Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!ames!sparkyfs!usasoc.soc.mil!aero!mydog.UUCP From: gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Feminism's ill effects on men? Message-ID: <87443@aerospace.AERO.ORG> Date: 3 Oct 90 14:15:28 GMT References: <9009122207.AA10780@houston.cs.columbia.edu> <653402616@lear.cs.duke.edu> <7094@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <17595@oolong.la.locus.com> Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org Reply-To: uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf (Gordon Fitch) Lines: 84 Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org Does feminism oppress men? Well, what is oppression? We might say that it is the reduction of the victim's freedom -- freedom being the ability to do what one wants. Perfect freedom would be the ability to do anything one wanted, but such freedom runs into a problem on the social plane: people's wills impinge upon one another, and often conflict. Those who prevail impose upon, oppress, those who don't. Ideally, we would like to believe that there is some kind of arrangement which would be perfectly fair to everyone, probably a symmetrical one: my freedom to swing my fist stops at your nose, and vice versa. The problem with this solution is that people are different, and want different things, so that their wills fit together in many non-symmetric ways. Thus in practice, rights are generally worked out as individual and group wills confront one another in some specific arena. But this means that every individual, and every group, "oppresses" the others, by attempting to restrain their freedom, by pushing against their will. Since this pushing and shoving offends our idealistic view of freedom, we value-load the word _oppress_ and reserve it for cases in which we believe the victims should be getting a better deal, for one reason or another. One of the favorite reasons is that the victim is oneself, or one's category. For example, let us say that, in 1955, 95% of all engineers were male, but in 1985, 65% were male, and that this change took place entirely as a result of feminist agitation. Were those males who wished to be engineers, but were pushed aside by the women making up the 35%, oppressed? Of course. In a more extreme example, slaveholders of the Old South were oppressed by Emancipation. We have no sympathy for the slaveholders because we think relationships between people of different races should be symmetrical, and that overt slavery is an excessive form of dominance. Our sympathy for the frustrated male engineering candidates is problematical. We're not sure whether relation- ships between different sexes should be symmetrical or not; on the other hand, failing to get into RPI, though a disappoint- ment, is not often the end of life. I am sure some readers of this article will think this view of "oppression" is silly. But in the last few weeks, upper-caste people in India have burned themselves to death to protest a form of affirmative action which would guarantee lower castes a substantial proportion of government jobs. The upper castes have based their lives on a theory and practice of caste dominance; the government, probably afraid of a burgeoning lower-caste political movement, is leaning on them. (Had the Indian government been more ingenious, it would have set the lower castes against one another, American-style.) Those who have had "privilege", which they often see as hard-earned success, do not find its loss anything but oppressive. One's pain is not less because another might have greater cause for pain. In the currently popular social arrangement of dog-eat-dog, devil-take-the-hindmost capitalism, I do not call my rela- tionship with those feminists who accept this arrangement "oppressive" because I find the connotations of the word excessive; but in fact we oppress, we push against, each other's will and interests, at least some of the time. It's just business. And those who are my competitors can't expect me to join them or support them on all occasions, so I don't call myself a "feminist" in this sense. (On the other hand, I don't share the keen resentment of those who feel that feminist organizations have failed them because the feminists have been watching out for the interests of their constituents, instead of, say, leading the fight against a nonexistent military draft. Business is business, and it's nothing to get outraged about. I have accepted the fact that NOW ain't my mom.) Of course, if someone wants to run up the flag for a different arrangement, I might be interested. I definitely think many of our great leaders and institutions could use a dose of femininity. They seem to be dying of testosterone poisoning, probably from failure to make proper use of it. But at last report all the "rad-fems" had moved to Academia or the woods, while I'm stuck here in the suburbs, reading Usenet. Little money, big mouth. Dreams of Goddess Communism. Onward....