Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!usc!aero!bloch%mandrill@ucsd.edu
From: bloch%mandrill@ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: feminist spirituality
Message-ID: <6740@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu>
Date: 30 Jun 89 04:30:52 GMT
References: <1336@cattell.psych.upenn.edu> <42102@bbn.COM>
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Reply-To: bloch%mandrill.UUCP@ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch)
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rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro) writes:
>The crucial
>step of feminism, one of them at least, was to point out that gender
>is a purely social construct, that "feminine" and "masculine" are
>socially and historically specific; in short that these are not
>"natural" notions at all, however much they may seem to be so.

Well, not PURELY social.  Aside, of course, from reproductive
differences, there are certainly skills at which the average woman is
significantly (in a chi-squared sense) better or worse than the
average man, and for some of these there is no evidence to indicate a
social explanation.  However, there is quite a bit of overlap in the
curves.

>The
>kind of "eternal feminine" implied by "feminine spirituality" is just
>the opposite of this. It's a return to transcendental gender,
>supposedly valid for all times and places....

Right; I continue to believe that the only absolute differences
between men and women are in physical structure.  It's plausible, for
example, that for biological reasons women could have more "nurturing"
(whatever that means) personalities on average than men, but I suspect
if you found a way to quantify it, you'd find the most nurturing 20%
of men to be more so than the least nurturing 20% of women.

On the other hand, when we get down to practicalities, this is the
sort of thinking that had the Reagan administration gutting affir-
mative action.  "Society should be color-blind" (or gender-blind) is a
great slogan, but society is NOT NOW color- or gender-blind, and
therefore women have different problems than men do and may need a way
to develop their own spiritual lives in response to those problems.
As long as they don't cut themselves off; both of us is better than
either of us.

"A crystalline set of dominoes / Except not really crystalline;
And sort of domino-like, / But not really." -- Jane Siberry

Steve Bloch