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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!dmcanzi
From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: A white man speaks his mind. (Part 2)
Message-ID: <1347@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-May-85 02:55:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1347
Posted: Mon May  6 02:55:25 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 6-May-85 06:46:00 EDT
References: <2285@wateng.UUCP> <1256@watdcsu.UUCP> <2296@wateng.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 42
Summary: 

Judy:

You've failed to separate the ideas of (a) admiring another person and
(b) being proud of another person.  I'll try to make the distinction
very clear, and what the hell, I think I'm going to give away most
of what I intended to say.

To admire another person's accomplishment is to recognize that that
person's accomplishment is great (or at least pretty good).  

Pride is an increase in your self-esteem resulting from your
accomplishment(s).  It's hard, given this, to make any sense of the
idea of being proud of somebody else's accomplishment.  Yet, when
people talk of being proud of some famous person or other, they mean
something more than just admiration.  For example, as a kid, I was
encouraged to be proud of being a Canadian, and several famous
Canadians were mentioned to me as reasons for being proud.  This had
the same effect on my self-esteem as if I had actually done something
great, myself.  But all I had actually done was to be Canadian, and
being Canadian is no accomplishment.  Being of the same sex or race or
nationality as some other person who has accomplished something great
is not an accomplishment.  So why be proud?

Paraphrasing myself:
It is okay for a woman to be proud because of the accomplishments of
other woman.  It is not okay for a man to be proud because of the
accomplishments of other men because they are men, though it's okay for
him to be proud because they are fellow humans.  There appears to be
a double standard here.

My resolution of this double standard is that it makes no sense for you
to be proud of somebody else's accomplishment, regardless of race, sex,
sexual orientation or handedness, because it's their accomplishment,
not yours.  You want to be proud?  You have to earn it.

I intend to *generalize* on this idea in some future posting...
--
	David Canzi

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in
order to save us.
	Peter De Vries