[net.women] Feminist Backlash, rev. ed.

features@ihuxf.UUCP (M.A. Zeszutko) (11/01/84)

There's been a flurry of articles about The Feminist Movement
of the 60's and 70's.  People have taken various positions
about it; one popular one is that it was totally against men.

I was there at the time.  I was active.  (Still am.)  I don't
remember anyone suggesting the apocryphal Amazonian solution
of killing all the male babies, or even the male adults.

The emphasis was then, as it is now, on *equal* rights.
Notice, I said equal.  Equal means equal.  The same.  For all
human beings.  No one group ought to have a "natural" 
advantage over another in those things that are basically 
human.  (I'll acknowledge that I've yet to see a female
sperm donor or a male wet-nurse.)  This includes training,
education, job opportunities, respect from other people, etc.

Someone stated that all that The Feminist Movement (that
monolithic media creation; all feminists are NOT the same)
had done was to create problems that ought to be solved on
a personal level.  But the personal IS political.  Changing
society can't be done on an individual basis.

Together, we can change our society to one in which each person's
talents are nutured, where all people are respected.  I'd like
my kids to grow up in a world like that; I wouldn't mind living
in it myself.

Comments welcome.

Mary Ann Zeszutko
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