From: kumagic@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Stephen R. Figgins)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: I Care! (was Re: Who cares)
Date: 22 Jul 92 08:36:54 CDT
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1992Jul21.192259.14837@linus.mitre.org>, heimberg@pacific.mitre.org (Jeff Heimberger) writes:
> 
> No, I don't have a real personal issue in it.  I just feel that the type
> of behavior exhibited by activists on *both* ends of the spectrum is
> far away from most people in the middle.  My point is, that I haven't
> played any part in oppressing anybody in the third world, and thus, I
> shouldn't be blamed for it.

I feel like I am in the middle.  I seldom see the kind of extreme
behavior that you are talking about.  When I do see it, it is usually
because of some greater suffering.  Which is why I thought your
extreme reaction might have a deeper cause. 

I recognise my part in maintaining systems of oppression.  I do what I
can, when I can, to remove myself from them.  That doesn't always
amount to much, but I hope it helps a little.  Long ago I recognised
that I had a problem with the way I act toward women.  When it was
first pointed out to me by my lover at the time, I ralied against it.
I took the stance that you are taking here.  It wasn't me.  I didn't
do it.  It took a long time for me to see the subtle ways my actions
affected the women around me.  I discounted what women had to say more
often than men.  I would interrupt them.  I disvalued them.  I needled
them about their appearance when I didn't like it.  An expectation of
something better always left me discontent with what I had.  I never
beat a woman.  I never raped a woman.  But I did marginalize women.  A
thousand little things that I did, that other men do, discounted their
experiences, and told them they were unimportant, unworthy of playing
the game with the boys.  It's echoed in the movies, television, songs,
plays, books.  It's echoed in the actions of other women.  I don't
make the movies.  I don't write the books.  But I do see now, some of
the ways our culture discounts womens experiences, and shoves them off
into the corner, or the kitchen or wherever.

Hell, some of it I still don't see.  But now I try to see it.  Now I
find when I tell most other men this, they think I am crazy, been
brainwashed.  They think this doesn't apply to them.  They think they
never do these things.  Some claim women control everything, men are
just their pawns.  

One place I have found an ear is among my fellow pagan men.  They are
often willing to see the threads others would ignore, the ones that
connect our daily actions to the ways of the world.  Those daily
actions are the ones for which we are responsible.  That is what we
can change.  I have also found that what lifts you up, lifts me up,
lift the earth herself up.  Until we are beyond these systems of
oppression, there will be no lasting change, no end to war, no end to
poverty, no end to hatred, no end to environmental destruction even,
as that is another form of oppression.

> On a more personal level, I'm divorced with children.  The whole thing,
> while it didn't result in an ugly legal mess, *assumed* I was a bad guy
> because I was the husband.  For example, my separation agreement states
> categorically that I will go to jail if I don't pay child support.  It
> *assumes* that I would not want to care for my children, and that's a
> bad assumption for me.  I've made every payment on time and in full
> ($1000/month!).
> 
> In another case, my daughter had open heart surgery in FL back in 1990
> (after the divorce).  I called the hospital to make some arrangements,
> and said I would be down the day before the surgery (I live in VA).
> The hospital said they would not let me enter the building or see my
> daughter.  Why?  Because I was the ex-husband.  My ex-wife wanted me
> there, thought it was my duty to be there, and thought it would be good
> for my daughter, but the hospital *assumed*, with no evidence to the
> contrary, mind you, that I would cause problems.  I did get in, however
> -- I went down and waived insurance forms under their noses and traded
> signed forms for a parents badge.  All very nicely and sweetly.  Money
> talks!
> 
> These are just 2 instances where I've been cast as a bad guy contrary
> to all evidence.  I believe everyone should be evaluated on an
> individual basis.  To say that I'm a bad guy because I'm in a specific
> group (e.g., divorced men) is wrong.

I had not thought of this.  I know that many men have not paid their
child support, and so a system of dealing with those who do not has
been put in place to protect the mothers and children of the world.
My own father, though not a particularly evil guy, did not want to pay
child support for me.  Until it looked like his wages were going to be
garnished, he did not pay.  That was about a year.   One very thin
year for my sister, mother and I.  

The hospital perhaps should have been cautious as well.  When I look
at this, I see that you have suffered because of the negative actions
of other men.  Personally I feel it is unfair that younger men have to
pay higher car insurance than do women.  After all, I didn't drive my
car dangerously.   But the statistics weighed against me.  I was
judged more likely to have an accident.  

I find men are more likely to hurt me, rob me, kill me, discount my
experiences, interrupt me.  And if I feel that way, I can only imagine
how women feel.  I am going to treat men cautiously until I can judge
them as an individual.  It is safer that way.  I am sorry for the men,
like you who are inadvertantly harrassed like this.  When there is no
time to find out what each individual is like, I am going to make some
assumptions based on what the majority is like, and modify it later if
need be.  

> None, really.  My point is that men are men and women are women, and
> that's the way evolution has made us.  Why should we seek to become a
> genderless society that is unallowed to appreciate the differences?  I
> don't condone nor participate in sexual harrassment, but how can I not
> notice when I see what I consider to be a beautiful woman?

Marge Piercy in _Woman on the Edge of Time_ presented a kind of
genderless soceity.  I thought it sounded kind of interesting, but not
necessarily the way I would like soceity to evolve.  However I do
think we should let go of some of our gender defined behavior.  The
behavior that limits ourselves and others.  I am not against
appreciating the differences, or even the similarities.  I do my share
of watching women. I hope noone is saying men cannot find women
attractive, or notice beauty when they feel they are seeing it.  If
they are, I am standing with you.

>>Even I treat men with more caution than I do women.  I don't know how
>>heinous this discrimination is, I just don't trust men very much.  In
>>general I expect white men to be oblivious to the pain and suffering
>>they cause, the fear they generate.  They just don't seem to see it.
>>So I don't trust them.  
> 
> But, again, isn't this judging the book by it's cover?

I don't let it stand in the way of my reading the book.  But if the
first couple of chapters just reinforce what the cover told me, I need
a good reason to keep reading.  In your case, you posted on alt.pagan,
and I am sort of invested in paganism, and men in paganism in
particular.  So I am asking the deeper questions.  Had you posted this
sort of stuff elsewhere, I probably would not have invested as much
time and effort to reply.  

May the Goddess guide your path, Jeff.  Blessed Be. 

-- 
___________________________________________________________________________

Stephen R. Figgins           |  There was an old woman
kumagic@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu   |  Who lived under the hill 
PO Box 1244                  |  And if she's not gone 
Lawrence, KS 66044	     |  She lives there still
___________________________________________________________________________