From: uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (Robert Coleman)
Subject: Re: men's issues vs. women's issues
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.
Date: 31 Jul 92 19:55:50 GMT

tittle@alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle Moore) writes:

>In <robert.711919690@labyrinth> uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (Robert Coleman) writes:

>Robert, you write a very nice article,

Thanks, I try. :-)
but I do have a few comments.

>Also you should note, when you ask why we can't accept that men are
>as affected by these issues (yes, that's a gross oversimplification
>of what you said) as women are, that there are *very* *few* men who
>ask the questions you do.  If most men I met had the kinds of
>questions and concerns you did, you'd find that we were much more
>receptive.  As it is, you have what appears to be a rather naive
>opinion that many men share your opinions and I assure you that they
>do not.

	Contrariwise, I think I've made it clear that most men are
unhappy without even knowing why, as they've been made to bury
emotional and introspective urges as part of their gender training.
Yes, you'll hear very few men who ask these questions, but relate this
to the feminist experience; how many women were asking these kinds of
questions in the 50s?  Did the fact that there were only a few make
asking the questions invalid, or did it mean that men should not have
been receptive?  Did it mean there were no truths to be found by
asking these questions?  Are you suggesting that feminists today are
no more advanced in considering these sorts of questions than men were
in the 50s?

	I'm really not sure what the number of men asking these
questions has to do with whether you're receptive or not.  Are you
interested in a majority opinion, or truths and injustices that you
might be unaware of without the asking of the questions?

	(Disclaimer: I'm not conceited enough to imagine that I know
all the truths.  I do know that we absolutely cannot learn any truths
if we select a certain set of questions to avoid asking, or if we make
assumptions without viewing one whole side of an issue.)

>*I* would call you a feminist.  You ask many questions that men and
>women would be threatened by.

	I will take this as the compliment intended, even as I must
politely decline.  I'm not sure that this is a valid definition of
feminist, and I definitely think that the questions I'm asking right
now are a lot more threatening to "feminists" than they are to
"women".

>>	As for whether "some" feminists want to be dominant or not,
>>again, I think that you miss the dominant overtures completely,
>>perhaps because your preference is towards feminism instead of
>>humanism.  For instance, there are a number of ways we can balance
>>the current power that a unilateral choice to motherhood gives women
>>over men; endless discussions on the net suggest that very few
>>feminists are interested in even considering the idea.  Since the
>>ideas do not have anything to do with the right of women to their
>>own bodies, I can only interpret that as an attempt to maintain the
>>current power that women have.

>I have seen these discussions, and my interpretation of the results
>of such discussions differs: I see the problem, but have seen no
>"good" solution to it.  The inherent problem is that one sex bears
>the child and the other does not: this difference results in a very
>real difference in what each sex can do about becoming a parent, I
>think.

	There are other real gender differences, such as an average
strength differential, that have been resolved by other means.  For
instance, the great, great majority of women are unable to lift a 150
lb person to escape a burning fire, yet we have chosen to enable women
to become firefighters anyway; many women cannot lift heavy boxes, so
we provide tools to help them, and so on.  Without entering into this
debate, I'll simply point out that if there is an inherent biological
"advantage", it can be balanced by placing an artificial disadvantage
in some other area (for example, mandating that if a woman "forces" a
man to become a father, he gets the choice as to who becomes the
primary custodian; whether you like the idea or not is irrelevant,
since we aren't trying to debate that here; it's enough to note that
the question of looking for a balance can be explored).

	Biology is not an excuse to ignore a power imbalance; the
negative results of that power imbalance affect both of us, so it
deserves investigation of potential balancing.

>But I don't wish to get into this debate, I simply wanted to point
>out why it seemed (that some, at least) feminists "aren't
>interested."

	I see a great difference between not agreeing with potential
solutions and not being interested in even exploring the question.  My
impression (note that this is only *my* impression) is that most
feminists don't really even want to consider the idea.  This is one
area where most feminists seem to be very comfortable with "Biology is
Destiny".

>I also would not say that women have any kind of "power" over this.
>Men that do not wish to pay child support (whether or not they wanted
>the child at the time it was born) simply do not and evading the law
>is fairly easy.  I know many women who are unable to collect any
>money from their ex husbands for their children even though they know
>where the men are.

