Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!aero-c!nadel From: panix!mara@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (Mara Chibnik) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: sexist space Message-ID: <1991Apr2.234414.7947@panix.uucp> Date: 2 Apr 91 23:44:14 GMT References: Sender: news@aero.org Organization: (getting there) Lines: 59 Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org Status: R Originator: nadel@aerospace.aero.org In article ahimsa!mjm@intelhf.intel.com writes about how women needed to learn to speak up in a (segregated) classroom: >My opinion on this situation is that it is probably a form of learned >helplessness, which is not unique to women. Nor, by the example (dog in a cage trained not to be able to avoid a shock) to humans. I note that the dog is referred to as "she," but I'm not sure how specifically it was intended. > [ ... ] The dog tries to escape when the shock comes, but >after a while learns that she cannot. [ ... ] While the phenomenon isn't limited to men, it's worth noticing whether men and women are affected differently by it. Does it apply more to one sex than the other, say, in different environments? It might also be worth considering the reactions of people around when they observe someone who has learned such behavior. I have a friend who enjoys provoking me by maintaining a staunch position of "equal rights for women" at the same time he disparages one woman or another-- usually his wife, who is a highly successful professional of whom he is *very* proud-- for behaving "the way women always do." I was with him one day when his wife called to announce with relief that she'd had no trouble reporting damaged merchandise to the store where she bought it. She'd been prepared for trouble because the merchandise had been delivered some months before, but hadn't been opened until a remodeling job got done, and she thought it likely that the store would claim it had been damaged while in storage. They were willing to stand behind the quality of their product. My friend was pleased for his wife, and told her so, got off the phone and said to me, "Women always think they're going to have trouble with these things. But you see, all you have to do is ask." I pointed out that his wife is an extremely intelligent woman, and a quick learner. I'm sure that she (like me!) has had the experience of *not* being taken seriously at all. It doesn't take too many such experiences to get people either to lose heart, and not complain at all, or to approach a complaint with belligerence, since any courteous request for service is understood in advance to be unlikely to work. I thought the article was an interesting and provocative one. I think it's an interesting area for further thought. -- cmcl2!panix!mara Mara Chibnik mara@dorsai.com "It can hardly be coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport." --Douglas Adams