From: rberlin@birdland.Eng.Sun.COM (Rich Berlin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Male violence and the 'Power Myth'
Date: 1 Oct 1992 07:46:35 GMT
Organization: SunPics -- A Sun Microsystems Business
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NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Sep24.093852.1@emu.insted.unimelb.edu.au> s342046@emu.insted.unimelb.edu.au writes:
>THE "POWER MYTH" TAUGHT TO MEN LEADS TO VIOLENCE.
>
[ ... ]
>
>In "Beauty Myth", Naomi Wolfe shows how our cultural myth that a female's
>worth depends on how beautiful she is, has terrible repecussions for women. We
>believe that men are subjected to a "Power Myth" that says that their personal
>worth as a human being depends on how powerful he is; his status in the
>pecking order. And unless he is a "winner" all the time then he is a "losser".

In the interest of preserving bandwidth I won't quote any more of
this; the message is consistent.  And I feel obliged to quibble with
this particular message although the article on the whole has much
good about it.  The insights it presents are valuable and "right on."

Wolf's book says over and over that the reason the Beauty Myth is so
powerful, so insidious and so entrenched is that *both* sexes buy into
it.  Many people of both sexes are victimized by aspects of the Beauty
Myth; many people of both sexes behave in ways that serve to uphold
the myth.  Many behave in these ways even as they're being victimized.

The subtle, but crucial distinction between the thesis of The Beauty
Myth and this article about the "Power Myth" is that *women* don't
appear anywhere in the analysis of the latter.  Men and women both are
exposed to, absorb, are affected by and perpetuate the Beauty Myth; I
don't see why the same shouldn't be true of the Power Myth.

Wolf, over and over again, is inclusive with her audience; men are not
"the other," and they are not "the problem."  She's earned a great
measure of my respect by her steadfast refusal to turn men as a class
(and by extension, ME) into scapegoats, a sort of collective "Jungian
Shadow;" instead she maintains her connection with both halves of the
human race, and shows how *all* of us are victimized by these values.

Would that the "Power Myth" article had exhibited a similarly broad
and disciplined	 perspective...sigh.  I suppose that I can excuse the
omission, given that this is the first article on the subject and the
authors probably are still learning from the benefit of this wide
exposure.  But it distresses me to see it nonetheless.

-- Rich

"When you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other."
--
===============================================================================
Richard.Berlin@Eng.Sun.COM   |   The significant problems we face cannot be
			     |   solved at the same level of thinking we were
			     |   at when we created them.  -- Albert Einstein


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