Rape by Women?!?!? - (nf)
ma...@inmet.uucp
inmet!mazur Feb 29 00:20:00 1984
I claim, however, that by looking *only* at rape of women by men,
you will find the basic nature of rape obscured: it is a crime of
violence, aggressiveness, and domination, using sex as a means,
not an end. If you look at rape of men by women and homosexual
rape you can see this more easily. Violence is not limited to
men: rape *is* a crime of (disturbed) people against people. If
you want to do something about it, you probably want to understand
it first, and that is the core of it. *Then* you can start trying
to find out why more men commit it than women.
What then, do you have to say about (my previously mentioned to you) Susan
Brownmiller's book Against Our Will, which theorizes that the crime of rape
is a method by which men dominate women by subjecting them to constant fear?
If a man rapes to dominate (rather than sexually satisfy), doesn't this lend
some credence to this theory?
Beth Mazur
{ima,harpo,esquire}!inmet!mazur
Steve Dyer
>What then, do you have to say about (my previously mentioned to you) Susan
>Brownmiller's book Against Our Will, which theorizes that the crime of rape
>is a method by which men dominate women by subjecting them to constant fear?
>
>If a man rapes to dominate (rather than sexually satisfy), doesn't this lend
>some credence to this theory?
I haven't read Brownmiller's book, but your paraphrase is a bit confusing.
The phrase "...rape is a method by which men dominate women by subjecting
them to constant fear" seems to imply that men (as a class) use rape as
a means to subjugate women. This is effective as political agitprop in
feminist writing; as a model of reality, it misrepresents the facts.
Unless we are witnessing a situation of a single rapist repeatedly
accosting women and terrorizing the community, rape is an act
between individuals, and the violence is not directed against women
(as a class.)
I would prefer to see a statement like "...rape is a method by which
rapists dominate their victims by subjecting them to constant fear,"
[the fear arising subsequent to their attack.] This properly puts
the emphasis on the individual perpetrator.
--
/Steve Dyer
{decvax,linus,ima}!bbncca!sdyer
sd...@bbncca.ARPA
Sophie Quigley
> What then, do you have to say about (my previously mentioned to you) Susan
> Brownmiller's book Against Our Will, which theorizes that the crime of rape
> is a method by which men dominate women by subjecting them to constant fear?
>
> If a man rapes to dominate (rather than sexually satisfy), doesn't this lend
> some credence to this theory?
>
> Beth Mazur
> {ima,harpo,esquire}!inmet!mazur
>
>
SOCIETY dominates women by subjecting them to constant fear. That domination
is attained not only but the act of rape itself, but by the way rape is treated
by society, and in this women are as guilty as well as men.
One of the guest speakers in the self-defense class I was taking a few years
ago was a lawyer, who specialised, among other things, in rape, and he told us,
that, if we ever got raped, the best jury we could hope for would be an all-men
over 65 jury. Based on his experience, and some of his collegues, he said these
were the people who seemed to be the most compassionate towards the victim.
The least compassionate members of the jury were married women.
Also, here is what Frederc Storaska ("How to say no to a rapist and survive")
has to say about gang rapes. "Surprisingly, perhaps, violence is rarer
in group rape than it is with the lone assulter..... When violence does
occur in group rape, the group is likely to be composed of both men and women,
and the women, not the men, are usually violent to the victim. The main
reason for this may be jealousy. After all, just by choosing to rape a stranger, the gang has rejected its women. The women's revenge may be immediate and
brutal. At the least, they'll be extremely unsympathetic"
This is awful, but not too surprising. One of the best strategies to keep
people from rebelling, is divide and conquer. This strategy seems to be
particularly effective in the case of women. It is not uncommon to see women
who have suffered because they are women, turn against other women (usually
younger) who are better off than they are and are looking towards a brighter
future. People sometimes become very self-righteous in their suffering.
Women are very good at inflicting pain on other women. In tribes where the
operation is still performed, it is women who perform clitorectomies on little
girls, and women are also the ones who pass on guilt and shame of being women
to their daughters. The message is clear: "I've suffered, and I paid for my
place in society, I'm not going to let you get away with it for less than what I
had to pay". So, those women take out their angers on the only other people
they can take it out on, weaker women than them.
This was just to say that even though rape is not simply a crime of men against
women, even though it might look like it is overall.
Sophie Quigley
...!{decvax,allegra}!watmath!saquigley
wom...@uicsl.uucp
uicsl!wombat Mar 5 16:07:00 1984
I got into this by trying (I thought) to point out where these two
people were differing, because it looked like Quarterman was going to
rant and rave about one person's personal opinions. Why I did it, I'll
never know.
J If she tries to defend statements like "The only solution is for you men
S out there to stop raping us!" on a public network as a valid political
Q contribution to the problem, she has made it not just her business but
. mine as well.
The statement was probably not made as a rational political argument, but
rather out of frustration at her personal limited ability to do anything
about a male (typically larger and stronger) attacking her. She most
likely doesn't feel this same frustration about cases of men being
attacked by women or herself being attacked by another woman. I don't for
one minute believe that you, JSQ, worry nearly as much about where you
park your car at night, where you walk at night, how you react to
strangers on the street, how late you're willing to stay at work, ...
as many women do.
J Yeah, sure. I'm just *dying* to be violently attacked. And if you ever
S get raped it'll be because you wanted it, no doubt. Besides, women *should*
Q pay attention only to problems that directly affect them, and men *should*
. pay attention only to problems that directly affect them: separate but
. equal worked so well for race problems, why not for sex-related ones?
. In particular, no men should pay attention to women being raped, because
. men are not being directly threatened.
That isn't what I said. Mazur wasn't personally interested in the
problem of women raping men. You tried to convince her to look at the
larger problem, but she didn't care to. You are trying to condemn her
for sticking to the smaller problem. Face it, sometimes people will only
take an interest in something that could directly affect them. You
yourself are welcome to look at the problem any way you like, but
you may not force that view on someone who isn't interested and then
flame at her because she doesn't take to it.
J In any case, if you present statements like "the problem is
S men (unqualified) rape women" as legitimate political statements,
Q you might as well expect objections, because some men don't like
. being accused of rape. Furthermore, that sort of rhetoric
. contributes nothing to solving the problem.
Some men don't like to be accused of rape; some women don't like to
be raped. Like I said before, nobody promised life would be fair. Also,
like it or not, if you walk down a dark street not far from a woman who
doesn't know you, she is probably going to consider you as a potential
rapist for her own protection. Are you going to consider her as a
potential rapist? What's a good solution to this problem?
Would do a better job on this, but must catch a bus.
Wombat
ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!wombat
John Quarterman
> What then, do you have to say about (my previously mentioned to you) Susan
> Brownmiller's book Against Our Will, which theorizes that the crime of rape
> is a method by which men dominate women by subjecting them to constant fear?
>
> If a man rapes to dominate (rather than sexually satisfy), doesn't this lend
> some credence to this theory?
>
> Beth Mazur
> {ima,harpo,esquire}!inmet!mazur
explication of the subject of rape as domination than I could do, see
> From: saqu...@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
> Message-ID: <71...@watmath.UUCP>
> Date: Sun, 4-Mar-84 14:00:51 CST
Brownmiller's thesis is seductive because it offers a simple answer to
a complex problem. Not a solution, mind you, just an answer. Simple
and wrong, because the problem *isn't* that simple.
--
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas
j...@ut-sally.ARPA, j...@ut-sally.UUCP, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq
John Quarterman
From: wom...@uicsl.UUCP
Message-ID: <60...@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Mar-84 21:47:31 CST
I got into this by trying (I thought) to point out where these two
people were differing, because it looked like Quarterman was going to
rant and rave about one person's personal opinions. Why I did it, I'll
never know.
A brief history of the discussion: quite some time back, Sophie Quigley
posted an article to an already on-going discussion about rape which mostly
was about rape not being the fault of women (of course it isn't) but ended
with: "The only solution is for you men out there to stop raping us!"
I posted a followup taking exception to this rhetoric, pointing out that
that statement was inappropriate as the final paragraph and apparent
summation of the rest of her article as it implied all men rape.
Since then I have been taken to task by Quigley, by someone from L.A.
(Ed Hall, I think), by Beth Mazur, and now by wombat. In each case
I have replied to their criticisms and they have then seen what I meant
and said so in net.women. (Sophie Quigley never actually wrote as much,
but her recent reply to Beth Mazur about rape as domination explains my
position so much better than I could that I tend to think she understands it.)
