What is feminism about?
Per
>
>Could you give examples of things that women can say and do that a) would
>be sexual harassemnt if a man said or did them, and b) could not be the
>grounds for a sexual harassment complaint?
>
In mandatory courses at our company, we were told about "sexual harassment"
"hostile work environment" and "unwanted sexual advances." When we asked the
instructor for specific examples, he said an unwanted sexual advance was
anything that a women felt was unwanted. If she feels harassed, she is. If
she feels it is an unwanted sexual advance, it is. If she decides that what
you just said was grounds for complaint, then it is. Pointedly, men were not
given an similar option of deciding what constituted harassment.
In my workplace, women have brought in sexual toys, hung up "hunk"
calendars, passed around pictures of Fabio, etc., and one woman has taken to
calling all men "stud-muffin." All this in a work place that is *very*
sensitive and *very* politically correct about sexual harassment. The sexual
banter I don't mind. I do mind the fact that there are different standards
of free speech. Obviously a man who did or said any similar thing would run
afoul of our codes.
What does bother me more is the sexist actions and the extremely
hostile and back-stabbing actions that feminists are allowed to get away
with in my workplace -- the man-bashing jokes and posters, the name calling
and slurs, the stereotyping and harassment that runs all the way up to
trying to smear the names and sabotage the work of anyone who dares disagree
with the feminists. All of this is winked at. There was one poster put up
declaring women executives to be superior to male executives. Not much that
could be done about that one, as it was hanging in the office of our
stridently feminist vice president.
Virtually anything can be grounds for a complaint, whether by a man or
a woman. But whether complaints will be handled equally is another matter.
During the Lorena Bobbitt case, some women in our workplace distributed
comments cheering her actions, and used company facilities and resources to
do it. After the "hostile working environemt" hit new heights, I went to our
human resources department to suggest that the workplace might work better
if this type of hostility was not so freely permitted.
The woman who handled the case carefully questioned me about all the
people involved and finally found out that the supervisor of these women was
a male. She then said she would investigate his responsibilities and
liabilities in letting these women spread their hate speech. About the women
themselves, she said "No one can blame them for expressing their opinions,
but we have to look at their supervisor's responsibility in letting them use
company facilities." She had glommed onto the one man in the chain and
shifted the responsibility to him.
Later, I then found out that this woman had notified my boss that I
had made a (supposedly confidential) complaint. She also put a record in my
personnel file saying I had complained about the matter.
Nothing was ever done to the feminists who spread the hate speech in
the first place.
virtuouspagan
Pointedly, men were not
>given an similar option of deciding what constituted harassment.
Utter bullshit. Men can bring harrassment charges on the same
basis as women. If you feel you are bieng harrassed, you have
the exact same rights.
Obviously a man who did or said any similar thing would run
>afoul of our codes.
dipshit, if no one brings charges, there is no legally defined
harrassment. IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP CHARGES.
OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
the stereotyping and harassment that runs all the way up to
>trying to smear the names and sabotage the work of anyone who dares disagree
>with the feminists.
Oh, poor baby--are the mean grrls making fun of you again?
Still haven't figured out that feminist like men just fine--
it's just YOU we can't stand!
eaf
Carolyn Jean Fairman
>virtuouspagan (fran...@usfca.edu) wrote:
>victim.
Well, considering Per had previously blamed women who were victims of
discrimination (and proved it in court and won), I would think the
difference between *blaming* the victim and telling the victim to DO
SOMETHING would be more clear.
virtuouspagan's point was that Per should stop whining about the
harassment he feels and DO SOMETHING! As in, there is no fault or
blakming for Per feeling harrassed or victimized but only a pointed
comment to move on from being a victim to changing things.
Harrassment filing is most commonly confidential, so if Per worried
men will make comments like your below, the *real* victim blaming that
tells men they cannot complain about harrassment, then he can do it
confidentially.
>Or is it -take it like a man-?
Not at all. The whole arguemnt presented was, fine, you feel
harrassed, fine (note, Rich, *not* the "stop feeling harrassed, it is
all in your mind, thicker skin" thing), then FILE YOUR GREIVANCE!
That is far from the "take it like a man" and keep quiet, doncha
think?
>So much for the lies about feminism and equality, as well as the
>aggrivated lie that feminism is about people, when it is about women.
Aw, come on. the complaint of the other poster was that Per was not
acting with what he was talking about. Unless men file chanrges back
when they feel harrassed, then there won't be an understanding of when
men feel harrassed! The encouragement was to be *equal* and file
charges.
There was no comment that men ought not to file charges 'cause
harrassmen only happens to women. That was _Per's_ claim! Feminism
fought for harrassment protection, and the women who were harrassed by
men defined what they meant. Per is perfectly capable of defining
behaviors he finds harrassing and talking to the proper folks at
whereever he is to do something about it. Sounds equal to me. Sounds
like a feminist (if virtuouspagan is one. I just heard general
irritation towards someone who complains about a situation but does
zip to change it) arguing that men have the same rights to freedom
from harrassment so bring up charges! And I agree. The stuff he
described sounded really rude, and he should definitely do something
if he feels harrassed. Not the "take it like a man" and do nothing.
>Oh yes, lets not forget the lie that feminism is about breaking
>gender roles for men, feminists are quite violent in enforcing male
>gender roles.
Bullshit, Rich. The gender role is "take it like a man" and the
direct quote of virtuouspagan is "IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP
CHARGES". The _claim_ from Per was that nothing would get done.
Well, he should see if that is really true.
How is telling someone to get off his butt and do something, some
"violent enforcement of male gender roles"?
[snip]
--
| Feminism-the notion (apparently radical to some) that women are people
|\O/| ===If equality is viewed as a loss, what does== Carolyn
| _ | ===that tell you about the previous situation?== Fairman
|/ \| http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~cfairman/ or /Humanists/
Rich Payne
: psma...@gnn.com (Per) wrote:
: Pointedly, men were not
: >given an similar option of deciding what constituted harassment.
: Utter bullshit. Men can bring harrassment charges on the same
: basis as women. If you feel you are bieng harrassed, you have
: the exact same rights.
: Obviously a man who did or said any similar thing would run
: >afoul of our codes.
: dipshit, if no one brings charges, there is no legally defined
: harrassment. IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP CHARGES.
: OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
: the stereotyping and harassment that runs all the way up to
: >trying to smear the names and sabotage the work of anyone who dares disagree
: >with the feminists.
: Oh, poor baby--are the mean grrls making fun of you again?
: Still haven't figured out that feminist like men just fine--
: it's just YOU we can't stand!
This is the typical female and feminist repsonse, blame the male
victim.
Or is it -take it like a man-?
So much for the lies about feminism and equality, as well as the
aggrivated lie that feminism is about people, when it is about women.
Oh yes, lets not forget the lie that feminism is about breaking
gender roles for men, feminists are quite violent in enforcing male
gender roles.
I would stll like to know if eaf is violent in person.
: eaf
Rich
--
Per
In article <4ija2t$b...@jeeves.usfca.edu> virtuouspagan wrote:
>psma...@gnn.com (Per) wrote:
>Pointedly, men were not
>>given an similar option of deciding what constituted harassment.
>
>Utter bullshit. Men can bring harrassment charges on the same
>basis as women. If you feel you are bieng harrassed, you have
>the exact same rights.
>
Yes men can *bring* any sort of charge they want. Whether the charge is
given the same weight is another matter. I noted how a request to tone down
the male-bashing in my workplace was ignored and I was faulted for even
bringing it up.
>
> Obviously a man who did or said any similar thing would run
>>afoul of our codes.
>
>dipshit, if no one brings charges, there is no legally defined
>harrassment.
>
And if no one brings charges there was no legally defined rape? No robbery?
>
>IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP CHARGES.
>OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
>
It is little use to bring a charge if the current policies do not apply to
you.
For example, for a man to bring a sexual harassment charge, it would
have to be a classic case of a female boss demanding sex and threatening him
with reprisal for refusing. For a woman to bring charges, it requires only
that she says that she felt that she was subjected to an "unwanted sexual
advance." Our company policy is quite clear on this. When we asked what
constituted an unwelcome sexual advance, we were told that it was anything a
woman said it was. Quite pointedly, this standard is not applied to men.
Your caplock key cannot erase the fact that the policy is one-sided.
>
>the stereotyping and harassment that runs all the way up to
>>trying to smear the names and sabotage the work of anyone who dares
>>disagree with the feminists.
>
>Oh, poor baby--are the mean grrls making fun of you again?
>Still haven't figured out that feminist like men just fine--
>it's just YOU we can't stand!
>
>eaf
>
Indeed, you seem quite intolerant of any man who does not toe your party
line.
Feminists claim to be against sexual harassment and the creation of
hostile work environments, etc. Nowhere did you object to these when they
target a man. Do you approve of them? If so, how to you reconcile your
supposed opposition to harassment with your failure to oppose it? Or do you
approve these tactics if they target something you don't like? If so, then
it would seem that equality is only for those you consider equal.
Mark Evans
: psma...@gnn.com (Per) wrote:
: Pointedly, men were not
: >given an similar option of deciding what constituted harassment.
:
: Utter bullshit. Men can bring harrassment charges on the same
: basis as women. If you feel you are bieng harrassed, you have
: the exact same rights.
This may possibly be the case in theory, in practice this is
rarely the case.
:
: Obviously a man who did or said any similar thing would run
: >afoul of our codes.
:
: dipshit, if no one brings charges, there is no legally defined
: harrassment. IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP CHARGES.
An intersting idea making legal charges against something which
dosn't have a law against it. In practice this meants that it is
only possible for those with good lawyers and activists.
: OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
Guess what, the exact way in which mothers train their sons to
accept their role.
:
:
: the stereotyping and harassment that runs all the way up to
: >trying to smear the names and sabotage the work of anyone who dares disagree
: >with the feminists.
:
: Oh, poor baby--are the mean grrls making fun of you again?
: Still haven't figured out that feminist like men just fine--
: it's just YOU we can't stand!
Looks like you have lost the argument, hence the personal
attack.
Scott Gilbert
: Rich Payne <pay...@netcom.com> wrote:
: >virtuouspagan (fran...@usfca.edu) wrote:
: >: psma...@gnn.com (Per) wrote:
:
: virtuouspagan's point was that Per should stop whining about the
: harassment he feels and DO SOMETHING! As in, there is no fault or
: blakming for Per feeling harrassed or victimized but only a pointed
: comment to move on from being a victim to changing things.
: Harrassment filing is most commonly confidential, so if Per worried
: men will make comments like your below, the *real* victim blaming that
: tells men they cannot complain about harrassment, then he can do it
: confidentially.
It is a good thing that bit where he said that he -did- report it
(confidentially) and the compaint wound up as a black mark in his
personnel file, or you would have looked -really- silly now, wouldn't you.
[yet more snippage]
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
sha...@sydney.dialix.oz.au |"I am Dworkin of Borg. Men are irrelevant"
Scott Gilbert |
______________________________________________________________________________
Richard
>Indeed, you seem quite intolerant of any man who does not toe your party
>line.
> Feminists claim to be against sexual harassment and the creation of
>hostile work environments, etc. Nowhere did you object to these when they
>target a man. Do you approve of them? If so, how to you reconcile your
>supposed opposition to harassment with your failure to oppose it? Or do you
>approve these tactics if they target something you don't like? If so, then
>it would seem that equality is only for those you consider equal.
Right on the money Per. It is also these same feminists who support
AA on a basis that runs in direct argument with what this particular
feminist uses in this particular instance. Just try to tell a
feminist that the _written law_ was written for all and that blacks
were treated equal in the courtrooms and on the streets and
that all they had to do was _file charges,_ as the law is equal to
all. I guarantee that we would see some more CAPS LOCK KEYS _whining_
about the bigotry and prejudice in the legal system and workplace and
how that justifies blacks and women receiving special treatment. Does
that matter though when it hurts men? Nope, it's just UTTER BULLSHIT
because men can file harassment charges too. Arguments with feminists
are a complete waste of time. They give themselves the right to
change their minds, change the rules and apply different logic at will
to support whatever argument they happen to be engaged in at any
particular time at any given point in space. I love to see it though.
It is one of the things that is defeating them. More and more
_intelligent_ women are embarrassed by it and laugh at these morons.
*************************************
ric...@livnet.com
Virginia Beach, Va.
http://www.livnet.com/~richard
PGP public Key on home page
*************************************
Carolyn Jean Fairman
>Carolyn Jean Fairman (cfai...@leland.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
>: >virtuouspagan (fran...@usfca.edu) wrote:
>: >: psma...@gnn.com (Per) wrote:
>:
>: virtuouspagan's point was that Per should stop whining about the
>: harassment he feels and DO SOMETHING! As in, there is no fault or
>: blakming for Per feeling harrassed or victimized but only a pointed
>: comment to move on from being a victim to changing things.
>: Harrassment filing is most commonly confidential, so if Per worried
>: men will make comments like your below, the *real* victim blaming that
>: tells men they cannot complain about harrassment, then he can do it
>: confidentially.
>
>(confidentially) and the compaint wound up as a black mark in his
>personnel file, or you would have looked -really- silly now, wouldn't you.
>
>[yet more snippage]
Ah, hm. Thanks for being mostly nice about that. He can still sue,
you know. I think it just as shitty when men are treated this way
(even er, Per. Really!), as when women are. I thought it terrible
women had to actually use lawsuits to combat harrassment and being
blacklisted for bringing cases up and I certainly wish it wouldn't
come to that for men who are harrassed.
But it may well be what is needed. In all honesty, I wish Per well in
resolving this. If he doesn't want to be a test case, I can understand
that too.
And to repeat myself, I do not in the least blame Per for feeling
harrassed, or think he should just deny it or do the 'taking it like a
man thing' and if he feels harrassed I believe him.
Rich Payne
: >given an similar option of deciding what constituted harassment.
: Utter bullshit. Men can bring harrassment charges on the same
: basis as women.
Not so, until recently the responsible government agencies have listened
only to women and minorities. The recent case where the EEOC took a
harrasment case by a white man was the first case even where they
defended a white man, but until I see another this proves nothing about
future intent.
: If you feel you are bieng harrassed, you have
: the exact same rights.
Not so, I was given the same sexual harrasment lectures as Per, and
I'm afraid they were not happy with me for pointing out that half of
the examples they give were regular harrasment, not sexual harrasment,
even by their own definitions.
here is some of Per's text, try to read it this time, and get it through
your thick skull that the situations are not symmetrical.
|In mandatory courses at our company, we were told about "sexual harassment"
|"hostile work environment" and "unwanted sexual advances." When we asked the
|instructor for specific examples, he said an unwanted sexual advance was
|anything that a women felt was unwanted. If she feels harassed, she is. If
|she feels it is an unwanted sexual advance, it is. If she decides that what
|you just said was grounds for complaint, then it is. Pointedly, men were not
|given an similar option of deciding what constituted harassment.
| In my workplace, women have brought in sexual toys, hung up "hunk"
|calendars, passed around pictures of Fabio, etc., and one woman has taken to
|calling all men "stud-muffin." All this in a work place that is *very*
|sensitive and *very* politically correct about sexual harassment. The sexual
|banter I don't mind. I do mind the fact that there are different standards
|of free speech. Obviously a man who did or said any similar thing would run
|afoul of our codes.
In order to keep things assymetrical, they had to invent the -reasonable
woman standard- and the -reasonable man standard-, and then apply them
to the wrong parties, that is, they make men responsible for something they
could not possibly know, the reasonable -woman- standard, and then simply
assume that no man would be offended at being forced to have sex or get
fired.
: Obviously a man who did or said any similar thing would run
: >afoul of our codes.
: dipshit,
You are one foul shrew, no doubt about it.
: if no one brings charges, there is no legally defined
: harrassment. IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP CHARGES.
: OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
You miss the point that this is almost impossible to do, few companies
will even listen to such a complain by a man, and every case I have seen
where a man did bring such charges, they told tales of being laughed
out of every lawyers office they walked into (till they found one).
This is just another case where the male victim is blamed (something
you clearly take savage delight in doing) while being unable to do
things women can do trivially at public expense.
If only they would get the sexist lie that man are -given- everything
out of their silly little heads, not bloody likely to happen.
: the stereotyping and harassment that runs all the way up to
: >trying to smear the names and sabotage the work of anyone who dares disagree
: >with the feminists.
: Oh, poor baby--are the mean grrls making fun of you again?
: Still haven't figured out that feminist like men just fine--
: it's just YOU we can't stand!
Now tell me the one about Hansel and Gretel!
: eaf
Rich
--
Rich Payne
Not in this thread.
: virtuouspagan's point was that Per should stop whining about the
: harassment he feels and DO SOMETHING!
It seems to me that he did.
It seems to be that he also illustrated the vast hypocrisy and
the fact that men are expected to put up with things that women
are not. And despite this, the feminist response is to act as
if everything is equal.
Women clearly believe that they should be able to do whatever they
want, and that men should also be able to do only the things that
they want.
: As in, there is no fault or
: blakming for Per feeling harrassed or victimized but only a pointed
: comment to move on from being a victim to changing things.
He did, and was blamed by both the company and the women posting
here. And yet I bet you still cannot see the problem.
: Harrassment filing is most commonly confidential,
Believe it or not, this is a problem as it allows for secret,
unstbstantiated accusations to resultin firings, and this -has-
happened. American jurisprudence allows for a person to know
their accuser.
: so if Per worried
: men will make comments like your below, the *real* victim blaming that
: tells men they cannot complain about harrassment, then he can do it
: confidentially.
Since the only man seems to have been one supervisor, this would not
seem to be a problem.
And it is clear that these women do not show the same respect for
a mans enviornment thatthey expect him to show to theirs.
BTW, working on a small factory floor for several years where I was
the only male, I can state that this is not uncommon.
: >Or is it -take it like a man-?
: Not at all.
This seems an apt paraphrase for the management response. Female
management if I recall correctly.
: The whole arguemnt presented was, fine, you feel
: harrassed, fine (note, Rich, *not* the "stop feeling harrassed, it is
: all in your mind, thicker skin" thing), then FILE YOUR GREIVANCE!
I think we are talking about different things.
And I as I recall, the response was more like...
| dipshit, if no one brings charges, there is no legally defined
| harrassment. IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP CHARGES.
| OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
|
| Oh, poor baby--are the mean grrls making fun of you again?
| Still haven't figured out that feminist like men just fine--
| it's just YOU we can't stand!
Can you see the difference between the suggestion you claim above
and a personal attack?
: That is far from the "take it like a man" and keep quiet, doncha
: think?
Re-read the above.
| OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
(this is not meant as a statement to yourself, although it might look
like it, I think we need to be clear on the nature of the response)
: >So much for the lies about feminism and equality, as well as the
: >aggrivated lie that feminism is about people, when it is about women.
: Aw, come on. the complaint of the other poster was that Per was not
: acting with what he was talking about.
Eh?
: Unless men file chanrges back
: when they feel harrassed, then there won't be an understanding of when
: men feel harrassed! The encouragement was to be *equal* and file
: charges.
You claim the situation is symmetrical, when it is not.
: There was no comment that men ought not to file charges 'cause
: harrassmen only happens to women.
The venue is that it is only harrasment if it a women feels it is.
Not if a -person- feels it is, if a -woman- feels it is.
Re-read Per's post. It seems clear that neither you nor eaf actually
read it.
: That was _Per's_ claim!
No it was not.
: Feminism
: fought for harrassment protection, and the women who were harrassed by
: men defined what they meant. Per is perfectly capable of defining
: behaviors he finds harrassing
But it has no legal standing. Nor is it likely that anything can be
done.
: and talking to the proper folks at
: whereever he is to do something about it.
He did, I feel we are talking about different things here, are you
still referring to some other thread?
: Sounds equal to me.
You mean you would have no problems if you made an official complaint
and HR found the nearest woman and blamed them?
If not, what do you claim the situation is equal to?
: Sounds
: like a feminist (if virtuouspagan is one. I just heard general
: irritation
Irritation?
| OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
towards someone who complains about a situation but does
: zip to change it)
He did, please read the posts in the future. If your site did not
get Pers post I will forward it to you (unless you wait to long and
it has expired).
: arguing that men have the same rights to freedom
: from harrassment so bring up charges!
But men do not have the "same" rights, legally the standards are even
different.
: And I agree. The stuff he
: described sounded really rude, and he should definitely do something
: if he feels harrassed. Not the "take it like a man" and do nothing.
This was the management response -when- he complained.
What makes you think men in other places are treated any better?
: >Oh yes, lets not forget the lie that feminism is about breaking
: >gender roles for men, feminists are quite violent in enforcing male
: >gender roles.
: Bullshit, Rich. The gender role is "take it like a man" and the
: direct quote of virtuouspagan is "IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP
: CHARGES".
| OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
I have trouble reconciling virtuouspagan's supposed virtue with her
foul mouth and incessant personal attacks BTW.
And I'll bet that she works at some company. Now is it not likely
that she is just as guilty of harrasment as the women in Per's
company, given her attitudes and misandric attitude?
: The _claim_ from Per was that nothing would get done.
: Well, he should see if that is really true.
Nothing -was- done.
Oh yeah, the only male supervisor in the chain was talked to.
: How is telling someone to get off his butt and do something, some
: "violent enforcement of male gender roles"?
The violence was in her words and attitudes, and things like
| Oh, poor baby--are the mean grrls making fun of you again?
| Still haven't figured out that feminist like men just fine--
| it's just YOU we can't stand!
But you have already stated that this is not blaming the victim.
Rich
: [snip]
: --
: | Feminism-the notion (apparently radical to some) that women are people
: |\O/| ===If equality is viewed as a loss, what does== Carolyn
: | _ | ===that tell you about the previous situation?== Fairman
: |/ \| http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~cfairman/ or /Humanists/
--
Gail Thaler
Anyone can define an ideology they don't like by changing the meaning of
the word. But then maybe you don't want to know what feminism is about.
Maybe you just want to attack it.
Per
In article <paynerDo...@netcom.com> Rich Payne wrote:
>virtuouspagan (fran...@usfca.edu) wrote:
>: psma...@gnn.com (Per) wrote:
>: Pointedly, men were not
>: >given an similar option of deciding what constituted harassment.
>
>: Utter bullshit. Men can bring harrassment charges on the same
>: basis as women. If you feel you are bieng harrassed, you have
>: the exact same rights.
>
>
>: Obviously a man who did or said any similar thing would run
>: >afoul of our codes.
>
>: dipshit, if no one brings charges, there is no legally defined
>: harrassment. IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP CHARGES.
>: OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
>
>
>: the stereotyping and harassment that runs all the way up to
>: >trying to smear the names and sabotage the work of anyone who dares disa
>gree
>: >with the feminists.
>
>: Oh, poor baby--are the mean grrls making fun of you again?
>: Still haven't figured out that feminist like men just fine--
>: it's just YOU we can't stand!
>
>This is the typical female and feminist repsonse, blame the male
>victim.
>
>Or is it -take it like a man-?
>
>So much for the lies about feminism and equality, as well as the
>aggrivated lie that feminism is about people, when it is about women.
>Oh yes, lets not forget the lie that feminism is about breaking
>gender roles for men, feminists are quite violent in enforcing male
>gender roles.
>
>I would stll like to know if eaf is violent in person.
>
>: eaf
>
>
>Rich
>
Rich:
In a way, "virtuous pagan" helps prove our point. Most of the boards
and bureacracies that handle these complainst are staffed by feminists and
their allies. If you or I were to go before a board that is staffed with the
likes of "vp," you know the chances for a fair hearing are nill.
Oddly enough, though, they still keep telling themselves that they're
fighting sexism. In fact, they are just the other side of sexism's coin.
Per
it every few weeks saying "folks, when CJ says I said something, I didn't
say it."
>
>virtuouspagan's point was that Per should stop whining about the
>harassment he feels and DO SOMETHING! As in, there is no fault or
>blakming for Per feeling harrassed or victimized but only a pointed
>comment to move on from being a victim to changing things.
>Harrassment filing is most commonly confidential, so if Per worried
>men will make comments like your below, the *real* victim blaming that
>tells men they cannot complain about harrassment, then he can do it
>confidentially.
>
good-ol'-girl network. There was an obvious determination that any fallout
from the complaint was going to fall on a male supervisor and not the women
spreading the hate speech in the first place. And as an added retaliation,
they informed my boss about my "confidential" filing and put the incident in
my personnel file, without any action taken against the women who were
making comments that violated our anti-harassment guidelines.
>
>>Or is it -take it like a man-?
>
>Not at all. The whole arguemnt presented was, fine, you feel
>harrassed, fine (note, Rich, *not* the "stop feeling harrassed, it is
>all in your mind, thicker skin" thing), then FILE YOUR GREIVANCE!
>
>
[...]
>>So much for the lies about feminism and equality, as well as the
>>aggrivated lie that feminism is about people, when it is about women.
>
>Aw, come on. the complaint of the other poster was that Per was not
>acting with what he was talking about. Unless men file chanrges back
>when they feel harrassed, then there won't be an understanding of when
>men feel harrassed! The encouragement was to be *equal* and file
>charges.
>
equality?
>
>There was no comment that men ought not to file charges 'cause
>harrassmen only happens to women. That was _Per's_ claim!
>
>Feminism
>fought for harrassment protection, and the women who were harrassed by
>men defined what they meant. Per is perfectly capable of defining
>behaviors he finds harrassing and talking to the proper folks at
>whereever he is to do something about it.
>
And encountering retaliation for daring to question sexist feminists.
>
> Sounds equal to me.
>
Odd definition of equality.
>
>Sounds
>like a feminist (if virtuouspagan is one. I just heard general
>irritation towards someone who complains about a situation but does
>zip to change it) ...
>
Filing a recommendation that the hate speech not be sanctioned by the
company, and then finding the system is rigged -- that hardly constitutes
doing "zip."
ti...@world.std.com
> : harassment he feels and DO SOMETHING!
Fairman and Frantes, you fucking morons. You stupid, stupid feminists.
You yell at Per to "DO SOMETHING", knowing all the while that there's no
way for men to win _through the system_.
One day men are going to say "The hell with the system, we have nothing
to lose", and will you ever be sorry!
You have no idea what you're asking for. And I would love to see the
looks on your selfish feminist faces when you realize.
Tim
--
Against all forms of sexism -- and feminism is the most prevalent form.
Feminists lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie...
Eric V Conrad
If the dictionary definition of feminism were the only issue, then
the National Organization for Women would not qualify as a feminist
organization. NOW is not about promoting equal rights for women. For
example, consider the NOW's push for Take Your Daughter To Work Day
And Brainwash Your Son With Propaganda About How He Oppresses
Women. If NOW were for equal rights, they might either:
1) Dispense with the idea altogether on the grounds that children
should be in school
2) Propose Take Your Children To Work Day
3) Also push for a separate Take Your Son To Work Day And Brainwash
Your Daughter With Propaganda About How She Oppresses Men
(3 would be "separate but equal rights". After all, why should boys
be the only beneficiaries of hate propaganda.)
According to the dictionary (American Heritage, College Edition), NOW
is not a feminist organization. Either the dictionary definition
needs to be revised or NOW needs to adopt a new name for their
ideology. In the meantime, live with the ambiguity.
Regards,
Eric
--
----
Feminist Folklore 101 -- Annual deaths in the U.S. due to anorexia...
150,000 women -- Gloria Steinem, The Revolution from Within
100 people -- National Center for Health Statistics
Mark Evans
: In article <4ija2t$b...@jeeves.usfca.edu> virtuouspagan wrote:
: >psma...@gnn.com (Per) wrote:
: >Pointedly, men were not
: >>given an similar option of deciding what constituted harassment.
: >
: >Utter bullshit. Men can bring harrassment charges on the same
: >basis as women. If you feel you are bieng harrassed, you have
: >the exact same rights.
: >
: the male-bashing in my workplace was ignored and I was faulted for even
: bringing it up.
: >
: >IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP CHARGES.
: >OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
: >
: For example, for a man to bring a sexual harassment charge, it would
: have to be a classic case of a female boss demanding sex and threatening him
: with reprisal for refusing. For a woman to bring charges, it requires only
: that she says that she felt that she was subjected to an "unwanted sexual
: advance." Our company policy is quite clear on this. When we asked what
She would not get told to "stop whining"...
: constituted an unwelcome sexual advance, we were told that it was anything a
Mark Evans
: Perhaps you guys should try looking feminism up in the dictionary.
: Anyone can define an ideology they don't like by changing the meaning of
: the word. But then maybe you don't want to know what feminism is about.
: Maybe you just want to attack it.
Maybe they know full well what it IS about, and that reality
might not match the dictionary definition...
Scott Gilbert
: Perhaps you guys should try looking feminism up in the dictionary.
: Anyone can define an ideology they don't like by changing the meaning of
: the word. But then maybe you don't want to know what feminism is about.
: Maybe you just want to attack it.
:
Feminism is defined by it's actions, not by oxfords.
Stephanie Smith
eco...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu says...
>>Perhaps you guys should try looking feminism up in the dictionary.
>>Anyone can define an ideology they don't like by changing the meaning
of
>>the word. But then maybe you don't want to know what feminism is
about.
>>Maybe you just want to attack it.
>
>the National Organization for Women would not qualify as a feminist
>organization. NOW is not about promoting equal rights for women. For
>example, consider the NOW's push for Take Your Daughter To Work Day
>And Brainwash Your Son With Propaganda About How He Oppresses
>Women. If NOW were for equal rights, they might either:
>
> 1) Dispense with the idea altogether on the grounds that children
> should be in school
> 2) Propose Take Your Children To Work Day
> 3) Also push for a separate Take Your Son To Work Day And Brainwash
> Your Daughter With Propaganda About How She Oppresses Men
>
>(3 would be "separate but equal rights". After all, why should boys
>be the only beneficiaries of hate propaganda.)
Putting aside the whole brainwashing with propaganda issue, what exactly
do you think is so awful about Take Your Daughter To Work Day? (Many
places around here actually do the "Take Your Children To Work"
Day instead, anyway.)
First, I don't think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I don't
know that girls necessarily get the desired benefits out of it. In my
workplace (where it is for daughters) you gotta wonder what they actually
learn other than: women are secretaries, (or the most junior employees),
attractive women are receptionists, and men have the most important jobs
(except for black men, who work in the mail room). Oh, yeah, and if
you're Polish, you can clean up after everyone. I am not trying to
re-enforce stereotypes here, it's just shocking how traditional patterns
still hold true for many job sites.
But that aside, I don't see how a "Take Your Daughter To Work" Day
discriminates against men. The issue it is attempting to deal with --
it's okay for women to work and they can pursue any career they want --
is hardly a problem for boys, who know damn well it's okay for boys
to work and have all the traditionally male careers. I guess if you
want to encourage boys to pursue traditionally female career paths --
spending the day with a stay-at-home dad or nurse or hairdresser, that's
a good thing, but I don't see most Dads (or men in general) going for
it.
The only way to encourage equality in the workplace (apart from
Affirmative Action, which I'll assume you're against) is by admitting
that there are real reasons why fewer women pursue certain career paths
or make the same investment as men in a career, and trying to address
these problems while girls are still in school and deciding what to
do with their lives. Since obviously we are still giving children
the message that boys are smarter and more cut out for most careers
than women, what's so wrong with trying to counteract this? (And
how does this discriminate against boys in any way?)
Stephanie
Eric V Conrad
First, I think truancy should be discouraged.
Second, I don't think any child should have special rights accorded on
the basis of sex. (I am an equalitarian and not a separate-but-equalitarian.)
As for the brainwashing part, teachers should be extremely wary of accepting
teaching materials from partisan organizations, not just NOW.
>First, I don't think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I don't
>know that girls necessarily get the desired benefits out of it. In my
>workplace (where it is for daughters) you gotta wonder what they actually
>learn other than: women are secretaries, (or the most junior employees),
>attractive women are receptionists, and men have the most important jobs
>(except for black men, who work in the mail room). Oh, yeah, and if
>you're Polish, you can clean up after everyone. I am not trying to
>re-enforce stereotypes here, it's just shocking how traditional patterns
>still hold true for many job sites.
Why does a child even need to take a day off from school to visit the office?
If parents want to take any of their children to work, that's fine with
me. I don't even care whether the parent plays favoritism by gender,
but not on a school day.
>
>But that aside, I don't see how a "Take Your Daughter To Work" Day
>discriminates against men. The issue it is attempting to deal with --
>it's okay for women to work and they can pursue any career they want --
>is hardly a problem for boys, who know damn well it's okay for boys
>to work and have all the traditionally male careers. I guess if you
>want to encourage boys to pursue traditionally female career paths --
>spending the day with a stay-at-home dad or nurse or hairdresser, that's
>a good thing, but I don't see most Dads (or men in general) going for
>it.
It is a special right accorded to girls not accorded to boys. Hence
it is discriminatory. If parents wish to discriminate in their own
families by sex, that is fine with me. But giving the practice official
sanction is absolutely abhorrent.
But let's set that aside for a moment. Black Americans have suffered
from job discrimination far more than the average white American woman.
They have also suffered more than the average white American woman from
discrimination in schools. So if "Take Your Daughter To Work Day" is
a good idea, then we also need "Take Your Black Child To Work Day".
[I've rearraranged the following text, so I can respond. I don't think
I've changed your meaning:]
>[A]part from Affirmative Action, which I'll assume you're against [,]
You are presumptuous.
I am against _voluntary_ discrimination programs. I have no objection
to court punishments such as quota hiring plans provided they are
treated as criminal punishments for specific discriminatory acts.
(Refer to the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the
Constitution for some of the legal details.)
>[t]he only way
At least the only way you will consider.
>to encourage equality in the workplace is by admitting
>that there are real reasons why fewer women pursue certain career paths
You are confusing equal opportunity with equal results. Again check
the 14th Amendment for the distinction. The 14th Amendment talks of
"equal protection of the laws". To get equal results, you propose
actions which involve "unequal protection of the laws", specifically
special rights accorded to girls that you are willing to deny to boys.
What crime have little boys committed that would make you want to deny
them a right that you accord little girls?
>[snip] Since obviously we are still giving children
>the message that boys are smarter and more cut out for most careers
>than women, [snip]
You may be giving children that message. Please don't speak for the rest
of us.
> (And
>how does this discriminate against boys in any way?)
Girls are accorded a special right to be truant on a particular day
of the school year and boys are denied this right. Refer to the 14th
Amendment of the Constitution for further information. I'm sure it is
available somewhere on the world wide web. If not, you can find a
copy in your local public library.
Cyberbomber
Brian E. Perry
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Stephanie Smith
>
>In article <4j5036$7...@usenet7.interramp.com>,
>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>>In article <4j1ksm$h...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
>>eco...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu says...
<previous posts deleted for brevity>
I'm not denying that men are discriminated against in some areas, and I
certainly agree that they are victims of unfair stereotypes as much as
women, I just don't understand how you think Take Your Daughter To Work Day
harms boys. If even programs designed to encourage girls (or children of
any groups) to examine areas they are traditionally discouraged from
pursuing, then how are we to achieve equality (sorry for the assumption if
this is not your goal).
At least programs like this (small as they are) focus on underlying problems
which could explain the unequal results, rather than simply correcting for
them at the hiring or college admission level. If you don't like the way
the day is publicized or presented by NOW, I can understand (although I
haven't seen the materials, so can't comment on whether you characterization
is fair). But as for the idea of the day itself, I just don't see what's so
offensive. If you really want women to take you seriously with regard to
your claims that feminism discriminates against men (if you care), focus on
areas where men really are disadvantaged -- we might be willing to listen.
>>>If the dictionary definition of feminism were the only issue, then
>>>the National Organization for Women would not qualify as a feminist
>>>organization. NOW is not about promoting equal rights for women. For
>>>example, consider the NOW's push for Take Your Daughter To Work Day
>>>And Brainwash Your Son With Propaganda About How He Oppresses
>>>Women. If NOW were for equal rights, they might either:
>>>
>>> 1) Dispense with the idea altogether on the grounds that children
>>> should be in school
>>> 2) Propose Take Your Children To Work Day
>>> 3) Also push for a separate Take Your Son To Work Day And Brainwash
>>> Your Daughter With Propaganda About How She Oppresses Men
>>>
>>>(3 would be "separate but equal rights". After all, why should boys
>>>be the only beneficiaries of hate propaganda.)
>>
>>Putting aside the whole brainwashing with propaganda issue, what exactly
>>do you think is so awful about Take Your Daughter To Work Day? (Many
>>places around here actually do the "Take Your Children To Work"
>>Day instead, anyway.)
>
>First, I think truancy should be discouraged.
I have a hard time believing this is a real basis for your
objection (guess you never had a Senior Skip Day), but okay, it should
either be in the summer, a school holiday, or the boys should be given the
day off for something (not propaganda) as well. In any case, any students
who miss school must make up the work.
>Second, I don't think any child should have special rights accorded on
>the basis of sex. (I am an equalitarian and not a
separate-but-equalitarian.)
I agree. My question was exactly how is going to work for a day "special
rights"?
>As for the brainwashing part, teachers should be extremely wary of
accepting
>teaching materials from partisan organizations, not just NOW.
Yeah, I am not in favor of brainwashing (although again I've not seen the
materials so can't comment). That's why I said to put this part aside for
now. I'm simply interested in the notion of girls being encouraged (through
a day at work) to explore career options.
<deletion>
>Why does a child even need to take a day off from school to visit the
office?
>If parents want to take any of their children to work, that's fine with
>me. I don't even care whether the parent plays favoritism by gender,
>but not on a school day.
Perhaps to counteract the fact that in many families a type of favoritism
by gender already occurs, in that boys are more encouraged to pursue
certain careers than girls (as shown by the ultimate results). And
yes this doesn't happen in every family. However, it is an idea girls are
likely to pick up from popular culture and their environment.
Are you seriously arguing that you think there is a likelihood that
parents encourage a daughter to pursue her career-related talents and
options and not a son? Is there any chance that a boy won't be fully
aware of his ability to pursue a career in most fields he might choose?
>>But that aside, I don't see how a "Take Your Daughter To Work" Day
>>discriminates against men. The issue it is attempting to deal with --
>>it's okay for women to work and they can pursue any career they want --
>>is hardly a problem for boys, who know damn well it's okay for boys
>>to work and have all the traditionally male careers. I guess if you
>>want to encourage boys to pursue traditionally female career paths --
>>spending the day with a stay-at-home dad or nurse or hairdresser, that's
>>a good thing, but I don't see most Dads (or men in general) going for
>>it.
>
>It is a special right accorded to girls not accorded to boys. Hence
>it is discriminatory. If parents wish to discriminate in their own
>families by sex, that is fine with me. But giving the practice official
>sanction is absolutely abhorrent.
Boys don't need it. Focus on reality here. If boys are taught that they
are unequal in certain areas (and of course they are) create a day to
focus on that.
"Special right" implies that you are benefitting girls to the disadvantage
of boys. How is this occurring? What is the benefit girls are receiving
that boys don't already have? (Missing school is not a privilege in a
legal sense. In fact, having additional school time might be.)
As for "official sanction" -- the way in which most families are structured
and what the children see in the world around them certainly "sanctions"
the notion that men's careers are more important than women's. All a
"Take You Daughter To Work" Day ("TYDTW Day") does (at the very most) is
to tell girls that women's careers are important *too*. It does not tell
boys (or girls) that men's careers aren't important (which is clearly
ridiculous).
>But let's set that aside for a moment. Black Americans have suffered
>from job discrimination far more than the average white American woman.
>They have also suffered more than the average white American woman from
>discrimination in schools. So if "Take Your Daughter To Work Day" is
>a good idea, then we also need "Take Your Black Child To Work Day".
I agree that Blacks have suffered from job discrimination and discrimination
in schools more than women. However, removing discrimination is not
really the point of the day, since it can't affect that. The idea is to
encourage girls that they can pursue certain careers.
You might argue that part of the reason for Blacks' underrepresentation
in certain careers is due to the same reasons, especially those who live
in areas where few people pursue such careers. The same argument
can be made for poor people, those in certain rural areas, etc. I
would agree that those people could also benefit from exposure to other
Blacks, people from their area, etc. who succeeded in certain careers, or
at least from exposure to the opportunities in the same way girls do.
However, since part of the problem is their parents and neighbors are
less likely to work at places they want to expose them to, a "Take Your
_____ To Work" Day is unlikely to work. (With TYDTW Day, the girls come
from the exact same backgrounds as the boys, so can get the exposure from
their parents/neighbors when such exposure is encouraged.)
In fact, many inner-city schools around here (especially those which
attempt to be an alternative for students who are really motivated to get
an education), which are primarily attented by minority and underprivileged
children, have similar types of programs to have the same effect as
a TYDTW Day -- bringing in professionals, arranging tours and interships,
mentorship programs, etc. Same idea, but more extensive (and hardly
sufficient to address the problem IMO).
And if various minority groups wanted to have such a day in order to
demonstrate that not only whites can be successful in various careers, and
that they have just as valid a place in the working world as whites, I
really can't imagine that I would feel discriminated against.
>[I've rearraranged the following text, so I can respond. I don't think
>I've changed your meaning:]
>
>>[A]part from Affirmative Action, which I'll assume you're against [,]
>
>You are presumptuous.
Sorry, I shouldn't have made an assumption.
>I am against _voluntary_ discrimination programs. I have no objection
>to court punishments such as quota hiring plans provided they are
>treated as criminal punishments for specific discriminatory acts.
>(Refer to the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the
>Constitution for some of the legal details.)
>>[t]he only way
>
>At least the only way you will consider.
No, I will consider other ways if you would like to suggest them.
What irritates me about people who say Affirmative Action is
discriminatory (and I am not fully in favor of it, if you care)
is that they do not suggest an alternative. I actually agree that it
does not address the real problem -- that fewer minorities or women
may be qualified for a particular job -- but unless you are willing to
assume that such groups are innately less intelligent or hard-working, which
I'm not, you must address that fact at the source, if you aren't willing to
do so through the hiring process. (And yes, government action isn't the
only way to do this. In fact, programs like TYDTW Day, which are promoted
by interest groups and succeed because of voluntary parent and work
place involvment are hardly the epitome of gov't action.)
