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From: murthy@cs.cornell.edu (Chet Murthy)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Why I Am Not a Feminist
Message-ID: <1991Apr23.120320.17660@cs.cornell.edu>
Date: 23 Apr 91 12:03:20 GMT
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farmerl@handel.CS.ColoState.Edu (lisa ann farmer) writes:
>Reading this thread and having dealt with this issue in some depth I see an
>attitude that does not please me.  All these people criticize the works of 
>feminists - especially if they are at all tinged with "man-hating".  Has anyone
>heard of process?  Do people really think that before someone can write a book
>and have it printed they _must_ know the meaning of life and all those things 
>that fall inbetween?  All I need to do is to look back at my journal from two
>years ago - I understand where I was but most of the time I have grown to look
>at the same situation differently.  

>Women are/were angry.  [... lots of stuff about how women are
>oppressed, and therefore it is OK for feminists to be man-haters.]


But Lisa, you make the (very large) assumption that women are
oppressed in our society more than men are.  Now, you can make that
assumption .  And a lot of people wil support you on it.  But the
principal tenet upon which Dave Gross' essay is based is the belief
that men are as equally oppressed as women in this society.

Look.  You don't have to believe that.  But I do.  I can see it
everywhere around me, from the earlier deaths, to the estrangement
from family, to the greater stress-related illness, and the list goes
on and on.

But you might disagree.  And that is your right.  But, for instance,
when a woman complains about getting hit on at X place, a guy will,
even when he says "that's awful", say, in his head, "Gee, I wish I
could have that happen to me", or "Gee, that isn't so bad - if that
happened to me I wouldn't be complaining".  The point I am trying to
make is that until you have walked a mile in my shoes, you cannot
understand what I have gone thru.  And you can never do more than nod
your head, either in agreement, or disagreement, when I talk about my
oppression and anger.

I have a friend who, when I visited him, took great glee in getting me
to "show my anger" to women he knew.  The response (from the women)
was always something like "Gee, he's so intense".  And I am.

Let me tell you a little about my anger.  When a man says "I support
women's rights, but for me, I want a little woman to stay at home and
be a good wife and mother", we call him a chauvinist.  We call his
wife (when she hits 40, and realizes what she's been hoodwinked into)
oppressed.  When a woman sets herself up with an education (or lack
thereof) which guarantees that she can't support a husband and
children, and then she marries a man who can support her and her
children, we call her "traditional", and many women I have met say
that, even though they might not like her choice, they must "respect"
it.

What do these two scenarios have in common?  The man is preventing his
wife from exploring the part of life which he lives in - the public
sphere.  He prevents her from having a job, from being free of
domestic responsibilities, etc.  The woman prevents the man from
exploring the part of life which she lives in, too.  She forces him to
support her, and thus to be distant from his children (a man that
can't be there to change the diapers, clean up the baby food, and mop
up the pee-pee is NOT being a real father, in my book), to endure
stressful work, for the sole purpose of supporting his family, etc.

But one is looked down upon by progressive society, and one is
"respected".  In my book, that woman is just as much a pig as that
man.  I want to be a househusband, and I can't be without being
willing to take a serious hit in my standard of living.  "What?" you
say?  "You are concerned about money?  How male!".  But a woman who
was told "You can work, as long as you can handle having to do the
domestic chores and also earning less than your male coworkers" would
have a shit-fit.

I want to be a househusband on the same terms that the women of my
class can be housewives, Lisa.  I want a wife that can support me as
well as I can support her.  And let me tell you, they are hard to
find.  Because most women that I have met in my economic class want a
man who is even better-off.

But most people will regard this is as something "personal".  "You
can't force women to look for men who are less-well-off than
themselves".  And I can't.  But until women start doing so, and
showing men that they don't have to be knights in green armor in order
to be loved, until women start showing men that they don't have to be
beasts in order to be wanted, men will continue being the beasts they
are today.

By the way, for me, it is not the man-hating part of most feminist
though that bothers me.  It is the hypocrisy.  Most of what I see with
the label feminist is, either overtly or covertly, hypocritical.  And
as such, well, in the long run, NOTHING will come of it.

--chet--