saquigley@watdaisy.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (01/29/84)
This is in response to a response to an article I posted. "> >" indicate my original article, and "> " indicate the answer to my article. Sorry if it looks a bit messy. > > I am > > not convinced that there is no need for a support group for women on the net. > > I am not convinced there is a need for it either. But net.singles and net.motss > > have been on the net as support group and seem to be working well and not > > fostering hate, so maybe net.women might be just as successfull as a support > > group. > > But net.women clearly *is* fostering hate. When you tell me to stay out, > I find that hostile. I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that way. I *am* > interested in women's issues, and I will *not* stay out. All these issues > are critical to my future as well as yours, and I demand a say. I have never told anybody to stau out of either net.women or net.women only. I find that there is something to be learned from everybody's opinion, no matter how much I disagree with it. I suggested in an earlier article that net.women.only be kept as a group not to discuss "mean" men, but to discuss topics which are probably of no interest to me, such as brands of tampons, etc. But even with net.women.only that way, I don't think men should be kept out. It would just serve them as a warning that they might get incredibly bored. > > What I would like is a group where some kind of axioms are set. I find it very > > tiring to have to explain why "controlling who women copulate with is and has > > been very important in most societies". > > I sympathize, honestly I do, but I still have to say, tough. You can't set > axioms in a public forum. When you make a controversial statement on this > network, you have to expect those who disagree with you to post their opinions. > You have to tolerate this, there is no choice. You can't keep them out. > > It seems to me that right now, net.women serves more as a forum where some women > > (and men) have to explain to some men some very basic feminist ideas. It > > doesn't seem right to me. > > Why not? What's wrong with educating the men? Doesn't that help the feminist > cause? You can't change the world by yourselves. By your own admission, men > hold most of the power in our society, and you haven't even got all the women > helping your cause (witness Phyllis Schlafly et al.) You will need the help > of sympathetic males to make things happen. The sooner you realize that > the sooner *we* can get some real changes made and stop bickering and > quarreling. Nothing wrong with educating [wo]men.. on the contrary. It just seems that some discussions become very repetitive, and a bit pointless, like the one about "society controlling women's copulating choice". I guess the solution to such problems is to provide good references; this will help distinguish between people who are genuinely interested in the problem and hecklers. > > I would like a discussion place where I do not > > constantly have to be on the defensive. On the other hand, I think that > > restricting membership to women would be discriminative and anti-feminist. > > I do not have any good solutions to this problem. Does anybody? > > Yes. Leave net.women the way it is (you can't keep the men out anyway), and > start a mailing list. Laura Creighton said a while ago that support groups > cannot exist on USENET. I agree with her for the reasons cited above. However, > on UUCP you could have a support group. You need one volunteer (Sophie?) to > serve as coordinator. Group members mail their submissions to the coordinator, > who then mails them out to all group memebers. You have complete control > over who is in the group, and you are free to throw out any submissions that > do not agree with your group's philosophy, and you can talk all you want > about those nasty men you seem to hate so much, I object very strongly to this!!! I don't know whether this was directed at me or not, but I will take it personnally since you are answering my article. I do not hate men. I have complained about the way certain men act and I have flamed at men in general once in a moment of anger when it was suggested that it was somehow up to us women to discourage men from raping us (something for which I apologised afterwards), but as far as I know that is all I have done. I think I have also complained more than once about the way certain women act, but you seemed to have ignored this. There is one thing I hate though, is the way society is organised based on sex-roles which do no good to either men or women. In society, "male" attributes such as agressiveness, strength, cold rationality, and the power to kill are glorified. I dislike very much people who embody such characteristics. It so happens that most of them are men. If it is ever proved that those characteristics are INHERENTLY masculine, then I will start disliking men because such characteristics are life-threatening; but I happen to believe that this is not so and that men are as trapped in their roles as we are in ours. Now, the idea of a UUCP group is an interesting one but I think that the fact that it wouldn't be public would make it even more vulnerable to becoming a hate group. I also think that the discussions in it would be of general interest, so it would be a shame to have them in private. For these reasons, I will not volunteer to take care of it. If anybody ever decides to form such a group though, I will be interested in participating as long as I am convinced that it is conducted in an relatively unbiased fashion (something meaningless by definition) So, to keep with the spirit of some of my previous submissions, I am backing down again (what a wimp, hey?). Things are probably better the way they are now. I hope that hecklers will just get tired of it and keep out so that we can have some interesting discussions. > and there will be no one to > put you on the defensive. By the way, *I* am not a sexist, and *I* do not > oppress women. I resent being lumped into the same category with those who > did/do these things just because I happen to be male. Yes, I'm not perfect. I'm > as vulnerable to social conditioning as anyone else. But I guarantee I am at > least as unhappy in my "traditional" sex role as many of the feminists seem > to be in theirs, and I am just as anxious to see things change. > GREG Well then we agree. I wouldn't like to be a man because I dislike the traditio- nal male sex-role even more than the traditional female one, and because you men are so much further from escaping it then we women are from escaping ours. For what it is worth, you have all my support in your efforts to change things on your side. Good luck.