have decided that women's sex lives should still
be regulated by someone - they just want it to be feminists (well, their
kind of feminist, anyway) rather than men.  Fortunately, it's not that
bleak...I know lots of the "old style" feminists, who are simply in
favor of women having free choice as to what to do with their bodies and
who to do it with...*smile*.

>Nobody I know who wasn't already
>a slut before feminism came along felt it OK to become one after
>feminism came along.

Not to speak for Russell, but *I* thought the point was that they
*weren't* "sluts," which is a rather negative word, they became simply
people who enjoyed sex.

>What feminism DID do for a lot of women I know
>is make them feel better about enjoying the physical part of the
>relationships they would have had anyway, feminism or not.

"Would have had anyway?"  When they were owned first by their fathers or
brothers and then by their husbands?  When proof of adultery was one of
the few grounds for divorce, and most women were dependent on a man for
survival?  When they had little or no reason to expect to enjoy sex?
I'm sure there were people who had physical relationships and enjoyed
them, but I do think this situation has improved quite a lot because of
many of the effects of feminism.

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy                      | ~Can you tell me how much bleeding/it
muffy@mica.berkeley.edu            |  takes to fill a word with meaning and/
"amorous inclinations"? Aha! I'm   |  how much how much death it takes/to give
not "not straight," I'm *inclined*.|  a slogan breath?~ - Bruce Cockburn


--
Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu.
Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu.  This
news group is moderated by several people, so please use the mail aliases. Your
article should be posted within several days.  Rejections notified by email.