jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick) (12/15/84)
> I get griped at what I see to be entrenched egoism combined with the > constricting and everpresent and FALSE stereotype of women craving pain. > My anger reflects no germ of truth in the stereotype--it is instead > something that has grown as I've aged and seen that ignoring damaging > falsehoods doesn't insulate one from them, nor banish them... > > L S Chabot OK. But is it that simple? When Judith Rosner's "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" came out in ~1975, I was living in a group house that included several women. (It is the story of a young woman, Theresa Dunn, who suffers from self hate(?) that leads her to hang out in a bar called "Mr. Goodbar" where she lets herself get picked up by a succession of violent men, until one more violent than the rest kills her. There is also a nice, if dull, man who loves her (why?), but she feels he is too good, or not bad enough, for her. The book was filmed, starring Diane Keaton.) Anyway, a copy of LfMG circulated through the house (women first!), and they *all* said that they identified with Terry Dunn. I remember saying "Look, this woman is obsessed with self-abnegation, she's basically suicidal, you can feel sorry for her but how can any normal person feel anything in common with her?" and the women (and these were not "Total Womanhood" types, by any means) replied that it wasn't likely that a man could understand it, but there was something in them that that character spoke to. I still don't understand; sounds like a lot of people out there don't either. As for "ignoring damaging falsehoods", well, how much good does it do to deny damaging truth? I think it's true that there are masochistic women, and moreover, there's a lot of women who understand how a women could be a masochist. And I can suggest the cause of it, too: we have, to a large extent, a woman-hating culture. Men hate women, and women hate themselves. And it'll only end when people start admitting it and refusing to do it any more.
edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) (12/24/84)
I don't think that female masochism is a myth, in the sense of being a falsehood. It's a tendency I've noticed in many of the women I've known, and one that has a lot of subtle reinforement from our culture. It may be a dark and nasty thing, but I think there is a definite tendancy for women to be self-deprecating, even to the point of inviting hurt to themselves. The myth here is the claim that there is something natural about this, or that masochistic women need to stay that way. And it is such myths that must be destroyed--a denial that a problem exists simply lets the problem remain. -Ed Hall decvax!randvax!edhall