From: fine@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (victoria.fineberg)
Newsgroups: soc.men
Subject: Re: Japanese Women's Lib
Summary: American phenomena?
Date: 14 Apr 92 17:44:04 GMT
Organization: AT&T

Disclaimers: I kept only the parts of the original posting which I am
             responding to.  I tried to preserve meanings of different
	     statements, rather than taking words out of context.

	     There are probably some spelling or style errors which can
	     be excused by the fact that English is not my first language

In article <ngxjk-=.sheaffer@netcom.com>, sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
> 
> In any case, keep this in mind: the feminism we are so propagandized
> by here is a PURELY American phenomenon. There are women who call
> themselves "feminists" elsewhere, but the intensity
> and degree of male-bashing we are accustomed to exists NOWHERE else.
> In Europe, Asia, wherever, women are MUCH more into the "feminine"
> traits that feminists despise, and in Europe feminism is regarded
> as a tired old 1960s idea, like the New Left and LSD.
>
	I would be really careful generalizing over any group's
attitudes towards feminism, but Robert makes strong statements
about the American version in comparison to European and others
and seems to imply that "more feminine/less feminist behavior" is
a norm everywhere, except of the States, and it was created here
by unreasonable women who harm themselves and everybody who follows
them.
	The circumstances surrounding the women's movement may in
fact be quite different in the US, though I just read a Canadian
follow-up, that they have pretty same issues.  I want to offer
my two observations which may explain why gender politics work in
a certain way:

1.  In the United States, it is quite common and seldom blamed as
    immoral or unethical to collect different types of rewards like
    sueing a company or a doctor for a questionable damage, going
    after a motorist who hit one's car from behind, making money
    fast by exploring a half-legal scheme.  Just two days ago
    the program 60 Minutes described a Californian set up for
    collecting workman's compensation instead of unemployment,
    where people were using an opportunity to collect higher monthly
    payments after going to laywers/doctors - at the expense of
    insurance companies and their customers.
    -> When the overall morale supports these attitudes, then a
       by-product is that SOME women use laws and companies'
       policies for getting their rewards

2.  Many societies highly appreciate youth and beauty,
    but in the US it is handled overly crudely.  I don't have
    the facts to compare with the rest of the world, but it is
    clear that here young and beautiful have better chances to
    appear on magazine covers and in prime time films.
    -> Women who got "devalued" by their age or appearances and the
       ones who know that one day they will, are trying to find
       their own ways of having satisfying lives.

> Europeans
> can't see what all the fuss was about over Clarence Thomas and
> Anita Hill; her charges, even if true, strike them as something FUNNY, not
> as something horrendous. ONLY here in the U.S. of A. do we portray
> men as the enemy of women, only here do we blather endlessly
> finding 'sex discrimination' and 'sex harassment' in ambiguous
> or even totally innocent situations.

	Without going into a discussion of Clarence Thomas vs. Anita
Hill, if a woman uses "an ambiguous or totally innocent situation"
for getting certain rewards, she is NO MORE to be blamed than a man
who goes after his employer after being layed off for the reasons
of getting money, rewards or out of spite (see my observation #1 above).
	Both cases are immoral in my personal set of standards.

> It is possible that we, and
> we alone, know what is right and what is wrong in relations between
> the sexes, but when ONE country veers so far from not only its
> cultural neighbors, but all of human history as well, and given that its
> own social institutions are crumbling, well, it strikes me as a
> BIT arrogant to shout (as we do) that "ALL OF THE WORLD, AND ALL
> OF HISTORY, ARE WRONG, AND MUST FOLLOW US!!!!!!!".

	My observations above provide, I think, an explanation of
why we may be different.

> What is an
> undeniable fact of biology is that males are, ON AVERAGE, more
> aggressive then women. (I assume that I do not need to explain
> to you about two populations having different average values
> of a given trait, but with considerable overlap). Human experience
> shows that it IS possible to build a stable male/female relationship
> with the male playing the more aggressive and dominant role. It
> does NOT give us any examples of the reverse, and there are 
> excellent reasons for believing that it is not a long-term
> stable model.

ON AVERAGE, men are more aggressive then women (I agree with you
based on personal observations rather than hard data).  Whether
the only happy stability can be achieved by men dominating? - I
would argue.  Is it necessary that somebody is dominating? - it
depends on the meanings of aggressiveness and domination, it is
possible to dominate from a position of weakness.

> ... should
> the marriage break up when she is in her 40s or later, the man
> will have a far better chance of finding a suitable mate than
> she will. Surely you have not failed to note the great likelihood
> that an uncompromising feminist will grow old alone; go to any New Age
> gathering here in the Bay Area, and you will find it filled with
> unattached, intense, and aging Goddess-worshippers, perusing every kind
> of "psychic" flim-flam and "wholistic" twaddle in a desperate
> search for meaning in their lives.

It is a chicken-and-egg situation: women may turn to feminism as a way
to escape the "after 40" misery (see my statement #2 in the beginning of
the posting), then their chances to find a partner may deminish as a
result of their believes.


Victoria