) (09/24/90)
In article <653402616@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes: >If to judge by what the feminist movement has done in the last 15 years, >then it is pretty obvious that a feminist-dominated system will be even >more oppressive toward men. > >It will just find kinder gentler ways to blame the men in their own >oppression. Please explain what it is that the 'feminist movement' has done in the past 15 years that is oppressive to men. I'm curious... -Leslie
gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) (09/25/90)
In article <7094@darkstar.ucsc.edu> (fOoDFoOdfOoDiTYfooD!) writes: >Please explain what it is that the 'feminist movement' has done in the >past 15 years that is oppressive to men. I'm curious... Here are some examples: 1) Affirmative Action. It is a legal discrimination against men that has gotten feminist support. 2) Child's custody. There is a feminist support in women's priority of child's custody. 3) Child's support. There is a feminist support in the laws the say (for practical purposes) that the man should pay, no matter what the circumstances. The idea is that a break in condom should mean 18 years of child's support, if the woman wants it. Period. 4) Presenting men as negative, evil creatures. "Indeed, one of the earliest forms of male bonding must have been the gang rape of one woman by a band of marauding men." -- ("Against Our Will", Susan Brownmiller) is a typical feminist approach toward men. Hillel gazit@cs.duke.edu "The continuation of earnings gap between men and women, the decimation of affirmative action in order to protect white men from `reverse discrimination', the rise of male victories in child custody cases - all of these attest to the need for a way to galvanize women's opposition and women's power in the 1980s." -- ("Caught Looking", Kate Ellis, Barbara O'Dair & Abby Tallmer)
falk@peregrine.Eng.Sun.COM (Ed Falk) (09/26/90)
In article <7094@darkstar.ucsc.edu> carioca@ucscb.ucsc.EDU (fOoDFoOdfOoDiTYfooD!) writes: >In article <653402616@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes: >>If to judge by what the feminist movement has done in the last 15 years, >>then it is pretty obvious that a feminist-dominated system will be even >>more oppressive toward men. >> >>It will just find kinder gentler ways to blame the men in their own >>oppression. > >Please explain what it is that the 'feminist movement' has done in the >past 15 years that is oppressive to men. I'm curious... I think mainly it did a lot of damage to men's superior economic situation. (All together now: AWWWWW) Saw something in the paper the other day that offended the shit out of me. A woman columnist was going on and on about how women with babies shouldn't have to go to war, that women and men are inherently different and that women should be staying home to take care of their babies because they're the ones who gave birth to them. She went on to say that she *likes* all the aspects of the women's movement like better opportunity and all, but enough is enough. I wonder if this woman considers herself a feminist. -ed falk, sun microsystems sun!falk, falk@sun.com card-carrying ACLU member.
judy@altair.la.locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer) (09/26/90)
In article <7094@darkstar.ucsc.edu> carioca@ucscb.ucsc.EDU (fOoDFoOdfOoDiTYfooD!) writes: > >Please explain what it is that the 'feminist movement' has done in the >past 15 years that is oppressive to men. I'm curious... > >-Leslie There is a strong tendency among some feminists to blame men for everything that they don't like about our society while giving them no credit for anything right. A lot of women use the banner of feminism to further isolate the sexes from one another by "man bashing". I hate to see all feminists blamed for this but I can't help thinking of the funeral in "The World According to Garp". Judy
gl8f@astsun9.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) (09/27/90)
In article <654196708@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes: >>Please explain what it is that the 'feminist movement' has done in the >>past 15 years that is oppressive to men. I'm curious... > >Here are some examples: > [...] >2) Child's custody. There is a feminist support in women's > priority of child's custody. Could you please provide a reference for any occasion where NOW has advocated that women should receive priority just because they are women? >3) Child's support. There is a feminist support in the laws > the say (for practical purposes) that the man should pay, no matter > what the circumstances. Could you please provide a reference for any occasion where NOW has advocated that men are more reponsible than women for child support? There is the additional question of whether or not a man has any say in abortion, but that is a different question to most people. I'm not hung up on NOW, I would just like proof of any sort that Hillel isn't just speaking about a "straw man", so to speak. We've seen claims in the past that "feminists don't want equal responsibility in a draft", without proof. I prefer to talk about real, live feminists instead of theoretical, nonexistant feminists. -- greg
dgross@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Dave Gross) (09/27/90)
according to gl8f@astsun9.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl): >In article <654196708@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes: >>2) Child's custody. There is a feminist support in women's >> priority of child's custody. > >Could you please provide a reference for any occasion where NOW has >advocated that women should receive priority just because they are women? > >>3) Child's support. There is a feminist support in the laws >> the say (for practical purposes) that the man should pay, no matter >> what the circumstances. > >Could you please provide a reference for any occasion where NOW has >advocated that men are more reponsible than women for child support? >There is the additional question of whether or not a man has any say >in abortion, but that is a different question to most people. Gee, whenever Hillel points out something nasty that any national or regional feminist group has done, people jump all over him and say "Group X doesn't speak for feminism. Feminism is more diverse than that. There are a lot of feminists who don't agree." Now when he comes up with a list of things that these diverse feminists support, he is asked to name something a particular national group has done. I'll go one step further here, though, and give you a name: Wolgast. A name taken very seriously in the feminist movement. She says that there is an "inherent asymmetry in parenthood, one that does not stem from institutions but from reproduction itself. As parents mothers have a primary place, one that cannot be occupied by a father." And: "At bottom of my argument is the conviction that justice requires men and women to be treated differently, not in all areas but in some important ones." Wolgast believes that sex roles have come about because of woman's position as the "primary" parent, and that law and society should recognize woman's inherent difference because of that position. It would be unfair, she argues, to treat women -- who have this special relationship with children "that cannot be occupied by a father" -- as equals to men. This is the kind of logic that allows the feminist movement to masquerade as an egalitarian or social justice movement, yet strongly oppose (as the NOW did) joint custody legislation because it would take away woman's power. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- dgross@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- DECATUR, Ga. (AP) -- A carpenter said he is bitter after spending 18 months in jail for having oral sex with his wife and maintained his 5 year sentence for violating Georgia's sodomy law was an unfair result of a domestic dispute.
gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) (09/28/90)
In article <1990Sep27.030210.3654@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gl8f@astsun9.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: >>2) Child's custody. There is a feminist support in women's >> priority of child's custody. >Could you please provide a reference for any occasion where NOW has >advocated that women should receive priority just because they are women? There was a strong feminist support in a surrogate mother who changed her mind (Whitehead); there was public pressure by NOW to free from jail a woman who disobeyed custody decision (Dr. Morgan). *I* see these cases as support in women's *priority* in custody, you may see them as you like. >>3) Child's support. There is a feminist support in the laws >> the say (for practical purposes) that the man should pay, no matter >> what the circumstances. >Could you please provide a reference for any occasion where NOW has >advocated that men are more reponsible than women for child support? I expressed the opinion that a man should have some way out in case of birth control failure. You, Trish and zillion other feminists roasted me over this position in alt.flame. Now you try to tell us that feminists should not be blamed for this position... *I* don't buy it, but please feel free to sell it... >I'm not hung up on NOW, I would just like proof of any sort that >Hillel isn't just speaking about a "straw man", so to speak. We've >seen claims in the past that "feminists don't want equal >responsibility in a draft", without proof. Well Greg, please tell us what the national leadership of NOW did when the registration for draft started. >I prefer to talk about >real, live feminists instead of theoretical, nonexistant feminists. So why don't you list the actions that show that the (post 1975) feminist movement gives a damn about men? It's not too long, you know... Hillel gazit@cs.duke.edu "The continuation of earnings gap between men and women, the decimation of affirmative action in order to protect white men from `reverse discrimination', the rise of male victories in child custody cases - all of these attest to the need for a way to galvanize women's opposition and women's power in the 1980s." -- ("Caught Looking", Kate Ellis, Barbara O'Dair & Abby Tallmer)
kaveh@ms.uky.edu (Kaveh Baharestan) (10/01/90)
judy@altair.la.locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer) writes: >There is a strong tendency among some feminists to blame men for everything >that they don't like about our society while giving them no credit for >anything right. That's because so little is right. And what is is generally an accident. kaveh- -- Kaveh. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Love is... Intrusive Pleasant Thoughts. -A friend of Mine | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) (10/03/90)
Does feminism oppress men? Well, what is oppression? We might say that it is the reduction of the victim's freedom -- freedom being the ability to do what one wants. Perfect freedom would be the ability to do anything one wanted, but such freedom runs into a problem on the social plane: people's wills impinge upon one another, and often conflict. Those who prevail impose upon, oppress, those who don't. Ideally, we would like to believe that there is some kind of arrangement which would be perfectly fair to everyone, probably a symmetrical one: my freedom to swing my fist stops at your nose, and vice versa. The problem with this solution is that people are different, and want different things, so that their wills fit together in many non-symmetric ways. Thus in practice, rights are generally worked out as individual and group wills confront one another in some specific arena. But this means that every individual, and every group, "oppresses" the others, by attempting to restrain their freedom, by pushing against their will. Since this pushing and shoving offends our idealistic view of freedom, we value-load the word _oppress_ and reserve it for cases in which we believe the victims should be getting a better deal, for one reason or another. One of the favorite reasons is that the victim is oneself, or one's category. For example, let us say that, in 1955, 95% of all engineers were male, but in 1985, 65% were male, and that this change took place entirely as a result of feminist agitation. Were those males who wished to be engineers, but were pushed aside by the women making up the 35%, oppressed? Of course. In a more extreme example, slaveholders of the Old South were oppressed by Emancipation. We have no sympathy for the slaveholders because we think relationships between people of different races should be symmetrical, and that overt slavery is an excessive form of dominance. Our sympathy for the frustrated male engineering candidates is problematical. We're not sure whether relation- ships between different sexes should be symmetrical or not; on the other hand, failing to get into RPI, though a disappoint- ment, is not often the end of life. I am sure some readers of this article will think this view of "oppression" is silly. But in the last few weeks, upper-caste people in India have burned themselves to death to protest a form of affirmative action which would guarantee lower castes a substantial proportion of government jobs. The upper castes have based their lives on a theory and practice of caste dominance; the government, probably afraid of a burgeoning lower-caste political movement, is leaning on them. (Had the Indian government been more ingenious, it would have set the lower castes against one another, American-style.) Those who have had "privilege", which they often see as hard-earned success, do not find its loss anything but oppressive. One's pain is not less because another might have greater cause for pain. In the currently popular social arrangement of dog-eat-dog, devil-take-the-hindmost capitalism, I do not call my rela- tionship with those feminists who accept this arrangement "oppressive" because I find the connotations of the word excessive; but in fact we oppress, we push against, each other's will and interests, at least some of the time. It's just business. And those who are my competitors can't expect me to join them or support them on all occasions, so I don't call myself a "feminist" in this sense. (On the other hand, I don't share the keen resentment of those who feel that feminist organizations have failed them because the feminists have been watching out for the interests of their constituents, instead of, say, leading the fight against a nonexistent military draft. Business is business, and it's nothing to get outraged about. I have accepted the fact that NOW ain't my mom.) Of course, if someone wants to run up the flag for a different arrangement, I might be interested. I definitely think many of our great leaders and institutions could use a dose of femininity. They seem to be dying of testosterone poisoning, probably from failure to make proper use of it. But at last report all the "rad-fems" had moved to Academia or the woods, while I'm stuck here in the suburbs, reading Usenet. Little money, big mouth. Dreams of Goddess Communism. Onward....
regard@hpsdde.hp.COM (Adrienne Regard) (10/05/90)
In article <87443@aerospace.AERO.ORG> uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf (Gordon Fitch) writes: > (a thoughtful posting answering in part the question:) >Does feminism oppress men? > >For example, let us say that, in 1955, 95% of all engineers were >male, but in 1985, 65% were male, and that this change took >place entirely as a result of feminist agitation. Were those >males who wished to be engineers, but were pushed aside by the >women making up the 35%, oppressed? Of course. In a more Extend that: Were those males who didn't wish to be engineers, whose wives are now engineers, oppressed? The benefits women have reaped because of their agitation don't devolve merely to those women. Their families benefit, their loved ones' benefit. I would maintain that the country as a whole benefits. That's not much of a consolation to the poor fellow who wanted to be an engineer and got competed out of the position. But perhaps he goes home to his med-school girlfriend for comfort. Or places a collect call to his lawyer mom. You know, people who can sympathise with his struggle, advise and support him. Cuts both ways. Adrienne Regard
gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit) (10/05/90)
In article <87443@aerospace.AERO.ORG> uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf (Gordon Fitch) writes: >Of course, if someone wants to run up the flag for a different >arrangement, I might be interested. I definitely think many >of our great leaders and institutions could use a dose of femininity. I wonder what makes you think so. One Golda was enough for *me* for the rest of my life, but since most readers don't know too much about her I suggest to look on the feminists in the U.S. The feminist movement had had nice achievements when there had been anti-draft riots, etc., but let's look what it did in the last 15 years. It lost the ERA, even though it started in 90% majority in Congress. It let the abortion issue to rest on a single Supreme Court decision, for 15 years, while the conservatives "took over" the Supreme court. After all these loses the feminist movement did not get rid off its leadership, so I guess that that's the best they can find...
pepke@ds1.scri.fsu.EDU (Eric Pepke) (10/05/90)
In article <1990Oct04.155651.27377@sdd.hp.com> Adrienne Regard <hp-sdd.sdd.hp.com!hpsdde!regard@hpsdlo.sdd.hp.COM> writes: >That's not much of a consolation to the poor fellow who wanted to be >an engineer and got competed out of the position. Well, if he just got competed out of the position, that's just tough. If the reason the competition is higher is because women's role has changed, that's just tough. Actually, no matter what the reason for the increased competition, it's still just tough. However, if the reason he didn't get the position is because somebody has fixed the game, as a result of some sort of idea of compensation for some sort of perception of statistics, so that he cannot win in spite of his being able to compete, that's not just tough, it's sexist and basically wrong. It is wrong whether it is part of some 50's plan to keep women out of industry or part of some 90's plan to compensate, in some indefinable statistician-inspired way, for some 50's plan. -EMP
dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us (Doug Philips) (10/09/90)
[This is drifting off the subject. Followups should probably go to somewhere else, maybe talk.politics.misc. - MHN] In <87443@aerospace.AERO.ORG>, gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes: > > Does feminism oppress men? > > Well, what is oppression? We might say that it is the reduction > of the victim's freedom -- freedom being the ability to do what > one wants. Perfect freedom would be the ability to do anything > one wanted, but such freedom runs into a problem on the social > plane: people's wills impinge upon one another, and often > conflict. Those who prevail impose upon, oppress, those who > don't. > > I am sure some readers of this article will think this view of > "oppression" is silly. But in the last few weeks, upper-caste > people in India have burned themselves to death to protest a > form of affirmative action which would guarantee lower castes a > substantial proportion of government jobs. I think your definition is too general to be very useful. My working definition of Oppression does not speak merely of the dominance of one individual over another. It speaks to the systematic domination of groups of people by other groups, explicitly for the advantage of those "oppressing" groups and the detriment of the "oppressed" groups. One reason your definition "the reduction of freedom" is too general is that in encompasses non-human restrictions, such as gravity (i.e. you can't flap your arms and fly, and therefore are "oppressed" by gravity), weather (a bad growing season means that you are "oppressed" by the weather). It also fails to distinguish between situations in which there is and in which there is not a benefitting subgroup. (Circumstances such as pervasive religious beliefs that preclude the use of certain sources of food for an entire community and thus lowers the standard of living, i.e. the freedom to survive in certain ways, of everyone in the community equally). The upper-caste Indians are not upset about freedom, they are upset about the issues of power. In this particular case I cannot help but wonder where India would be now if Gandhi had lived. (Which is way off the topic, so I'll stop here) -Doug
RA04@Lehigh.UCAR.EDU (10/11/90)
re: "oppressed" by gravity One of the issues Doug's post brings up is the predominant view supported by our (white, masculine-mostly, Euro-American) culture: that there are Man and Nature, and nature exists for the benefit of Man. So, in some very significant senses, the fact that humans are "subject" to "natural laws" is looked upon as a challenge and an obstacle. As we "advance" and "make progress" (see, hardly anyone's asking about the destination of this movement), more and more of nature falls under our power. We "tame" wilderness and build nice little ordered subdivisions; we "harness" rivers and get electricity; etc. If we don't harness and tame and subdue and exploit, we won't be "top dog," won't be "first in the pecking order." And quite a few feminists are noticing this "oppress or be oppressed" model that (mostly male-gender) humans have in fact imposed on everything that isn't mostly-male-gender-human. The implications of the model are amazing, and they account in part for the threatened, fearful, and almost entirely arbitrary (!) responses by some men and man-identified women to feminists' demands for a change. According to the "oppress or be oppressed" model (and only that model), men will have to lose power if women lose their oppressed status. Thing is, that's an eighteenth- century, closed-system approach: one way to conceptualize, not THE way.
judy@altair.la.locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer) (10/16/90)
In article <655058917@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit) writes: >[The feminist movement] lost the ERA, even though it started in 90% >majority in Congress. >It let the abortion issue to rest on a single Supreme Court decision, >for 15 years, while the conservatives "took over" the Supreme court. (Asbestos suit on...) Some feminists (me) also believe in minimum federal government and actually believe that such things as ERA and Abortion Rights legitimately belong at the State level. (Asbestos suit off...) Judy
gcf@hombre.masa.com (10/16/90)
Adrienne Regard <hp-sdd.sdd.hp.com!hpsdde!regard@hpsdlo.sdd.hp.COM>: >That's not much of a consolation to the poor fellow who wanted to be >an engineer and got competed out of the position. pepke@ds1.scri.fsu.EDU (Eric Pepke): >Well, if he just got competed out of the position, that's just tough. >If the reason the competition is higher is because women's role has >changed, that's just tough. Actually, no matter what the reason for >the increased competition, it's still just tough. >However, if the reason he didn't get the position is because somebody >has fixed the game, as a result of some sort of idea of compensation >for some sort of perception of statistics, so that he cannot win in >spite of his being able to compete, that's not just tough, it's sexist >and basically wrong. .... I think this approach to the situation is a bit naive. Groups compete for advantage, just as individuals do. Part of the way one gets advantage is getting to write the rules, or at least affect the way they're written. This can be called "fixing the game." In the 1950's, it was widely believed that if Yale, Harvard, and Princeton admitted students purely on the basis of merit, a majority of their student bodies would have been Jewish. For various reasons this was thought undesirable. The rules were adjusted accordingly[1], probably without overt discussion. The universities explained that they were looking for a "diverse, balanced student body of well-rounded men." I'm quoting from memory, but I think I'm about right. The phrases still bring a smile to my face. "So round, so firm, so fully packed...." Now, it would be nice to believe that we could just set all this sort of thing aside, and have some kind of admissions plan based on merit alone. The problem is, no one knows what "merit" is. If we really wanted to level the playing field, we would devise an engineering certification test, and say that anyone who passed it was an engineer, whether they got their knowledge from RPI or the public library. That we do not do this -- "we" meaning those of us who are important -- shows that we do _not_ want a level playing field, that we want to jury-rig the populations of our middle and upper-level hierarchies. Given that condition, and given that out-groups find it very difficult to change the meta- rules (like how come the admissions committee is staffed the way it is, or why there's an admissions committee at all) there's a lot of effort to change the lower-level rules. This effort is sometimes called "affirmative action" or "civil rights" -- or "discrimination" by those whose interests are threatened by the effort. The attempt by an out-group to win a better position for itself can _always_ be called "racist" or "sexist" or "nationalist" because the out-group was _constituted_ by racism or sexism or nationalism -- as practiced by others. Out-groups are involved in a structure of discrimination or prejudice, or they wouldn't be out-groups. There would be no "out." It is silly to require them to be egalitarian when there is no equality. First, they have to find a place to stand; then, they can work out deals with competing groups which can be called "equal" or "fair", meaning the parties involved are about equally dissatisfied with the results. I'm tempted to say this is "just tough" -- that it's the inevitable outcome of a competitive system -- but in fact I'm not much taken with the just-toughness of things. I think we can ask whether things have to be this way. If there's blood in the water, it's best to be a shark; but why is there always blood in the water? However, that's another subject. [1] In my opinion; I have no proof. I draw my conclusions from the peculiarity of the results and the language surrounding them, and many have drawn similar conclusions. -- Gordon Fitch | uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf
mittmann@ral.rpi.EDU (Michael Mittmann) (10/16/90)
In article <11109001:30:33RA04@lehigh.bitnet> RA04@Lehigh.UCAR.EDU writes: > >re: "oppressed" by gravity > >One of the issues Doug's post brings up is the predominant view >supported by our (white, masculine-mostly, Euro-American) culture: >that there are Man and Nature, and nature exists for the benefit of >Man. First, it is possible to have the belief that some taming of nature is good without having the belief that nature exists for the benefit of man. In my case, (since I'm atheist) don't believe there is a reason nature (or humanity, or the sun, or anything else) exists. However, as long as humans exist, it seems that trying to have a good life is a reasonable thing. Consequently I will build dams to prevent flooding, grow crops, and domesticate animals to have a reliable food supply. Now I will concede that some of these things are currently being done in a way that is short-sighted. Damming the river might wipe out a species that is interesting in some way, the pesticides used to increase crop productions might eventually poison me, and eating meat will shorten my lifespan. > So, in some very significant senses, the fact that humans are >"subject" to "natural laws" is looked upon as a challenge and an >obstacle. Isn't it true? Gravity is an obstacle if I want to get to the top of a mountain, and the fact that I will die is an obstacle if there is something I want to do before I die. The fact that circumventing these obstacles isn't trivial makes them a challenge. (or should we just give up if we want to do something difficult?) > As we "advance" and "make progress" (see, hardly anyone's >asking about the destination of this movement), more and more of >nature falls under our power. We "tame" wilderness and build nice >little ordered subdivisions; we "harness" rivers and get electricity; >etc. If we don't harness and tame and subdue and exploit, we won't be >"top dog," won't be "first in the pecking order." I dispute the usage of the word exploit. Also in some cases, if we don't harness and tame nature we will be dead. What we are trying to achieve is a state where we don't have unpredictable threats to our life or welfare. Is that unreasonable? > And quite a few >feminists are noticing this "oppress or be oppressed" model that >(mostly male-gender) humans have in fact imposed on everything that >isn't mostly-male-gender-human. 1) I'm not oppressing nature, and don't think of it that way. 2) I also attempt to control "male-gender-humans", or haven't you heard of laws? > The implications of the model are >amazing, true, but I find it difficult to believe that your model is widely believed. -mike
gcf@mydog.UUCP (10/17/90)
>[This is drifting off the subject. Followups should probably go to somewhere >else, maybe talk.politics.misc. - MHN] It seems to me that the question of what rights are, and how they are worked out, are directly on the subject; the supposed ill effects of feminism on men have been mainly discussed here in terms of conflicts of rights. [I think it's relevant, but we need to be careful to avoid drifting into a mire of philosophy without the application, which could go beyond the charter of this newsgroup. In general, I try to give a liberal interpretation to relevance to feminism. - MHN] In regard to "ill effects" I notice with relief the disappearance of the theory that feminism, by encouraging women to be more assertive sexually and otherwise, has destroyed men's sexuality. (This was the theme of _Sexual_Suicide_, was it not?) Onward.... In <87443@aerospace.AERO.ORG>, gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes: > > Does feminism oppress men? > > Well, what is oppression? We might say that it is the reduction > of the victim's freedom -- freedom being the ability to do what > one wants. Perfect freedom would be the ability to do anything > one wanted, but such freedom runs into a problem on the social > plane: people's wills impinge upon one another, and often > conflict. Those who prevail impose upon, oppress, those who > don't. dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us (Doug Philips): >I think your definition is too general to be very useful. My working >definition of Oppression does not speak merely of the dominance of one >individual over another. It speaks to the systematic domination of >groups of people by other groups, explicitly for the advantage of >those "oppressing" groups and the detriment of the "oppressed" groups. >One reason your definition "the reduction of freedom" is too general >is that in encompasses non-human restrictions ... > ... It also fails to distinguish between situations in >which there is and in which there is not a benefitting subgroup. ... I believe I mentioned groups as well as individuals competing for rights, and I thought it was clear that I was speaking about social or political relationships.[1] I'm assuming by "systematic" you mean "organized as a system." If we insist that oppression mean "systematic domination by groups imposed for profit on other groups", we run into problems analyzing, for example, class oppression. The members of an oppressing class often act in an unorganized way, and often to their own disadvantage, in perpetuating oppression. It is very hard for some people to understand that the class of (for example) whites may oppress the class of blacks, because they know many whites who do not personally oppress blacks and they know of no conspiracy against blacks among white people, as systematic oppression would require. (Sometimes the analogy of cellular automata, where many small, unrelated actions add up to large patterns, may explain this kind of situation to the unbeliever.) Another problem with _oppression_ in a context of rights conflict is that it is a pejorative, and therefore we must find a kind of ideal judge to determine whose rights are oppressive (bad), and whose aren't. An ideological struggle then ensues for the possession of this judge, and that is how people can seriously assert that feminism oppresses men -- it is competing for the right to determine what is oppression and what isn't. Instead of getting rid of domination, we have only extended the arena of conflict. I think this is especially important to the feminist perspective because if, as Engels hypothesized, the saturation of human society with domination-relationships began with the enslavement of women, then we might look for a dissolution of that burden in the reestablishment of freedom and dignity for the feminine side of humanity (whether you think this means the female human beings or the female _in_ human beings). This means going deeper and further than naming one or another _the_oppressor_, although certainly those who are being leaned on must lean back enough to get their balance. -- [1] Although it is possible to regard Nature as an oppressed political class. See the article on ecofeminism. -- Gordon Fitch | uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf
gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) (10/17/90)
In article <1990Oct15.210918.7972@ora.com> mydog!gcf@hombre.masa.com writes: >In the 1950's, it was widely believed that if Yale, Harvard, and Princeton >admitted students purely on the basis of merit, a majority of their >student bodies would have been Jewish. For various reasons this was >thought undesirable. The rules were adjusted accordingly[1], probably >without overt discussion. My *impression* is that they decided that "better Jews than asians". >wanted to level the playing field, we would devise an engineering >certification test, and say that anyone who passed it was an engineer, >whether they got their knowledge from RPI or the public library. The drawback of this method is that the screening may be based on criteria that have little to do with engineering. I'll give you an example: I know a student who is in the bottom 13% in GRE Verbal score, and in the top 3% in the GRE CS advance test. If admission to graduate schools in CS were based on knowledge of computer science, then people like him will take some of the best places. Therefore, it was decided that the Verbal score is much more important than the CS score. If you would let a central government agency to decide what an engineer should know, then we may end up with Verbal score, African studies and some feminism... (Stop laughing; I met Russian engineers who knew very little about engineering.) In short, the field will not be leveled, but an engineering degree will not be worth very much anymore (for companies that need *engineers*). >practiced by others. Out-groups are involved in a structure of >discrimination or prejudice, or they wouldn't be out-groups. There >would be no "out." It is silly to require them to be egalitarian when >there is no equality. I don't ask them to be egalitarian (I'm realistic...), I ask them to be honest. If they want to discriminate then they can call their laws "Discrimination Against Asians and Poor Whites Act 1990" and not "Civil Rights Act 1990". >I'm tempted to say this is "just tough" -- that it's the inevitable >outcome of a competitive system -- but in fact I'm not much taken with >the just-toughness of things. I think we can ask whether things have >to be this way. I have no objection to other models, just please try them on someone else first. I don't object to socialist ideas (e.g. I would prefer to have the Canadian health care system, and not the American one), I just object to socialist (and non-socialist) ideas that have never succeeded, but people keep trying them on me. >Gordon Fitch | uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf Hillel gazit@cs.duke.edu "...13 of 17 valedictorians in Boston high schools last spring were immigrants or children of immigrants." -- US. News & World Report, May 14, 1990
morphy@truebalt.cco.caltech.edu (Jones Maxime Murphy) (10/17/90)
judy@altair.la.locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer) writes: >Some feminists (me) also believe in minimum federal government and actually >believe that such things as ERA and Abortion Rights legitimately belong >at the State level. Yeah. Some blacks (me) believe in minimum federal government and actually believe that such things as the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Act legitimately belong at the state level. Really. Jones Physics Dept. Caltech
gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) (10/17/90)
In article <17931@oolong.la.locus.com> (Judy Leedom Tyrer) writes: >Some feminists (me) also believe in minimum federal government and actually >believe that such things as ERA and Abortion Rights legitimately belong >at the State level. And in how many states you lost the vote on state ERA, even though the popular support before the debate started was quite high? And how many abortion right laws did you pass, at state level, in the last 15 years?
cedman@lynx.ps.UCI.EDU (Carl Edman) (10/17/90)
In article <kaveh.654726806@s.ms.uky.edu> kaveh@ms.uky.edu (Kaveh Baharestan) writes: judy@altair.la.locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer) writes: >There is a strong tendency among some feminists to blame men for everything >that they don't like about our society while giving them no credit for >anything right. That's because so little is right. And what is is generally an accident. Yes, it is very chic to blame all terrible things which have happened on men. It is not without ground as most terrible and criminal acts throughout history were committed by men. So some people deduce from this that all men are basically barbaric , uncivilized, brutal, stupid and generally inferior. One thing these people fail to see is that most good things which have been done in history were done by DWM (dead white males). I could now write down a list of 200 DWMs who have created more beautiful things , had sharper minds, and greater energy than almost all people who ever lived, but as everybody could do that for himself , I restrain myself. But from this it can be concluded that white males are generally superior than everybody else and deserve to be treated as such and granted preference in all things. Both of these arguments are, of course, equal fallacies. And , ironically, the same fallacy that those who use them are most prone of accusing others of: Ignoring social circumstance. By mechanisms which I needn't go into here, and pure chance it happened that this group came into a situation were it's actions had far wider reaching consequences (and stronger consequences in this time and place) than any other group, so every act tends to be seen as larger. I have no doubt that any other group which you care to define sexually or ethnically would have (on average) done the same thing. So, yes, DWMs are largely responsible for the state of the world, but that is more by chance than by the fact that DWMs are so different (inferior or superior) than everybody else. Carl Edman Theorectial Physicist,N.:A physicist whose | Send mail existence is postulated, to make the numbers | to balance but who is never actually observed | cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu in the laboratory. | edmanc@uciph0.ps.uci.edu
king@kestrel.edu (10/18/90)
In article <11109001:30:33RA04@lehigh.bitnet> RA04@Lehigh.UCAR.EDU writes: }One of the issues Doug's post brings up is the predominant view }supported by our (white, masculine-mostly, Euro-American) culture: }that there are Man and Nature, and nature exists for the benefit of }Man. So, in some very significant senses, the fact that humans are }"subject" to "natural laws" is looked upon as a challenge and an }obstacle. As we "advance" and "make progress" (see, hardly anyone's }asking about the destination of this movement), more and more of }nature falls under our power. We "tame" wilderness and build nice }little ordered subdivisions; we "harness" rivers and get electricity; }etc. If we don't harness and tame and subdue and exploit, we won't be }"top dog," won't be "first in the pecking order." And quite a few }feminists are noticing this "oppress or be oppressed" model that }(mostly male-gender) humans have in fact imposed on everything that }isn't mostly-male-gender-human. The implications of the model are }amazing, and they account in part for the threatened, fearful, and }almost entirely arbitrary (!) responses by some men and man-identified }women to feminists' demands for a change. According to the "oppress or }be oppressed" model (and only that model), men will have to lose power }if women lose their oppressed status. Thing is, that's an eighteenth- }century, closed-system approach: one way to conceptualize, not THE way. Fact: On the average, men are stronger than women. I doubt there would be a lot of people disputing this. Fact: A large part of "harness[ing] nature" consists of applying measures to the way we do things that makes strength less important. Women can have blue-collar jobs in a world with forklifts and steam shovels and ..., and there come to be fewer of them; white-collar jobs are undeniably androgynous. I think that on the whole technology is or should be feminists' best friend. -dk
watson@spock.UUCP (Steve Watson) (10/19/90)
