Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!pesnta!amdcad!decwrl!daemon From: daemon@decwrl.UUCP (The devil himself) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: _TNOBO_ - A Review Message-ID: <2127@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Sat, 11-May-85 10:41:07 EDT Article-I.D.: decwrl.2127 Posted: Sat May 11 10:41:07 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 11-May-85 15:22:26 EDT Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 61 _TNOBO_ - A Review______________________________________________________________ A while ago, somebody here in net.women mentioned _The_New_Our_Bodies,_ _Ourselves_ and told us that it would make men angry, but that that was okay because it is, after all, written "by and for women." "_Playboy_ is written by and for men," I thought, "Does that make it less anti-evolutionary?" When we got our copy of _TNOBO_, I cracked it open, expecting another _Against_Our_Will_ (in which author Susan Brownmiller postu- lates a worldwide conspiracy of *all*men* to dominate women through rape). To make a long story short, I found nothing of the sort in _TNOBO_. Indeed, _TNOBO_ has much less of the revolutionary militant rhetoric that made _Our_Bodies,_Ourselves_ so anachronistic. What I did find was more and newer good health information. _TNOBO_ has almost twice as much of this as the or- iginal! The latest edition of _OBO_ that I could find was a 1979 edition, which is 383 pages long. That so much more has happenned since then is evident from the fact that _TNOBO_ is 647 pages long! There's a lot of new information in it. In fact, all the information in my article on donor insemination (which I sent out to net.kids, net.motss, and net.women a few weeks ago) is in this book. I've always found _OBO_ an indispensible reference. It's great to have _TNOBO_, because it's much more up-to-date! Unfortunately, the up-to-date sta- tistics on things like violence against women are not encouraging. The "1 woman in 9 will be raped in her lifetime" statistic is now up to 1 in 3. My only criticism of the book is that the two chapters on relationships are slightly biased against heterosexual relationships. The chapter on hetero- sexual relationships is called "Working Toward Mutuality" while the one on les- bian relationships is called "Loving Women." In the "Working Toward Mutuality" chapter is a section called "Making It Work" which eventually culminates in "Getting Help" and "Knowing When to Leave." The next chapter paints a rosier picture, telling us that "[b]eing outside the dominant culture can give lesbians a certain freedom in shaping the kinds of relationships we want." I do, of course, recognize that the vast majority of heterosexual rela- tionships in our society have unique problems due to the fact that our culture is (still!) male-dominated. That should be addressed (and is). _TNOBO_, how- ever, neglects heterosexual couples who are "shaping the kinds of relationships we want" and gives little help for lesbian couples suffering from the stresses that result from a relationship between two individuals. In other words, some of the negative stuff in the "Working Toward Mutu- ality" chapter applies to lesbian relationships and some of the positive stuff in "Loving Women" applies to heterosexual relationships. The editors have a common chapter, "Sexuality," for women of either sexual orientation. I'd sug- gest a "Relationships" chapter (in addition to the two other chapters) that works the same way. The editors, apparently, agree with me - though you wouldn't know that unless you read the footnote to the "Relationships and Sexuality" section's introduction, which says, "We wrote two separate chapters on relationships be- cause it first seemed to us that lesbians and heterosexual women encounter dif- ferent perssures and possibilities. But we learned from each other that we face many similar issues, whether our partners are women or men." All in all, though, I recommend _TNOBO_ highly. If you haven't bought a present for Mom yet... <_Jym_> :::::::::::::::: Jym Dyer ::::' :: `:::: Dracut, Massachusetts ::' :: `:: :: :: :: DYER%VAXUUM.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA :: .::::. :: {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|ucbvax}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-vaxuum!dyer ::..:' :: `:..:: ::::. :: .:::: Statements made in this article are my own; they might not :::::::::::::::: reflect the views of |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| Equipment Corporation.