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From: chabot@amber.DEC (L S Chabot)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Association for Women in Computing
Message-ID: <4128@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Nov-84 17:25:28 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.4128
Posted: Mon Nov  5 17:25:28 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Nov-84 08:02:57 EST
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From _Kiss_Sleeping_Beauty_Good-Bye_ (subtitled Breaking the Spell of Feminine 
Myths and Models) by Madonna Kolbenschlag, Bantam Books, copyright 1979,
ISBN 0-553-14912-1 [p. 45]:

  "By contrast, women are not so comfortable in groups--chiefly because it 
confirms and accentuates their identity as females, a class excluded from the 
dominant caste in our society.  In part, these feelings are introjections of a 
traditional male paranoia about women in groups.  Aristophanes treated the 
projection humorously in _Lysistrata_.  Early American conduct manuals 
cautioned men against allowing their wives to associate too much with their 
female peers, lest the "neighborhood squadrons of she-commanders" might 
encroach on their "natural sovereignty" as husbands.  Others with less of a 
sense of irony or righteousness have treated the problem with sadistic 
vengeance in purging "witches" and other harbingers of female energy.  In a 
typical business office today, a bevy of secretaires excites no notice.  But 
half a dozen women junior executives having lunch together is likely to 
conjure up "conspiracy" in the minds of many men.  Likewise, on a university 
campus, if one sees a group of men together it does not penetrate the 
consciousness at all.  Nor does a group of female undergraduates.  But a group 
of women faculty: How the comments do fly!  How the plots do multiply!
  "What is happening, of course, is that a dominant caste is reacting to a 
threat to their established sway.  ...
  "Women can be forgiven for their instinctive uneasiness in all-female groups.
Unless they are somewhat isolated from the real world (as with convents and 
girls' schools), they are bound to experience negative projections from the 
surrounding social texture. ..."

Quoted without permission.
-----------
L S Chabot
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