From: colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten)
Subject: UTNE READER - summary of male/female articles (Jan/Feb, '92)
Keywords: UTNE, men, women,
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 13:16:28 GMT


This is summary of articles in the Jan/Feb 1993 UTNE READER, collected
under the heading "Women and Men  Can we get along?  Should we
even try?".

Warning:  These are my summaries.  They are not official,
          authoritative or the only view of these articles.

marc colten

-------------------
Article: (no title) 
Author: Lawrence Wright  
Excerpted from: Texas Monthly (Feb. 1992)

This article is about the author ambivalence about the current
view of men in society.  He admits that some men are very violent
towards women, but points out that:
     
     "Many women dismiss female violence in the home either as
     innocuous and different in nature from male violence or as
     self-defense, but Suzanne Steinmetz, a sociology professor
     at Indiana University, found that some men become targets of
     abuse when they attempt to protect their children from the
     mother's violence -- the reverse of the stereotype.  Other
     studies have concluded that women typically are just as
     assaultive as their husbands.  Although the men
     characteristically cause more injuries, wives strike the
     first blow in 48 percent of the cases, according to one
     study."

The author finds himself trapped.  He has a son who babysits and
he resents the advice handed out to never hire boys as
babysitters.  On the other hand he has a 10 year old daughter,
and wonders if he himself would risk her with a male babysitter. 
He resents anti-male suspicion and cites an example you can see
happening:

     "Come over and sit in my lap," a grandfatherly preacher
     friend of mine said out of a lifetime of habit to a little
     girl he knew.  He was at a gathering of friends and family.
     Suddenly, the room went dead quiet and every women turned to
     stare daggers at him.  In that moment, the preacher realized
     that he would never ask a little girl to sit in his lap
     again.  His presumption of innocence had been revoked -- not
     because of his past behavior, which had been exemplary, but
     simply because he is a man.

And yet he goes on to justify some of it by talking about
hormones and how we may be prone to excitability and arousal and
"Although male hormones (called androgens) don't cause violent
criminal behavior, they apparently create an inclination in that
direction.

As I said, he's very torn, and is the author who took the
broadminded approach to the suggestion that men could be bred out
of existence by "ovular merging".

There's a lot more to the article including attacking inflated assault
statistics (i.e. "one man in four is a rapist") and the contempt
for men that "pervades the most obscure strata of our society". 
I am including a paragraph he quotes from "House Rabbit Journal"
which "devoted a recent issue to the failings of men as
nurturers".  Since it would take thousands of lines to highlight
what is insane in this idiotic quote, I'll just leave it as is:

     "We assume that women perform the primary care-giving role
     with the house rabbit (as with the kids), and they form the
     strongest bonds with the bunny," wrote one author.  The
     magazine advised women rabbit owners who want their men to
     share in their rabbit pleasures to avoid talking about the
     warm, fuzzy, cuddly aspects of the animal and instead
     emphasize its traits of integrity, fortitude, and spirit. 
     "I have found, in my relationship with my husband, that
     having large numbers of animals living with us has put a
     strain on our relationship," admitted the writer.  "With
     each piece of furniture that has been destroyed, each time
     we had to avoid the urine puddles in our bed at night, each
     time we've spent 300 dollars at the vet for a rabbit I
     picked up at the pound, there have been some initial
     resentment on the part of my husband.  But ultimately he,
     too, has learned the value of caring."


My rating:  Pro-male, sort of, more like "guilty, with an explanation"

Article: "It's a jungle out there, so get used to it!"
Author:  Camille Paglia
Excerpted from: Sex, Art and American Culture (1992)


With Paglia, what you see seems to be what you get.  Men are
testosterone driven apes, women are on their own.  Feminism
"which has waged a crusade for rape to be taken more seriously,
has put young women in danger by hiding the truth from them." 
She seems to think that feminism is deliberately lying to women
and holding out the prospect of as full a life as a man, which
can never happen:

     One of my male students recently slept overnight with a
     friend in a passageway of the Great Pyramid in Egypt.  He
     described the moon and sand, the ancient silence and eerie
     echoes.  I will never experience that. I am a woman.  I am
     not stupid enough to believe I could ever be safe there. 
     There is a world of solitary adventure I will never have. 
     Women have always known these somber truths.  But feminism,
     with its pie-in-the-sky fantasies about the perfect world,
     keeps young women from seeing life as it is.

I really don't think there's much more to say about Paglia's
world view, but I would like to itemize some of my thoughts:

1    Men are *not*, by and large, testosterone driven apes.

2    I know nothing about her male student or his friend.  Maybe
     his friend was Rambo.  Maybe they were both armed.  But they
     could both have wound up with their throats slit, be they
     men or not, and left to dry up in the desert sun.  Two women
     who did that would be no more, or less, stupid.  Perhaps
     less if they were more prepared.

