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From: dgross@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Dave Gross)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Why I Am Not a Feminist
Message-ID: <2805efd1.34d0@petunia.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 12 Apr 91 17:35:13 GMT
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WHY I AM NOT A FEMINIST
	by Dave Gross

You've probably heard the phrase a dozen times: "I'm not a feminist,
but..."  What follows the "but" are protestations about how dedicated
the speaker is to equality between the sexes, how appreciative he or
she is about suffrage or equal employment opportunity or the other
gains of the women's movement, and other pleas that seem to suggest
that he or she would really _like_ to be a feminist, but cannot be.

Feminist groups are, naturally, troubled by this.  They see polls that
show a majority of both sexes in favor of equal rights and equal
respect between the genders, but the vast majority of both sexes
disavowing the label "feminist."  They think that the cause of this
contradiction is an image problem.

The real problem is that to believe in equality between the sexes, and
to be a non-feminist is NOT a contradiction.  If you ask one of these
reluctant non-feminists why they refuse the feminist label, the
response you're likely to get goes something like this:

"Well, I like equality and all, but it seems like feminists are a
bunch of man-hating bra-burners, and I'm not like that."

If you ignore the vivid bra-burner image (many now claim that bras
were only burned in the minds of certain anti-feminist journalists),
what it comes down to is that these non-feminists see a contradiction
between their ideal of gender equality, and what they see as
feminism's anti-male stance.

Is this a fair attack on feminism?  Is feminism so anti-male that its
doctrine of gender equality is compromised?  I think so.

If you ask a feminist whether feminism is anti-male, he or she will
absolutely deny it.  If you quote to a feminist some of the more
extreme anti-male attitudes that have been expressed by feminists, you
will be told that those views are far outside of the feminist
mainstream, and should cause no worry.

I discovered one of my favorite anti-male feminist quotes when I took
"Sociology of Sex Roles" at Cal Poly a few quarters ago.  It's from an
article by Susan Griffin called "Rape: The All-American Crime" that
was included in one of the textbooks for that course.

	"[I]f the professional rapist is to be separated from the
	 average dominant [male] heterosexual, it may be mainly a
	 quantitative difference."

Think about the implications of that one for a minute.  That the
difference between a heterosexual man and a rapist is only one of
degree.

My theory that perhaps this essay was one of those "out of the
feminist mainstream" views was dashed last quarter when my Psychology
of Women professor read a few of the less offensive passages from
Griffin's article after calling it "probably the best thing written
about rape."

Susan Griffin, in her concluding paragraph, approvingly quotes Valerie
Solanis.  Solanis' main contributions to feminism were writing the
"Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM) Manifesto" and attempting to
assassinate Andy Warhol.

The SCUM Manifesto was included in a collection of writings edited by
Robin Morgan called "Sisterhood is Powerful."  It includes such
interesting quotes as:

	"[T]he male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion,
	 aborted at the gene state..."

	"SCUM will kill all men who are not in the Men's Auxiliary
	 of SCUM.  Men in the Men's Auxiliary are those men who
	 are working diligently to eliminate themselves..."

Robin Morgan, now editor of _Ms._ magazine, does not attempt to
explain in the book why she felt that the manifesto was worth
reprinting.  She does, however, devote some space in the biographical
notes at the end of the book, to give her explanation of Solanis'
assassination attempt.

	"Valerie Solanis should be known primarily as an artist,
	 not as someone who shot Andy Warhol.  Her filmscripts
	 and other writings have not received the attention they
	 deserve.  She is still being persecuted by police and
	 `mental health' authorities for her `attempted murder'
	 of Warhol, and has been in and out of prisons ever since.
	 Interestingly enough, Norman Mailer was charged with
	 the same crime when he almost fatally stabbed his wife.
	 He was never imprisoned; all charges were dropped; his
	 reputation was enhanced; he subsequently ran for Mayor
	 of New York.  Enough said."

Now regardless of what Norman Mailer may or may not have been charged
with, doesn't it look to you like Robin Morgan is trying awfully hard
to justify what was really an attempt at cold-blooded murder -- what
she puts in derisive quotes as "`attempted murder'."

But the final straw for me was when, in my Women's Studies class this
quarter, we were assigned as a reading an excerpt from Susan
Brownmiller's "Against Our Will."  When I read about how "one of the
earliest forms of male bonding must have been the gang rape of one
woman by a band of marauding men" or about how rape "is nothing more
than a conscious process of intimidation by which _all men_ keep _all
women_ in a state of fear [italics Brownmiller's]," I was forced to
agree with John Gordon, who said:

	"I am not being hyperbolic:  I have read _Against Our
	 Will_, and I have read _Mein Kampf_, and my sober
	 judgement is that it is a toss-up between them."

And that is why I can no more be a feminist than a Jew could stomach
being a Nazi.  And my position, and the positions of other
non-feminists, is not likely to change until the "mainstream"
feminists start denouncing feminists like Brownmiller and Griffin and
Solanis as the hate-filled sexists that they are.