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From: leesa@frith.egr.msu.EDU (Anita Lees)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Who is on this newsgroup?
Summary: Who is being pressured?
Message-ID: <1990Aug8.163154.14229@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Date: 9 Aug 90 18:11:10 GMT
References: <1990Jul30.160819.1101@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> <4949.26b7a175@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> <1305@mtxinu.UUCP> <11247@chaph.usc.edu>
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In article <11247@chaph.usc.edu> wilber%aludra.usc.edu@usc.EDU (John Wilber) writes:
>In article <1305@mtxinu.UUCP> uunet!mtxinu!ed@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Ed Gould) writes:
>
>>Why do you presume that "feminist" and "homemaker" are necessarily
>>mutually exclusive?
>
>Of course they are not as long as the definition of "feminist" is "a
>person concerned with the rights of women" and not "Militant
>man-hating socialist lesbians advocating special sex-based
>privileges".
>
Gosh, I hope you don't mean me!  I'm a democrat, and I like men and
enjoy their company, at least when they're not defensively flaming...

>>To my mind, feminism does not object to one
>>becoming a homemaker,
>
>The "right-thinking" ones don't, but there are people out there
>calling themselves "feminists" who would object.
>
Of course homemakers can be feminist.  So can man-loving capitalist
heterosexuals.  Special sex-based priveleges? I'm not advocating that.
Methinks a straw 'person' is being attacked ... :-)

>>That pressure is real, whether it be subtle, societal expectation
>>or conditioning, or explicit.
>
>So is the pressure exerted by the parents of children who are
>described as some kind of political activists before they are mature
>enough to understand the issues.  Without parental conditioning, I
>doubt there are many/any 10-year old feminists, bigots, socialists,
>capitalists, hare krishnas, moonies, or cub scouts.
>
The trouble one can get into by omitting a ":-)"!  Of course my baby
isn't yet a feminist. Or a christian, for that matter.  If I said that
my cats were feminist, that would've been obvious, but here you assume
that I am really asserting the baby is.

More seriously, I think it is a parent's right to raise a child into
whatever moral/ethical system the parent espouses.  What is the
alternative? To let the child choose from among the myriad of systems
available?  This is not realistic.  First, there are way too many
choices -- they would be teenaged before they had even read about all
of them! --> :-) <-- More importantly, children are not far enough up
Maslow's hierarchy to make a meaningful choice for themselves.  Thus,
it falls to the parent(s) to pass along their beliefs to the child.
We fully intend to make it clear to our daughter that she will be
loved and accepted no matter what she chooses to do with her life, and
that we have taught her what we feel are the best principles for
living a moral life.

-Anita