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From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: men&women: same or different?
Summary: Some want to eat the cake, some want
	 to save it, and some would do both!
Message-ID: <11549@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 25 Aug 90 13:32:10 GMT
References: <82059@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
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Status: R


-----
Mr Kushmerick summarizes one version of feminism, the egalitarian
view:

> In other words, today, men and women are difference but these
> differences are either unimportant, small, or unrelated to gender in a
> biological way.

But then he notes that there is another feminist line of thought:

> ....  For example, the other day I heard a speech by Helen Coldicott
> saying (major paraphrase) that men cause wars because they just don't
> have the right maternal instincts, etc. ...
>
> ... Which is it?  Are men and women equivalent save those ways
> that societies bend us?  Or are we really different, and are their
> feminists out there who believe that women's ways/beliefs/values/
> instincts are superior?

I do not find it disturbing that there are two different schools
of thought on this issue, since many movements encompass multiple
and irreconciliable branches.  What bothers me is that often the
same writer or thinker relies on both of these conflicting ideas,
choosing the one that is convenient to the political claim of the
moment.  

If, for example, the innate psychological differences between men
and women are so great that they explain the phenomenon of war,
then they are certainly large enough to explain a gap in the
success of the two genders in the business world.  But when faced
with the disparity in earnings between women and men, do those
feminists who think that women speak with a "different voice"
leave room for the possibility that this disparity in earnings is
a natural result of it?  No, they do not.  Here, they insist that
any difference is the result of unfair discrimination. 

Feh!  You cannot have it both ways.  If men and women are so
similar that any statistical difference in professional success
(dollars earned, presence in boardrooms, representation in
certain fields, etc) is a sign of discrimination, then there is
little sense in talking about women's values or their "different
voice".  If, on the other hand, one believes that women are
significantly different from men in this way, then when one sees
a statistical difference in the professional world, one has to
ask whether this is caused by the underlying difference in
thought between the two genders.  (Indeed, many have noted that
the traits required for sucess are the same in the boardroom and
the war room.  Helen Caldicott should note this.)

Russell