Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!laura From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: womanspace Message-ID: <3486@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Sat, 28-Jan-84 17:52:12 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.3486 Posted: Sat Jan 28 17:52:12 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jan-84 17:52:12 EST References: <6425@watdaisy.UUCP>, <1635@randvax.ARPA> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 110 Ed Hall says: As a (male) feminist, I've noticed that a lot of people seem to have the mistaken impression that many women want to be *like* men, rather than to have the same rights and opportunities as men. This is not a mistaken impression. There are lots of women out there who either want to be "like men" or who find that the distinction between being "like a man" and "like a woman" is either meaningless, or harmful. Clearly there are some women who think that "men are like X" and who don't want to be like X, but they are going to have to present a pretty good case for "men are like X" before they are going to be listened to. "All women want to be like men" would be a mistaken impression, but "Many women want to be like men" is not. If there really *is* something that makes all women like Y and all men like X then it may be a fit thing to form the basis of discrimination. If this something does not exist, then statements like this only encourage people to discriminate because of a mythical difference that they believe exists. In a way this is silly, because a lot of women are in a good position to see just how stifled and miserable many men are in their own traditional role. Why would women want to turn themselves into emotional cripples just to feel `equal'? This is the "men are cripples" arguemnt. Alas, it does not wash. Some men are cripples. They haven't exactly cornered the market, though, there are a lot of women cripples as well. And there are a lot of men who *aren't* cripples. It is one thing to say that "nobody wants to be a cripple" -- this is debatable, but at least it makes sense. What you appear to be saying is that "no sane woman would want to be like a man because they are cripples" and you link being a cripple with being a man. This is unfair to the men who are not cripples, the women who are trying to be like them, and all people who find the particular role that you mean as crippling not-crippling. Furthermore, whether inborn or socially caused, there are differences in the ways most women experience their lives than the ways most men experience theirs. This statement could do with some references, could it not? I personally see very little evidence for this now that women are working. So it makes perfect sense to me that a women might prefer the company of other women. I can nod sympathetically when a female friend talks about being discriminated against (or even shake my fist in anger at the injustice), and I can try to be knowledgable about those things peculiar to the female experience, but I'll never really understand the way another woman can. I gather that you really believe this, so it isn't a cop-out, but I really don't believe this at all. There is one level where "nobody can ever understand anybody else" (unless you have got the telepathy trick down pat, in which case go collect from Randi), but to suppose another level where "only women can understand women" and by analogy "only men can understand men" seems terrible to me. The implications of this are rather staggering. All of you people out there who aren't homosexual and are looking for a significant other who can really understand you, had better give up, because it isn't possible. I'm sure not willing to buy this! I am reasonably certain that I Ed Hall and I are never going to "really understand" each other, given that we are starting from such extremes in position, but I think that I would have a better chance of getting him to understand me than some random woman on the street. You have to know a fair bit about computers before you can understand me "really well" (among other things) and Ed Hall at least knows that, while it is likely that some random woman would not. Just because the female perspective is different doesn't make it one bit less valid than the male viewpoint --that is what I understand `equality' to mean. Hmm. If the viewpoints *are* different, then while one may not be better than the other, one may indeed be better than the other! Or perhaps a synthesis of the better aspects of both is what is best for us all. Let us drag out the perspectives and itimise the differences and then we can all decide for ourselves. I can understand how considering people to be `genderless' makes the equality of the sexes simpler to consider. The more differences allowed for the more tolerance required--and tolerance is, alas, pretty difficult to come by. But it is the only path to lasting liberation of *all* people. This depends upon how much tolerance is a good thing. Presumably you would not want to be tolerant to the people who want to get women out of the workplace and back into the homes. But if you oppose them then you are being intolerant. It is very easy to be tolerant when you feel like it -- what is tough is being tolerant when you don't feel like it. Do you have a moral obligation to stop wrongs when you come across them, or do you have to tolerate the people who are doing the wrongs? Maybe sometimes you have to do one, and other times the other. Howe do decide when you must be intolerant? Different people have different answers. What do you do with the people who have answers that are different than yours? i think that this is a more serious problem than 'lack of tolerance' -- Laura Creighton (NOTE NEW ADDRESS) utzoo!laura