cheryl@lasspvax.UUCP (Cheryl Stewart) (11/05/85)
>> >I think our culture teaches us to confuse competency and stoicism with >> >masculinity, sensuality and incompetency with femininity. >> > >> >> EXACTLY TRUE. Even the phrase "I feel feminine when..." is offensive >> because it immediately associates femininity with "feelings" and elevates >> the status of "feelings" to a feminist issue. >> I would say that economic, political and social issues are more important >> topics than people's feelings. > >I couldn't disagree more. Not only are feelings extremely important, they >are intimately involved with all of the intellectual issues you listed above. >At the root of every belief you have on every topic are your feelings about... Economic, political and social issues are NOT intellectual issues. They are not concerned with how and what people THINK, but rather how much they are PAID, how much POLITICAL POWER they have, and how they are TREATED SOCIALLY. Now you can influence these HARD FACTS OF LIFE by appealing to peoples' intellects through rational arguments, or to peoples' feelings through emotionalized rhetoric -- but rhetoric is only a MEANS to an END, the desirable END being improved economic, political and social standing for women. Cheryl Stewart