	They do have the power to unilaterally make a man a father
against his will.  He has no similar power.  Does this not seem like a
power imbalance to you?  What if it were the other way around?

	As far a child support goes, they certainly have power over
me, as I would pay any child support ordered.  They don't have power
over criminals; surprisingly enough, very few of us have any power of
criminals.  That's one of the reasons people become criminals in the
first place.

	Moreover, they system is still biased in such a way that the
woman, having made a unilateral decision, also gets first bid for
custody.  This is a broader issue, of course, but it still relates
directly to the power a woman has to choose motherhood; she chooses
whether it happens, she get custody, and child support is ordered,
which those law abiding folks will feel bound to pay.  He is almost
powerless to affect these chain of events, certainly without becoming
a criminal.  Do you still not say that women don't have any kind of
"power" over this?

	(Incidentally, I don't understand why these women can't
collect; many states will actually garnishee on nothing but the
woman's claim, without going to court; I'd be surprised to find any
that wouldn't garnishee if the woman did go to court.  If you say it
is so, then I believe you, but I do wonder if they've explored all
their options.)

	(Also, this situation is changing rapidly to empower women
more in this area, with "deadbeat dads" becoming almost daily items in
papers and governments of many states moving to deal more harshly with
the situation; without any kind of balance on visitation or custody,
this just increases the power imbalance even more, leading, I'm sure,
to an inevitable backlash that I'll bet neither you nor I want to
see.)

>>	Additionally, in this very posting your responded to, I
>>described the war in California over the new Child Support law; you
>>definitely read this, yet you apparently did not see that part of
>>the attempt to implement a form of alimony using child support was
>>an attempt to assert power over men.  Isn't alimony the correct
>>avenue for deciding on this money transfer?  Why should both alimony
>>and child support serve this purpose?  What is the motivation?
>>Could it be...power?  Why, in general, can we garnishee wages for
>>child support but are generally not interested in some simple way to
>>deal with withholding of visitation?

>Child support, visitation, and related issues are much more complex
>than this.  I don't think that it boils down to a "power struggle"
>over men.  Women, when they (yes, rarely) have to pay child support,
>have equally poor records of forking over the money.  The real
>problem is elsewhere.  That is to say, I support much more equitable
>splits in who gets custody and who pays support, but the problem of
>"deadbeat parents" will not go away with equitable splits.  There is
>some other problem here.

	According to some data published in Soc.Men, examination of
payment in relationship with custody and visitation show that there is
a correlation between custody, visitation, and child support; I don't
think I saved the data, but as I recall some 85% of joint custody
fathers were at full compliance, with the numbers going down in
relation to visitation rights.  I think the issues are a lot more
related than you think; it's a lot easier to put money into a garden
you get to watch grow than it is to drop it down a dark well.

	But it all amounts to a power struggle when only one side's
issues are explored.  The control by "criminal" men over payment of
child support is balanced, somewhat, by the control of "criminal"
women over visitation (both being abhorrent, but equally so).  If we
fix only one side, then who ends up on the low end of a power
imbalance?  If youre point is that most women don't "intend" to create
a power imbalance in their favor by rectifying only their negative
situations, I'm not sure I can agree; but regardless, that is the
affect, and insisting that it's OK to seek to address only one side's
issues is inevitably insisting that it's OK to seek a power imbalance.

>>	How about feminist judicial concepts?  They insist that the
>>determination of a crime should come from how the victim "felt" at
>>the time, rather than by some testable evaluation of the situation.
>>This concept, though written as victim, seems only to be applied if
>>the woman is a victim; for instance, a defence similar to "I thought
>>she was sending me signals that she wanted a proposition" would not
>>considered to be a reasonable defense.  Doesn't this give an
>>extraordinary amount of power to women?

>This is untrue.  The question being debated is "what is a reasonable
>person likely to consider a danger to his/her life?"  Historically,
>it has been the men's POV: when actually under attack, etc, because
>men are assumed to be about equal in abilities.  Women on the other
>hand, frequently strike back when the other is incapacitated, because
>they know from bitter experience that *when* the other wakes up, then
>they will be beated, that if they leave the other will track them
>down, etc -- and because of the physical disparity between them, the
>women will not survive or be able to head of the attack if they fight
>back during an actual attack.  It is not setting up "reasonableness"
>on the basis of how women "feel."  These cases are being decided on
>an individual basis: the history of that particular person beating
>her up, following her, threatening her, plus the real physical
>imbalance.

	The basis of a decision has been moved from the historically
wrong "reasonable man's POV" to the equally wrong "reasonable woman's
POV".  If the first was wrong, the second is likely to be equally
wrong.  ("Woman" was specified in the ruling, not "person".)

	And the question came up wrt sexual harassment, not spousal or
other gender abuse.  You're setting up a valid question, but it
doesn't have to do with the decision, though, of course, it may soon.

	I could possibly be wrong about the tenets of feminist
judicial concepts; it's second hand information from a feminist law
student and another feminist on the net, and bears more personal
investigation on my part.

>I see no reason why they couldn't apply to men: a slight boy that
>gets beaten up regularly by an older man.  In fact, a local case here
>was on just that -- and the boy (actually 18 at the time he killed
>his guardian) won.

	In our recent history, even gender-impartial language has been
interpreted partially.  For instance, though many states have ERA-like
constitutional statements, there has been no attempt to balance, say,
custody biases by, say, quota systems, as there has been in the
workplace; all-men schools are actively destroyed, while all-women's
schools are protected.

	I'm pleased that this happened in a local case, but I would
need some better example; women and "children" (and an 18-year-old is
obviously borderline) have often been lumped together as victims of
"women's issues" type abuses.  I'd like to see some 40-year old man
use this defense against a battering spouse; but even so, one case
wouldn't make a movement.

>Let me point out that I study martial arts, and the more I know, the
>more acutely I realize that if I'm ever attacked by a man, I have to
>take him out on the *first* try.  I will not have a second chance, no
>matter how good I am.

	I could probably say the same about myself.  I'm not a
fighter, and teaching me how to fight won't give me what it takes to
win.

>>	Take Back The Night movements that suggest a curfew...for men
>>only?

>This has a history behind it.  Of course the suggestion is facetious.
>The absurdity of it is used to point out the absurdity of a curfew
>for women in order to avoid rape by staying at home (which is the
>traditional response).

	Ok, that wasn't a fair example.  Apologies.

>I remember seeing a letter to the editor some time ago.  The person
>was angry at the increased crime in LA and said something like "we
>will not be able to walk on our own streets unless we do something
>about these criminals."  Which was perfectly reasonable -- except we
>never seem to have a similar reaction when the crime is increased
>rape.  "Oh, stay at home!" is the advice given instead.

	I'm beginning to be very suspicious of statements like this
that state that such-and-such an opinion is offered without stating
who is offering it.  Certainly not I.  Who offers this advice?

>>Circumventions of the legal system, for women, such as writing
>>alleged rapists names on bathroom walls?

>I do not condone this, but I understand the rage that inspired it.
>Some universities are notoriously poor at handling charges of sexual
>abuse between students.  Even here, our administration tends to keep
>quiet about rapes and beatings that have occured on campus.  If there
>were well respected and fair protocols for handling rape and similar
>complaints, I bet you would not see this kind of protest.

	It is a good point that this particular attempt to get power
is an attempt to equalize a power imbalance.  One of the issues that
make me very angry is the way that rape is handled on some campuses.
I'll withdraw this observation.

>>Abused wives who burned their husbands having an actual legally
>>accepted defense "Abused Wife Syndrome" that is hardly, if ever,
>>applied to men even if they qualify?

>See above.

	What?  What you posted above still falls firmly in the "hardly
if ever" category.  If you can show a real movement in this direction,
please do.  I have only heard the defense described specifically as
the "Abused Wife Syndrome", and never as the "Abused Spouse Syndrome",
which if true shows that the language isn't even gender neutral, much
less the application.

	I have surrendered some of my examples; I still feel that the
others stand to show that women are actively pursuing a superior
position in many areas.

>I think you fail to consider much of the context that these things
>occur in.  I agree with the hiking analogy recently posted, because
>of the behaviour of many men that I have experienced.  It is a very
>rare man who waits at the cliff or even heads back to the woman stuck
>in the ravine.  More often, they try and trip the woman as she's
>climbing out.

	And it's an even rarer woman who considers the man who's
afraid of heights.  I'm sorry that you've had direct experience with
men who try to trip you up; I'm even sorrier that you've never
wondered why.  Do men just have a mean streak, or is there something
threatening to men about women throwing off the shackles of their
inequality while pretending that the chains that bind men are
invisible?

