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From: sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Men: you are not individuals
Message-ID: <901@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-May-85 14:10:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.901
Posted: Thu May 30 14:10:27 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 30-May-85 15:28:59 EDT
References: <756@oddjob.UUCP>
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> just as I have to accept (to a certain degree, at least) the way society
> treats me just because I am a man, I have to take responsibility for being
> a member of that group of individuals called men. So now I no longer object
> to the phrase "Men do...". One *can* describe a large group of people by a
> number of characteristics, some good and bad. What I really was doing before
> was accepting the "good" characteristics, but refusing to acknowledge the bad
> characteristics (the way men treat women, blacks, etc..). And you can't
> do that. So now I accept the fact that, in society's eyes, I am a man, and
> thus am also responsible for the actions of other men (in the sense that I
> have to fight against the "bad" things other members of my group do to other
> people). So I have no objections to the phrase "Men do ..."; I also recognize
> that, whether I personally have or not, men have benefited for years at the 
> expense of blacks and women, and I have to work to change this.

Just to balance things out, let me add that I think that this applies to 
women too.  I certainly feel that more harm is done by women who act in
stereotypical fashions than by men who believe that women act that way.
(Of course I am talking about the bad stereotypes here.)
-- 
Sophie Quigley
{allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie