Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!dptg!ulysses!andante!princeton!udel!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway From: greg@uts.amdahl.COM (Greg Bullough) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: womyn-only space vs. men-only space? Message-ID: <87JG029Oe92q01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> Date: 21 Nov 90 05:42:33 GMT References: <89803@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <10153@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <1990Oct31.185009.701@athena.mit.edu> <46160@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <8131@dog.ee.lbl.gov> Reply-To: Greg Bullough Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA Lines: 72 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu In article <8131@dog.ee.lbl.gov> Matt Austern writes: > >>There is a not-so-subtle form of sexism here which says "what women do >>in their space is virtuous and good, but what men do in their space is >>conspiratorial and evil." It is precisely this sort of sexism which as >>so polarized the forces on either side of the women-space/ men-space >>issue. > >I think this is a slightly unfair characterization of the argument for >"women's space." The point isn't that any women's organization must >necessarily be good and any men's organization necessarily evil; I believe that Matt has in fact missed my point by a wide margin. My point was, and is, that whenever the merits of an organization are discussed, a value judgement tends to ensue. That is particularly true of organizations from which the person making the judgement is excluded. I maintain that it is inappropriate for women to decide or to interfere with the way in which men define their gender-specific space. Just as many women will probably argue that it is inappropriate for me to interfere with how they organize themselves into women-only groups. > it is >just an observation that today, in the world we live in, organizations >like SWE play a different role in society than do organizations like >the Bohemian Club; This is precisely the sort of political bias which concerns me, and it makes my point better than I ever could have. > that many women's groups exist for the purpose of >inclusion, not exclusion. Perhaps. However, a women's-only group which purports to exist for the purpose of exclusion must be employing doublethink. If this model SWE is like, for example, the NAACP, admitting all who have concern for its pet cause, then it's not "women-space." If it admits only women, then it chooses to be "women space." My stand is that the choices about the composition of the group (and the consequences of those choices) belong to the group itself. With no quarter for outside interference. And yes, that means that some really horrible people can get together and form really horrible groups. Without outside interference. Otherwise what ensues is an atmophere of organizational sabotage in which the real issues disappear entirely. > The social context just isn't the same; why >should we pretend that it is? The social context is the business of the membership. >On the net, I often see the sentiment, usually expressed by >non-feminist men, Please define "non-feminist men." Please define "feminist" first. > that our attitudes about male-female relations >should be completely symmetrical. Whether I'd say that or not, it is immaterial here. Because I didn't say it here. What I said is that it's very dangerous to permit society to decide what political groups or private societies will be allowed to exist within it. The right to organize is a fundamental one, and I don't believe that political agendas ought to be met by attempting to keep organizations with which one doesn't agree from functioning as organizations. In that sense, I do believe in symmetry. Repression is repression. Regardless of who is doing it to whom. Greg