>>to encourage equality in the workplace is by admitting
>>that there are real reasons why fewer women pursue certain career paths
>
>You are confusing equal opportunity with equal results. Again check
>the 14th Amendment for the distinction. The 14th Amendment talks of
>"equal protection of the laws". To get equal results, you propose
>actions which involve "unequal protection of the laws", specifically
>special rights accorded to girls that you are willing to deny to boys.
No, check your definition of rights. If you think Take Your Daughter To
Work Day is unconstitutional, you don't understand equal protection.
I simply think it would be better to combat inequality as early as
possible. Part of this is by creating equality of opportunity --
our school system could certainly be made more equal, for example, since
many people (disproportionately minority) do not receive adequate
educations. Part of it is to address discrimination/stereotyping
which occurs more informally -- girls are told their careers are not
as important as boys', they are encouraged away from certain areas and
into others, etc. (And yes this happens with certain minority group worse
IMO than with women.) While not discrimination in the sense that you would
allow AA for, it certainly has an effect on the inequal result.
If you want to totally deny that this occurs, go ahead, but please let
me know your explanation for the inequal results. Does this apply
to minority groups too, or just women?
>What crime have little boys committed that would make you want to deny
>them a right that you accord little girls?
Again, what are they being denied that they don't already have? If
you would like to pick an area in which boys have traditionally been
discriminated against or discouraged from pursuing and suggest a day
to show them their option, I'm all for it.
>>[snip] Since obviously we are still giving children
>>the message that boys are smarter and more cut out for most careers
>>than women, [snip]
>
>You may be giving children that message. Please don't speak for the rest
>of us.
I'm not, of course, but do you deny this message is still getting through?
(We=our society, as you know perfectly well.)
(And
>>how does this discriminate against boys in any way?)
>
>Girls are accorded a special right to be truant on a particular day
>of the school year and boys are denied this right. Refer to the 14th
>Amendment of the Constitution for further information. I'm sure it is
>available somewhere on the world wide web. If not, you can find a
>copy in your local public library.
Like I said, you may want to check out the concept of rights.
And please explain to me exactly how "Take Your Daughter To Work" Day
violates the Constitutional rights of a boy.
I'll help you get started. First, tell me what state action is involved.
If a parent gives their child permission to be out of school for a day,
the school simply considers it an excused absence. The school isn't
sponsoring this, it's the parents' decision.
Then, what "life, liberty, or property" is denied "without due process
of law". Well, the boys are forced to attend school, but that's certainly
with due process of law. The boys' parents could surely choose to hold
them out of school that day as well.
There's always your "equal protection" argument, but even if there
were state action, I'm sure encouraging girls to pursue careers (since we
could demonstrate that girls are inequal in this regard) would be a
sufficient state interest, especially since you can't point to a way in
which boys are disadvantaged (or any rights of which they are deprived).
Now, I'd be happy to consider issues of fairness, even if not required by
the Constitution, but I just don't see how TYDTW Day harms boys.
Stephanie
Gail Thaler
Seeing as you quoted me, may I respond? I'm sorrry I din't get to the
end of your article because I see you made my point.
If you want to make up a definition of "feminisn" just to shoot it down,
that's your privelege.
If you want to go on for several paragraphs about National Take Your
Daugters to Work Day, fine. But what does race have to do with National
Take Your Daughter to Work Day? Seems that many African-American women
participate. Also, as a white woman, I am perfectly aware that women
have benefited more than blacks from AA. WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO PIT BLACK
WOMEN/WHITE WOMEN/BLACK MEN AGAINST EACH OTHER? WHY?
I have been a member of NOW, off and on. I don't like everything it
stands for. But is National Take Your Daughters To Work Day, a blatant
excuse for girls to be truants that discriminates against boys? Bit of
a stretch to me. And it's only one day of the year. One day a year for
girls to go with their parents to work. Many fathers participate because
they find they often bond with their sons over work issues but not their
daughters. Every day in school there are reasons to get a day
off...athletics, nature field trips, drama field trips.
Please.
Carolyn Jean Fairman
>Carolyn Jean Fairman (cfai...@leland.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
>: Rich Payne <pay...@netcom.com> wrote:
>: >This is the typical female and feminist repsonse, blame the male
>: >victim.
>
>: Well, considering Per had previously blamed women who were victims of
>: discrimination (and proved it in court and won), I would think the
>: difference between *blaming* the victim and telling the victim to DO
>: SOMETHING would be more clear.
>
>Not in this thread.
No, it was when I brought up Ms Wong at the Berkeley Architecture
Dept, who was denied tenure and in the lawsuit she filed, she won a
settlement and _no_ gag rule. Essentially, as I wrote back in that
post, the University knew it had no legs to stand on and could not
even just say, "Here's the money, don't breathe a word of it" as is
often the case with harrassment settlements to avoid embarrassment.
Per's response was something to the tune of a, well maybe brought it
on herself, in the case of Ms Wong. I considered that to be blaming
the victim, and said so.
It was not on this thread but it matters.
Basically, women went through a lot of shit to fight the harrassment
they encountered near everywhere. They were fighting major social
pressures -- and still are judged by Ms Wong! I'm not surprised that
men will also have to spend some suffering to get their situation
fairly resolved. I think it sucks that people would make it this hard
for some men, but since some men are still out there harrassing women,
it tends to be hard for those women then to give harassed men any
sympathy.
So men who go around with snide comments for clearly discriminated
against and harrassed women hurt their own cause.
>: virtuouspagan's point was that Per should stop whining about the
>: harassment he feels and DO SOMETHING!
>
>It seems to me that he did.
>
>It seems to be that he also illustrated the vast hypocrisy and
>the fact that men are expected to put up with things that women
>are not. And despite this, the feminist response is to act as
>if everything is equal.
Women have fought tooth and nail to not have to continue to put up
with harrasment. Sadly, it seems that recognition will require some
work on the part of men. I admit to feeling hope that suffering
throught this sort of powerless, have to fight everone (and get told
to have a thicker skin, like women had been told for quite some time)
will perhaps evoke some understanding in men of what women have gone
through.
Now, I do NOT think that makes the harrassment right or good or
anything but unjust.
>Women clearly believe that they should be able to do whatever they
>want, and that men should also be able to do only the things that
>they want.
Get off it, Rich. "Women" as a whole believe no such thing. I, as a
woman, feel that now that most women are finally free of the worse of
the harrassment that was running rampant for a long time, that we
ought nhot go and takle some sort of childish revenge. Harrassment is
harrassment, and if Per is harrassed, I would not go and cry PC at
him, tell him to get a thicker skin or deny his feelings of
harrassment.
I takes work to change people's perceptions, and if Per, like the
women before him, wants freedom from harrassment, he needs to fight
it. Not everyone has the willingness or the desire to be that test
case and I can understand wanting it fixed and hoping someone one
else would help things along.
>: As in, there is no fault or
>: blakming for Per feeling harrassed or victimized but only a pointed
>: comment to move on from being a victim to changing things.
>
>He did, and was blamed by both the company and the women posting
>here. And yet I bet you still cannot see the problem.
Rich, I came in late and have now reread the original with all the
details. He can sue the company, you know. He may well be as
blacklisted as Coach Stanley, now at Stanford, who sued her former
employer, USC, regarding salary and Title IX issues. She was
blacklisted from coaching (not that a woman would yet ever be hired
for coaching _men_, though the opposite is common). You know, a
troublemaker. She was hired at Stanford for this one year and the
team is in the Final Four, and Stanley and Amy Tucker are both Pac-10
Coach(es) of the year and Naismith (I think that is right) Coaches of
the Year.
But it was a big rish for Stanley and there are women around sighing
that someone is doing something.
To use men as an example, there have been several posts by new or
relatively new fathers who took time off under the FMLA and were
discriminated against. You have to *sue* to get companies to wake up
to this being wrong! So, *do something*! I know that not everyone
can, but still, just plain complaining gets on one's nerves.
>: Harrassment filing is most commonly confidential,
>
>Believe it or not, this is a problem as it allows for secret,
>unstbstantiated accusations to resultin firings, and this -has-
>happened. American jurisprudence allows for a person to know
>their accuser.
>
>: so if Per worried
>: men will make comments like your below, the *real* victim blaming that
>: tells men they cannot complain about harrassment, then he can do it
>: confidentially.
>
>Since the only man seems to have been one supervisor, this would not
>seem to be a problem.
>
>And it is clear that these women do not show the same respect for
>a mans enviornment thatthey expect him to show to theirs.
And, Rich, that is unfair of those women! As it is unfair of men who
do the same thing to women.
[snip]
>: The whole arguemnt presented was, fine, you feel
>: harrassed, fine (note, Rich, *not* the "stop feeling harrassed, it is
>: all in your mind, thicker skin" thing), then FILE YOUR GREIVANCE!
>
>I think we are talking about different things.
>
>And I as I recall, the response was more like...
>
>| dipshit, if no one brings charges, there is no legally defined
>| harrassment. IF YOU FEEL HARRASSED, BRING UP CHARGES.
>| OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
>|
>| Oh, poor baby--are the mean grrls making fun of you again?
>| Still haven't figured out that feminist like men just fine--
>| it's just YOU we can't stand!
>
>Can you see the difference between the suggestion you claim above
>and a personal attack?
The first part is a more irritated version of mine, and the general,
well do something concept. If Per's issue is that he filed a
complaint and got even more discriminated against, then he needs to
consider legal action, if he has a strong enough case.
>: That is far from the "take it like a man" and keep quiet, doncha
>: think?
>
>Re-read the above.
The second part qualifies, sure. The first part is still valid though
-- continue pressure. Woman after woman lost her job in the fight to
end the worse of the sexual and other harrassment. I don't deamdn
that of anyone, but onless some people are willing to take a stand, we
all will get irritated that such folks, with valid grievances, don't
get the resolution they deserve.
>| OTHERWISE, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND QUIT WHINING.
>
>
>(this is not meant as a statement to yourself, although it might look
>like it, I think we need to be clear on the nature of the response)
Cute.
[snip]
>: Unless men file chanrges back
>: when they feel harrassed, then there won't be an understanding of when
>: men feel harrassed! The encouragement was to be *equal* and file
>: charges.
>
>You claim the situation is symmetrical, when it is not.
I may well agree here. Women fought for their rights to be free from
the most common scenario --male harrassment of a female. That has been
somewhat acheived, but men have not done their fighting for
recognition. It is too bad that people cannot simply see that
harrassment goes both ways, but as you point out, it is not
symmetrical.
>: There was no comment that men ought not to file charges 'cause
>: harrassmen only happens to women.
>
>The venue is that it is only harrasment if it a women feels it is.
>Not if a -person- feels it is, if a -woman- feels it is.
Right, _Per_ talked about that. It is clearly discrimiatory!
There was not comment by virtuouspagan that men ought not to work to
change this. That was what I was trying to say. That Per made the
first step if indeed filing a grievance is a first step.
[snip]
>: Feminism
>: fought for harrassment protection, and the women who were harrassed by
>: men defined what they meant. Per is perfectly capable of defining
>: behaviors he finds harrassing
>
>But it has no legal standing. Nor is it likely that anything can be
>done.
It has no legal standing because.....
Men have not brought enought cases to court so that it can be. Per
can define that men feel harrassment, too, and he can take it to
court, citing damages for mental stress (or whatever they call it).
>: and talking to the proper folks at
>: whereever he is to do something about it.
>
>He did, I feel we are talking about different things here, are you
>still referring to some other thread?
No, I'm referring to the legal department. He took the first step,
which is good (hey, something where I'm supporting Per. Go figure!)
and now there is the issue of following up.
[snip]
>He did, please read the posts in the future. If your site did not
>get Pers post I will forward it to you (unless you wait to long and
>it has expired).
I now now that Per had filed charges and ended up with a black mark
in his file. Legal department time, if you ask me.
His original post may have expired. They tend to expire quickly,
either from the traffic here or something. If I don't save them,
anything I quote is hard to point out as something said.
Carolyn Jean Fairman
>> : harassment he feels and DO SOMETHING!
>
Ahem. That would go under ad hominums. Bears little on anything said.
>You yell at Per to "DO SOMETHING", knowing all the while that there's no
>way for men to win _through the system_.
Dammit, the system was rigged against women for decades and women *did
something*. We were harrassed and sued and lost. We were fired and
sued and lost.
There was no way for women to win "_through the system_" back then
either, but that did not stop women from fighting to change things.
Men, sadly, are not benefitting as much as they should, because back
then it was men harrassing women, darn near all the time, so people
didn't think to the future to a time where women were in a position to
harrass men (and that women would be stupid enough to emulate that
aspect of the past!) and they thought in terms of those who were most
generally harrassed.
Men are going to need to do the same sort of ground work, experience
the same sort of frustration and hoplessness and anger that women went
through for the last upteen years and still get, though markedly
reduced.
It is too bad that the harrassment situation was not symmetrical in
the first place, with women in power as far back as the 1950s, but it
was not in the least and it will take time, effort and education to
get people to wake up to the fact that men get harrassed, too.
>One day men are going to say "The hell with the system, we have nothing
>to lose", and will you ever be sorry!
Sorry? What sort of veiled threat is that? Men know they can get the
results they want and that the necessary ingredients are changed in
people's perceptions and understanding. That is why we have law,
Disney and magazines like Newsweek, to shape popular culture.
Let me guess, that man who slaughtered 10 or 15 engineering students,
the female ones, is he what you mean? If women keep making trouble,
that'll be what we deserve? Denying men's feelings is stupid, but you
have moved one step beyond even that, if that was your meaning.
Wonder why women would go and harrass men in the first place, what
source this resentment, what reason this anger. Never once a
justification, and childish to use it so, let me be clear.
>You have no idea what you're asking for. And I would love to see the
>looks on your selfish feminist faces when you realize.
I sure hope I don't realize what you are implying men would do. It
would be just as childish.
Per
Folks: Carolyn Jean's take on reality is a bit heterodox. Please do
not take at face value any quote or paraphrase she makes of me, because CJ
is, as they say, "honesty impaired."
END STANDARD DISCLAIMER FOR CJ POSTS.
In article <paynerDo...@netcom.com> Rich Payne wrote:
BEGIN STANDARD DISCLAIMER FOR CJ POSTS:
Folks: Carolyn Jean's take on reality is a bit heterodox. Please do
not take at face value any quote or paraphrase she makes of me, because
CJ is, as they say, "honesty impaired."
END STANDARD DISCLAIMER FOR CJ POSTS.
BEGIN STANDARD DISCLAIMER FOR CJ POSTS:
Folks: Carolyn Jean's take on reality is a bit heterodox. Please do
not take at face value any quote or paraphrase she makes of me, because
CJ is, as they say, "honesty impaired."
END STANDARD DISCLAIMER FOR CJ POSTS.
BEGIN STANDARD DISCLAIMER FOR CJ POSTS BUILDING TO INCREDULOUS FRUSTRATION:
MAN! Is she even READING these posts?
END DISCLAIMER FOR CJ POSTS, ONCE AGAIN AMAZED AT THE SHEER BOLDNESS OF HER
GRUBORESQUE FABRICATIONS.
Peter Chrzanowski
> Eric,
> If you want to go on for several paragraphs about National Take Your
> Daugters to Work Day, fine. But what does race have to do with National
> Take Your Daughter to Work Day? Seems that many African-American women
> participate. Also, as a white woman, I am perfectly aware that women
> have benefited more than blacks from AA. WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO PIT BLACK
> WOMEN/WHITE WOMEN/BLACK MEN AGAINST EACH OTHER? WHY?
Well, I read this as well and I see no reason to ascribe a motivation
on "Eric's" part to "PIT BLACK WOMEN/WHITE WOMEN/BLACK MEN AGAINST
EACH OTHER." What he said was, blacks in the U.S.A. have been
subject to more employment discrimination than white women, yet
there is no "Bring Your Black Children to Work Day."
Do you think there should be? Should it be separate from the
"Daughters" day? And would you prefer that there also be
separate days for Chinese, Irish, Jews, etc., etc. -- all of
whom have historically been subject to discrimination in America?
Or would you prefer to lump all these "Days" together into a
"Bring Your Children { Except Your Son, If He's White } to Work Day" ?
Feminists talk the good talk about "inclusion" when it's to their
advantage, then turn around and insist on a right to exclude.
Can you think of any reason why they should not be called on this?
In any case, it's natural that some African-Americans would be angry
with American feminists for stealing the affirmative-action spoils
that were largely won through the efforts of African-Americans: if
there is a problem here, surely it is with the theft, not with "Eric's"
possible motivations?
Gail Thaler <gth...@cs.com> writes:
> I have been a member of NOW, off and on. I don't like everything it
> stands for. But is National Take Your Daughters To Work Day, a blatant
> excuse for girls to be truants that discriminates against boys?
It makes my blood boil. But perhaps we could compromise.
Perhaps you'd agree to let the boys go as well, so long as
they agreed to ride only in the back of the bus? Oh, and
once in the workplace, they'd be required to move to the back
of any queue so as not to block any girl's view, and they'd be
severely chastised or expelled for speaking out-of-turn or loudly,
so as to avoid intimidating the girls?
____________________________________________________________________________
From: s.m...@ix.netcom.com (Polar) (on soc.feminism)
> Females in same-sex classes do not have to deal with LOUD,
> INTERRUPTING, (attempted) DOMINATION by male students who may not be
> acting out of malice, but merely acting out their cultural formation.
____________________________________________________________________________
___
Given that more boys than girls drop out of high school, that
girls' average school grades are higher than boys' (and more girls
than boys go to college), that boys get in trouble with the law
at far higher rates than girls, that boys even kill themselves
at two to four times (depending on age) the rate of girls --
what *possible excuse* could there be for a "Take Your Daughter"
day, rather than a "Take Your Children" day?
Gail Thaler <gth...@cs.com> writes:
> And it's only one day of the year. One day a year for
> girls to go with their parents to work.
> Please.
Special treats for the "nice" girls, punishments for those "bad" boys:
sounds pretty traditional, doesn't it? Unless, of course, you don't
think that the boys will interpret being forced to listen to that
recommended NOW-lecture in school (I'm sure it has a real positive
view of men and boys) while their classmates go on a fun trip as
"punishment." (Of course, parents could still take their girls
to work on a "Take your CHILDREN To Work Day").
___
If it's really your intention that more girls should start thinking
"career" rather than "some man will take care of me," don't you
think you'd get farther by challenging the "I'm a mother, now
pay me!" attitudes (and laws), and the "protect me, I'm a woman!"
attitudes (and laws), rather than by sponsoring an obviously
discriminatory "Take Your Daughter to Work" event?
Gerry Harbison
>
> Men are going to need to do the same sort of ground work, experience
> the same sort of frustration and hoplessness and anger that women went
> through for the last upteen years and still get, though markedly
> reduced.
>
Yup.
Which kinda belies the feminism = equality stuff, doesn't it? I mean, I
would have thought the goal of an equality-driven movement was to end
*all* harassment, not just harassment of women. And what you're telling
us is, no, feminism only ended the harassment of women, and men now need
to look after themselves.
That's fine, but it gives you very little moral standing to ask for
*any* cooperation from men in fighting sexism against women. Why should
we care about the harassment of women at all, since you're telling us
that harassment of men is entirely our problem? How can you try to
justify AA from an ethical standpoint, since, in asking for men's
acceptance of AA, you're asking men to acquiesce to or actively
cooperate with policies unfavorable to themselves, just to help women;
yet at the same time you tell us it's our own business to end sexism
against men?
--
Gerry Harbison mailto:ge...@chem-gharbison.unl.edu
http://chem-gharbison.unl.edu/harbison_group/harbison.html
Being awake never felt like this before - Julianne (Ben Folds Five)
Gail Thaler
>Gail Thaler (gth...@cs.com) wrote:
>: Perhaps you guys should try looking feminism up in the dictionary.
>: Anyone can define an ideology they don't like by changing the meaning of
>: the word. But then maybe you don't want to know what feminism is about.
>: Maybe you just want to attack it.
>
>
>might not match the dictionary definition...
>>So you get to define it anyway you choose, just to bash it? Fine, do I get to define "mens rights" as an aggressive pathological =
syndrome that seeks to take away women's rights? Do I get to define "masculinity" as male-dominance ideology painfully insecure abo=
ut women and thus seeks to control them.
I don't think so. If you have a problem with NOW or NARAL or whatever, why don't you say so, instead of vague "feminism." Or are y=
ou just upset that your Mommy didn't take you to work?
Scott Gilbert
: There was not comment by virtuouspagan that men ought not to work to
: change this. That was what I was trying to say. That Per made the
: first step if indeed filing a grievance is a first step.
Carolyn: I can find little to disagree with in your post, but I
couldn't really bring myself to let this one slip by. While our friend
eaf pagan did not say that men ought not to work to change "this" there were
CAPS LOCK statents to the effect that there was no problem.... to be
fair, I can see from you post that this is not -your- position, but it
is pagan's
The one thing that cannot be allowed in any fight to correct such
a problem is denial that the problem exists. This can only lead to inaction.
Which is why I felt compelled to respond here.
Carolyn Jean Fairman
>Carolyn Jean Fairman wrote:
>
>> Men are going to need to do the same sort of ground work, experience
>> the same sort of frustration and hoplessness and anger that women went
>> through for the last upteen years and still get, though markedly
>> reduced.
>
>Yup.
>
>Which kinda belies the feminism = equality stuff, doesn't it? I mean, I
>would have thought the goal of an equality-driven movement was to end
>*all* harassment, not just harassment of women. And what you're telling
>us is, no, feminism only ended the harassment of women, and men now need
>to look after themselves.
That's not quite right, Gerry. I'm telling you that feminism sought
equal rights for women -- not being harrassed -- that men at the time
took for granted. That men were then harrassed was not an issue when
women were fighting the harrassment issue. It has only come up in
signifigant numbers recently. Men will have different social
pressures against their speaking out on harrassment, different from
the ones on women. So in that regard, men will have to fight their
own battle. Harrassment itself is illegal in, I believe, sex-neutral
laws. That some people at certain companies have taken these to be
only for women is wrong.
Men will have to look after applying these laws women worked for, to
themselves. Does that make more sense? I don't think people, male or
female really, thought that the people in power, men, would even be in
this situation and in need to protection, so men bringing their
examples forward can help change that.
>That's fine, but it gives you very little moral standing to ask for
>*any* cooperation from men in fighting sexism against women. Why should
>we care about the harassment of women at all, since you're telling us
>that harassment of men is entirely our problem?
Gerry, *applying* harrassment laws to men is men's problem (though I
certain think women need to help out both by not harrassing and by
supporting the subjects of harrassment. Didn't I say that already, if
not by my own response here?). They should have been applied in a sex
neutral manner, but men's societal position is different from women,
and the way people view men and harrassment will need to be defined
_from men_. Even though I imagine it'll be the same definition as
women have, I think many men and women see it as different.
>How can you try to
>justify AA from an ethical standpoint, since, in asking for men's
>acceptance of AA, you're asking men to acquiesce to or actively
>cooperate with policies unfavorable to themselves, just to help women;
>yet at the same time you tell us it's our own business to end sexism
>against men?
I think this is an inaccurate description of my position. It is up to
men to garner the attention to *men's* harrassment, and it is up to
both sexes to recognize it. Only men can tell their stories of being
harrassed and men come from a generally different POV that still
shares basic similarities. While, sure, women were told just to
endure it like men get the "take it like a man", combatting that for
*men* will be a different and addition route to combatting it for
women. Basically, people still view men as different from women in
terms of expectations, and so harrassment and men will need an
additional fight.
I sincerely do not think that women harrassing men is at all in the
level of past discrimination women have encountered regarding AA. It
is certainly real for men, and needs to be addressed, but the people,
women and men, who thought only the less powerful and therefore women
were subject to harrassment need to be educated. Currently people are
too stuck in the old paradigm of men having near all the power and
abusing it to harrass women. That some women are using the power they
have to harrass men, well, that tells me for one that men and women
are for more alike than the Schaeffers of the world would think and,
for two, harrassment is sex neutral and what women fought for was
equality in not being harrassed! That was the original goal. The
revised one needs to pay attention to the fact that the sex of the
harrasser and the harrassed doesn't matter and men, too, are harrassed.
I think this falls under things for people to deal with but it'll have
to be the men who are harrassed to make the noise. Doesn't that make
sense? The original goal was equal treatment of women and men, and
not the mostly singular harrassment of women of the past. And, in the
end, no harrassment at all. The men who are harrassed thus need to
speak out, since they are the ones with the actual story about men's
experiences. Being men, I think this will have its own pitfalls and
social pressures against it that differ from what women fought. That
battle will be unique to men's position in society.
And, I think it matters if men present it as "We get harrassed,
too. Let's deal with that, also, now that it is happening." and not,
"Your harrassment doesn't matter because men get harrassed and we need
to focus on that, instead." Not that anyone has, but the tone and the
likely response differ.
Even if the ratio is 100 women harrassed to 1 man harrassed, that 1
man matters, but he matters as much as 1 of those women, if that makes
sense, being 1 person. Now, since a man's position may well be
different in terms of society, some more attention needs to be focused
on that one man so that he doesn't get joined by 99 others and end up
in just as nasty a boat as women have been in. Fine. I do think men
themselves should bring this additional focus themselves but that both
sex certainly need to help work on it.
jbwatson
>
> I think this is an inaccurate description of my position. It is up to
> men to garner the attention to *men's* harrassment, and it is up to
> both sexes to recognize it. Only men can tell their stories of being
> harrassed and men come from a generally different POV that still
> shares basic similarities. While, sure, women were told just to
> endure it like men get the "take it like a man", combatting that for
> *men* will be a different and addition route to combatting it for
> women. Basically, people still view men as different from women in
> terms of expectations, and so harrassment and men will need an
> additional fight.
>
What if some men had not been supportive of the women's movement? You are
saying that "men" must deal with it themselves but I did not hear women
saying that sexism agains them was something that men could not do
anything about. In fact the same social pressures that encourage women to
be submissive keep men from talking about harrasment (including me). Men
were a major part of the women's movement, women should be a pat of the
men's movement. If nothing else for selfish reasons. i.e. we are not
going to have 50% female CEO's until 50% of men have primary custody of
the their children. BTW I would take my kids over the CEO spot any day.
John Watson
Mark Evans
: >Carolyn Jean Fairman wrote:
: >
: >> Men are going to need to do the same sort of ground work, experience
: >> the same sort of frustration and hoplessness and anger that women went
: >> through for the last upteen years and still get, though markedly
: >> reduced.
: >
: >Yup.
: >
: >Which kinda belies the feminism = equality stuff, doesn't it? I mean, I
: >would have thought the goal of an equality-driven movement was to end
: >*all* harassment, not just harassment of women. And what you're telling
: >us is, no, feminism only ended the harassment of women, and men now need
: >to look after themselves.
:
: That's not quite right, Gerry. I'm telling you that feminism sought
: equal rights for women -- not being harrassed -- that men at the time
: took for granted. That men were then harrassed was not an issue when
Remember PAST tense...
: women were fighting the harrassment issue. It has only come up in
Depends I wonder how much so called "sexual herassment" is actually
herassment which is non-gender specific, but women who suffer it
realise that by getting it called "sexual herassment" they can get
something done about it which otherwise wouldn't be possible.
: signifigant numbers recently. Men will have different social
: pressures against their speaking out on harrassment, different from
Some of these pressures come from women who don't want men in on
"their issue".
: the ones on women. So in that regard, men will have to fight their
: own battle. Harrassment itself is illegal in, I believe, sex-neutral
: laws. That some people at certain companies have taken these to be
: only for women is wrong.
:
: >That's fine, but it gives you very little moral standing to ask for
: >*any* cooperation from men in fighting sexism against women. Why should
: >we care about the harassment of women at all, since you're telling us
: >that harassment of men is entirely our problem?
:
: Gerry, *applying* harrassment laws to men is men's problem (though I
: certain think women need to help out both by not harrassing and by
: supporting the subjects of harrassment. Didn't I say that already, if
: not by my own response here?). They should have been applied in a sex
: neutral manner, but men's societal position is different from women,
Yes, in many ways men are in a much WEAKER possition than women.
: and the way people view men and harrassment will need to be defined
: _from men_. Even though I imagine it'll be the same definition as
: women have, I think many men and women see it as different.
It is seen as less serious when it happens to a man than to a woman.
:
: >How can you try to
: >justify AA from an ethical standpoint, since, in asking for men's
: >acceptance of AA, you're asking men to acquiesce to or actively
: >cooperate with policies unfavorable to themselves, just to help women;
: >yet at the same time you tell us it's our own business to end sexism
: >against men?
:
: I think this is an inaccurate description of my position. It is up to
: men to garner the attention to *men's* harrassment, and it is up to
: both sexes to recognize it. Only men can tell their stories of being
: harrassed and men come from a generally different POV that still
It might also help it women didn't simply hit the "stop whineing"
button when this happened.
: shares basic similarities. While, sure, women were told just to
: endure it like men get the "take it like a man", combatting that for
: *men* will be a different and addition route to combatting it for
: women. Basically, people still view men as different from women in
: terms of expectations, and so harrassment and men will need an
: additional fight.
:
: I sincerely do not think that women harrassing men is at all in the
: level of past discrimination women have encountered regarding AA. It
: is certainly real for men, and needs to be addressed, but the people,
: women and men, who thought only the less powerful and therefore women
: were subject to harrassment need to be educated. Currently people are
They also need to be educated about the first assumption the idea that
women implies less powerfull, fallacy.
: too stuck in the old paradigm of men having near all the power and
: abusing it to harrass women. That some women are using the power they
Actually its more an assumption than a paradigm, further it is used
to justify legalised sexism against men...
Education is needed to deal with this mis-assumption.
: have to harrass men, well, that tells me for one that men and women
: are for more alike than the Schaeffers of the world would think and,
And more alike tham many of the most vocal feminists would like to think.
: for two, harrassment is sex neutral and what women fought for was
: equality in not being harrassed! That was the original goal. The
Nope they though to not be herassed, equality is a smokescreen.
If they wanted equality with men that would either be to give men the
same protection as women against herassment or to accept herassment
of women in the same way that herassment of men is accepted...
(think about it.)
: revised one needs to pay attention to the fact that the sex of the
: harrasser and the harrassed doesn't matter and men, too, are harrassed.
:
: I think this falls under things for people to deal with but it'll have
: to be the men who are harrassed to make the noise. Doesn't that make
: sense? The original goal was equal treatment of women and men, and
The original goal is long lost...
: not the mostly singular harrassment of women of the past. And, in the
: end, no harrassment at all. The men who are harrassed thus need to
: speak out, since they are the ones with the actual story about men's
He also needs to be allowed to speak out, rather than being jumped on.
: experiences. Being men, I think this will have its own pitfalls and
: social pressures against it that differ from what women fought. That
: battle will be unique to men's position in society.
:
: And, I think it matters if men present it as "We get harrassed,
: too. Let's deal with that, also, now that it is happening." and not,
Which only happens if the issue is initially presented as "women need
special treatment becuase...".
: "Your harrassment doesn't matter because men get harrassed and we need
:
Stephanie Smith
says...
<irrelevant discussion of race relations and feminism deleted>
>Gail Thaler <gth...@cs.com> writes:
>> I have been a member of NOW, off and on. I don't like everything it
>> stands for. But is National Take Your Daughters To Work Day, a blatant
>> excuse for girls to be truants that discriminates against boys?
>
>
> It makes my blood boil. But perhaps we could compromise.
>
> Perhaps you'd agree to let the boys go as well, so long as
> they agreed to ride only in the back of the bus? Oh, and
> once in the workplace, they'd be required to move to the back
> of any queue so as not to block any girl's view, and they'd be
> severely chastised or expelled for speaking out-of-turn or loudly,
> so as to avoid intimidating the girls?
This is why I find it so hard to take some of you anti-feminists
seriously. Why does every program aimed at improving the position of
women have to be taken as a slam on men. TYDTW Day is intended to
encourage girls to pursue careers and show them that they have just as
much a right and ability to pursue the career they are interested in as
boys. It is not some plot to hold boys back. You can't seriously be
arguing that boys might believe that men's careers are more important
that women's careers.
[snip]
>
> Given that more boys than girls drop out of high school, that
> girls' average school grades are higher than boys' (and more girls
> than boys go to college), that boys get in trouble with the law
> at far higher rates than girls, that boys even kill themselves
> at two to four times (depending on age) the rate of girls --
> what *possible excuse* could there be for a "Take Your Daughter"
> day, rather than a "Take Your Children" day?
Because you haven't shown that any of these problems have anything to do
with the goal of TYDTW Day, or would be helped if boys also were
encouraged to believe they had an equal right to pursue a career. (Like
they don't already know this.)
Given your statements, why is it that close to 70% of working women still
work in low-paying female dominated jobs, and 30% of working women are
secretaries? (Midge Wilson, Woman to Woman, Chicago Tribune, 3/26/96)
Why do women on average still make less than men? Why do most women
still make less money than their husbands?
Also, you have not separated out your stats sufficiently for them to be
helpful. For example, I believe that there is a significant difference
in inner-cities between male and female graduation rates, but this is not
really the population TYDTW Day is aimed at. (Since it does not address
the much greater problems faced by both girls and boys in those
circumstances.) Additionally, while girls do much better than boys in
school in the earlier grades, I don't believe this holds true through
high school. Anyway, none of this has anything to do with TYDTW Day,
since it does not negate solutions aimed at boys' problems.
>
>
>Gail Thaler <gth...@cs.com> writes:
>
>> And it's only one day of the year. One day a year for
>> girls to go with their parents to work.
>
>> Please.
>
>
> Special treats for the "nice" girls, punishments for those "bad" boys:
> sounds pretty traditional, doesn't it? Unless, of course, you don't
> think that the boys will interpret being forced to listen to that
> recommended NOW-lecture in school (I'm sure it has a real positive
> view of men and boys) while their classmates go on a fun trip as
> "punishment." (Of course, parents could still take their girls
> to work on a "Take your CHILDREN To Work Day").
How the hell is this a special treats/punishment thing? How does it
give boys the message that they are bad? (Give me quotes/subject matter
from the recommended lecture and some evidence that it is actually used in
many schools if you want to rely on that.) Girls are being encouraged to
look into careers. It's supposed to be educational, not a trip to
DisneyWorld. If you want to encourage boys to pursue options which they may
not believe they have or in which they are underrepresented, feel free.
Maybe men would be more likely to take an active role in
child-rearing and be more likely to get custody of their children (a
common complaint on this newsgroup) if an effort was made to convince
boys (and society) that men can have as important a role in this area as
women.
I for one would certainly not consider such programs aimed at boys
discriminatory.
>___
>
> If it's really your intention that more girls should start thinking
> "career" rather than "some man will take care of me," don't you
> think you'd get farther by challenging the "I'm a mother, now
> pay me!" attitudes (and laws), and the "protect me, I'm a woman!"
> attitudes (and laws), rather than by sponsoring an obviously
> discriminatory "Take Your Daughter to Work" event?
It's not obviously discriminary, since the boys are not being
disadvantaged or deprived of anything they don't have. If you really
want men and women to be treated equally why complain about every effort to
accomplish this simply by changing attitudes -- encouraging girls that they
*should* or at least can think career and become financially
independant, instead of believing that a girl should be more concerned
about finding a man to take care of her and being primarily responsible
for the home and children. If girls focus on career as much as men, there
is less likelihood that they will end up doing the great majority of
child-rearing, and thus get custody in the majority of cases. There is less
likelihood also that they will be able to demand alimony. There is less
likelihood that people will want to use AA to address the disparities
between women and men in the workforce (since they will be lessened). Or is
this not what you want?
Programs like TYDTW Day are aimed at creating equality by changing
attitudes -- those of the girls who may be taught that they don't have as
much ability/right to pursue a career as boys, and that of society which
still believes that men's careers are generally more important than
women's (and v.v. in the home). You'd think people who are so quick to
yell about government programs which "favor women" would prefer that the
inequality which these programs are partially designed to address be
eliminated through informal efforts (such as things like TYDTW Day) before
the programs become necessary. (Unless you think we need do nothing to
address women's inequality in the workplace because this is the natural
state.)
Stephanie
Stephanie Smith
says...
[snip]
>This is why I find it so hard to take some of you anti-feminists
>seriously. Why does every program aimed at improving the position of
>women have to be taken as a slam on men. TYDTW Day is intended to
>encourage girls to pursue careers and show them that they have just as
>much a right and ability to pursue the career they are interested in as
>boys. It is not some plot to hold boys back. You can't seriously be
>arguing that boys might believe that men's careers are more important
>that women's careers.
Obviously I meant "You can't seriously be arguing that boys might believe
that men's careers are *less* important *than* women's careers." :-)
Unfortunately, you could seriously argue what I actually wrote.
Stephanie
rfa...@phoenix.net
>Given your statements, why is it that close to 70% of working women still
>work in low-paying female dominated jobs,
So what. Most men work in low paying =male= dominated jobs.
>and 30% of working women are
>secretaries?
Would you like it better if they were ditch diggers, like the low payed men?
I'll bet many men who work outdoors would rather have a nice, safe, indoor job.
>Why do women on average still make less than men?
Why do many women get to stay at home while hubby works? That's still 60% of
married women over 35 who have college degrees, you know, who get to choose to
do so. (Working Woman Magazine).
>Why do most women
>still make less money than their husbands?
Why is it that well off women almost never marry poor men?
-Roderic Fabian
Joseph Buckley
standings and assumptions.
Stephanie Smith (us01...@interramp.com) wrote:
: In article <1996Mar27.1...@tellab5.tellabs.com>, ch...@tellabs.com
: says...
[snip]
: <irrelevant discussion of race relations and feminism deleted>
: >
: > Perhaps you'd agree to let the boys go as well, so long as
: > they agreed to ride only in the back of the bus? Oh, and
: > once in the workplace, they'd be required to move to the back
: > of any queue so as not to block any girl's view, and they'd be
: > severely chastised or expelled for speaking out-of-turn or loudly,
: > so as to avoid intimidating the girls?
(the setup!)
: This is why I find it so hard to take some of you anti-feminists
: seriously. Why does every program aimed at improving the position of
: women have to be taken as a slam on men. TYDTW Day is intended to
: encourage girls to pursue careers and show them that they have just as
: much a right and ability to pursue the career they are interested in as
: boys. It is not some plot to hold boys back. You can't seriously be
: arguing that boys might believe that men's careers are more important
: that women's careers.
: [snip]
Just one question then. Why are the boys being held back?
: >
: > Given that more boys than girls drop out of high school, that
: > girls' average school grades are higher than boys' (and more girls
: > than boys go to college), that boys get in trouble with the law
: > at far higher rates than girls, that boys even kill themselves
: > at two to four times (depending on age) the rate of girls --
: > what *possible excuse* could there be for a "Take Your Daughter"
: > day, rather than a "Take Your Children" day?
: Because you haven't shown that any of these problems have anything to do
: with the goal of TYDTW Day, or would be helped if boys also were
: encouraged to believe they had an equal right to pursue a career. (Like
: they don't already know this.)
Ok. A personal anecdote or two. The fifth grader that I mentored
last year was a white male. His big goal in life was to drive a
truck for a pototo chip company, just like his dad. To him, his math
homework was "stupid". Sure, I can see why he'd think that, if he
wants to drive a truck for a living.
Twenty five years ago, in my graduating class of 104 students, there
were 20 of us (11 boys, 9 girls) who went to college. The rest became:
farmers, waitresses, assembly line workers, beautians, a carpenter,
a gas station owner, and more than a few housewives.
Tell me. Just who needed some sort of carreer day more, back then when
the only career choices were policeman, fireman and merchant chief?
A few wound up in jail. Want to guess how many of them were female?
Oh yeah, one committed suicide. Want to guess the gender of this one?
I find your assumptions about so-called "male privledges" obnoxious.
: Given your statements, why is it that close to 70% of working women still
: work in low-paying female dominated jobs, and 30% of working women are
: secretaries? (Midge Wilson, Woman to Woman, Chicago Tribune, 3/26/96)
: Why do women on average still make less than men? Why do most women
: still make less money than their husbands?
Why are almost all garbage collectors men? Why do men overwhelmingly
populate the "death jobs"? Why have two thirds of all NEW jobs created
in the past 30 years gone to women (Wash. Times, Mar. 15, 1996, commentary
by H. Erich Heinmann, pg A19 (who is the chief economist for Brimberg &
Co.))? BTW, monst women still make less money than their husbands because
they insist on "marrying up" (Carolyn Jean Fairman) and in 1994, Naomi
Wolfe was going around saying that women control 85% of the nations'
wealth (I assume she was talking about the USA).
[snip]
: >___
: >
: > If it's really your intention that more girls should start thinking
: > "career" rather than "some man will take care of me," don't you
: > think you'd get farther by challenging the "I'm a mother, now
: > pay me!" attitudes (and laws), and the "protect me, I'm a woman!"
: > attitudes (and laws), rather than by sponsoring an obviously
: > discriminatory "Take Your Daughter to Work" event?
: It's not obviously discriminary, since the boys are not being
: disadvantaged or deprived of anything they don't have. If you really
: want men and women to be treated equally why complain about every effort to
: accomplish this simply by changing attitudes -- encouraging girls that they
: *should* or at least can think career and become financially
: independant, instead of believing that a girl should be more concerned
: about finding a man to take care of her and being primarily responsible
: for the home and children. If girls focus on career as much as men, there
: is less likelihood that they will end up doing the great majority of
: child-rearing, and thus get custody in the majority of cases. There is less
: likelihood also that they will be able to demand alimony. There is less
: likelihood that people will want to use AA to address the disparities
: between women and men in the workforce (since they will be lessened). Or is
: this not what you want?
