Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!jarthur!ucivax!gateway From: jdravk@speech2.cs.cmu.edu (Jeanette Dravk) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Woman/Man Space Message-ID: <9101072052.AA04724@rutgers.edu> Date: 8 Jan 91 01:23:28 GMT References: <5161@optilink.UUCP> Organization: Barbie's Dream Dungeon Lines: 54 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: blanche.ics.uci.edu In article <5161@optilink.UUCP> uunet!optilink!cramer@ncar.ucar.EDU (Clayton Cramer) writes: &In article , sdk91@campus.swarthmore.edu writes: &> I get tired of folks who claim that women-only groups are &> _necessarily_ wrong. Tell me. Would you take a bunch of emotionally &> vulnerable men who are survivors of abuse by their mothers and fathers &> and hold an open meeting to work through pain, grief, and trauma while &> they are in the _presence of their abusers_?!? &No. But your assumption that ANY man is an "abuser" of women is a &sexist remark. Let's try your analogy with race. How about &white-only groups for victims of crime? (Blacks are dispro- &portionately involved in crime, therefore any black is a criminal, &etc. -- the typical collectivist reasoning that you have chosen for &males). But is it? Isn't the goal of a group trying to help women who have been abused by men the goal of enabling them to realize that all men are *not* abusers? People who have been traumatized, for whatever reason, are not reasonable or logical in the area of their trauma. The primary goals of these groups (like any therapy) is to get them to accept and like themselves again, and to understand that all people who are are *not* abusive or "out ot get them". But obviously, you don't want to inhibit these people from the very beginning by allowing the very people which they have come to (misguidedly) fear -- be they men, women, blacks, fathers, etc. So let's try your idea. Why not have crisis groups for white people who suffer from being the instigators of racism? How do you propose to overcome their built up defenses and the habits/nurturing of a lifetime by having blacks/Jews whatever in the group? How do you propose to get them to relax and drop those defenses and talk honestly and freely about how they feel when in the presence of the very ideal that triggers them? You can try to force them, you can pass laws, but you can't make them *believe* unless you can elicit their own sincere support in the effort of re-training. Your assumption that people in counseling should be able to confront their fears not only in life but in therapy as well is typical of the flawed egalitarian who cannot accept the fact that all people are *not* equal in their emotions, behaviors and responses. If these people were able to confront their fears in a reasonable manner, they wouldn't be in the group to begin with. And once they *are* able to, they will no longer be in the group. j- -- #*#*#*#*#*# Transient Creature of the Wide, Wild World #*#*#*#*#*#*#* "Time is not linear to me, it is a nebulous web of existential freedom."