3    Drawing any line and putting all men on one side, and all
     women on the other is stupid and factually incorrect.

My rating:  The most fair of any of the articles.  Men are pigs,
            women are losers.  No bias either way.


Article:  "The Blame Game"
Author:   Sam Keen
Excerpted from: Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man (1991)


This article discusses the difference between "prophetic
feminism" ("a model for the changes men are beginning to
experience") and "ideological feminism" ("a continuation of the
pattern of general enmity and scapegoating that men have
traditionally practiced against women").  

     Ideological feminism, by contrast, is animated by a spirit
     of resentment, the tactic of blame, and the desire for
     vindictive triumph over men that comes out of the dogmatic
     assumption that women are the innocent victims of a male
     conspiracy.

But then he points out:

     Should a Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, or Imelda Marcos
     exhibit signs of the pathology of power, an ideological
     feminist will hasten to explain that she has been colonized
     by patriarchal attitudes.

and:

     Including all women in the same oppressed "class" seated
     Marie Antoinette and Rosa Parks side by side in the back of
     the same bus.

He feels that the division of men and women is the same by class,
with the women sharing the benefits of being in the upper class
and sharing the burdens of being in the lower.  He finishes by
defending men and their feelings against the blame we get for
just about everything:

     The world is dangerous, threatened, and wounding.  There can
     be no question that the historical humiliation of women is a
     fact.  But men's suffering from gender roles and the social
     system is also a fact.  The healing of the relationship
     between the sexes will not begin until men and women cease
     to use their suffering as a justification for their
     hostility.  It serves no useful purpose to argue about who
     suffers most.  Before we can begin again together, we must
     repent separately.

My rating:  Pro-male


Article: Ending the battle between the sexes
Authors: Aaron R. Kipnis & Elizabeth Hingston
Special to UTNE READER


They begin by comparing the "dearth of compassion about the
predicaments of the other sex":


     	  Women feel sexually harassed; men feel their courting
          behavior is often misunderstood.

     	  Women fear men's power to wound them physically; men
          fear women's power to wound them emotionally.

     	  Women say men aren't sensitive enough; men say women
          are too emotional.

     	  Women say men don't do their fair share of housework
          and child care; men feel that women don't feel as much
          pressure to provide the family's income and do home
          maintenance.

     	  Many women feel morally superior to men; many men feel
          that they are more logical and just than women.

     	  Women say men have destroyed the environment; men say
          the women's movement has destroyed the traditional
          family.

     	  Men are often afraid to speak about the times that they
          feel victimized and powerless; women frequently deny
          their real power.

     	  Women feel that men don't listen; men feel that women
          talk too much.

     	  Women resent being paid less than men; men are
          concerned about the occupational hazards and stress that
          lead to their significantly shorter life spans.

     	  Men are concerned about unfairness in custody and
          visitation rights; women are concerned about fathers
          who shirk their child support payments.


They go on to quote from discussion groups in which each gender
voices their complaints about the other and the kind of "double
bind" they find themselves in.  Other quotes are from more famous
people who have some pretty radical opinions:

Martin Luther: "God created Adam Lord of all living things, but
               Eve spoiled it all."

Abbie Hoffman: "The only alliance I would make with the women's
               liberation movement is in bed."

Marilyn French:     "All men are rapists and that's all they
                    are."

Betty Friedan: (On the men's movement) "Oh God, sick ... I'd
               hoped by now men were strong enough to accept
               their vulnerability and to be authentic without
               aping Neanderthal cavemen."

Some of the problems they address are:

     Previous gender roles which stifled both sexes in soul
     killing routines they felt unable to escape.

     The lack of single sex gathering places where each group
     could bond.

     The belief that all emotional needs will be supplied by a
     member of the opposite sex.

     Lack of respect for the differences between the sexes.


Their solutions:

     The opportunity to speak openly about feelings and gender
     roles, starting early.

     The willingness to really listen to what the other group has
     to say.

     Fairness in that discussions include both sides and does not
     trivialize one group's concerns.


My rating:  Mostly fair, but still slight more pro-female.  Notice
            that women's issue are presented as more life and death
            then men's and men's as being "concerns".


Sidebar:  Listen up guys!
Author:   "Starhawk"
Excerpted from:     "Women respond to the Men's Movement: A
                    Feminist Collection" by Kay Leigh Hagan
                    (1992)

A very short excerpt that begins with:

     The Clarence Thomas hearings brought my rage back. Wham,
     pow, oh, yes, men still don't listen to women.


and warns us to:

     Don't take it personally, don't defend yourselves, just once
     in a while shut up and listen.  And while we're on the
     subject stay out of the limelight occasionally.  Don't
     always be the first to pronounce on every topic; don't
     dominate every arena of public discourse.  It's not that we
     want you to be perpetually silent; it's just that we went
     you occasionally to listen first before you speak;


My rating:  Anti-male


Sidebar: The fight is far from over
Author:  Rebecca Walker
Excerpted from:     Court of Appeal: The Black Community Speaks
                    Out on the Racial and Sexual Politics of
                    Thomas vs. Hill


I have to say that this is one of two excerpts that read as if
they were written from another planet.