Sigh. This should be snipped, because it's almost irrelevant. And so
is this response about alimony. Did the fact the Marcia Clark (The
prosecuting attorney for the OJ trial) makes twice as much as her
ex. prevent her from demanding an *increase* in the CS her husband
pays? I note that the demand almost cost her custody, but SHEESH!
: Programs like TYDTW Day are aimed at creating equality by changing
: attitudes -- those of the girls who may be taught that they don't have as
: much ability/right to pursue a career as boys, and that of society which
: still believes that men's careers are generally more important than
: women's (and v.v. in the home). You'd think people who are so quick to
: yell about government programs which "favor women" would prefer that the
: inequality which these programs are partially designed to address be
: eliminated through informal efforts (such as things like TYDTW Day) before
: the programs become necessary. (Unless you think we need do nothing to
: address women's inequality in the workplace because this is the natural
: state.)
: Stephanie
But it addresses a problem that most considered solved long ago, and
indeed a problem that may never have even existed but briefly after
WWII. It ignores the very real problems that exist for young boys
alone, then it adds insult to injury when it innundates them with
feminist propaganda.
Joe
Stephanie Smith
[snip]
>>Why do women on average still make less than men?
>
>Why do many women get to stay at home while hubby works? That's still
60% of
>married women over 35 who have college degrees, you know, who get to
choose to
>do so. (Working Woman Magazine).
Ah. But this is in part my point. If we considered women's work outside
the home as important as men's, and realized that men can and should be
just as responsible for child-rearing, things would be more equal for men
as well as women. That's why men stand to gain when girls are encouraged
to pursue careers and see their jobs as equal to those of men.
After all, no reason why men couldn't choose to stay home as well. (Or
to pursue those low-paying "women's" jobs, if they are so desireable.)
>
>>Why do most women
>>still make less money than their husbands?
>
>Why is it that well off women almost never marry poor men?
Give stats. Seems to me people generally marry within their own income
group, probably since that's who they're most likely to meet/have things
in common with. Why do more men prefer to "marry down" to marrying a
woman who makes more than them? There's no real way to blame this on one
sex or the other that I can see.
Stephanie
>-Roderic Fabian
>
>
Stephanie Smith
>
>I wanted to say out of this, but there are too many errors, misunder-
>standings and assumptions.
I think you're misunderstanding my entire point. I was not saying that
women are disadvantaged in all things and that men suffer no disadvantages.
I was addressing the narrow question of TYDYW Day. Most of your response
has nothing to do with that. I just can't see why one day, intended to
encourage girls to pursue careers, should offend men.
We can acknowledge and address a specific problem which happens to
affect women without implicitly saying that no other problems exist.
>Stephanie Smith (us01...@interramp.com) wrote:
>: In article <1996Mar27.1...@tellab5.tellabs.com>,ch...@tellabs.com
>: says...
>[snip]
>: <irrelevant discussion of race relations and feminism deleted>
>: >
>: > Perhaps you'd agree to let the boys go as well, so long as
>: > they agreed to ride only in the back of the bus? Oh, and
>: > once in the workplace, they'd be required to move to the back
>: > of any queue so as not to block any girl's view, and they'd be
>: > severely chastised or expelled for speaking out-of-turn or
loudly,
>: > so as to avoid intimidating the girls?
>
>(the setup!)
>: This is why I find it so hard to take some of you anti-feminists
>: seriously. Why does every program aimed at improving the position of
>: women have to be taken as a slam on men. TYDTW Day is intended to
>: encourage girls to pursue careers and show them that they have just as
>: much a right and ability to pursue the career they are interested in as
>: boys. It is not some plot to hold boys back. You can't seriously be
>: arguing that boys might believe that men's careers are more important
>: that women's careers.
>
>: [snip]
>
>Just one question then. Why are the boys being held back?
Why do *you* think? Again, are you (or any others) seriously arguing that
boys do worse in school (and again I'd like to see specific statistics
somewhat differentiated by race and class) *because* they think women's
careers are more important than men's? Think about it. If that facts
stated are true, and women finish school more qualified on average than men
(more high school grads, more college grads, better grades), why do men end
up (on average) with higher paying jobs? Why are men still advancing at
higher numbers in professions, despite the fact that entering #s are now
equal? Maybe it's because the girls somehow wind up with the idea that
their jobs aren't as important, that they shouldn't pursue certain types of
jobs, that when someone needs to sacrifice career involvement/advancement
to household tasks/children, it's them.
I'm not trying to present this as a "girls have it bad, boys don't"
situation, since I think this phenomenon hurts men as well.
>
>: >
>: > Given that more boys than girls drop out of high school, that
>: > girls' average school grades are higher than boys' (and more
girls
>: > than boys go to college), that boys get in trouble with the law
>: > at far higher rates than girls, that boys even kill themselves
>: > at two to four times (depending on age) the rate of girls --
>: > what *possible excuse* could there be for a "Take Your
Daughter"
>: > day, rather than a "Take Your Children" day?
>
>
>: Because you haven't shown that any of these problems have anything to do
>: with the goal of TYDTW Day, or would be helped if boys also were
>: encouraged to believe they had an equal right to pursue a career. (Like
>: they don't already know this.)
>
>Ok. A personal anecdote or two. The fifth grader that I mentored
>last year was a white male. His big goal in life was to drive a
>truck for a pototo chip company, just like his dad. To him, his math
>homework was "stupid". Sure, I can see why he'd think that, if he
>wants to drive a truck for a living.
What does this have to do with TYDTW Day? Are you claiming his sister
does well in school since she plans to be an engineer? It's not intended
to encourage students to encourage careers they wouldn't have considered
due to their background, or show them how their studies are helpful in the
real world. That's why I don't think it's particularly helpful for
disadvantaged groups (other programs may be, and TYDTW Day doesn't
preclude them). It's extremely limited purpose (and I said initially
that I doubt it really does much, I just don't understand the anger it
provokes) is to encourage girls that their careers are important *too*.
This encouragement is probably somewhat limited to the types of careers
pursued by people in their families/neighborhoods, since this is what
they'll be exposed to.
>Twenty five years ago, in my graduating class of 104 students, there
>were 20 of us (11 boys, 9 girls) who went to college. The rest became:
>farmers, waitresses, assembly line workers, beautians, a carpenter,
>a gas station owner, and more than a few housewives.
>Tell me. Just who needed some sort of carreer day more, back then when
>the only career choices were policeman, fireman and merchant chief?
I don't quite understand what you are trying to say. Who do *you* think?
And again, the point is not so much a "career day" to expose students
to different careers -- most schools do this at some point, usually
more than once (from my experience and what I've heard from others).
It can't do this, since you will be limited to the careers pursued by
people in your community. Instead (once again) it's to give girls the
message that women's careers can be just as important as men's (and don't
have to be limited to the stereotypically "women's" jobs).
>A few wound up in jail. Want to guess how many of them were female?
>Oh yeah, one committed suicide. Want to guess the gender of this one?
Again, absolutely nothing to do with TYDTW Day. If you want to talk about
these problems, fine. Start another thread. I never said that women
uniformly had it worse. I don't believe this. I think societal
attitudes/stereotypes are just as hard on men, just in different ways.
>I find your assumptions about so-called "male privledges" obnoxious.
I don't have such assumptions. Re-read what I've been saying. I don't
think pointing out that girls receive certain ideas about what they should
do with their lives which are different from those boys receive (which
I never *blamed* on men) means that I'm making "assumptions about male
priviledges".
I do think men have some advantages in the work world, since people
tend to assume that careers are more important for men and that they
are merely a hobby or temporary thing for women, and because many men (who
make up a majority of those in power in many careers) still feel more
comfortable working with other men. Assumptions about typical behavior of
men and women still exist as well, which causes some to believe men are
better at particular jobs than women and perceived the same behavior by men
and women differently. I do think this is changing, and again I certainly
don't *blame* men for it -- instead I think it's a product of societal
attitudes (and to some degree men & women's choices). I think the same
societal attitudes hurt men, just in other ways.
I support the goals of TYDTW Day (as well as many other programs not at
issue in this thread) because I just think it will help women (as well as
men) to change the attitudes. Both because they will see more options open
to them and because I believe changing attitude's towards women's careers
will help solve the problems of the wage-differential and the fact that
women's standard of living generally drops greatly after a divorce and that
more women live below the poverty line.
>: Given your statements, why is it that close to 70% of working women
still
>: work in low-paying female dominated jobs, and 30% of working women are
>: secretaries? (Midge Wilson, Woman to Woman, Chicago Tribune, 3/26/96)
>: Why do women on average still make less than men? Why do most women
>: still make less money than their husbands?
>
>Why are almost all garbage collectors men? Why do men overwhelmingly
>populate the "death jobs"? Why have two thirds of all NEW jobs created
>in the past 30 years gone to women (Wash. Times, Mar. 15, 1996, commentary
>by H. Erich Heinmann, pg A19 (who is the chief economist for Brimberg &
>Co.))?
First, the questions weren't meant to be rhetorical. Obviously some men
have low-paying jobs and some "men's" careers seem less than attractive.
No idea about the 2/3s figure, and you'll have to explain a lot more about
how it was determined before it means anything. If you think men have such
horrible jobs, you should be happy if women are encouraged to pursue them
as well. In part, women probably don't take such jobs because they are not
considered appropriate for women, the same reason fewer men become
secretaries and nurses. It just so happens that the "women's" jobs usually
pay less.
>BTW, monst women still make less money than their husbands because
>they insist on "marrying up" (Carolyn Jean Fairman) and in 1994, Naomi
>Wolfe was going around saying that women control 85% of the nations'
>wealth (I assume she was talking about the USA).
Again, you'll have to explain these stats/comments a little more before
they mean anything. I don't think most women insist on "marrying up".
Probably more women do than men do, since it's more acceptable for women,
but seems to me that people generally marry within the same general
background/education level. I do think that the average family tends to
see the husband's career as the more important one, and the woman's the one
which can be sacrified if he gets transfered, they have kids, etc.
Obviously this is not always the case, but it seems to be the general
pattern, and I agree that it's not entirely great for the men either --
puts more pressue on them to be successful at their jobs, they often spend
less time with the kids, etc. (Again, why changing attitudes will
benefit them as well.)
>[snip]
>: >___
>Sigh. This should be snipped, because it's almost irrelevant. And so
>is this response about alimony. Did the fact the Marcia Clark (The
No, *this* was the whole point.
>prosecuting attorney for the OJ trial) makes twice as much as her
>ex. prevent her from demanding an *increase* in the CS her husband
>pays? I note that the demand almost cost her custody, but SHEESH!
No personal knowledge of the case, so I have no opinion on whether it was
fair or not, but since the children (child?) are his too, he should
certainly pay some child support.
However, I will not dispute that men have traditionally been disadvantaged
wrt alimony/CS issues when the woman makes more money. I still believe
that as this become more common, and women are seen as providers, just as
much as men, that men will benefit.
>
>: Programs like TYDTW Day are aimed at creating equality by changing
>: attitudes -- those of the girls who may be taught that they don't have
as
>: much ability/right to pursue a career as boys, and that of society which
>: still believes that men's careers are generally more important than
>: women's (and v.v. in the home). You'd think people who are so quick to
>: yell about government programs which "favor women" would prefer that the
>: inequality which these programs are partially designed to address be
>: eliminated through informal efforts (such as things like TYDTW Day)
before
>: the programs become necessary. (Unless you think we need do nothing to
>: address women's inequality in the workplace because this is the natural
>: state.)
>
>: Stephanie
>
>But it addresses a problem that most considered solved long ago, and
>indeed a problem that may never have even existed but briefly after
>WWII. It ignores the very real problems that exist for young boys
>alone, then it adds insult to injury when it innundates them with
>feminist propaganda.
Yes, it does ignore the "very real problems that exist for young boys
alone" -- like I said, it can't do everything (and probably doesn't
really do much at all). It does not preclude programs aimed at boys'
problems, they are simply irrelevant to this particular discussion.
(But I did say that I would favor such programs.)
I frankly don't believe that boys are insulted with "feminist propaganda"
in most of our schools, but feel free to prove me wrong, maybe it's
changed since I graduated.
However, I have to disagree that the problem TYDTW Day was intended to
address -- that careers are considered to be not as important to women
as to men -- has been solved, or that most consider it to be. (In fact,
since you mentioned WWII, I'll point out that some states justified laws
requiring parents to support their sons until age 21 and daughters to
age 18 on the grounds that higher education was not necessary for women
since they didn't need to pursue careers until they were declared
unconstitutional in the mid-70s, well after WWII.) Granted, that was a
while ago, but from my experience those attitudes are still rather
prevalent.
And again TYDTW Day does not disadvantage boys in any way. If you think
it does, find me a boy who thinks he shouldn't prepare for a career,
since jobs and making money is "women's work", or a man who gave up his
career, or works part-time, or is often forced to interrupt his job to
tare care of the kids, since "that's the way it should be, the man's
place is to take care of the home and family". Now obviously some men
do this, but not because they believe it's the man's place.
Stephanie
>
>Joe
>
Stephanie Smith
>
>jbuc...@csc.com (Joseph Buckley) wrote:
Before getting into the specific discussion below, I just want to
reiterate the point of my original post, which appears to have been
lost. I asked *why* TYDTW Day bothered men, since it does not
*disadvatage* boys. Instead, it's simply a way to address certain issues
which discourage women from pursuing careers as strongly as men in many
cases or which discourage women from pursuing certain careers, that it
seemed a way (although I doubt it's that effective) to address
inequalities which harm men as well as women.
With that out of the way, I agree with much of the post below.
>
>>I wanted to say out of this, but there are too many errors, misunder-
>>standings and assumptions.
>
>Why stay out of it? It comes up every year at about this time --
>
>>Stephanie Smith (us01...@interramp.com) wrote:
>
>>: This is why I find it so hard to take some of you anti-feminists
>>: seriously. Why does every program aimed at improving the position of
>>: women have to be taken as a slam on men. TYDTW Day is intended to
>>: encourage girls to pursue careers and show them that they have just as
>>: much a right and ability to pursue the career they are interested in as
>>: boys. It is not some plot to hold boys back. You can't seriously be
>>: arguing that boys might believe that men's careers are more important
>>: that women's careers.
