Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ora!daemon
From: king@kestrel.edu
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Feminism's ill effects on men?
Message-ID: <1990Oct18.154041.6433@ora.com>
Date: 18 Oct 90 15:40:41 GMT
References: <11109001:30:33RA04@lehigh.bitnet>
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: Kestrel Institute, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 38
Approved: ambar@ora.com

In article <11109001:30:33RA04@lehigh.bitnet> RA04@Lehigh.UCAR.EDU writes:

}One of the issues Doug's post brings up is the predominant view
}supported by our (white, masculine-mostly, Euro-American) culture:
}that there are Man and Nature, and nature exists for the benefit of
}Man.  So, in some very significant senses, the fact that humans are
}"subject" to "natural laws" is looked upon as a challenge and an
}obstacle.  As we "advance" and "make progress" (see, hardly anyone's
}asking about the destination of this movement), more and more of
}nature falls under our power.  We "tame" wilderness and build nice
}little ordered subdivisions; we "harness" rivers and get electricity;
}etc.  If we don't harness and tame and subdue and exploit, we won't be
}"top dog," won't be "first in the pecking order."  And quite a few
}feminists are noticing this "oppress or be oppressed" model that
}(mostly male-gender) humans have in fact imposed on everything that
}isn't mostly-male-gender-human.  The implications of the model are
}amazing, and they account in part for the threatened, fearful, and
}almost entirely arbitrary (!) responses by some men and man-identified
}women to feminists' demands for a change.  According to the "oppress or
}be oppressed" model (and only that model), men will have to lose power
}if women lose their oppressed status.  Thing is, that's an eighteenth-
}century, closed-system approach: one way to conceptualize, not THE way.


Fact: On the average, men are stronger than women.  I doubt there
      would be a lot of people disputing this. 

Fact: A large part of "harness[ing] nature" consists of applying
      measures to the way we do things that makes strength less
      important.  Women can have blue-collar jobs in a world with
      forklifts and steam shovels and ..., and there come to be fewer
      of them; white-collar jobs are undeniably androgynous.


I think that on the whole technology is or should be feminists' best
friend. 

-dk