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Path: utzoo!utcsstat!laura
From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: on the "need" for support groups
Message-ID: <1671@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Jan-84 05:16:23 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1671
Posted: Tue Jan 17 05:16:23 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Jan-84 20:52:30 EST
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 80

(another in a series of unpopular articles from utcsstat!laura)

Look, gang, we are going have to get one thing straight. Life ain't
easy. FOR ANYBODY. Now one can argue about whether it is tougher to be a
woman than it is to be a man, but let us not lose sight that it is
damn hard for everybody.

Okay. Got that. I don't want to have to keep telling people that I
am not the most heartless cold fish in the universe, because I am
not. It is just that when you tell me that life is hell, you aren't
exactly telling me news, and I forget to mention this because I
thought that it was obvious. You live and learn.

Now. You are a person. You just happen to be a woman, and you think that
life is a bitch. You go out and you get lots of evidence that life is
a bitch and that there is all this discrimination garbage going on
and that you aren't appreciated and people are making rude comments
about you and it is all very foul and you feel rotten and depressed.

Do you grok this? I've been there too.

Now, one day you decide that you can't sit around moaning forever
and it is time to get on with life. but it is damn hard because people
are still treating you badly and you don't like it, and you don't
think that you have the strength to make the grade.

Still with me? I've been here too.

Now, you have to get the guts to get on with life. I only know of 2
stores you can go to to get the guts. One is the store of hatred
and the other is the store of compassion.

if you go to the hatred store, you decide that those people who hate
you and treat you badly are flaming assholes and you are going to
make it and damn their eyes for being lousy people and treating you
badly.

if you go to the compassion store you decide that their life is real tough
and you can understand where they are coming from and you are going to
feel sorry that they are in such a bad condition as to not appreciate you
because that is too bad.

Still with me?

Okay. now we get to support groups. Everybody needs support, and friends
are real important. But organised groups for support can only exist
to try to help you find the hatred store or the compassion store in your
own head. And the hatred store is a lot easier to find -- so most groups
end up being used for mutual backing-up-the-hatred, so that you can have
the guts to go out there. 

now this is the problem. Compassion is hard to find, and finding the 
balance between sympathy and letting yourself get walked over is
real tough. Hatred, on the other hand, is relatively easy to do
once you have caught on, and it is terribly addictive. You get to
like hating. You go back to groups simply because you have a lot
of fun hating, though you might never be willing to admit this to
yourself. So, andybody who is really into hating is going to find
that a support groups is an all-time wonderful place, because you
can hate and not be criticised for doing so. Full-time haters
clog the place and make it hard for the non-haters to get heard.

Now, if the problem is that men are a bunch of flaming assholes
then this is all very fine, and you can go on hating and even be
justified in doing so. The trick is that I don't believe this.
I think that men are pretty much in the same boat as the rest of
us -- life is a bitch and they want to find the answers and they
are real confused 'cause it won't play by the rules that they thought
were true.

Thus I think that compassion is a lot better than hatred. If by
"feminism" you mean "lets go out and hate the boys and feel good
about doing so" then I don't wnat anything to do with it. if, on
the other hand you mean compassionate feminism, then I think that it
is a very neat idea, but probably the name is wrong, because it
focuses on the difference, which makes it very easy for the haters
to get into the act and corrupt the whole thing.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura