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From: steven@qubix.UUCP (Steven Maurer)
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.women
Subject: Re: comments on Chabot's comments on Driscoll's 'big deal'
Message-ID: <1316@qubix.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Aug-84 08:55:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: qubix.1316
Posted: Wed Aug  8 08:55:45 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Aug-84 01:32:45 EDT
References: <3003@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Qubix Graphic Systems, Saratoga, CA
Lines: 96

[..]

>>                                                                 Perhaps
>>  I talk about how I like how I can live now, and think that it's good:
>>  gee, does this mean I'm for forcing hapless women out of the kitchen
>>  and onto the streets? [This is so confusing.] 

	No, but then again I *have* heard the complaint that the mood in
    the country is such, that many women are made to feel ashamed that
    they are *only* mothers and housewives (as if that wasn't hard enough
    work).   Seems to me almost like admitting virginity nowadays.


>>    If the majority of people in a democracy did agree that they were being 
>>    oppressed, then the laws would change:  Snow Jobs do little to patch over 
>>    the understanding that real suffering is happening.
>
>First off, I will repeat, that it depends on how this majority feels about 
>their enfranchisement: if they believe that they should follow some status
>quo arranged by some smaller group, then they will vote to follow the lead
>of this smaller group.  Why should the laws or the tone of the laws change?  
>Why, this would disrupt society!

	In which case, it can't be all *that* bad for the majority.....
    Which hardly qualifies as "oppression", at least in my book.   Let
    us save that word for things like racism and police states, and
    use another one for sullen looks from construction workers, shall we?


>              Think of all the good stuff that comes with becoming a news
> celebrity: phone calls from reporters and other snoops at all hours, asking
> your wife or girlfriend or family if they think less of you as a Man because
> you got trashed by punks; friends and coworkers wondering how you could be so
> stupid as to go into that part of town and just what do you do with your spare
> time anyway, go look for beatings?; the court case is likely to take longer
> just for the jury selection to find enough who haven't already been prejudiced
> from what they've gotten in the news.  None of what I listed in just, or 
> proper, but neither is it unlikely if one is to innocently fall into national
> notoriety. 

	Think of all the good stuff like having a demonstration demanding
    full punishment of the criminals....   having the judge openly laugh
    at the argument "He was just lookin' for a fight".

	Think of the outcry if rape was as an accepted institution in our
    public school system as the gang beatings that ritually occur are.....


>>                        Good grief!  If I at all believed in a conspiracy
>>  of menkind, or that it was no use learning since I'd be kept in my
>>  place, do you think I'd be here typing?  Heavens, no, I'd be working
>>  hard to pass as a relatively unobtrusive man; there'd be no time to
>>  waste discussing useless topics like equality for women, unless this
>>  was a widely-accepted, unquestionably male-only activity (ie,
>>  reinforcing to my image).  Wouldn't you?
>>  
>>  So, we don't believe in such conspiracies, right?  We're grown ups.
>>  If we differ, we may believe the other person is part of the problem
>>  (or precipitate, depending on how you prefer to end "If you're not
>>  part of the solution,..."), but don't we all know our own ignorance
>>  better than to accuse each other of anything more malevolent other
>>  than ignorance? 

	Well I guess so.   I grew up in Berkeley, went to school in Santa
    Cruz, and live in San Jose, and I have been fighting leftist predjudice
    for as long as I remember.   (It's just as insidious and stupid as
    right wing predjudice is).   Now maybe you are smart enough and have
    enough common sense to think for yourself, but thats not the way it
    originally sounded.  I'm sorry for doubting you, but I have met *far*
    too many US vs THEM paranoids who really *DO* believe in such conspiricies,
    to not take your original article at face value; witness the following:

<This is simply nonsense.  White men control what candidates           >
<are available.  White men control the huge amount of money spent      >
<on campaigns.  White men control the media.  White men control        >
<the assassins' bullets.  White men control the laws and institutions  >
<which make many women too poor and ignorant to understand or          >
<appreciate the potential power of voting or the real positions of     >
<politicians.  White men control the police and courts and the         >
<way they react to men beating women who have been trained by white    >
<men as to their goals and responsibilities in a marraige.  White      >
<men control the awareness in society of the incidence of incestual    >
<rape and its traumatic effects on the personalities of women.         >

    (To prove his open-mindedness, the writer of this article gracefully
    expanded "White Men" to include any uncle tom or supporter of society,
    and specifically said that *some* white men (revolutionaries presumably)
    have nothing to do with assassins' bullets, etc.).


    Maybe I just *feel* that I'm in a minority
    because I've got common sense.

Steven Maurer
UUCP:  decwrl!qubix!steven