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From: travis@houston.cs.columbia.EDU (Travis Lee Winfrey)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: What is Feminism?
Message-ID: <9008132142.AA02798@houston.cs.columbia.edu>
Date: 13 Aug 90 23:17:29 GMT
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Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
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>In article <56304@microsoft.UUCP> t-ellens@microsoft.UUCP (Ellen SPERTUS) writes:
>   In article <11103@chaph.usc.edu> wilber%nunki.usc.edu@usc.EDU (John Wilber) writes:
>
>   >[I] Think it is an agends that lumps feminism, socialism, and an odd
>   >grab-bag of other isms together that has stalled the feminist
>   >movement.  I very much support women's rights, but I am absolutely
>   >opposed to pacifism, socialism, environmentalism (as practiced these
>   >days), and affirmative action.
>
>   Agreed! ...  I can't find a good reason why feminist positions exist on
>   vegetarianism, South Africa, etc.  To me, they seem based on the
>   stereotype that women are more compassionate than men, to say nothing
>   of the arbitrary grouping of people.  I probably have more in common
>   with computer scientists or engineers in general than with females or
>   feminists.  Can anyone illuminate this phenomenon for me?

Part of what you're seeing is no more than a rhetorical device -- "All
true Americans believe...", "Every good engineer knows...", "The smart
car shopper reads..." -- that neatly incorporates a common desire to
identify with a group with whatever idea they would like you to believe.
To that extent, the rhetorical device should be noted and duly ignored.
You may also find stereotypical reasoning: "I believe in women's rights
and vegetarianism, therefore everyone who believes in women's rights
should also be believe in vegetarianism or be damned as hypocritical."
This, too, is ludicrous.

However, beyond rhetoric and sterotypes, many people do believe that
some attitudes should come as a unified group, and can argue this quite
convincingly.  More than that, advocating some political positions is
seriously undermined by a strategy of dividing the issues.  For example,
AIDS-oriented organizations like ACT-UP and Gran Fury have skillfully
noted the linkages between deaths from AIDS and the entirely separate
issues of homophobia, racism, sexism, and the lack of a national health
insurance.  (For instance, there is "myth of heterosexual aids", despite
the many black and latino deaths from AIDS spread by heterosexual
activities.)  Yet, although these linkages have been energetically
pointed out over the last decade, public opinion and health policies
march on with few major changes.

It's good to remember that just because you're not immediately able to
follow the links in someone's argument (or worse, someone's anger)
doesn't mean that they're not present, either in fact or in a common
moral principle.  After all, many people deny that sexual or racial
harassment still exists until it happens to them.  Apart from
immediate experiences, there may be evidence that the writer has
absorbed, but not made available to you.  For instance, you might take
a dim view of arguments that linked patriarchal structures to child
abuse, without knowing that over 90% of the incest cases reported to
the police and mental health professionals are in fact cases of
father-daughter incest, and most of them occur in stereotypically
patriarchal families.  This datum does not indict that type of family
per se, but it is very disturbing, and it lends some weight in attacks
on inflexible patriarchal structures and gender roles.

t