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From: figmo@lll-crg.ARpA (Lynn Gold)
Newsgroups: soc.singles,soc.women
Subject: Re: Feminists
Message-ID: <6705@lll-crg.ARpA>
Date: Mon, 6-Oct-86 03:18:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: lll-crg.6705
Posted: Mon Oct  6 03:18:44 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Oct-86 23:16:14 EDT
References: <4107@reed.UUCP> <7428@sun.uucp> <153@endot.UUCP> <1944@ihlpa.UUCP>
Reply-To: figmo@lll-crg.UUCP (Lynn Gold)
Organization: The Kitchen of Panda Programming, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 55
Xref: watmath soc.singles:353 soc.women:244

In article <1944@ihlpa.UUCP> gadfly@ihlpa.UUCP (Gadfly) writes:
>>> I mean in the 70's everyone was more radical and it gave non-feminists
>>> a bad taste in their mouths (so to speak).  Some feminists just
>>> haven't learned that screaming your views at some people don't make
>>> them listen--if anything they block their ears completely.
>
>Well, they can take their bad taste out of their mouths and stick
>it in their ears.  Whoever came up with the notion of feminism as
>some sort of bel canto operatic style?  All the feminists I know
>are soft-spoken, patient and articulate.  But then, this is true of
>most oppressed idealists.

My first introduction to feminism wasn't soft-spoken or patient.  She
was an English teacher I had in high school with whom I had a rather
strong personality clash.  This teacher felt that her daughter would
suffer no ill effects from being shuttled into a day-care center asap
after birth; I told her she didn't know what went on there, and that
you're taking a chance when you trust strangers with your young child.
Unlike her, *I* spent my early childhood in a day-care center (they
were called "nursery schools" back then) because my mother had to work
in order to put my father through school, and I felt I missed out on
having a normal early childhood.  She felt that abortion was
just-plain-okey-dokey for all purposes; I felt that while I couldn't
see myself voting against abortion rights, it was irresponsible to use
it on the same level as condoms or IUDs.  She made students whose
mothers were housewives feel inferior (we had to say "domestic
engineer" in order to avoid a scathing attack on our mothers' values),
and failed one girl who didn't happen to watch the Bobby Riggs/Billy
Jean King tennis match.  We were forced to listen to "women's music"
and told us that Heinlein was sexist for writing what he did in the
'50's while Shakespeare wasn't anti-semitic for writing "comedies"
which didn't have happy endings for the Jews.  She treated anyone who
didn't espouse and embrace her viewpoints like mud, and her way of
presenting feminism was enough to almost make me want to become
Phyllis Schafly II.

Yes, there ARE women out there who fit the stereotyped feminist model,
just as there are cool, calm, and soft-spoken ones.  Those of us in
the latter group need to enlighten women who have been scared off by
the more militant model, because it's frightened women reacting to
MILITANT (read: stereotypical) feminists who side up with Phyllis
Schafly even though they'd probably embrace the ERA and concepts such
as "equal work, equal pay" if they were presented in a more gentle
fashion.

--Lynn

-- 
UUCP: ...lll-crg!figmo
ARPA: Lynn%PANDA@SUMEX-AIM

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