I've been skimming this thread and have belatedly remembered the following: Last year the Ontario College of Art instituted a policy according to which teaching vacancies will only be available to WOMEN. This will continue until the faculty is 50% women. At current turnover rates, this should take 10 or 20 years. (I may have some details wrong, corrections welcome) Now, I am in NO WAY a male chauvinist, sexist, misogynist or whatever. My views are in agreement with many of the definitions of feminism posted recently. According to some people, I am a feminist. I don't even object to the principle of 'affirmative action'. However, I find this extreme form reverse discrimination to be more than I can quite swallow. It constitutes a clear case of oppression of men by (an aberration of?) feminism. If you are a young male art teacher in Ontario, you are automatically disqualified from competing for a job at the province's most prestigious art school (I believe most of us would accept denial of employment for which one is otherwise qualified as constituting 'oppression'?). Some would say that past injustices need to be rectified. I agree. But you cannot correct an old evil simply by committing a new one in the opposite direction. And yes, we probably need women art teachers to give a female perspective on art (I don't think it's healthy that there are so many female nudes painted/sculpted by men, but relatively few examples of other artist/subject gender combinations. It suggests a skewed viewpoint) But the men who are locked out at OCA are NOT, in general, the ones who created the situation: it is not fair to them. Now before I get flamed, two disclaimers: 1) I'm NOT an art teacher, I'm a EE who admits to knowing diddly-squat about art. So this in no way threatens me personally. 2) I'm not saying all feminists, or feminism-in-general are doing this: I take it as an example of feminism gone crazy. -- ====================== disclaimer =============================== "Blame me, not the Company I keep..." - Steve Watson UseNet: mitel!spock!watson@uunet.uu.net
cel@cs.duke.edu (Chris Lane) (10/23/90)
In article <1990Oct18.154041.6433@ora.com> king@kestrel.edu writes: >I think that on the whole technology is or should be feminists' best >friend. This is the position Shulamith Firestone takes in The Dialect of Sex. She's in the school of Engels and, hate to say it, dialectical materialism. When technology allows men to bear children and women to screw around with no worry of getting pregnant, gender will effectively, materially, be dissolved. She has a little chart with the progress of history, through the final victory and the end of history. She criticizes Engels' for making means of production of goods and services the "ultimate" dialect (marxism, the politics of class), rather than the reproduction of labor the ultimate dialect (feminism, the politics of sex, in her view) Of course, she didn't address race in a meaningful way, and in fact, race tends to contradict this rosy view of history. There is no meaningful physical distinction between the races, not really, in a biological sense, meaningful races even. Nonetheless, there is tremendious racism and power imbalances along race lines. Nowadays, it seems that reasonable people recognize that, since there is no rigorous understandning of people, whether as individuals or in groups, there is no good to be gained by making this or that aspect "fundamental." Racism, sexism, class bias, homophobia, blindess to "nature", etc., are all sapping the vitality and joy of living on this planet. None of them is acceptable (tho all of them are tolerated by their victims). Chris -- "Life's a bitch and then you die." cel@cs.duke.edu Down with Gender! Enjoy today.
RA04@Lehigh.UCAR.EDU (10/23/90)
Re: dk's two facts (1-men are on avg stronger than women; 2-technology
can compensate for women's lesser strength), I accept without argument,
for I think that women's use of machines can liberate both women and
men. But the point I was making is that our culture's "man against,"
"conquest of," and similar conceptions are unnecessarily competitive
yet valued, whereas cooperative conceptual models are unnecessarily
devalued as "weak." The valued and the devalued are by false analogy
connected to notions of "strong / masculine" and "weak / feminine"; in
this context, feminism can encourage world-views in which humans work
within natural systems without trying to dominate or annihilate them.
r.a.jan@orc.olivetti.com (Jan Parcel) (10/26/90)
In article <4955@watson> uunet!mitel!watson!watson@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Steve Watson) writes: >Last year the Ontario College of Art instituted a policy according to which >teaching vacancies will only be available to WOMEN. This will continue >until the faculty is 50% women. At current turnover rates, this should >take 10 or 20 years. (I may have some details wrong, corrections welcome) >2) I'm not saying all feminists, or feminism-in-general are doing this: I >take it as an example of feminism gone crazy. This reminds me of stories I hear from my sister. My sister knows of organizations that put off and put off their self-examination as to why they're not getting minority applicants until 9 out of 10 positions are filled, just like my kids put off starting their term papers. Then, at the 11th hour, they start telling whites that they can't be hired *because* they are white, when a large part of the story is that they have been ignoring AA methods such as posting and advertising fairly, have been hiring through the old boys' network, and only because of AA do they have to even make an effort to find 1 minority applicant. If they had been doing their job all along, the "minority" position would have been filled along with the first 9, by interviewing a varied pool. And they would have already found enough variety that that 10th position would be "available for" whoever came along, regardless of race and gender. AA is supposed to be a committment to tracking one's progress in overcoming conscious and unconscious institutional discrimination. When institutions start telling white males "sorry, we're only hiring women and minorities now" they are usually trying to INCREASE sexism and racism, not overcome it, IMHO. If the org you mentioned only gets 1 opening every 5 years, and has an all-male staff, and is looking for a woman to round it out *as* a *teaching* institution, then only considering women might be fine. If it has 100 positions, 99 male, and interviews for, say, 8 positions a year, then they should recruit like hell for the qualities they need, including an insider's expertise on women's art (which is not a given just because the teacher is female), and if they find exceptionally qualified men occasionally, then hire them. I would expect this to yield at least 50% women new-hires for quite awhile without having to ban the hiring of men. The problem is often that the old order *defines* qualified as "has the same viewpoint and information I have," which makes it a catch-22 for obtaining people with diverse viewpoints and knowledge. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ jan@orc.olivetti.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We must worship Universal Consciousness as each of the 5 genders in turn if we wish to be fully open to Yr glory. -- St. Xyphlb of Alpha III
judy@altair.la.locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer) (10/26/90)
In article <20109001:45:10RA04@lehigh.bitnet> RA04@Lehigh.UCAR.EDU writes: >.... But the point I was making is that our culture's "man against," >"conquest of," and similar conceptions are unnecessarily competitive >yet valued, whereas cooperative conceptual models are unnecessarily >devalued as "weak." The valued and the devalued are by false analogy >connected to notions of "strong / masculine" and "weak / feminine"; in >this context, feminism can encourage world-views in which humans work >within natural systems without trying to dominate or annihilate them. > > r.a. 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. Cooperative conceptual models are necessary for team sports such as football (male) and the conversion of rain forest to cities (bad for the environment). Not to mention that women are as competitive, uncooperative, and selfish as men. Judy
judy@altair.la.locus.COM (Judy Leedom Tyrer) (10/26/90)
In article <656123957@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes: >In article <17931@oolong.la.locus.com> (Judy Leedom Tyrer) writes: >>Some feminists (me) also believe in minimum federal government and actually >>believe that such things as ERA and Abortion Rights legitimately belong >>at the State level. > >And in how many states you lost the vote on state ERA, even though >the popular support before the debate started was quite high? My apologies. The ERA calls for a constitutional ammendment and that is legislation at the federal level, therefore I am not distressed that the ERA did not pass. [Constitutional amendment calls for ratification by 2/3's of the states, which was why ERA got voted on in each state although it was federal level legislation. --CLT] >And how many abortion right laws did you pass, at state level, >in the last 15 years? None were necessary in the past 15 years. Now the right of abortion will be discussed at the state level where, I believe, it belongs. ----- Herein lies the problem. I believe that it is important to have a consistant political philosophy and not base your philosophy on "in this case it should be this way and in that case that way". So, while I believe that discrimination based on gender is detrimental to our country, I have a hard time believing that a constitutional ammendment is the correct or best method of achieving this result. Yes, I want this kind of protection at the federal level, but I don't want the kind of government which is created when everything is legislated at the federal level. The same applies to abortion. So, I must ask myself, what is worse - a strong federal government that legislates the lives of a divergent group of people, or the possiblity that some smaller, more heterogeneous group of people might legislate differently than I believe they should. I think the former is more dangerous and less desirable, so I must, to remain politically consistant, accept that my special interests also do not belong in the hands of our federal government. I am not a libertarian. I believe in government. But the federal government should only provide for a common defense, legislate interstate commerce, determine foreigh policy, and collect taxes for these functions. I do NOT want them legislating speed limits, drug laws, building codes, welfare, education, art, abortion, etc. So, I am one feminist, and suspect I am not the only one, who believes that the special interests of feminism do not outweigh the need for a representative government as I believe ours was originally conceived to be. Our country is just too diverse for people to be best represented by a central agency. Judy
gcf@hombre.masa.com (10/27/90)
judy@altair.la.locus.COM (Judy Leedom Tyrer): >So, I must ask myself, what is worse - a strong federal government >that legislates the lives of a divergent group of people, or the >possiblity that some smaller, more heterogeneous group of people might >legislate differently than I believe they should. I think the former >is more dangerous and less desirable, so I must, to remain politically >consistant, accept that my special interests also do not belong in the >hands of our federal government. >I am not a libertarian. I believe in government. But the federal >government should only provide for a common defense, legislate >interstate commerce, determine foreigh policy, and collect taxes for >these functions. I do NOT want them legislating speed limits, drug >laws, building codes, welfare, education, art, abortion, etc. ... Many people who do not believe in a large role for the Federal government nevertheless believe that it is advantageous to have it protect rights. The writers of the Constitution would seem to have agreed. According to Roe v. Wade, the right to abortion is part of a right to privacy which is similar to, say, the right of free speech, that is, it is a right which the Federal government ought to protect. It is not some kind of special program or benefit for a selected group of people, and the only expenditure involved is that which is already being used to support the political primacy of the Federal government (that is, the courts and sufficient military and police forces to compel compliance, if necessary). If you are saying that the Federal government has no role in rights protection, I find this an interesting point of view; I believe you would also have to favor going back to the Articles of Confederation to find a governmental structure which would conform to this view. Otherwise -- if the Federal government ought to protect rights -- assigning the abortion question to the separate states implies that it is a lesser right, or perhaps not a right at all, but something a state may license some of its citizens to do, if it chooses. A similar set of observations could be made about ERA. May I remind our moderators, who are about to advise us to take this discussion to talk.politics.theory, that rights protection has been repeatedly portrayed here as the sole thesis of feminism (although not by me); what these rights are, and how they are to be protected, is therefore a feminist issue. -- Gordon Fitch | uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf
RA04@Lehigh.UCAR.EDU (10/31/90)
The Ontario College of Art's women-only hiring criteria mentioned here
sounds suspiciously like an "affirmative action" taken chiefly so that
it can be thrown out as obviously unfair. I know of such a situation
in an American university; several departments were all men, and the
university had a bunch of federal dollars coming in, so some kind of
AA had to be instituted, so the guys in dept ---- were unfairly beat
on because their field was kind of wimpy, y'know, not EE or CE, and so
the top men in that dept made a point of hiring some very mediocre
women as new asst profs, with the intention of terminating them for
not meeting department standards before the tenure decision rolled
around. And ya wonder why some feminists feel paranoid?
r.a.