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From: schoi@teri.bio.UCI.EDU (Sam Lord Byron Choi)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: society vs. the individual
Message-ID: <9104031410.aa01637@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Date: 3 Apr 91 22:44:51 GMT
Organization: University of California, Irvine
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Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: blanche.ics.uci.edu

tittle@zola.ICS.UCI.EDU (Cindy Tittle Moore) writes:

>And yet, I have time and time again encountered discrimination; partly
>for just being female and partly for having abandoned the traditional
>female role.  These ranged from the man who thought I should have sex
>with him to make sure that I was not lesbian to the woman who thought
>I would make a terrible mother since I was so "unfeminine" to the
>countless people who assume that I have no idea of what a computer
>*is* (even a few folx on the net!).  Now, I will agree that these can
>be viewed as individual actions, but I think they still need to be
>looked at as a whole.  What is the cumulative effect of individual
>actions of this type?  What is the effect from deviating from socially
>acceptable norms?  Some deviations are more acceptable than others;
>why is this so (e.g., women wearing pants versus men wearing dresses
>(& scottish kilt doesn't count!))?  I think this is what Jeanette was
>getting at.  How does your model take into account experiences like
>mine (which are not at all unique)?

	In presenting my case I didn't mean to imply that all
discrimination is self-inflicted.  My argument applied only in the
context of people acting in a certain way because they believe that
SOCIETY makes them do it.  So my point applies more to your choice to
disregard social norms and dress the way that you like rather than
your experiences of discrimination and harrassment.

	I would like to modify my stance though.  Although I seemed to
come down hard on emphesizing individual choice in conformity, I would
not say that all actions are simply the whimpy choices of the
spineless.  After all, we are all largely products of our development
and education.  When all we ever hear is the party line, it's pretty
difficult to do something else.  Continued naivite, however, after
learning about the alternatives is a little more difficult to
sympathesize with.

	So that's my fudge of an answer.  To take the example of why
more men don't wear dress.  Sure society says we shouldn't, but hell
even if it were completely hunky dory I wouldn't really want to.

	Your point "what is the cumulative effect of individual actions
of this type?" is well taken.  But here's how I would try to tackle
it.  When people are telling you, constantly, that you have to act in
a certain way or else your not a real woman, it's still a matter of
your own choice.  When their beliefs come to the point, however, of
limiting your own choices, such as people automactically assuming that
you don't know anything about computers, then it's not something
entirely in your hands anymore.

Sam Choi