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: Power economics, genders, and the status quo Message-ID: <9101072114.AA06178@rutgers.edu> Date: 8 Jan 91 01:24:43 GMT References: <#}W^KZ&@rpi.edu> Organization: Barbie's Dream Dungeon Lines: 85 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: blanche.ics.uci.edu In article <#}W^KZ&@rpi.edu> mittmann@ral.rpi.EDU (Michael Mittmann) writes: &In article sdk91@campus.swarthmore.edu writes: &>I don't say that all all-male groups should be illegal. What I'm &>trying to say is that I don't think people should participate in or &>support single-sex organizations whose object is to maintain a sexist &>status quo. If that involves passing a law against all-male corporate &>dining clubs, so be it. & I don't believe in outlawing groups because of the ideas &that they support or advocate. So if you ask me, only moral way to &do this is to make all all-male groups illegal, unfortunatly that's &discrimination unless we do the same for females. Ya know, there *are* all-male groups that already exist purely on a social basis .. one that comes to mind off-hand is the Boy Scouts of America... Do we really want to outlaw this? On one hand, I (as a former Girl Scout from long ago) would say "YES!" since I always hated how the Boy Scouts always got to go on hikes and learn neat skilled crafts while all we ever did were make yarn doilies and sleep in cabins while our troop matrons cooked us dinner.... Bleah. But on the other hand, there are a lot of real problems with having mixed scout troops after say, the age of 10. But all in all, what is the purpose of outlawing same sex groups? It was a good idea 20-30 years ago, when women had no real power in the social structure other than the power to vote, but now that's no longer the case. Take for instance, an example I read of in the paper this morning. It was the story of a (Federal Court?) judge who happened to be a woman and wished to join a social club in Erie. Now this group had originally been founded 120 years ago as a German men's choir, and has since grown to include 3000 male members of the political/social/business scene in Erie. In order to conform (and stay legal I guess) they adopted a clause in their charter some time ago that allowed full membership to be bestowed upon women. However, membership is decided upon via a vote (by the board of directors of the club I think) ... and so far, no woman has ever been voted in. There has been little effort to hide the fact apparently that the reason for this is that they simply don't want any women in their club and feel that they have every right to be discriminatory about whom they accept as a member. Well, of course you can imagine the judge was not happy at all about this. The article stated that she intended to re-apply this spring for membership in the hope that this little fracas has stirred up the traditional thinking of the men. So should this club be outlawed? I think not. Why resort to laws that can be gotten around and take time and money to pursue when the means of making the "female membership" clause a reality already exists? It exists because women today have something that women of thirty years ago did not have to such an extent: economic power. Clubs have expenses to pay, bills to met and members to keep happy in order for them to continue to exist. Among other things, this club hires it's building out for weddings, bingo games and other community affairs. Not to mention the fact that women are not by *any* means excluded from entering the club with a member, i.e. a man. So now what would happen if all of a sudden the wives, girl friends, and other female relatives of club members refused to enter that building? What if women refused to be married there? What if women refused to attend dances and bingo games there? You get the idea. Not only would there be an incredible loss of income for the club, but there would also be the unhappiness of the members who can no longer go out to dinner their with their wife/girlfriend and chat with their buddies. There would now be members would be unhappy and who may very well cancel their memberships and go somewhere else. And all of this without any laws, or court battles. Women now have the power to affect the status quo and the power structure of society. We have to power to do it just as any other man until this day has done it ... via the golden rule (i.e. "those with the gold, make the rules"). j- -- #*#*#*#*#*# Transient Creature of the Wide, Wild World #*#*#*#*#*#*#* "Time is not linear to me, it is a nebulous web of existential freedom."