She starts by commenting on the Thomas hearings:

     While some may laud the spectacle for the consciousness it
     raised, it's very real outcome is more informative.  He was
     promoted.  She was repudiated.  Men were assured of the
     inviolability of their power.  Women were admonished to keep
     their experiences to themselves.  Thomas' confirmation sends
     a clear message to women:  "Shut up!  Even if you speak we
     will not listen."

I hardly think the message was all that clear.  More like it may
be a bit much for one person's word against another, especially
in a new, gray and growing area of law, to come out the way you
want.  Thomas was believed, and Hill was not - or the other way
around depending on who you listen to.

The part that sounds too strange to be taken seriously is where
she describes sitting on a New York train (reading _The Sound and
the Fury_), near "a beautiful mother and daughter, both wearing
green", the little girl's eyes "bright as she chatters happily". 
Then, two men get on the train:

     Loudly they begin to talk about women. "Man, I fucked that
     bitch all night and then I never called her again."  "Man,
     there's lots of girlies over there, you know that ho, live
     over there by Tyrone?  Well I snatched that shit up."

Besides the fact that this sounds like some dialogue from a bad
movie ("ho"? "Tyrone"?), I lived and worked in New York for 27
years, and spent time there for another 14 after I moved to New
Jersey, and I never ONCE heard anyone talk like that. It's all
too convenient.

Then:

     Another large man gets on the train.  After exchanging loud
     greetings with the two men, he sits next to me.  He tells
     them he is going to Philadelphia to visit his wife and child. 
     I am suckered into thinking that he is different.  Then he
     says "Man, there's a ton of females in Philly, just waitin'
     for you to give 'em some."  I turn my head and allow the
     fire in my eyes to burn into him.  He takes up two seats and
     has hands with huge swollen knuckles .  I imagine the gold
     rings on his fingers slamming into my face.  He senses
     something. "What's your name sweetheart?" The other men lean
     forward over the seat.

Of course she starts screaming at him, and "The woman/mother chimes
in to the beat with claps of sisterhood.", but it's all for
nothing and she leaves the car:

     I am so angry that thoughts of murder, of physically
     retaliating against them, of separatism, engulf me.  I am
     almost out of body, just shy of being pure force.

She goes on at her anger at "... the way women are negated, violated,
devalued ignored."  She realizes that she "... must undergo a
transformation if I am truly committed to women's empowerment."

Her solution:

     Turn that outrage into political power.  Do not vote for
     them unless they work for us. Do not have sex with them, do
     not nurture them if they don't prioritize our freedom to
     control our bodies and our lives."

My rating:  Anti-male, bordering on hallucination


Sidebar:  Do gays and lesbians get along?  Yes and no
Author:  Laura M. Markowitz
Special to UTNE READER


This article discusses the fact that, despite being on the same
side of the sexual preference line, gay men and lesbians are
deeply divided in the same way as straights.  Lesbians feel that
they spend time caring for gay men with AIDS while gay men do
nothing for lesbians with breast cancer.  Many lesbians want
nothing to do with gay men, because are still men.  Many gay men
apparently feel the same way about lesbians.  Lesbians feel that
gay men enjoy the benefits of the "patriarchy" despite being gay. 
Other gay men and lesbians, though, like the other gender and are
willing to "build bridges".


My rating:  Not my area of expertise, but mostly anti-male. 
            The lesbians hate gay men because they refuse to
            help out on "lesbian issues".  I wonder, though, why
            is breast cancer a "lesbian issue" rather than a
            "woman's issue".  The gay men who are shown as having
            trouble with lesbians do not have any issues to
            discuss, they simply are repelled by women.  Something
            of an outdated stereotype, I thought.


Sidebar:  The blue balls bluff
Author:   Helen Cordes
Special to UTNE READER

This is a rebuff to Paglia's article which she feels brings back
the stereotype that men who rape are just "... doin' what comes
naturally" and women should "... just get used to it".

She feels that these extreme views (that all men are rapists and
that men have "insistent urges") are wrong and dangerous.  She
feels that sometimes sex is just sex, even if we seek it for the
wrong reason (men using it "... to substitute for other
inadequacies in their lives" and women "... to shore up their ego
or as a bargaining chip for attention and affection.").

