Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!randolph@Sun.COM
From: randolph@Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: The Power of Listening?
Summary: Clarifications
Message-ID: <117785@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 26 Jul 89 04:59:48 GMT
References: <8907221627.AA27245@cognito.> <43171@bbn.COM>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Reply-To: elroy!ames!Sun.COM!randolph (Randolph Fritz)
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Status: R


Richard, I very much appreciate your comments.  Having had a few days
reflection on my original posting I've been able to get a clearer idea
of what the feminine form of the gaze might be.  Of course, I was
thinking of active, rather than passive, listening.  Thinking it over,
I think the grade-school teacher (the gaze *par excellence*), the
housewife-mother (a lot of her job is surveillance), the wife asking
"why are you so late?" with murder in her eye are indicators of the
direction of my speculations.

I was also thinking that it's striking that US men prefer intimate
talking with women, rather than men.  The figure of the mistress who
knows all of her lover's secrets is firmly enshrined in US popular
mythology & perhaps, even, she exists.

Finally, just today I came across this letter in Science News:

  "Deceptive Successes in young children" (SN: 6/3/89, p.343) brought
  back memories of my time in the eighth grade.  The teacher would
  leave the room and remind everyone to study and not talk.  Naturally,
  conversations broke out.  Upon her return she'd ask, "Who talked?"  In
  every case the boys admitted their guilt, but never would a single
  girl admit to talking.  The boys were punished with some exercise or
  other and the girls got off free for their lies.
  
  					Michael V. Stratton
  					Brea, Calif.

Now, all of this is *not* proof.  It, at most, hints that there may
be something there.  Which is what prompted me to post.

++Randolph Fritz  sun!randolph || randolph@sun.com