Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!usc!aero!travis@douglass.cs.columbia.edu
From: travis@douglass.cs.columbia.edu (Travis Lee Winfrey)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Blast Off (was Re: how to bash feminism without really trying)
Summary: wherein travis zings hillel with a Big List of Questions
Message-ID: <6561@columbia.edu>
Date: 23 Oct 89 16:09:39 GMT
References: <47014@bbn.COM> <15799@duke.cs.duke.edu> <47127@bbn.COM> <8910200306.AA17402@lear.cs.duke.edu>
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Reply-To: travis@douglass.cs.columbia.edu (Travis Lee Winfrey)
Followup-To: soc.feminism
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[ Hi all, sorry for the very long posting, but I started a list, then filled in
most of it before pooping out.  If I may paraphrase this entire post, it's
based on the saying "you can't soar with the eagles when you were wallowing
with the hogs the night before."  Well, you can't dance with Foucault after
you've been butting heads with Jesse Helms.]

In article <8910200306.AA17402@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes:
>      Richard Shapiro asks:
>>>>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? 
       Hillel replied:
>#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. 

Hillel,

Although Richard is quite capable of doing so, I think I'll add more
detail to his questions, in the hopes that you may understand it enough
to answer it.

One view of feminism is that it is a critique of the gender-based
attributes and attitudes that people are given.  To the extent that there
is a political side of feminism, it is one that examines and criticizes the
many consequences -- political and personal, historical and present-day --
of these gender-based assumptions and attitudes.  The problem with your
(and others') simplistic descriptions of "feminism" is that you seem to
think it begins and ends with Affirmative Action-type laws and programs.

What Richard's question referred to was the fact that you (and others) seem
to be willing to spend an astonishing amount of time on the net attacking
Affirmative Action programs, when there is much, much more that is analyzed
and critiqued under the rubric of feminism.  You are apparently totally
unaware of the existence of this work, yet you remain unafraid to slander
"feminists" as technicians of inequality, as if AA programs were all that
they did or cared about.

For example, you ask:

>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.

Presumably you mean actions other than feminist analyses of social
structures, e.g., Catherine Mackinnon's "Toward a Feminist Theory of
the State" (just published), Evelyn Fox Keller's "Reflections on Gender
and Science", Andrea Dworkin's "Pornography", Carol Vance's "Pleasure
and Danger", Varda Burstyn's "Women Against Censorship", Marilyn
French's "Beyond Power", Susan Brownmiller's "Against Our Will", or the
literally thousands of other such books that range from studies of the
suffrage movement, to incest, to the nature of the male gaze in cinema.
Of the books I listed, only two mention anything about Affirmative Action.

It's possibly the case that you don't think of these things as "feminism,"
which is precisely the reason why you and the rest of the anti-AA crowd on
the net are missing 90% of the point.  "Feminism" is not just the advocacy
of Affirmative Action, or, God help us, the willingness of females to
volunteer to fight in a war.

Are you married?  Do you have sisters or daughters or female friends?  What
about your mother?  Do you listen to their problems?  Can you begin to
understand that each of the following problems/situations/power structures
I list below is studied under the label of "feminism", and that *nothing*
here has anything to do with Affirmative Action?  Let's go through the list.

- Rape.  
  If reported rapes are analyzed, 1 out of 10 of every women will be
raped in their lifetime (says the FBI, the Dept. of Justice goes for 1
in 12).  If unreported rapes are factored in, 1 out of every 4 women
will be raped in their lifetime.  Grown women, children, grandmothers
all lead their lives differently because of the possibility of a sexual
assault.  Isn't this kind of high?  With rape so stunningly prevalent,
as Golda Meir asked the Knesset (lo! these many years ago), who should
be locked inside at night: men or women?

- Incest.
  The last statistic I heard was from NY Women Against Rape, which
reported that 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted by a relative.
It's conventional to think that a child molester will the stranger in a
raincoat, but it's usually kept in the family.  90% of all incest
survivors are females, molested by heterosexual male relatives, by the
way.  But don't worry, it wraps around: I just saw a short documentary
where a rapist described his rapes as a means of getting back at his
mother, who sexually molested him years before.

- Wife Abuse.
  The most fascinating statistic for me in this field is that, of the women
who are eventually murdered by their husbands, there is an *average* of 10
visits by the police before the woman is actually killed.  Can you think
that through, and see in it the tolerance of society, see the dependence of
the woman, see the long-term nature of the abuse?  Wife beating has been
legal for centuries under English Common Law, as long as it was kept
"within reason."  One law specified that it be with a stick no thicker than
a man's thumb, but I honestly can't remember if that was a Common Law
statute, or one in the colonies.  Can you spot the gender roles implicit in
these laws?

- Abortion
  This is possibly a women's issue, yes?  There's probably no connection at
all between the women's rights movement, and the resurgence of the
anti-abortion movement, right?  Even though abortion has been known for
centuries, was legal in the U.S. up until the 20th century (before the
quickening, around 4-5 months), even approved of by the church.  If
abortion is murder, and pre-marital sex is as commonplace as it now,
wouldn't it make more sense to advocate birth-control information
immediately?  (Sure, birth control might be morally wrong, too, but even
people opposed to abortion don't think an unfertilized egg is life.)
Did you know that 1 in 40 women were dying from abortions before it was
legalized?  Why do you think you haven't heard that figure before?

- Sexual Harassment at work or at school, Ogling or fondling on the street.
  You've never seen this?  You've never heard of this?  You've never heard,
or seen, or been with, a group of guy yelling something suave like "show us
your tits"?

- Clitoridectomies, Infibulation, Forced Sterilization, 
  Radical Masectomies, "Hysteria" 
  Have you ever heard of these things?  Did you know that, according
the Egyptian woman who founded an organization against the practices of
clitoridectomy and infibulation, over 30 million women have had one
performed on them?  Have you heard of the black women in South
Carolina, or the poor women in Puerto Rico, women who were sterilized
without their knowledge?  Why do you think that is?  Do you know who
the "Love Doctor" in Illinois was, or why other gynecologists allowed
him to disfigure women's vaginas for many years?

- Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia, Makeup, Plastic Surgery, Liposuction,
  Breast Implants. 
  90% of the Anorexics in America are female.  Why do you think that
is?  Why do you think women spend 8 billion dollars a year on makeup?
Can you imagine why anyone would wear jeans so tight that their
internal organs are actually damaged?

- Child Care
  Why is there no national child care plan?  Why is the only prenatal
care plan (WIC) perennially threatened by budget cuts?  Why does the
lack of a universal prenatal care system seem to conflict with the
opinion that a fetus is a human life?  After all, isn't that child
abuse, letting a woman on welfare not feed her "child" in her womb?

- Gender Roles
  Is it a good thing that men have difficulty expressing emotions
(except anger) in public?  Have you ever cried in public?  Were you
embarrassed?  Is it good that men work, and don't get to take care of
their children?  Is the early death rate of men a good thing or a bad
thing?  How about a life dominated by work, one separate from children
and home?  Is that a good model for a society?
  Did you know that most children will not play with a wrong-gender toy
beginning at the age of three?  Why do you think that is?  Have you ever
heard males called "ladies" or "girls" as an insult?  Do you know that
teachers will chastise female students for interrupting, but allow male
students to do so?  Do you know that wearing pink or blue diapers will
uniquely determine how caregivers treat infants and young babies?
(Pinks who cry are immediately picked up and comforted, Blues are
allowed to cry longer, and are allowed to explore more.)
  Did you know that every profession historically identified with women
has been eventually stripped of its status and relative pay?  (Almost AA
material, I know).  Do you understand how the gender of an occupation
changes the way it is practiced?

- Pornography.
  Why do you think pornography is so popular?  Does it implicitly
express any particular role for women?  (Subtle hint: See Anorexia &
Breast Implants, above.)  How about roles for men?  The vast majority of
all pornography is prepared for straight men, although there is some
made for straight women as well as lesbians and gay men.  Why is that
proportion so predominant?  it's not demographically justiable.  Why are
lesbian themes so common in straight pornography?

- Prostitution.
  Why is prostitution simultaneously illegal and practiced all over the
world?  Is prostitution a good thing or a bad thing?  Why do you think
men like to have sex with younger prostitutes, as young as 12 years old
in some cases?  Are pornography and prostitution symptomatic of any
roles for women that you can identify?

- Homosexuality.
  Have you ever thought another man was beautiful?  Would you tell him
that?  What would he be likely to think?  Do you think there's any
particular role implied for men in this society?  Can men be pretty, for
example?  Why not?  Is it degrading for a man to go down on another man,
or to be anally penetrated by another man?  Is it for a woman?

- Patriarchal Roles & Models.
  Never mind, I'm way too tired to fill this one in.  Here's where I
give up.  I haven't even gotten to literature, suffrage, marxism &
feminism, madonna/whore dichotomies, passive roles, aggression/war,
divorce, teen pregnancy, beauty contests, mommy worship, breast
fetishization, bride dowry, female infantcide, or youth-obsessed
cultures.  

>>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?

You've completely missed his point.  There are many feminists and
organizations that are concerned with different issues, e.g., NARAL and
abortion; WAP or FACT and pornography.  AA isn't a primary issue to many
feminists, myself included.

>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.

Here are some more examples, as if we need them.  You perpetually use
the word "feminist" to describe those people in favor of Affirmative
Action.  I wish you would give the literate world a break, and choose
your words with more care.

To go out on a limb, and rephrase Richard's complaint in a more direct
way, it's not that you're so terribly wrong about Affirmative Action
(although you are! **), it more that you're so stunningly ignorant and
unreflective of the other problems that face us all as men and women.
No matter how much rhetoric others may spew about the problems of women
and men, the simple fact that people view gender-based problems as the
particular concerns of one gender or another, is in itself a symptom of
the multifaceted cancer we're so energetically trying to point out.
We're all in the same muddle together.

a thousand blessings on those who made it this far through my message,

t

** and watch him respond to this line alone, folks.  whee!

Arpa:	travis@cs.columbia.edu	Usenet: rutgers!columbia!travis