Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site ism780c.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ukma!psuvm.bitnet!psuvax1!burdvax!sdcrdcf!ism780c!dianeh From: dianeh@ism780c.UUCP (Diane Holt) Newsgroups: net.women,net.singles Subject: This, that, and the other thing. Message-ID: <540@ism780c.UUCP> Date: Sun, 9-Feb-86 18:41:13 EST Article-I.D.: ism780c.540 Posted: Sun Feb 9 18:41:13 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 12-Feb-86 05:55:51 EST Reply-To: dianeh@ism780c.UUCP (Diane Holt) Distribution: net Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica, CA Lines: 107 Xref: watmath net.women:8858 net.singles:10196 Well, I've just spent my spare time from the last couple of days reading through ~300 notes, and my initial reaction is: All those notes, and so few subjects. But, as in any kind of conversation, the main subject matter only serves as a stepping stone, and many things actually end up being discussed, so all in all it has been "interesting". I was a bit surprised, though by the signal-to-noise ratio. I guess I was expecting things to be a bit more rational over here, but then I guess I also wasn't expecting heated debate -- I suppose I thought it would be more `issue' oriented, or something. Anyway, a few thoughts on specific topics: 1. RE: "The `moon' Joke". I laughed at this .signature the first time I saw it -- for several reasons. One is that I liked the way it played on the now-cliched use of sending-a-man-to-the-moon as a benchmark of possible human (in this case, read "male") accomplishments. I also liked it because there *are* days when it seems like the world would be a much nicer place without the frustrations of have trying to deal with the sometimes seemingly alien other half of our species. (Remember the old "Women -- can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em"? Well, we feel just as frustrated from time to time.) The thing I found most interesting about it, however, was that it reminded me of a song we used to sing during "music hour" in elementary school called "Reuben, Reuben". This was a girls'-part/boys'-part song. It was a "traditional" folk song (let's hope the tradition has died out). The first verse for the girls went like this: "Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking what a grand world this would be if the men were all transported far beyond the Northern Sea." Sorry, I don't remember the rest, or the boys' response (maybe there's a folk-music musicologist out there?), but I seem to remember it being the notion that if they (the men) were (all transported), what good swimmers women would be. Real pleasant little diddy, yes? We sang this song happily week after week. With that kind of indoctrination, is it any wonder that we sometimes fall back onto the notion of "Wouldn't the world be a nicer place if it was just filled with reasonable, loving women instead of those nasty, irrational, men?" Certainly, I don't feel this way all the time, nor do I think of it as a real possible solution to anything (although it might be an interesting experiment :-)), but there *are* those days when all attempts at communication fail, or when the possibility of *ever* being able to understand the male mind seems nonexistent, or when it seems that all the horrible, hateful, violent things being perpetrated on this world are being done by men -- yes, there are days when I can feel myself starting to hum, "...far beyond the Northern Sea." (P.S. The fact that women *could* live without men [and still perpetuate the species] may account for some of the over-reaction at a subconcious level -- ever see someone who was worried about job security...they get *real* touchy. :-)) 2. RE: "The `beach' incident". The thing I find interesting about "discussions" like this one is that so often the facts get obscurred by the rhetoric. Since the original posting had already dived off the end, I was only able to piece together what I could from the voluminous responses, so these may or may not be accurate. Fact: A woman went to the beach to relax and do some reading and work on her tan. Fact: While she was there she was approached by three men. Fact: When she told the men that she wasn't interested in doing anything but what she had originally gone to the beach for (i.e., she told them to go away), only one of them had the decency to believe that she *meant* what she said. There was one other fact that has been presented but, frankly, I don't consider it to be all that vital to the situation: the woman had undone the straps of her top in order to avoid tan lines. Face it, this woman could have been wrapped up in burlap bags and *the same thing* could have happened. A woman out alone is considered "fair game" by an awful lot of men in our society. I am not necessarily adverse to someone wanting to say hello to me and possibly strike up a conversation, but there *has* to be the understanding that "no" *means* "no". (How much longer will the "Your lips say `no', but your eyes say `yes, yes, yes'" crap be perpetuated? How many people even noticed this insidious line [and the ensuing confirmation by the female character] in what was voted the "Best Picture" in (?)1978 [The_Goodbye_Girl]? How are we ever going to convince people that we *mean* what we say, not what they want to hear, when the exact opposite is portrayed in the mass media on a near-continual basis?) For me, *this* was the issue that should have been discussed. Spending a lot of time discussing percentage-of-flesh-covered versus implied-invitation is pointless -- the only question at hand is: How would you feel if everytime you told someone "No, thanks" they said to themselves "Great, then it's `yes'"? Fffrrruuussstttrrraaattteeeddd??? Woman: "Honey, would you like some fish tonight?" Man: "No, thanks." Woman: "Great, let's have snapper." Wouldn't be too much fun, would it guys? Now, don't get all riled up and start shooting out postings saying "*I* don't do that. I accept a `no' as a `no'." I realize that the number of enlightened men is increasing with time, and that there are a lot of them on the net reading net.women. But if you're going to discuss an issue like this, you first have to understand what the issue is. My guess is that I am not atypical, and that if this scenario was told to x number of women, the majority of them would tell you, "Well, the real issue is that she told them `no', and they still kept pestering her." I think the percentage that would get off into a discussion of appropriate attire or aggressive-passive behaviour would be very low. The fact that something as (seemingly) simple as deciding what the issue of a discussion is points to a fundamental problem that men and women are going to have to overcome if they're ever going to hope to really communicate with one another. It seems that we see things so differently (and that's usually okay -- it's interesting to have that other perspective, to shed new light on something), but we're going to have to try to synch ourselves up a little bit more, or else I can't imagine how that gap will ever be closed. Diane Holt INTERACTIVE Systems Corp. (east coast:) ihnp4!ima!ism780!dianeh (west coast:) decvax!vortex!ism780!dianeh "Why is the alphabet in that order?...Is it because of that song?" --Steven Wright