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From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Feminism, Masculism?
Message-ID: <MUFFY.91Jan7034023@remarque.berkeley.edu>
Date: 7 Jan 91 18:01:07 GMT
References: <1991Jan4.041605.23467@evax.arl.utexas.edu>
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In article <1991Jan4.041605.23467@evax.arl.utexas.edu> persons@evax.arl.utexas.EDU (Mike Persons) writes:
> [...lots deleted...]

> Masculism: A philosophy (maybe not the best word) of attempting to
> guide society to change so as to be more humane to men.

> I propose this definition because I believe that both men and women
> are stuck in (maybe too strong, "guided to" perhaps) roles that are
> assigned to us.  These roles have worked to a great extent; our
> society has survived.  But as times change, roles must change, and
> that is what (I believe) "ism"-type groups are for - to effect these
> changes.  Keeping these definitions in mind, I believe that men can be
> feminists, just as women can be "masculists" - we can be legitimately
> concerned about helping the other sex have a better life.

> However, I think that each sex should focus primarily on their own
> "ism".  Not that it's wrong for me to support feminism, it may even be
> necessary.  But I don't think either sex can be "free" (whatever that
> means) until the other is "free" also, so focusing on women won't
> work.  Which link in a chain is most important?

Fine up to here, but why should people focus on their own?  If a man
feels that the problems of women are more severe and more important,
why shouldn't he focus on those problems?  Also, why should these
problems be separated?  In general, they are intertwined, or "two
sides of the same coin."  For example, children are often raised in
stereotypical gender roles.  Some person might feel that this is an
important problem.  Which of your "isms" does it fit into?  And,
finally, why should any one person work on all the problems of their
"ism"?

One of my concerns about feminism is that some feminists think a
person has to accept their whole agenda and ideology to be a "real"
feminist.  I think people should be free to work on whatever problems
they are concerned about, and it's good if they can join a larger
group that is working on those problems, both for the support that
such a group can provide (not feeling like they're the only one
working on/concerned about a problem) and because larger groups
generally have a better chance of changing the world/society.  It is
quite unfortunate when people are excluded (or even discouraged) from
such a group due to their gender or impure ideology (although I'm not
talking about groups which are gender-exclusive for some other reason;
that's another discussion).

Muffy