Now I get to do it once more for you, wombat. That will be the *last* time!
(The above history does not pretend to be precise in every detail or complete.)
It is patently not true that I have been ranting and raving about one person's
personal opinions. Beth and I have in fact been carrying on correspondence
since before my first posting on the subject of rape, and while we indeed
do have differences of opinion, they are not what you think they are.
You appear to have come in in the middle of a discussion and are confused.
J If she tries to defend statements like "The only solution is for you men
S out there to stop raping us!" on a public network as a valid political
Q contribution to the problem, she has made it not just her business but
. mine as well.
The statement was probably not made as a rational political
argument, but rather out of frustration at her personal limited
ability to do anything about a male (typically larger and
stronger) attacking her. She most likely doesn't feel this same
frustration about cases of men being attacked by women or
herself being attacked by another woman.
The "she" who made the statement in question was Sophie Quigley, not Beth Mazur.
As I have posted before, I understand the frustration you refer to. My point
is (read the words on the screen this time): it is one thing to be afraid
of any man you see in a dark garage or wherever because he may be a rapist,
but it is *a completely different thing* to post something like that statement
of Sophie Quigley's as the summation of a contribution to a serious (well,
as serious as USENET gets) political discussion on a public network!
By "something like that statement" I mean something implying that *ALL MEN*
rape. Not knowing if a *particular* man or men may rape you is COMPLETELY
DIFFERENT from asserting that *all* men rape. (Disclaimer: I know that
is not what Sophie Quigley (or Beth Mazur) actually meant to say, however
that is what the *actual words* in the aforementioned statement imply:
it was the *rhetoric* I was objecting to.)
I don't for one minute believe that you, JSQ, worry nearly as
much about where you park your car at night, where you walk at
night, how you react to strangers on the street, how late
you're willing to stay at work, ... as many women do.
And why should you believe it? I never asserted or meant any such thing!
J Yeah, sure. I'm just *dying* to be violently attacked. And if you ever
S get raped it'll be because you wanted it, no doubt. Besides, women *should*
Q pay attention only to problems that directly affect them, and men *should*
. pay attention only to problems that directly affect them: separate but
. equal worked so well for race problems, why not for sex-related ones?
. In particular, no men should pay attention to women being raped, because
. men are not being directly threatened.
That isn't what I said.
For some reason on which I refuse to speculate, you have removed the
disclaimer from the end of my paragraph as you quote it. The disclaimer
clearly labeled that paragraph as >>>sarcasm<<<. That means you shouldn't
take it seriously. It also means I thought your point too absurd and
insulting to compose a serious reply to. You were, if you recall,
accusing me of posting what I did because I felt left out for not
being in danger of being raped. You could try apologizing.
Mazur wasn't personally interested in the problem of women
raping men. You tried to convince her to look at the larger
problem, but she didn't care to. You are trying to condemn her
for sticking to the smaller problem. Face it, sometimes people
will only take an interest in something that could directly
affect them. You yourself are welcome to look at the problem
any way you like, but you may not force that view on someone
who isn't interested and then flame at her because she doesn't
take to it.
You are misinterpreting the whole discussion, including Beth's position,
what I was trying to do, and why I was trying to do it. I do *not* condemn
Beth Mazur, and have bloody well never written any such thing. If she
is not interested in the discussion, why did she first reply to me (not
the other way around) and why does she continue it? I am not trying to
force my views on her: we are discussing a subject to try to discover
what each ones views are and perhaps to arrive at a consensus.
J In any case, if you present statements like "the problem is
S men (unqualified) rape women" as legitimate political statements,
Q you might as well expect objections, because some men don't like
. being accused of rape. Furthermore, that sort of rhetoric
. contributes nothing to solving the problem.
Some men don't like to be accused of rape; some women don't like to
be raped.
Yes! Yes! Exactly! And accusing men in general of rape is not going
to keep women from being raped. Why not address the problem instead?
Like I said before, nobody promised life would be fair.
And it is still just as much of a totally irrelevant non-sequitur as before.
Also, like it or not, if you walk down a dark street not far
from a woman who doesn't know you, she is probably going to
consider you as a potential rapist for her own protection.
That's not the point, and I have never contested it, anyway. See above.
Are you going to consider her as a potential rapist?
Yes.
What's a good solution to this problem?
I don't know. That is part of the question, though, isn't it?
Would do a better job on this, but must catch a bus.
Wombat
ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!wombat
A suggestion: look before you leap. Check to see what people's motives
really are, if they've gone to the trouble of spelling them out in public,
before imputing false ones. I'm sorry if that sounds strong, but I do not
like being accused of things I never did or meant. If you have something
further to write, please do. However, I will not reply to any more off
the wall accusations of things I never did from you or anyone else:
four times is enough!
ma...@inmet.uucp
inmet!mazur Mar 6 19:48:00 1984
>I haven't read Brownmiller's book, but your paraphrase is a bit confusing.
>The phrase "...rape is a method by which men dominate women by subjecting
>them to constant fear" seems to imply that men (as a class) use rape as
>a means to subjugate women. This is effective as political agitprop in
>feminist writing; as a model of reality, it misrepresents the facts.
Actually, the quote I was referring to actually read "rape ... ALL men
dominate ALL women ...". And yes, I think that's exactly what it is meant
to imply. Hold your flames, I don't personally believe this; I guess I'm
just playing devil's advocate.
Beth Mazur
{ima,harpo,esquire}!inmet!mazur
J. P. Jenal
Salt Lake Rape Crisis Center. Due in part to my association with her
I started looking more closely at the subject of rape and read Brownmiller's
book. The interesting part of this is that I wound up at a party with
Brownmiller and the staff of the rape crisis center.
My principle difficulty with the book was that its major premise, that
ALL men use rape to subjugate ALL women, simply left no room for a man
(as an individual) to feel part of the solution instead of part of the
problem. While I was at the party I finally fought my way through the
crowd to ask Ms. Brownmiller about the strident tone of her otherwise
informative book. She simply responded that she was in a fight and
didn't have time to worry about the sensibilities of the (relatively)
few males who would bother to read her book. She was trying to make
a point and didn't want to dilute that point with equivocations.
A couple of the women that were at the party later came up to me and
said that they too were uncomfortable with the tone of Brownmiller's
work and felt that alienating men and women further was not a solution
to the problem.
Apparently Brownmiller feels somewhat uncomfortable now as well.
I remember reading recently (sorry, can't quote the source -
I read this in a hurry and didn't think I was going to cite it!)
that she now feels that she may have erred by making her book
too condemning of men in general.
Rather than condemning any group in general - we need to work toward
educating people to the point of caring about others - not just kin,
but kind. As to how we do this - certainly in part by trying to show
that caring as we go and very importantly, instilling that concern in
our children.
I'll try to remember those words tomorrow as I *drive* to school - we've
got to start somewhere.
--
Cheers...
Jim Jenal (aka sdcrdcf!trwrb!scgvaxd!mss!jpj)
Mayfield Senior School ( " vortex!wlbr!scgvaxd!mss!jpj)
George Entenman
stating that:
"My principle difficulty with the book was that its major premise,
that ALL men use rape to subjugate ALL women, simply left no room
for a man (as an individual) to feel part of the solution instead
of part of the problem."
Perhaps Brownmiller's point isn't that all men USE rape to subjugate
all women, but rather that ALL women are subjugated by rape in some
sense, and therefore that ALL men, who are not so subjugated, BENEFIT
from rape, willingly or not. I believe that an analogy can be drawn
with racism. Those of us who are white benefit from racism in some
sense (and of course we are all poorer for it in another sense); we
benefit from it whether we wish to or not, and whether we are racist
individuals or not. Our education is usually better, our neighborhoods
safer, our chances of being suspected of crimes are less, our chances
for employment greater, etc.
The thing that impressed me about Brownmiller's book is that it succeeds
in proving that rape is a means of achieving power over women
(the part that really convinced me was the section on pulp magazine
stories because they made the connection between rape and power explicit).
As a man, I participate in the advantages that this power over women
gives to all men.
As an individual, I don't LIKE the fact that other men's rapes benefits
me. Certainly I would do my best to prevent any actual rapes from
occuring. But this doesn't prevent me from benefiting from a certain
kind of power over women. If nothing else, simply being able to help
protect women against rape gives me a certain usefullness to women that
women cannot have for me. In this and other ways I benefit from rape,
whether I wish to or not.
I am not certain if this is what Brownmiller meant, and I admit that I
am puzzled by Brownmiller's reply to Jenal at the party where he met
her ("she simply responded that she was in a fight and didn't have time
to worry about the sensibilities of the (relatively) few males who
would bother to read her book.").
Of course, Jenal's main point is well-taken: the TONE of Brownmiller's
book is NOT conducive to the kind of cooperation that we must have
between men and women if we are to eliminate the kinds of human
relations epitomized by rape and other forms of violence.
Nevertheless, this tone should be understandable given the sort of
things that Brownmiller was thinking about as she wrote her book. And
I believe that her book is essential to understanding the function of
rape in our society, an understanding that we need if we are to change
our society.
George Entenman
...decvax!mcnc!ge
Laura Creighton
on the ``women''. There is no way in which one can say ``all men benefit
from rape''. Clearly, there may be some individuals who benefit from
rape, but to generalise to the whole is to destroy the meaning of
individual experience, which still counted for something the last time
I looked.
Your statement is meaningless. It is a reasonable to say ``some women
benefit from rape'' as ``some men benefit from rape''. You get raped and
discover that nobody can take care of you. This is a good thing to discover,
and something that everybody needs to learn. Something tells me that this
is not a very good argument for rape is a beneficial thing, however.
The sort of person who wants to feel pitied all her life can make a huge
emotional gain out of her ``the horrible night on which I was raped''
story. (These people exist. Remember that the people who make up
rape stories <and we know they exist> can get raped as well.) Something
tells me that rape isn't a good thing, nonetheless.
The trick is that everything that can happen to you in life can enrich your
life (if you choose it to) or make it miserable (if you choose it to).
But if you crawl back into the crowd and react in non-thinking stereotyical
ways to your life it is no wonder that you are never enriched. Especially
when there is such a premium on being miserable (after all, other people
pity you and try to make you feel better, which is precisely why a lot
of people really want to make their lives miserable).
Feminism is racism. The basis for racism is to define a basic, common
group where all member can automatically ``belong'', derive comfort,
and not have to think. In the past, it was easy to belong to the
group ``White'' or ``Black'' and racism prevailed. (note: do not make
the mistake of saying that when a White guy hates a Black guy it is
racism, but when a Black guy hates a White guy it is all right. Racism
is racism, no matter which group is deemed ``over-privledged'' and which
is deemed ``under-priveledged''. This is not to say that the Black guys
don't have REASONS for hating the White guys either. Of course they do.
And the White guys have reasons for hating the Black guys. We have just
decided that the action (hatred) is not justified by the reasons.)
Now we have racism again -- along sexual lines. Have you lot never heard of
Sturgeon's Law? 90% of everything is crap. This goes for human beings as
well. 90% of the men are lousy human beings. 90% of the women are lousy
human beings. Maybe some of them will improve; lots will not. (Note again:
this does not mean ``lousy as in - Why doesn't somebody kill the bastards?''
but that for various ethical and personal reasons you believe that these
people are falling far short of their potential and are being less-than
good people as a result of this. For instance, I lump all ``feminists''
into the category of lousy, although on an individual level there are
a fair number of feminists that aren't all that hard to take.
Which is another argument against seeing people as a member of some group.
However, when you are looking at 100% of all women to see if they follow
Sturgeon's Law as well, you can not help but see them as a group.)
Now we can get into a debate over ``well, what is feminism'', but as long
as you distinguish it from ``humanism'' (something that I think by and
large is a good thing, though I think that its philosophy has been used
to justify some not-so-good things) I think that we will be talking about
the same thing.
Any philosophy which stresses that there is something ``special''
``priveledged'' or ``underpriveledged'' about certain individuals on
the basis of their sex is racist. All women aren't fantastic. All
men aren't boors. And rape is an act between 2 or more individuals,
not between 2 collectives which have no real existence.
Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura
Yes, I think that the mailing list is a very bad idea. No, I am not on it.
No, I don't want to be on it. And I think that static cling, like body
odor , is a non-real problem which marketing people have made into a
disaster through making people believe that having somebody not approve
of you (or, God-forbid, hate you) is a major disaster in your life.