	The context men grow up in is one where we're told how
powerful we are; we experience a cognitive dissonance as we see in our
own lives how little power most of us have.  We're told that we
haven't got any problems, leaving us to wonder why we're unhappy.
When we figure out that we really *do* have problems, we're told that,
yes, well, you do have problems, but they're not *nearly* as bad as
*our* problems.  When we begin to realize that we're just as unhappy
as you are, we're told that you're unconcerned because some other guy
somewhere else mistreated you.

	It's not terribly surprising that men cling to their old
gender roles and fight for their old power positions when every
attempt at introspection is met with such resistance, is it?

	I see a whole context where a lot of people are refusing to
help each other, though I see the old patriarchal mindset acting to
cause many more men to help women than vice versa.  I see a context
where women's complaints get approval, where men's complaints are
ignored, or worse, labelled as "whining".  I see a world that insists
on thinking of women as individual human beings and men as an
amorpheous, faceless, emotionless blob, where every member of the set
has all the characteristics of every other member of the set.  I see a
world prepared to give women emotional reassurance, but prepared,
patriarchal-like, to slap men down if they show an emotional side.  I
see a world that would be a lot more comfortable if I were to act like
the stereotype they're comfortable with, than acting like a human
being.

	I see women who remember every grain of sand dropped on them
from above, without remembering the hands that must have been held
down to them to enable the considerable advances of the last 20 years.
How many men in the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court?  How many in the one
that decided to uphold it?  How many men in the governmental bodies
that have, over the last 20 plus years, passed gender equalization
laws, quota systems, rape protection laws, wage garnishee laws, child
protection laws, wife rape laws, spousal protection laws, sexual
harassment laws, etc.?  How many men have hired women, enabling the
majority of middle management positions to be currently held by women
who are a minority of the work force?  How many men in power have made
the decision to support Women's studies programs at Universities?  How
many have voted to support women's shelters, or contributed to their
continued existence (as I have)?

	Oh, yes, you've met resistance, and a lot of it.  But to
pretend that you've never had assistance is an outrageous form of
blindness.
	It certainly is convenient, though, because it's a lot easier
to leave me hanging on the side of a cliff someplace if you can bundle
me with the men you remember rather than with the men you've
forgotten.

>I welcome you.  I like your ideas, they are thought provoking.  But I
>think you would do better to listen for a while and try to understand
>the reasoning behind much of feminist thought.  It is easy to pick
>out a few examples as being unfair to men while ignoring the larger
>context.

	Been there, done that.  I've done so on the net for around 4
years.  I've done so through a biased media for longer than that.  But
what I've see as the reasoning behind feminist thought has added up to
the bias that allows Muffy to ignore the men's side of gender issues,
and allows you to sincerely believe that men have never helped you,
and you have no responsibility towards them.  It's hard to find an
attempt anywhere in feminist literature to see the world through men's
eyes, and it's obvious to me that you cannot see truths without
looking at both sides.  Can you honestly tell me that feminism has
made any attempt to examine both sides?  Is a biased movement likely
to be correct?

>One last note: I found it interesting that you kept using men as the
>normative: that is, when you pointed out the ways in which problems
>for women (eg, not being able to vote), you talked about them in
>terms of how they affected men (a vote might have gone better w/women
>voting), rather than in terms of how they affected society.  And half
>the time you were talking about consequences large and general enough
>to really be affecting society, not just men...

	Why didn't you find it equally "interesting" that Muffy was
using women as the normative, reducing consequences large and general
enough to really be affecting society down to "women's issues"?

	Since Muffy was advancing the thesis that these issues didn't
affect men at all, the most powerful statement I could make was to
show how men were specifically affected.  You're mistaking rhetorical
dramatics for freudian ideological revelation; that some of the
generic consequences crept in is probably more indicative of my actual
viewpoint than the concentration on men's viewpoint.

	I think I made my real viewpoint abundantly clear by insisting
repeatedly that these weren't men's issues or women's issues, but
rather "gender issues".  In fact, I was afraid I'd said it too often;
apparently not.

	(Lastly, thanks for the complement above on my ideas :-) )

Robert C.
--
----------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: My company has not yet seen fit to
	    elect me as spokesperson. Hmmpf.

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