Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!daemon
From: holstege@polya.stanford.edu (Mary Holstege)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: umm...silly question, but...
Message-ID: <12162@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 23 Jun 89 03:14:53 GMT
References: <17684@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Sender: ambar@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: holstege@polya.stanford.edu (Mary Holstege)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 45
Approved: ambar@bloom-beacon.mit.edu

[sorry for the delay in posting this -- it got lost in my during-Usenix
mail.  -- AMBAR]

Aside to moderators: If you want to comment on postings please do it the normal
way, by posting follow-ups.  I didn't even see this remark until I saw it 
quoted secondhand.  Who reads their own postings?

Anyway, about this remark:
>>
>>[Why "rightly resist ... the downside role" -- are there no positive
>>aspects to "traditionally feminine qualities" that a man can adopt?
>>Likewise, are there no positive aspects of the 'male role' that a
>>woman can adopt?  I don't think that a woman should wholly adopt a
>>male role either, but see nothing wrong with taking some of its useful
>>qualities.  And vice-versa.  --Cindy]

Obviously my terminology has confused you.  When I talk about roles I do not
mean (and do not believe) that people fill *a* role.  People act according to
roles in particular relationships depending on how those relationships are
structured.  Non-hermits act in many roles with many different people.  They
may act in different roles within a relationship with one person.  What I am
saying is that nothing is accomplished by accepting the competitive model for
structuring relationships, and just allowing women to take the top-dog role.
What I am saying is precisely that we should take what has been traditionally,
if crudely, called the `feminine' model -- of cooperation -- and restructure
our roles in relationships according to that.  This has nothing to do with how
one makes a living, or whether one spends one's time taking care of children
or cooking dinner.

For example, I see a lot of soi disant feminists in brutal competition with
their husbands trying to get to the point where they happen to earn more money
(a measure of which one is winning, you see) because that supposedly makes
*them* boss in that relationship.  I see nothing admirable in this.  Nor
anything I would care to call feminist.  Swapping bosses is not going to make
the world better and a man would be an idiot if he accepted this switcheroo as
a step forward.  (Using marriage here as indicative of other relationships.) 
That is what I mean when I say that men rightly reject the downside role.   


                              -- Mary
                                 Holstege@polya.stanford.edu

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