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From: bloch%thor@ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: feminism & simplification
Message-ID: <15207@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Date: 5 Jan 91 04:47:46 GMT
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	<1991Jan2.155342.1414@arris.com>
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rshapiro@arris.com (Richard Shapiro) writes:
>The problem comes, not from one role being oppressive to
>another, but from the fact that the amorphous complex of roles we call
>"female" is a less privileged position than the amorphous complex of
>roles we call "male".  That, ultimately, is what feminists want to
>change.

But the EXISTENCE of "the amorphous complex of roles we call 'female'"
and its "male" counterpart is a problem too, in that it excludes (or
at least discourages) people of both sexes from playing certain roles.
In a society (purely hypothetical :-) in which one sex is trained to
speak up and originate ideas in a group while the other is trained to
listen attentively and nod a lot, members of the first will never
learn to listen, to analyze what another person says before presenting
their own views, and members of the second will never learn how to
frame a coherent argument or proposal, nor gain the self-confidence to
do so in public.  If one sex is trained to empathize and show emotion,
while the other is trained in pure logic, each will in effect be
deprived of the other's mode of thought, and members of both sexes
will be incomplete human beings.

It happens that, perhaps partly because women are trained to be more
introspective and aware of their feelings than men, women (on the
whole) feel more oppressed by the current system than men do.  But it
really is oppressive to both.

-- 
"I'm nobody's savior, and nobody's mine either..." -- Ferron

Steve Bloch
bloch@cs.ucsd.edu