mpmst7@unix.cis.pitt.EDU (Mark P Mccullagh) (10/31/90)
Judy Leedom Tyrer writes:
Your statement seems to boil down to "men have ruined the earth
because they are inherantly competetive and women will save the earth
because they are inherantly cooperative." This is a prime example of
the "everything evil is caused by men" diatribe which I think is so
detrimental to the feminist movement. It is sexist, patently false,
and overly simplistic.
Gordon Fitch replies:
The fact remains that until quite recently, historically speaking, the
values of aggression and domination were associated with men and were
highly valued, and the values of cooperation and care were considered
second-rate, if not despised, and were associated with women. This
system of values obtained for many centuries, and much of the ruin of
the earth, as well as an enormous amount of human suffering, seems to
derive from it.
Feminists...would have to confront this set of facts in working out
their feminism...
I think:
The kind of frustration *I* feel is not about the truth or falsity of
the claims, but rather about how vague and useless they are. If
feminists have to choose which values to adopt (how this makes them
different from anyone else, I don't know), and all they are offered is
an *extremely* simplistic menu of bad, macho, aggressive stuff vs.
nice, kind, sweet stuff, the choice is clear: pick Curtain No. 2.
But, if we are not to hide under some conceptual rug the existence of
men who have many of the qualities on your "female" list, and women
who have many of the qualities on your "male" list, we must move
beyond this binary outlook altogether. *All together*, too -- surely
if feminism is the business of rethinking values that have
demonstrably caused misery and environmental damage, it's something
men should want to do too.
One could, of course, say that there are reasons for women to adopt a
certain set of values that are *not* also reasons for men to adopt the
same set. But in that case, one is coming close to the claim that men
*should* have the set that you characterized them as having (macho,
bad stuff). And the closer one gets to that, the more one loses any
ground for criticizing men who hold that set of values. Is this where
feminism is going? Does the very name "feminism" imply separatism? I
don't know, but then again I don't know much about feminism. I hope
it's more than the thought that there is something interesting to be
said about two-column lists of values.
Mark McCullaghgcf@hombre.masa.com (11/16/90)
Judy Leedom Tyrer: | [commenting on radical feminist stuff] This is a prime example of | the "everything evil is caused by men" diatribe which I think is so | detrimental to the feminist movement. It is sexist, patently false, | and overly simplistic. | Gordon Fitch: | [A]ggression and domination were associated with men and were | highly valued, and the values of cooperation and care were considered | second-rate, if not despised, and were associated with women. This | system of values obtained for many centuries, and much of the ruin of | the earth, as well as an enormous amount of human suffering, seems to | derive from it. | | Feminists...would have to confront this set of facts in working out | their feminism... mpmst7@unix.cis.pitt.EDU (Mark P Mccullagh): | The kind of frustration *I* feel is not about the truth or falsity of | the claims, but rather about how vague and useless they are. If | feminists have to choose which values to adopt (how this makes them | different from anyone else, I don't know), and all they are offered is | an *extremely* simplistic menu of bad, macho, aggressive stuff vs. | nice, kind, sweet stuff, the choice is clear: pick Curtain No. 2. | | But, if we are not to hide under some conceptual rug the existence of | men who have many of the qualities on your "female" list, and women | who have many of the qualities on your "male" list, we must move | beyond this binary outlook altogether. *All together*, too -- surely | if feminism is the business of rethinking values that have | demonstrably caused misery and environmental damage, it's something | men should want to do too. There have been several related threads in this newsgroup centering around the question, "What is feminism?" There are several answers to the question, but the leading one as far as popularity goes is "to secure equal rights for women." This is generally called "reformist" feminism, because it does not, _per_se_, question the status quo as a whole, merely the position of women within it. "Rethinking values that have ... caused ... damage" is not part of it. In fact, if you accept the reformist position generally, it's hard to say just what this rethinking is to be called, politically speaking, since it's excluded from feminism and all other equal-rights movements. I think this poses a particular problem for feminists because many of the traditional roles and attributes of women embody the values that, in the paragraph above, might be seen as the object of the rethinking of values. Such despised activities as home-making, for example, are an excellent paradigm for the management of whole countries, or so some people think. The pure form of the reformist philosophy would apparently simply drop the promulgation of the values, perhaps expecting some other movement to pick them up. But there is no other movement, is there? If so, what is it? | One could, of course, say that there are reasons for women to adopt a | certain set of values that are *not* also reasons for men to adopt the | same set. But in that case, one is coming close to the claim that men | *should* have the set that you characterized them as having (macho, | bad stuff). And the closer one gets to that, the more one loses any | ground for criticizing men who hold that set of values. As far as I know, only a very small minority of feminists believe that biology determines mentality. A great many would agree, however, that our cultural history has made women the primary bearers of the non-macho or anti-macho mindset. Is this a disability to be corrected by equalization? If the status quo is good enough as it is, then that is the case. If some kind of change is desirable, and the traditional masculine virtues of aggression and domination have either lost their value or never had it, then equalization is only part of the solution. The other part is might be called feminization, and it applies not only to women, but to men, and to our institutions and enterprises as well. -- Gordon Fitch | gcf@mydog.UUCP | uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf