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From: lucius@tardis.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.women
Subject: Sexist article in Harvard Independant
Message-ID: <10045@tardis.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Apr-85 23:19:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: tardis.10045
Posted: Sun Apr 28 23:19:18 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Apr-85 00:23:55 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Harvard University, Cruft Lab (TARDIS)
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Xref: watmath net.flame:9590 net.women:4892

_
	This is a letter concerning the commentary column, "I Yam What I Yam,"
by David W. Bell '86, of The Harvard Independant of April 18, 1985.  This
article was so degrading that I was morally obligated to write a response and
post it to our local flame group.  To reduce the length of this posting, I will
replace all the comments I posted in our local flame group with just this:

			******** FLAME AT WILL ********

-------------

	Near the beginning of his article Mr. Bell describes the following
event (here paraphrased to save space):  he and a bunch of his friends hire a
stripper for his friend's birthday, and a girl in the room throws water in the
face of the stripper in anger at the stripper's demeaning actions.

>	I still could not get myself worked into a moral outrage, especially
> in light of the spirit of fun in which the joke was intended.
	. . .
>	I believe what best explains my particular moral apathy, and the
> phenomena of discrimination in general, is a lack of common identification
> between discriminator and discriminated.

	Here he proceeds to distinguish between racial and sexual discrimina-
tion, and to say that while racial discrimination is built on sand --

>	A modern consensus also exists against sexual discrimination.  But
> here the break between the groups is more fundamental.  To say "I'll never
> understand women," is to repeat a tired cliche.  But my reflections on the
> dining hall incident [the one with the stripper] give this saying a new and
> profound meaning:  it i_s_ absolutely impossible for any man to "understand"
> women, or to share with them the community possible between members of the
> same sex but different race.
>
>	As different as I may be from my white roommates, there is one thing
> that we have in common, something I share with every man I ever meet or see
> on the street.  Obviously, this is that we are all males, implying certain
> shared experiences and perceptions.  We constitute an extended fraternity,
> if you like.
>
>	Such a feeling of fraternity can never be extended to the female of
> the species.
	. . .
>	And of course, society expects, even demands, that men and women behave
> differently.  For instance, I don't ever have to worry about make-up or
> fingernail polish, or whether to wear a skirt or pants.  Society also has
> behavioral standards for Blacks.  But the male-female social structures
> are of a much more implicit nature, tracing their roots ultimately to the
> simple physical fact that men tend to be larger than women and therefore
> physically dominant.
	. . .
>	In this way, sexual conflict is perpetuated and, in a sense, pre-
> ordained.  And it is this fundamental bifurcation that leads to my lax
> sense of morality in cases of sexual discrimination.  Coming from a disad-
> vantaged minority myself, I can identify with most others who fit this
> definition.  But I simply cannot fully identify with the problems and
> complaints of women.
	. . .
>	. . .when physical contact progressed beyond the hand holding stage it
> becomes very difficult for the male to continue seeing the female as an "end"
> and not "means."  The differentiation and objectification of women that I
> have spoken of is both fundamental and pervasive.  Men, in their own company,
> have the ability to demean the status of women to the point at which the
> opposite sex becomes little more than at best sub-human androids, or at worst
> simple gratifiers.  At parties, women take on the role of prize cattle rather
> than fellow humans; . . .
	. . .
>	Ladies, I am not speaking here only of latter-day "male chauvinists"
> left over from the early '70s.  Ladies, I am speaking of your otherwise
> tender, loving boyfriends and husbands.  Otherwise self-righteous liberals, I
> am speaking of you.  And I am speaking of myself.
	. . .
>	Unfortunately, I believe that men are fundamentally incapable of
> divining acceptable moral norms for dealing with women through rational
> reflection.

-------------

	Lucius Chiaraviglio '86
	{ seismo!tardis!lucius | lucius@tardis.UUCP | lucius@tardis.ARPA }