Her solution is to make people accountable for their actions.  If
men are offensive - call them on it. 

     Instead of cloistering women and allowing men free rein, why
     don't women and men talk and work together for change, so
     that they can find ways to be peaceably intimate again?


My rating:  Mostly fair. Some men are pigs, some women are losers,
            let's work on it.


Sidebar:  Just friends
Author:  Abby Ellin
Excerpted from:     Alternet News Service, first published in
                    Boston Phoenix (1992)


Can men and women be friends without sex?  Tough question.  She
quotes movies and TV to show there haven't been platonic friends
since Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher.  She also points out the
differences she sees in men and women in this situation. 
Although women have been disappointed when a man to whom they
were romantically inclined decided to remain friends: 

     Still, I have never met a woman who ended a friendship
     because the man refused to hop into bed.

When she compares why we are friends with a member of the
opposite sex, the first thing she mentions is that women are
safer with men.  Not just physically, but there are "... no
whistles, no catcalls, no horns honking."  The trouble is, she
says, that issues of self-esteem and self-worth come into it:

     Since men possess the bulk of the world's power and status,
     it's no wonder women value their attention so much.  I hate
     to admit it, but I feel a lot more connected to the rest of
     the world when I'm out with a man, even if he is just a pal.

She then takes us through her life (briefly), with her envy of
the vigorous sports of the boys while she and her girlfriends
played with Barbies and her resentment that the boys were
perfectly happy to toss a football without them.

She ends by mentioning that the issue of sex will sooner or later
come up and have to be dealt with.

The article does not really go into the man's side of the issue,
and why we want women as friends (unless she is simply implying
that we are holding out for sex, no matter how long we have to
wait).


My rating:  I started to say mostly fair, but I had to think it
            over.  Men as the center of power, which is why women
            like to be our friends?  Hanging out with us because
            otherwise every man in the world will be honking and
            hooting?  I don't know.  Still mostly fair, but in a
            bad way.  Both sides come out losers in this article.
            


Sidebar:  His and hers politics
Author:   Barbara Kingsolver
Excerpted from:     "Women respond to the Men's Movement: A
                    Feminist Collection" by Kay Leigh Hagan
                    (1992)


This is the other article that strikes me as being written from
some far away place.  She begins by complaining about the symbols
on bathrooms.  The men's room has the standard symbol of "man"
while the women's:

     ... showed a silhouette of someone wearing a beehive hairdo
     and applying lipstick.


I have to say here that in 43 years I have NEVER seen anything
remotely like that.  The closest is a local restaurant where the
mens room is marked by three dancing pigs in bib overalls and the
women's by three dancing pigs in tutus.  Too cute?  Yes?  Sexist? 
I guess.  But when you're in a hurry you appreciate the
difference in the signs. Still, they are more or less equivalent.

The article uses that as an example of the lack of equivalence
between the women's and men's movements:

     Women are fighting for their lives, and men are looking for
     some peace of mind.

I'd be a lot more persuaded if she put "some" in front of "women"
and "men".  The difference between the women's and the men's
movements, she says, is "... they are hangnail and hand grenade".

Although she ends by saying instead of "his" and "hers" we should
have "ours", she spends the entire excerpt belittling any
problems men have and saying that:

     Women struggle with the fact that they are statistically
     likely to be impoverished, worked to the bone and raped.

Wonderful things, statistics.  You just ignore things that don't
prove your point, like the draft, violence against men, and men
who are poor.

My rating:  Anti-male.  We have a free ride and nothing bad
            can ever happen to us.  Plus we rig bathroom doors
            to humiliate women.


Sidebar:  Who's on top?  A revisionist history of men and women
Author:   Brenda Ueland
Excerpted from: Strength To Your Sword Arm


The excerpt says that for thousands of years the prevailing
situation has been "... the domination by men and the degradation
of women.".

She then goes back to ancient history to discuss civilizations
run by women.  Apparently the domination by women did not lead to
the degradation of men, since she doesn't mention it.  She then
claims that women were once physically closer to men, but this
was bred out by men who, to feel superior to women, chose wives
"... with low-grade physical prowess, unable to walk or run decently,
with feeble feet, ruined knees, and, as at present, enormously
exaggerated breasts.".  Sounds like the kind of talk that got
Jimmy the Greek kicked off TV.

I'll leave it up to historians to back up or refute her claims,
although I have to say I see little logic in the idea that men
bred women to be weak.  If they had to power to control
evolution, you think they breed them to work hard, not flutter
around like butterflies.


My rating:  Anti-male.  Starts out pro-female (great ancient
            civilizations run by caring, nuturing, big-boned
            female warriors who men still loved) and degenerates
            into this genetic conspiracy.


Xref: sparky soc.men:22094 alt.feminism:6790