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From: sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Re: Re: \"Why not send the men home?\"
Message-ID: <617@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-May-85 18:14:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.617
Posted: Thu May 16 18:14:44 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 22:35:21 EDT
References: <1848@decwrl.UUCP> <423@sftri.UUCP> <1467@reed.UUCP> <431@sftri.UUCP> <134@lzwi.UUCP> <437@sftri.UUCP>
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> > For years, women have been explicitly & implicitly told that
> > rape is their fault & that they must never be without male
> > "protection" (from other men!). Of course, as the discussion
> > above re: domestic violence suggests, the men many women look
> > to (or are instructed to look to) are the ones least qualified
> > to give it. In terms of violence, there is no getting
> > around the fact that men don't treat women very well at all.
> > 
> Blanket statements like those above completely ignore the changes
> taking place in our society, and serve to anger and dishearten
> those of us who are interested in helping to change some of the
> things that are wrong in our society today through realistic
> solutions on the one hand while serving as cold comfort to the
> victims on the other.  We've heard this all before; one more time
> isn't going to change anyone's mind.  Rather unproductive, wouldn't
> you say?

Those statements are not intended as "cold comfort for the victims";
there is no comfort is realising that one is so vulnerable.  The intent
of such statements is to give people a jolt of reality so that they
start doing something about the problem instead of continuing to dream
away thinking that things will not happen to them.   That's productive! 

Methinks that people who are disheartened or offended when they hear
the truth about the behaviour of men as a group towards women as a
group, are very easily disheartened, and very easily offendable.  Why
are YOU angry?  if anybody should be angry, it is us.  We are the ones
who have the most to fear and the most to loose from the current
situation.  We are the ones who should be disheartened because it looks
as though there is so little hope for improvement, and there has been
so little improvement.  If YOU give up so easily when YOU have so
little to lose, how can you expect us not to, and how can you expect
any change to happen?

> > The woman who submitted her sister's suggestion did so in
> > response to a posting that suggested women caused men to
> > commit sins (in their own minds, at least) at work.
> > He suggested prohibiting women from working with men.
> > Many people on the net were a bit smug about the fact that the
> > person who wrote the letter was Arabic. But for
> > centuries, Western men have been talking about "doing something
> > with women" and the "woman question." How could any woman who
> > knew her sex's history resist discussing the idea of a male
> > curfew seriously & in front of men?
> 
> My mistake.  I thought you were really interested in changes and
> working towards equality and understanding.  What you really want is
> power and the chance to do a little gloating.  Hey, this is a free
> country (or so we're told); go right ahead.

Change includes getting some power.  Power is not a dirty word.  What we
want is not ALL the power, but a fair share of it.

> > If we could take it
> > for 5000 years, why can't you stand to read about it for a
> > month or so?
> 
> Why should we?  If a suggestion is unjust to us, why should we have
> to put up with it?  I am surprised that a victim of such oppression
> has so much trouble recognising it when it is proposed to make
> others victims.

Why shouldn't you?
Nobody is proposing to make victims out of anybody.  The suggestion was
an interesting one in that it hopefully helped some men understand a
little better what women have to go through daily.  Talking about a
curfew for men is NOT the same as imposing one.  What I really don't
understand about this whole affair is that you know very well that
nobody ever took this suggestion seriously.  Why are you reacting so
violently?  Pardon the unappropriateness of the term for your case, but
you are being hysterical about this.

> You finally begin to see some signs of change,
> some signs that progress is being made, and you see nothing wrong
> with suggestions that you know full well are going to cause
> difficulty with nothing really to show for it?  After all, men are
> here to stay (too bad, eh?), and not all of us are necessarily
> interested in perpetuating the oppressive agenda handed down to us
> by our forefathers.  What is the point of all these useless proposals?
> 
The point that was mentioned time and time again is that it is a useful
exercise to put oneself in other people's shoes once in a while.  Maybe
you are so enlightened about the way women feel that you don't need it.
Good for you.  Since there is still so much violence around, there are
obviously some people who need to do this more often.  Hopefully this
exercise has been of some help.

> > I think there's a certain sort of poetic justice to the idea
> > of not letting men out on the streets. I also don't think it
> > would be practical, nor is it, in some absolute sense, just.
> > I hope that makes you feel better.
> 
> Given what you have said here and elsewhere, I can't really say that
> it does.  If you're still into working out your bitterness and anger
> (which, mind you, is a perfectly justifiable and understandable reaction),
> I'll just have to wait until it blows over, I guess.
> 
This time you got it.  Yes, we are still into working out our
bitterness and anger, and yes, it is a perfectly justifiable and
understandable reaction, and not too much harm is done in the process,
so it is probably a good thing overall.  YOU can wait or you can help,
it's up to you.

> > >... an apparently serious discussion on the net proposing
> > > that women who are raped are "asking for it"??
> > 
> > When we can still hear such proclamations from individual
> > police officers & society as a whole, why should we have to
> > endure one on the net? But where else could YOU (or any other
> > man) hear a discussion of male curfews?
> 
> Well, as it happens, I have encountered this and similar ideas in
> reading through some books and pamphlets, but I always thought it
> was just a bit way out and not a real idea. I guess I was wrong.
> 
(girls, should I tell him?)  (<- flame bait!)
No, you were right.  It isn't a real idea, but as the poster above
mentioned it has a certain poetic justice to it, and it makes us laugh
and feel better about the whole thing.

> > Don't tell us to put
> > ourselves in your place--if you thought about it, you'd
> > realize that we just forced you to put yourself in ours.
> > And THAT is a rare occurrence in a country where 33% of
> > college freshman would rape a woman if they thought they could
> > get away with it & one out of 3 women will be victims of rape
> > before they die.
> 
> Before any real work can be accomplished by people working together,
> it helps to understand one another.  I've talked some of these problems
> over with my wife before and I've seen how it has limited
> my mother, who is very bright and could probably have done some real
> wonderful things with the proper education and opportunities, though
> I think she would say, and I agree, that she's done pretty darn well
> anyway. I've read a little, though by no means as much as the real
> experts.  So I'm no stranger to these problems.  Your attitude does
> not encourage me very much-- you "force" me into your shoes, to see
> your problems, yet you're not willing to step into mine.  And that's
> ok; it was my mistake in the first place to think that there was
> wide interest in discussing real solutions to the problems facing us
> today.
> 
What "real experts"?  the "real experts" have probably read less on the
topic than you, but unfortunately for them, lived it more.  That's the
whole point of this whole exercise, to make you realise that you
cannot gain a deep understanding of other people's suffering at a
distance by doing simple things like reading about it (although reading
about it is a start).  You have to experience it  too.   What you were
subjected to on the net is very mild compared to what we are subjected
to.  I usually don't like analogies, but I can't resist this time (so
people, please forgive me for the corniness of what follows).  This is
all very much like injecting you with a vaccine.  You need a bit of the
illness in you so that you can create antibodies that will be there to fight
the real illness when it attacks you.

> Mark Modig
> ihnp4!sftri!mom
> 
> P.S.  And as far as the wonderful numbers concerning the freshmen
> are concerned, spare me.  I'm willing to bet that one could get
> comparable response rates on just about anything (theft, even
> probably murder) if you knew you wouldn't get caught.  What does
> that prove?  People are really out for themselves; we're still
> self-indulgent savages with just a (very) thin layer of civility on top.

Rape is self-indulgence, eh?  that's an interesting concept.  And war
is peace and freedom is slavery and all those good things too, I bet.
You know, Mark, your message was ok before that.  I could have taken
you seriously as a super-sensitive guy who is just reacting very badly
to a little dose of reality.  But, you know, hey, I like sensitive men
'cause I'm sensitive myself, so I can relate to that, and I thought
that all you needed to pull through was just a little help.   You
seemed so earnest in your efforts to understand all these problems and
cooperate with us women to get rid of them.

I guess it's going to be harder than I thought.
-- 
Sophie Quigley
{allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie