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From: martillo@mit-athena.ARPA (Joaquim Martillo)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Misogyny (Morley Safer on Burning Brides)
Message-ID: <22@mit-athena.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 16-Nov-84 09:02:34 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-athe.22
Posted: Fri Nov 16 09:02:34 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Nov-84 05:03:10 EST
References: <37@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: MIT, Project Athena, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 23


>Madonna Kolbenschlag (_Kiss_Sleeping_Beauty_Good-Bye_) also speaks of "a tradi-
>tional male paranoia about women in groups" and its occasional eruption into
>"sadistic vengeance in purging 'witches' and other harbingers of female energy."
>This paranoia is more than misogyny: it's a fear about the subordinates rising
>up and disrupting the existing order--subordinates including women and racial
>and religious minorities.  The execution of witches rings to me of the Cain and
>Abel clash, with its parallels in a perceived irreconcilable difference in
>viewing one's relation to nature...this clash has been shivering us for a long
>time... 

What is this traditional fear of women associating in  groups?   In  the
oriental  society from which I come women are only supposed to associate
with women in groups.  A women who kept to herself would  be  considered
strange.   A  women who associated with men would be risking a flogging.
The groups of women were the main supporters  and  reinforcers  of  such
behavior among women.

In  most  society's  minority  members were always expected to assoicate
mainly with other members of their minority.  A minority individual  who
tried  to associate only with members of the majority would be suspected
of being up to something by members of the majority.