This is a terrible lie. It is really quite easy to live though others
dislike you (or are offended by your static cling) once you look at
others critically, objectively, rather than as objects to combat your
own ontological insecurity. Every kid who has been too short, or
too fat, or too ugly, or too smart, or too pimply at school has learned
how to live with it. (this too is easy. find people who don't
mind shortness, fatness, ugliness, smartness or whatever. Granted, if
you are short, fat, ugly, smart, and pimply it may take some looking...)
It is not as nice as having somebody who likes you, but it sure doesn't
kill you.
However, until you learn this, you can never demonstrate the courage that
is necessary to maintain one's integrity throughout life. Your integrity
will always suffer whenever you feel that you might allow people to dislike
you. Integrity, however, is a lot more important than friendship. As a
friend of mine used to say:
``you gotta sleep with yourself, first''
Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura
Rich Rosen
in general. Like:
1) Men work together as a united front to keep women in their
place, holding regular secret meetings to discuss methods
of doing this.
2) Rich people control society by causing innumerable things to
happen (wars, elections, etc.) as a uniformly organized
consortium that controls the world with its massive power.
3) Kennedy was shot because a number of people in the government
(or the above consortium) thought that he might be a danger
to them.
4) God created the world specifically to give *you* problems.
Does anyone really believe that **THEY** are that organized, that competent,
that intelligent as a group to actually **DO** anything????!!
--
Pardon me for ... oh, never mind!!
Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
E. A. Flinn
I thought Sturgeon's law was that hardly anything matters very much
in life, and very few things matter at all.
Paul C. Lustgarten
In my mind, it's important to distinguish the presence of an *explicit
intent* from some *functional effect*. I think that it's just the
explicit intent version that is really a 'conspiracy theory', but that
it's very easy to confuse the two.
In fact, I think it is just such a confusion that causes some of the
problems with Brownmiller's book "Against Our Will" that's been
discussed in net.women recently. In the discussion, there's been a lot
of talk about what I gather is one of the books assertions, that men
(categorically) oppress women (categorically) by rape. This seems
confusing, given that only *some* men and *some* women are ever directly
involved in rape, and that most men are clearly opposed to it. From the
quotes that people have given from the book, it sounds like Brownmiller
uses language suggesting it is some kind of conspiracy among men that
they keep women in fear, etc. by the existence of rape - i.e. that it is
a conscious, intentional, and collective arrangement on the part of men
to maintain this state of affairs.
While this may actually be what Brownmiller means, I think it is very
confusing to lose track of the distinction between such an intentional
situation and one of 'mere' functional effect. In particular, I think
it is patently absurd to suggest that there is some explicit
coordination among men to maintain some kind of class oppression of
women through rape -- just as such an explicit conspiracy is pretty
unlikely in the other cases that Rich mentions. (Like he says, what
large groups are *that* organized?)
However, I think it is *quite* true that there is the functional effect
of class oppression, as a result of the prevalence of rape in our
society. (I happen to think the causality really goes both ways here,
and that rape is also a *manifestation* of the class (power)
distinctions between men and women.) It is this functional effect that
is reflected in the observations from other commentators about women (in
general) developing a wariness, if not downright fear, of men.
Further, one can charge that the general situation (remember, the
functional effect, now) is maintained by the actions of men, in their
status as the socially more powerful group - e.g, when women are
systematically excluded from being co-workers with men in many jobs, or
when any of the other zillions of things are done that reinforce the
divisions between the sexes. This is *NOT* the same as a charge that
the men are 'conspiring' to create a situation that fosters rape, just
that the things that they are (were?) doing - and doing more or less
independently of one another - had a systematic effect of creating that
situation. (In this case, an effect of creating a grossly unbalanced
power & status relationship between the two groups, which I suspect is
one of the things that fosters rape.)
Soooo, what I'm saying is that while the "intentional" (conspiracy)
situation and the "functional effect" situation may be quite similar in
their effects, and thus easy to confuse, they are *quite* different in
what they say about the intentions, etc. of the 'conspiring'
(or oppressing, or ruling) class. They are also quite different in what
they say about how one might go about changing the situation. I think
it is important to avoid confusing the two situations for both of these
reasons.
