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From: gcf@mydog.uucp (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: womyn-only space vs. men-only space?
Message-ID: <19910102.1@mydog.uucp>
Date: 3 Jan 91 17:12:33 GMT
References: <1990Oct31.185009.701@athena.mit.edu>
	<46160@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
	<1990Nov26.050132.24561@iti.org>
	<1990Nov30.021256.4293@cbnewsd.att.com>
	<12000@sybase.sybase.com>
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One of the important elements of segregation which no one seems to be
talking about (or which I missed; on Usenet, you never know) is the
issue of power.  It matters whether those who seek to gather in groups
of their own kind have status and power in the society in which they
live, or not.  If they do not, and if their society is competitive, as
ours is, and if they are likely to be judged by their membership in
the group, as is the case in our society, then they are effectively
under continuous attack and need some kind of space in which to
breathe, as it were, and also meet others who are being subjected to
the same kind of attack to consider what they might do in the way of
common self-defense.

If, on the other hand, they are like the people who gather at Bohemian
Grove, their exclusiveness has quite another meaning.  It is a way of
celebrating and maintaining their success in attacking and dominating
others, a way which mimics the way they actually operate in the world.

The problem is not men, or women, or blacks, or Tasmanians, gathering
in groups by themselves; the problem is the structure which divided
them into these categories and set them against one another in the
first place.

--
Gordon  |  gcf@mydog.uucp