From: rons@hardy.u.washington.edu (Ronald Schoenberg)
Newsgroups: soc.women
Subject: Re: The Politics Of Appeasement
Date: 8 Oct 92 15:49:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Oct8.154907.6905
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <7061@transfer.stratus.com> dswartz@sw.stratus.com (Dan Swartzendruber) writes:

[elided material....]

>
>There is no such thing as white male affirmative action.  There *is* a
>problem wherein white males sometimes get jobs non white males don't;
>but that is a problem with social priorities and prejudices which does
>need to be addressed.  Affirmative Action is a officially mandated policy
>wherein members of certain "disadvantaged" classes receive preferential
>treatment to non-members of those classes.  A lot of people feel that even
>if AA was an acceptable mechanism for rectifying inequities, you are going
>to run afoul of basic human nature.  A lot of people resent this kind of
>arbitrary system, right or not.  And by the way, it's not just white males
>who lose with AA.  Consider AA in university admissions.  The group which
>is most screwed over by AA there is asian students.  The reality there is
>that they are if anything more qualified academically than white males.  So
>are you going to tell me there is an old asian network in this country?  If
>not, how do you justify this?  And how do you expect people like Joe and me
>to buy into your program?
>
>
>
>-- 
>
>Dan S.


You say that there is not white male affirmative action...how about
the one I mentioned in my original posting, all those white males that
get admitted to Harvard, Yale, etc. ahead of women and blacks (and
Asians) regardless of their ability or qualifications.  And it is an
official program.
  All this going on by white males about the "inequities" and
resulting threats to our social structure of affirmative action is
really lame.  When I was a graduate student there was a rule, not
official but nevertheless explicitly stated, that financial support
went only to male graduate students.  Also, when I was young (in the
'50s) men were given priority over women in all jobs (because they
were the "breadwinners").  My old department now gives financial
support to women, and the "breadwinner" argument is no longer used.
But it is really interesting that when men were given explicit
advantages over women, there were no men talking about inequities and
threats to our social system.  On the contrary, when we confronted the
faculty about their rule giving financial support only to women, they
actually argued that the rule was beneficial to society.
   Reactionary white men are only arguing for the preservation of their
own advantage.  When the rules explicitly favor white men, they offer
ad hoc rationalizations.  When non-white, non-male people exert their
political force, the white males try to preserve their advantage by
changing the justification to "moral" and "philosophical" ones, and
attack the non-white, non-male arguments as ad hoc.  This just shows
that the real issues are not moral, philosophical, or ad hoc, but
rather are issues of power and advantage.  And right now, the power
and advantage of white males on this planet is such that any
affirmative action plan no matter how bold is doomed.
From: sam@hpsad.sad.hp.com (Vicky Hansen)
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:35:58 GMT
Subject: Re: kids and last names (was:My Bitter/Sweet Tale)
Organization: HP Signal Analysis Division - Rohnert Park, CA