kauff@neit.cgd.ucar.edu (02/27/91)
I heard a sound-bite (ie. not the whole story) recently wherein Molly Yard had stated that if there were more congress-women then we probably wouldn't be at war now. This suggests that women are mentally different than men, apparently by nature and/or by upbringing. This raises a few questions about the equality of women & men. I'm interested in the "feminist" position on a few questions. I use quotes because presumably there are different schools of thought among feminists. 0) What are the main schools of though among feminists? Perhaps each group will have a different answer to the following questions. 1) In what sense are women's thoughts and ideas *equal* to man's? Is the entire though process the same, or is the thought process different but of equal value? 2) If the thought processes are different, is this an intrinsic difference or is it a learned difference? 3) To what extent do women want to be equal to men? Perhaps men have an undesirable thought process (or vise versa). 4) If women's thought process is different than man's (whether by nature, by upbringing, or consciously self-taught) does this imply that women would normally be more or less qualified for certain jobs? 5) Do feminists want a fair chance at competing in today's (patriarchal?) society, or do they want to change society (to be more matriarchal?)? Perhaps it's more desirable to change society than to adopt a thought process that works in current society. Do the words "patriarchal" and "matriarchal" accurately describe the issues here? How do feminists define the meaning of these words? -Brian