From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Men Not Getting It (was Re: Twice Fucked)
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 92 16:03:49 GMT


In article <1992Nov14.150859.8271@panix.com> mara@panix.com
(Mara Chibnik) writes:

>dfs@lestat.bellcore.com (Deborah Swayne) asked Andrew M.
>Solovay:

>>>Excellent.  Do you use anti-woman expressions whenever you
>>>want to insult a man, or do you reserve them for insulting
>>>gay men?

>psp@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (P.S. Powledge) follows up:

>>what *really* pisses me off is to see this women-hating
>>drivel posted here time and time again [...]I mean by men
>>who are claiming to be part of this community.

>Yup.  It's a little hard to explain if you don't get it in
>the first place.

*So* much seems to rest on men not "getting it," doesn't it?
I've always been somewhat at a loss to understand to
understand why more men, indeed all men, don't get it.

I mean, there's patriarchy and male privilege and all that,
and a whole system for protecting men from having to get it.
All these "you (presumably lucky guys) don't have to get it,
because you've managed to so skew the world that you can
protect your innocence" types seem like a lotta momma's
boys, if you ask me.

But even with all that, one would expect more men to have
seen pictures from the concentration camps, or to have read
a few accounts of lynchings or gay-bashing, or to have done
*something*, to raise their consciousnesses about prejudice
and oppression out of the subbasement.  I mean, it's not
like they'd have to be rocket scientists or anything too
taxing.

>That there are lots of men who do get it I have no doubt,
>because soc.motss is unlike most other newsgroups I've read
>in having a considerable group of regular posters who _do_
>get it, and in fact who raise the issue themselves when they
>spot misogyny lurking behind a careless choice of words.

The older I get, the more I find myself paying attention to
the words.  The rigorous details I leave to the linguists
(one can't do everything), but the words are like switches
on the track of life, sending your train of thought down a
network of sidings and branches, in no time carrying you
miles from the main line.  The principal result, I think, is
to land these men in the landscape of denial: "I'm not
misogynistic because I'm not a misogynist."

>Still, that's a little like hanging out in a straight group
>where most of the posters are glb* friendly, but some are
>outright 'phobes and others are just not aware of how
>hostile some current slang is to glb* folk.  It's great to
>see the support you get from the anti-phobes, but the
>hostility to which they're responding is a constant reminder
>that this world isn't really _your_ world after all.

Which underscores further my wonder that some men don't get
it.  The ones who are gay and bisexual, one would think,
would at *least* resonate with "this world isn't *your*
world after all." 

How can one *not* see that all these oppressions are linked
together in myriad ways?  How can anyone *not* see that
these linked oppressions form an interlocking network of
steel bonds penetrating all facets of our society?  How can
anyone *not* see that our common "enemy" is this tendency to
create and maintain power relationships that seek personal
gain through causing others to lose?  How, really, can
anyone not "get it?"

-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson
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