Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!aero!HUXTABLE@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
From: HUXTABLE@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Kathryn Huxtable)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Montreal
Message-ID: <19789@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: 14 Dec 89 18:29:56 GMT
References: <5771@yunexus.UUCP>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services
Lines: 28
Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org

In article <5771@yunexus.UUCP>, Bery Logan writes:
[Good stuff deleted.---KAH]
> Violence against women is a societal problem, not men's problem or
> women's problem.  It is social values (?) that condone the degradation
> and 'victim' face of women.  It isn't a problem that men alone or
> women alone can even begin to solve.  A change of social attitudes is
> required in order to show some men that such behaviour is
> unacceptable.  And that includes both men and women.
[More good stuff deleted.---KAH]

I agree.  In practice, in most North American households, children
soak up their attitudes from a multitude of sources, including both
parents.  Even in families where the father is a workaholic with no
time for the kids ("Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin) the kids
will still absorb some attitudes from the father just by virtue of his
absence.

All of us are responsible for the attitudes of our society.  It is
*extremely* difficult to change a society consciously.  I'm not
entirely sure it can be done.  We have to try, though.  And it does no
good if we slap many caring men in the face for something which is the
fault of *all of us*.

I understand the difficulty of sharing emotions with men present.
This, too, is a hard problem.  I see no easy solutions.

-- 
Kathryn Huxtable
huxtable@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu