Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!uci-ics!tittle From: gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: how to bash feminism without really trying Message-ID: <8910200306.AA17402@lear.cs.duke.edu> Date: 21 Oct 89 02:38:14 GMT References: <47014@bbn.COM> <15799@duke.cs.duke.edu> <47127@bbn.COM> Sender: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle) Reply-To: gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) Organization: The Piranha Club Lines: 127 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu [The machine at our site that handles the netnews posting went down last night as I was trying to send this out. I don't think it got out, but if you see two copies...oh well... --clt] In article <47127@bbn.COM> Richard Shapiro writes: >In article <15799@duke.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes: #In article <47014@bbn.COM> rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro) writes: >>>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? #Because what you *DO* is what you are. You can't insist that #race/sex will be mentioned in every job application, college #admission etc. and be an "equal rights" person. Period. >I don't see how this is an answer to my question. IMO what you say, intentions, etc. are not important. If you want to argue that feminism is not "just AA" then try to present some of its *actions*, preferably actions in the Eighties. If you can't find any actions that represent the theory of feminism as *you* see it then start to check your assumptions... >I ask why you insist >on equating the multi-facted and well-elaborated theory & practice >called feminism with a minor tactic which is contingently accepted by >*some* feminists (as well as some non-feminists), I'm interested to know what is you definition of "*some*". Can you quote well known feminists and/or major feminist organizations that object to AA? If not, why not? >and you reply by >repeating (yet again) that affirmative action is discriminatory. Let >me repeat my challenge, since you seem to have missed the point: carry >out your arguments with feminism over REAL issues, What the feminist movement does is *the* real issue. Do you think that facts are not relevant? >this and gotten nowhere. But what's striking to me is that you just >won't let this topic go. I think there's something more at work here, >and I'd like to know what it is. \begin{sarcasm} What the feminist movement does is not a REAL issue, but my intentions are... \end{sarcasm} #I suggested to enforce EEO. My idea was that if a manager does not hire the #best candidate then he/she should be *personally* fined in the range #of $10000. >Explain to me how this can possibly be effective in eliminating the >(often unintended) sexism which consigns women to lower paying jobs. If you will ask around you would discover that even the weak EEO from 1964 had a lot of influence. The Old-Boys are not fighters but manipulators. When the risk is too high they are willing to give up. >Who, in your scheme, judges which candidate is "the best"? Let the company decide, and let them have the risk that someone will take them to the court. After someone will lose a case the rest will be very careful. >And who brings the action against this employer? I'm for government support in clear cases. I know the problem with this method (elder workers in Xerox were fired in illegal way and the head of the EEO committee explained that she did not see any public interest in helping them), but AA has the same problem, just worse... >The second thing that happens is that another, much more significant >aspect of sexism which had been "hidden" now comes to the fore. This When you accept less qualified women via AA, does it improve the image of women? >is a difficult problem. One possible way to attack it is through the >"role model" idea. Will this work? I don't know. But NO OTHER >SUGGESTIONS HAVE BEEN MADE which take this crucial issue into account. >None. \begin{sarcasm} I have a great idea how to produce gold. It's true that it's not perfect but NO OTHER SUGGESTIONS HAVE BEEN MADE. Do you want to invest some of *your* money in it? \end{sarcasm} >asking in question (1) is this: is this oversight just an accident? Or No, I want to see what feminists do when they discover that their movement supports discrimination. I want to check if they really care about equal rights or just say they are. I don't care about the theory, I want to see how they solve a problem in *practice*. The feminists on the net have interesting responses. The feminists shout "60 cents!" no matter if it is relevant or not, but you ignored my suggestion to AA by income level. The feminists shout "the education system!", but you ignored my question why NOW does not push for better quality control on teachers. My conclusion is that you don't want to talk, you want to sell. You ignore the "irrelevant" facts and try to sell the theory. >is it a sign of a much more fundamental disagreement, not with the >specific goals of affirmative action, but with the more basic and >general goals and ideas of feminism itself? What I care is what goals do the actions of the feminists serve. Do you have anything to say about that? Hillel gazit@cs.duke.edu "In her ground-breaking new book, "The Demon Lover: On the Sexuality of Terrorism," Robin Morgan advances an analysis of terrorism in which the soldier (the State's hero) and the terrorist (the Revolution's hero) are mirror-image expressions of male nature, not human nature. A feminist writer who was once involved in small, pre-Weathermen, "armed propaganda" groups, Morgan opens a window of thought and action that lets us move out of a male-centered politics of Thanatos - the romance of death - into a feminist politics of Eros, a loving life force." --- Ms. magazine, March 1989