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From: rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: how to bash feminism without really trying
Message-ID: <47014@bbn.COM>
Date: 17 Oct 89 14:34:23 GMT
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I have two questions for the members of the subgroup who are focusing
so exclusively on affirmative action:

1) If you have disagreements in principle with feminism, why not argue
on that basis instead of expending all of your energy on a mere
tactic? Or, to put it another way, how has it happened that some of
you are INSISTING on identifying the complex and multi-faceted
movement known as feminism with a minor and contingent bit of tactics
known as affirmative action? Searching for an easy target, perhaps?
Maybe one of you who are so hung up on this subject could explain to
the rest of us why you place this much importance on it.

2) Could one of you, any one at all, suggest some alternatives to
a.a.? I've yet to hear a single one offered, amidst all the whining.
Feminists have no special attachment to affirmative action (see
question (1)). I'm sure it would gladly be dropped the instant someone
comes up with anything better. How do YOU propose that we get from our
current situation of major gender skew to a different situation of
some kind of gender equality? Or could it be that it's the goal of
gender equality which disturbs you so much, rather than the means? Or
possibly that you don't really believe there's gender inequality now?

Let's put cards on the table folks. It's absurd that so much of the
time on 'soc.feminism' is being spent on this minor matter. Something
else is at work here, and I'd like to know explicitly what it is.