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From: wdoherty@bbncca.ARPA (Will Doherty)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: SEPARATE SPACE
Message-ID: <475@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 14-Jan-84 17:38:36 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.475
Posted: Sat Jan 14 17:38:36 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Jan-84 01:29:05 EST
References: <413@ucbcad.UUCP> <445@bbncca.ARPA> <449@bbncca.ARPA>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 63

Steve,

I too am disturbed by the "blatant harassment and discrimination that
some women's bars impose upon men..."  However, I must admit that this
discrimination disturbs me far less than the discrimination demonstrated
by a gay bar which discriminates against people of color.

I guess I feel that it is necessary to look at the societal context of
the discriminatory situation.  Obviously, blacks and lesbians have both
been victims of considerable harassment and discrimination.  If 
Somewhere (a lesbian bar in downtown Boston) refuses to let you in
because you are a white man, that strikes me as a very different sort
of discrimination than the white gay men at the Union Club (a gay bar
in NYC) who refuse admission to black gay men.

Somewhere, I have heard, has allowed some men to enter the bar in the 
past who have taunted the women patrons there, and occasionally caused
property damage as well as physical assaults against the patrons.

The blacks who were banned from the Union Club did no such thing.

Ideally, everyone would get along with everyone else and we would not
need to label some places as places where only certain people are
welcome.  But until widespread societal harassment against women,
people of color, lesbians and gays, among others, discontinues, I
believe that these groups should be able to discourage disruption
by outside forces.  This may mean offending an occasional man who
does not understand why he should be refused admission to a lesbian
bar.

It hurts especially because you (and I) know that you (and I) are not
going to harm these bars or anyone in them (at least intentionally).
But this is not the point.  Oppressed groups should have the right
to gather by themselves, even if they gather in what is technically
a public place.

If they did not attempt to maintain some degree of segregation, it
is likely that they would not be able to continue to exist.

Need I remind you of countless queerbeatings here in Boston, of arson
against the centers of the lesbian and gay community, of anonymous
death threats in Northhampton, MA, and of societally-condoned murder
(of Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone) in San Francisco?

Perhaps I should not appear quite so well-defined in my views on this
though, because I am not.  I want the world to be a place where lesbians
won't want to segregate from gay men or from men in general.  But this
is not the world that we live in.  I can only say that I sympathize 
with lesbian segregation from men far more than white segregation from
black or straight segregation from gay.  Let's look at who has suffered
and why such discriminations develop.  Lesbian segregation developed
primarily as a reaction to male oppression directed against women and lesbians.
Even here on the net, men cannot control their urges to penetrate a
list meant for women only.  When men cannot even respect the request
of a group of women to have a forum among themselves here on the net,
it makes it so hard to believe that men will respect women in society
at large.  Here on the net, it's just some electronic trash that
readers can flush if they desire.  But the consequences of the oppression
of women throughout our society are far-reaching, to the point of 
being difficult to grasp.

				Will Doherty
				decvax!bbncca!wdoherty