daemon@decwrl.UUCP (The devil himself) (05/11/85)
_TNOBO_ - A Review______________________________________________________________
A while ago, somebody here in net.women mentioned _The_New_Our_Bodies,_
_Ourselves_ and told us that it would make men angry, but that that was okay
because it is, after all, written "by and for women."
"_Playboy_ is written by and for men," I thought, "Does that make it
less anti-evolutionary?" When we got our copy of _TNOBO_, I cracked it open,
expecting another _Against_Our_Will_ (in which author Susan Brownmiller postu-
lates a worldwide conspiracy of *all*men* to dominate women through rape).
To make a long story short, I found nothing of the sort in _TNOBO_.
Indeed, _TNOBO_ has much less of the revolutionary militant rhetoric that made
_Our_Bodies,_Ourselves_ so anachronistic. What I did find was more and newer
good health information. _TNOBO_ has almost twice as much of this as the or-
iginal!
The latest edition of _OBO_ that I could find was a 1979 edition, which
is 383 pages long. That so much more has happenned since then is evident from
the fact that _TNOBO_ is 647 pages long! There's a lot of new information in
it. In fact, all the information in my article on donor insemination (which I
sent out to net.kids, net.motss, and net.women a few weeks ago) is in this book.
I've always found _OBO_ an indispensible reference. It's great to have
_TNOBO_, because it's much more up-to-date! Unfortunately, the up-to-date sta-
tistics on things like violence against women are not encouraging. The "1 woman
in 9 will be raped in her lifetime" statistic is now up to 1 in 3.
My only criticism of the book is that the two chapters on relationships
are slightly biased against heterosexual relationships. The chapter on hetero-
sexual relationships is called "Working Toward Mutuality" while the one on les-
bian relationships is called "Loving Women." In the "Working Toward Mutuality"
chapter is a section called "Making It Work" which eventually culminates in
"Getting Help" and "Knowing When to Leave." The next chapter paints a rosier
picture, telling us that "[b]eing outside the dominant culture can give lesbians
a certain freedom in shaping the kinds of relationships we want."
I do, of course, recognize that the vast majority of heterosexual rela-
tionships in our society have unique problems due to the fact that our culture
is (still!) male-dominated. That should be addressed (and is). _TNOBO_, how-
ever, neglects heterosexual couples who are "shaping the kinds of relationships
we want" and gives little help for lesbian couples suffering from the stresses
that result from a relationship between two individuals.
In other words, some of the negative stuff in the "Working Toward Mutu-
ality" chapter applies to lesbian relationships and some of the positive stuff
in "Loving Women" applies to heterosexual relationships. The editors have a
common chapter, "Sexuality," for women of either sexual orientation. I'd sug-
gest a "Relationships" chapter (in addition to the two other chapters) that
works the same way.
The editors, apparently, agree with me - though you wouldn't know that
unless you read the footnote to the "Relationships and Sexuality" section's
introduction, which says, "We wrote two separate chapters on relationships be-
cause it first seemed to us that lesbians and heterosexual women encounter dif-
ferent perssures and possibilities. But we learned from each other that we face
many similar issues, whether our partners are women or men."
All in all, though, I recommend _TNOBO_ highly. If you haven't bought
a present for Mom yet...
<_Jym_>
:::::::::::::::: Jym Dyer
::::' :: `:::: Dracut, Massachusetts
::' :: `::
:: :: :: DYER%VAXUUM.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA
:: .::::. :: {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|ucbvax}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-vaxuum!dyer
::..:' :: `:..::
::::. :: .:::: Statements made in this article are my own; they might not
:::::::::::::::: reflect the views of |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| Equipment Corporation.cja@lzwi.UUCP (C.E.JACKSON) (05/13/85)
> _TNOBO_ - A Review______________________________________________________________ > ... When we got our copy of _TNOBO_, I cracked it open, > expecting another _Against_Our_Will_ (in which author Susan Brownmiller postu- > lates a worldwide conspiracy of *all*men* to dominate women through rape). Let's be fair--Brownmiller never says that all men are joined in some sort of conscious plot to rape women. She makes the following points: 1) Most societies in the world are male-dominated. 2) Rape is weapon that men *can* use to intimidate women. 3) The fear of rape has the effect of reinforcing male dominance because women feel that they cannot move about as freely as men--whenever women are in a situation when they might wish to question/defy male authorities they must do so with the knowledge that men might rape them. Even police departments (hardly homes of radical feminists) agree that rapes are perpetrated by individual men who wish to humiliate/dominate/attack their victims *because* those victims are women. 4) Virtually all men are potential rapists--that is, men have that weapon that they *can* use against women whom they find threatening. [Note: Saying that people *can* do something is not the same thing as saying they *will*. Brownmiller got a lot of flack about that statement because people thought that she was saying that all men *would* rape women.] Women have no comparable weapon against men. After building her argument to this point, Brownmiller then asserts that rape has the effect of repressing women. If she uses the word "conspiracy" at all (& I'd be interested to see you cite an instance in which she does, because I can't find it) it is in the sense of the third definition of "conspiracy" (from the American Heritage Dictionary): " A combining or acting together, as if by evil design: ex.--a conspiracy of natural forces." She is most assuredly not talking about the kind of overt, conscious planning that most people associate with the word "conspiracy." > ... Unfortunately, the up-to-date sta- > tistics on things like violence against women are not encouraging. The "1 woman > in 9 will be raped in her lifetime" statistic is now up to 1 in 3. It's interesting that you cite this statistic because it supports Brownmiller's contention that men are more likely to use rape to dominate women when women assert their independence (as they have been doing since the original OBO was published). I think Brownmiller got a bum rap when her book first came out. The male-dominated press misunderstood the statement about all males being potential rapists & panned the whole book. Many of the people whom I've heard criticize it have never even read it. > :::::::::::::::: Jym Dyer C. E. Jackson ...ihnp4!lznv!cja (for reasons too silly to explain,the address above [lzwi] is incorrect--don't use it)