erspert@athena.mit.EDU ("Ellen R. Spertus") (06/14/91)
I would like to clarify several points I made in a previous message to soc.feminism. I received several email responses as a result of not writing my original message more carefully. First off, I deserved more than the one complaint I got for the title of my post: > Subject: How Men React to Women who Speak Up Anyone who read my article to the end would have seen that I did not mean to condemn all men: > Three cheers for the men I've dealt with in the past! Still, my face is red over the poor choice of subject line. From the email I received, I discovered the purpose of my post was not entirely clear, so let me describe where I'm coming from a little better. When I took a women's studies class, the professor referred to how women are mistreated when they join a previously primarily-male group. I had never seen the phenomenon and was skeptical. I think my treatment in alt.peeves was a textbook example of this phenomenon. Let me make clear that I don't think only men act vicious to members of the opposite sex. Nevertheless, I think that the ways that one sex mistreats the other are not identical. Someone else wrote that I should not be surprised to be flamed in alt.peeves. I disagree, because I have never seen someone flamed in the manner I was: The person I criticized posted several flames in reply, each with sexist insults. Additionally, several alt.peeves readers sent me sympathetic notes, calling the poster a bozo, neanderthal, etc. Something different was going on in my case, and, I am guessing, my sex was the cause. Of course, there is always the question of whether someone is being sexist if they make what sounds like a sexist remark. As Mary Rowe observed in one of her papers on discrimination: `General' harassment often takes a specifically sexist form when applied to women, a racist form when applied to African-Americans, and so on. Instead of saying to some average white male, `Your work on this project has been inexcusably sloppy, you blinking idiot; you'll never make it that way!,' the remark may come out, `My God, you think no better than my wife; why don't you go home and have babies!,' or, `We will never be able to make up for the generations of Southern schools that produced you!' Despite this phenomenon, I suspect that the attack on me was sex-based, not merely an attack that would have been expressed differently if I had been male, although I suppose I will have no way of knowing. And, oh yes, in response to the person who wrote that my original complaint was wrong because women can have wives, I actually had considered that point and sent my message only after thinking about this issue and that I had not heard lesbians using the term "wife". I guess I was wrong. With this phenomenon of assuming everyone is male, one would think that all women are lesbians. Think of the anthropologist who, while ostensibly using "man" for both men and women, wrote, "Of primary importance to man are food, shelter, and access to females." :-) And, as for the person who thought my posting was a bid to get people to flame the person who flamed me, for which I should get my net access removed, that was not my intent. If I had wanted revenge, I would have sent the flames to the poster's employer. This experience has been an education for me and one that I thought relevant to readers of soc.feminism. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify my original post. Ellen Spertus