Paul Lustgarten
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Short Hills, NJ
ihnp4!hlexa!pcl
Larry Kolodney
women and big business is organized to control the world.
The point is that they don't have to be organized. If people merely
TEND to act in a certain manner, they aggregate result will be tending
in that certain manner, no central organization is required.
Marx argued that the capitalist economy naturally devided into 2
classes. The capitalists (who owned the means of production) and the
workers (who had to sell their labor to survive). His claim was that
each person ACTING IN HIS OWN INDIVUAL INTEREST would tend to make the
society more polarized economically by ecoomic forces which tended to make the
rich richer and the poor poorer. No collusion was postulated.
--
Larry Kolodney
(The Devil's Advocate)
(USE) ..decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!lkk
(ARPA) lkk@mit-ml
Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo
or hint of sexual equality). Yet the men seem to completely dominate the
society. Maybe the Wahhabis know something Brownmiller does not.
Are there any Saudi Arabians on the net who can confirm this?
T C Wheeler
If, as the last poster said, in effect," people Tend to act in a
conspiratory manner, and thus there is a conspiracy," then how
can there be a conspiracy? To conspire means to come together
to agree to do something without the knowledge of the group or
person being aware of the conspiracy or agreement. If the
conspirators have no knowledge of one another or agreements with
one another, then, there is no conspiracy. For instance, if A
and B meet or somehow contact each other and agree to boycott C,
that is conspiracy. However, if A and B never meet or even have
knowledge of one another, and each on their own initiative decides
to boycott C, it is not conspiracy. If, on the other hand, A and
B decide to boycott C on the basis of information they received
through the media, and still have not met, there is still no
conspiracy. There are many ways in which A and B can come to the
same conclusion to boycott C, but conspiracy is only that instance
in which the two mutually agree to to do something in concert.
Conspiracy does not mean that the agreement is good or bad. It
simply means that there was an agreement made in private to which
a third party was not made aware. You could conspire to throw
a surprise party for a friend. Thus, the contention that all
men are conspiring to keep women down is false. I am a man.
I am, therefore, one of the "all men". I have never meet with
"all men" (or even one other man) to agree to do anything to
women (other than throw the afformentioned party). The Great
Conspiracy theory is a bunch of horse puckey. People may tend
to act in concert, but much of this action can be attributed to
media influence, upbringing, economic factors, or social
pressure. To attribute the actions of large, or even small
groups, to conspiracy is nothing more than a blatant generalization
of human behaviour.
When a group of manufacturers get together to establish a price
structure for their products in order to make a monetary gain
or squeeze a competitor, that is conspiracy and there are laws
which cover this kind of situation. This situation happened
in the electrical supplies industry several years ago and was
discovered and the participants punished. The statement that
men are conspiring to keep women in the kitchen won't hold
water under close scrutiny. I have no doubt that there are some
men who like this idea and talk to each other about it, but to
lump all men under that guise is unworthy of the writer.
T. C. Wheeler
Tom Condon
You must remember that when *THEY* ARE out to get you being
paranoid is only smart!
Seriously, *THEY* are a convenient way of coping with the pressures
of society that are just too great to see any progress against. *WE*
should keep in mind that *THEY* have only so much power as we allow
them.
From the Soapbox of
Tom Condon {...!uw-beaver!teltone!teldata!tac}
A Radical A Day Keeps The Government At Bay.
Larry Kolodney
have to be active cooperation between members of a certain class for
them to have a deliterious effect upon another class. this doesn't mean
that effect isn't real. It does mean that it should be fought and that
counter measures should be taken.
Most people would agree that Blacks were oppressed by Whites in the South,
yet for the most part (KKK exlcluded), the racism was on a personal level, and
had to due with individual behavior. Still, Blacks could still say that the
Whites (as a class) were oppressing them.
Jens Bernhard Fiederer
their roots back before Abu Hassan. George Washington was substituted
by Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Bavarian Illuminati. For details
on the true structure of the world, read the "Illuminatus!" trilogy by
Shea and Wilson.
Hail Discordia!
Simon Moon
--
Reachable as
....allegra![rayssd,rlgvax]!ccieng5!jbf
Or just address to 'native of the night' and trust in the forces of evil.
Jens Bernhard Fiederer
paranoid women. Personally, I think I suffer.
The Grey Mouser