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From: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Feminism's ill effects on men?
Message-ID: <9010042146.0.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 9 Oct 90 15:24:27 GMT
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Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Status: R

[This is drifting off the subject.  Followups should probably go to somewhere
else, maybe talk.politics.misc.                                         - MHN]

In <87443@aerospace.AERO.ORG>, gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.

I think your definition is too general to be very useful.  My working
definition of Oppression does not speak merely of the dominance of one
individual over another.  It speaks to the systematic domination of
groups of people by other groups, explicitly for the advantage of
those "oppressing" groups and the detriment of the "oppressed" groups.
One reason your definition "the reduction of freedom" is too general
is that in encompasses non-human restrictions, such as gravity (i.e.
you can't flap your arms and fly, and therefore are "oppressed" by
gravity), weather (a bad growing season means that you are "oppressed"
by the weather).  It also fails to distinguish between situations in
which there is and in which there is not a benefitting subgroup.
(Circumstances such as pervasive religious beliefs that preclude the
use of certain sources of food for an entire community and thus lowers
the standard of living, i.e. the freedom to survive in certain ways, of
everyone in the community equally).

The upper-caste Indians are not upset about freedom, they are upset
about the issues of power.  In this particular case I cannot help but
wonder where India would be now if Gandhi had lived.  (Which is way
off the topic, so I'll stop here)

-Doug