>
>Let's start by calling a shovel a shovel, shall we? Let's agree that,
>when we are talking about setting up programs for one race, and not
>another, or one sex, and not another, we are deciding in favor of
>discrimination, the Bad "D" word. There, CDA or no, I've said it.
Yes, but I still think that when the problems/attitudes facing people
are different, different programs ought to be used to address them.
For example, many of the career-oriented programs designed for
inner-city students would simply be unnecessary for suburban students,
who might well have other concerns.
>Is discrimination always categorically wrong? Well ... no! It isn't!
>If you go to an emergency room with a broken collarbone, and I go with a
>sprained ankle, the triage nurse (read, "discriminator") dictates that
>you get seen first, regardless of when you arrived. Why? Because your
>problem needs immediate attention. Your problem is -worse-.
Again, I agree. However, since TYDTW Day does not prevent similar
programs aimed at boys' problems, I don't think it's a question of
*worse* in this case, so much as *different*.
>So TYDTWD discriminates. Why? Well, you claim that boys take men's
>careers more seriously than women's careers.
No. It doesn't help that. I claim that *girls* take men's careers more
seriously than women's. I'm not denying that a lot of the results I
mention later are a product of individual decisions, I'm simply
questioning whether those decisions were made due to societal
attitudes about the relative importance of men and women in the work-
place and in the home which are still rather prevelent.
>
>But do they? I've heard from women -and- men, that men often express the
>desire to work at home, and spend time with their children, but that they
>cannot, because they're the primary money-earner in the house. Thus, the
>loss of their income is too great a penalty for the family to pay for a
>man's desire to perform househusband duties, and regardless of what a man
>would -like- to do as a career, he -must- take a job that pays a wage
>that permits him to support more people than just himself, despite its
>difficulty.
This is partially true, but I don't think it's the whole story. *Why*
is the man the primary wage-earner? Why don't women pursue jobs that
make as much as those men pursue. Why, even when both work, do the
wives usually take on the primary responsibility for the kids --
leaving work if there is a daycare problem, sick child, etc. -- which
impacts her advancement compared to a man's whose wife handles all
this?
I have male friends who also say that they would like to have the
freedom that women do to take time of when kids are born, but they
don't -- not because of money, but because if they stayed home with
the kids for a few years, potential future employers would think it
showed a lack of ambition, etc., probably even more than with a
woman in a similar position.
Additionally, men who are not successful in their careers (usually
relating to the amount of money they make) are considered generally
unsucessful much more frequently than similarly situated women, since
careers are not as important to how a woman is judged. OTOH, the
opposite is true wrt home and family -- a woman is judged much more
by her kids and how good a mother she is.
If women (girls) believed it was important for them to take a job
which would allow them to support themselves and others to the same
extent even unmarried men do, it would allow both a lot more freedom
wrt who gets to stay home/continue career, or in how the various
duties are proportioned.
Furthermore, as Joe Buckley points out, a lot of "men's
>work" is far from glamorous (men having a much higher on-the-job death
>rate than women), and as most men well know, women rarely marry a man who
>earns less than his wife.
Similarly, men often don't like to date/marry women who make more than
them. And if the argument is that men take unpleasant jobs because
they *need* the additional money, then they will certainly benefit
from encouraging girls to believe that making money is just as important
for them. Also with at least some of these jobs, women have attempted
to enter the fields, and gotten lots of negative feedback -- that's
men's work, normal women wouldn't want to do that, women can't do that,
etc.
>The result? Men suffer higher rates of stress-related illness: heart
>disease, alcoholism, suicide, and other problems that are often directly
>related to their jobs, and suffer estrangement from the families they
>work to support, as well.
Absolutely no disagreement here. I think we'd all be happier if the
burdens were spread about a little more evenly. Women should have more
of the career burdens (as well as the good parts) without being told
that they are unnatural or bad mothers/wives (and this is often
subconscous/societal), and men should be able to work less and spend
more time doing child-rearing/family-oriented type duties (and
enjoyment) without the negative reactions which often go along with
that.
>
>Seems to me, then, what we need is not, TYDTWD, but Keep Your Son At Home
>Day. Or we can drop the hypocrisy, and just take both boys and girls
>into the workplace, and show them the alternatives, without trying to
>indoctrinate ten-year-olds into gender-politics. But I suppose I'm just
>to simplistic, or to use the 1991 slogan, I "just don't get it."
Well, I have said over and over that I would not opposed programs
aimed at boys. I don't think encouraging girls to see the alternatives
(careers) is indoctrinating them to gender-politics, I think it's
simply realizing the messages which get sent and doing a little bit to
try and counteract them.
What you're missing is that TYDTW Day is not the only way in which
children get shown the workplace/alternatives. It's just one way to
tell girls -- look, you can do this too. Taking them together wouldn't
do anything to counteract the messages they're already being send,
since most workplaces tend to reflect the societal attitudes. It also
wouldn't do anything to address boys' problems.
Now, I don't love TYDTW Day, since I really don't think it does much,
and if it is really so objectionable to many, I'd rather find another
way to address the problems, but I'd like to hear a suggestion, rather
than simply that we shouldn't do anything. Especially, since you
appear to agree with me about the effect of the current attitudes.
>The Ms. Foundation routinely cites statistics on "self-esteem," pointing
>out that girls' self-esteem drops off when they hit their teen-age years.
>But as the dreaded Christina Hoff Sommers found out, when she twisted
>arms to get hold of the not-peer-reviewed advocacy work that produced
>these statistics, -all- kids' self-esteem takes a plunge when they hit
>their teen years, and more than that, Black girls' self-esteem was
>-higher- than white boys'.
I don't see TYDTW Day as having anything to do with a generalized
notion of "self-esteem".
>Perhaps we need Take Your White Daughter to Work Day? I mean, if we're
>justifying discrimination on the basis of self-esteem, let's be honest
>about it, and limit it to those poor daughters who obviously need it most
>... right?
See above.
>Well ... no, not right. The point I make is this: if you're going to
>discriminate, you -must- prove your case -before- you do so. And in this
>situation, with girls achieving higher grades and greater presence in
>college than boys, and with results from these "self-esteem" studies
>being contradictory to the conclusions that the Ms. Foundation promotes,
>the simple fact is, -there's no justification for discrimination in this
>case-. I'm not saying that there is never reason to discriminate;
>instead I'm simply saying that the arguments made by Stephanie or by the
>Ms. Foundation are not strong enough to justify the inherent sexism of
>TYDTWD.
I question your equating the notions of dicrimination (by which
I think you mean simply aiming a program at a specific race/gender)
with disadvantaging. You should be very very careful before ever
instituting a program which disadvantages another group, and definitely
should prove a compelling need for it quite convincingly. However, if
the program helps some and has no effect on others, I don't think
you need to prove your case quite as strongly (although you still
should show a need). However, your own statements demonstrate that
something is going on which causes girls to take their careers less
seriously than boys take theirs (in terms of ability to earn money, etc.)
What I originally asked, and still have received no answer to, is how
does TYDTW Day hurt boys?
>
>I'm intrigued by this exchange:
>
>>: > Given that more boys than girls drop out of high school, that
>>: > girls' average school grades are higher than boys' (and more
girls
>>: > than boys go to college), that boys get in trouble with the law
>>: > at far higher rates than girls, that boys even kill themselves
>>: > at two to four times (depending on age) the rate of girls --
>>: > what *possible excuse* could there be for a "Take Your
Daughter"
>>: > day, rather than a "Take Your Children" day?
>
>>: Because you haven't shown that any of these problems have anything to do
>>: with the goal of TYDTW Day, or would be helped if boys also were
>>: encouraged to believe they had an equal right to pursue a career. (Like
>>: they don't already know this.)
>
>Given that the Ms. Foundation does use these self-esteem advocacy studies
>in attempting to justify TYDTWD, the first writer is correct in assuming
>a linkage. For, if high self-esteem doesn't predict academic or career
>success -- and given that the highest self-esteem levels are found in
>young Black males, the group least likely to graduate from high-school,
>go on to college and professional careers, and the only group in our
>society for whom homicide is the most likely way to die -- what, exactly,
>are the self-esteem numbers all about? And how does Take Your (White)
>Daughter to Work Day fix the problem?
Because I don't think the general self-esteem issues have anything to
do with the specific (narrow) issues addressed by TYDTW Day. Perhaps
Ms. Foundation and I have different reasons why the program is
potentially beneficial, I haven't read any of the official statements
behind the program, simply witnessed it.
>To Stephanie's point: simply saying "TYDTWD helps girls" does not
>justify public schools and corporations supporting discriminatory
>education, any more than saying that "George Wallace's University of
>Alabama helps white students" justified keeping Blacks out of that
>college. If you're going to discriminate, you must prove that it's
>necessary, -before- you do it, else, it's bigotry (or as I sometimes call
>it, with regard to TYDTWD, it's the "boys are icky!" argument).
TYDTW Day does not say anything bad about boys and I really think you're
being paranoid if you think so. The difference with the U. of Alabama
argument is that keeping Blacks out of the university may have helped
whites, but it obviously hurt Blacks, who had less options for
education available to them. Again, there is a difference between
programs specifically aimed and those which disadvantage.
My point was not simply TYDTW Day helps girls, it was TYDTW Day:
1) helps girls; 2) doesn't hurt boys; and 3) would not help boys.
I again will say that I am in favor of programs which would help
address the specific problems suffered by boys, just as I am in
favor of programs which address the specific problems suffered by
low-income students and minorities.
>The fact is, if girls and boys were taken into a workplace, and shown,
>together, women and men working in a professional manner, girls would get
>the message that there's a place for them -- as would boys. By leaving
>the boys in school, on the other hand, while the girls get a "field
>trip," you communicate a singular message: adults sanction privileges
>for girls, that boys cannot share in. That boys of ten don't know about
>"millenia of oppression" isn't their fault, and if they interpret the
>girls' apparent privileges as an unfair advantage given them, the
>resentment that engenders should not be unanticpated.
I disagree with this for two reasons. First, I think that taking the
boys (while it wouldn't bother me that much) would lessen the effect
of the message, since most workplaces reflect societal attitudes
already in terms of the make-up of the office, jobs people do, etc.
The effectiveness of TYDTW Day, if any, is simply in the message that
jobs are important to girls, which is easier to convey if it is a
girl's activity. The fact is that this is not the only exposure that
kids get to the work world, and somehow they are getting the message
that careers are more important for boys. If TYDTW Day was TYCTW Day,
it wouldn't counteract the message already being perceived.
I don't see this as a payback for "millenia of oppression". I don't
believe in rewarding members of a class for harms suffered by other
members of that class. I also said that I would prefer if boys were
given something special to do that day as well (or if it occurred on
a day-off or in the summer). I very seriously doubt, however, that
boys perceive TYDTW Day as an "advantage" given girls. And I also
believe that boys, as well as girls, get the message that careers are
less important to girls and that girls are more suited to the home than
the work world, etc., and to the extent that it might get across the
message that careers are just as important to girls, that this is a
good thing, and in no way punishment.
<deleted (almost all of) completely irrelevant discussion of Marcia Clark>
>If Marcia Clark represents an outstanding woman, a woman to adulate, then
>I will expect to hear that Mother Teresa is taking the Pill, any day now!
I am not a fan of Marcia Clark. In fact, (like most) I believe the
entire conduct of that trial was disgraceful, especially the LA
prosecutor's office, including Clark.
Stephanie.
>
>>Joe
>...................Tom
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> I watch my kids grow up and ridicule the bunch,
> 'Cause when you are eleven, the whole world's out to lunch.
> -- The Who
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
ti...@world.std.com
>Stephanie Smith (us01...@interramp.com) wrote:
> This is why I find it so hard to take some of you anti-feminists
> seriously. Why does every program aimed at improving the position of
> women have to be taken as a slam on men.
Hey! How come when men are being taken from, we hear "Things are tough
all over", and when women (or girls) are being given to, we hear "It's
no skin off your back"? (Illustrative quotes)
We don't forget one as soon as the other is mentioned, you know.
>TYDTW Day is intended to
^^^^^^^^
> encourage girls to
"Intended" is an invitation to substitute alleged goals in place of
facts. And of course it lays the trap where feminists can tell any lie
they please about their intentions and we're not supposed to disbelieve
them because "How could you know?".
Tim
--
Against all forms of sexism -- and feminism is the most prevalent form.
Feminists lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie...
Per
In article <4jigaq$c...@usenet5.interramp.com> Stephanie Smith wrote:
>
>In article <1996Mar27.1...@tellab5.tellabs.com>, ch...@tellabs.com
>says...
>
[snip
> Why does every program aimed at improving the position of
>women have to be taken as a slam on men.
>
Maybe because it's organized by people who perpetually slam men?
>
> TYDTW Day is intended to
>encourage girls to pursue careers and show them that they have just as
>much a right and ability to pursue the career they are interested in as
>boys.
>
If everyone has "just as much right," why stress that right only for one
group? Especially when it goes hand in hand with anti-male discrimination
and affirmative action? Why tell these little girls that their rights have
to be obtained through *special programs and segregation* (which is
precisely what Take Your Daughter to Work Day is?)
Per
In article <4j99ng$l...@alterdial.UU.NET> Gail Thaler wrote:
>Eric,
>[snip]
> WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO PIT BLACK
>WOMEN/WHITE WOMEN/BLACK MEN AGAINST EACH OTHER? WHY?
>
Maybe because feminism has been trying to pit *everybody* against white
males?
And do you object to that?
Rich Soyack - CSD
Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>In article <4jm4io$2...@news.tiac.net>, tre...@tiac.net says...
>>
>>jbuc...@csc.com (Joseph Buckley) wrote:
>
>Before getting into the specific discussion below, I just want to
>reiterate the point of my original post, which appears to have been
>lost. I asked *why* TYDTW Day bothered men, since it does not
>*disadvatage* boys. Instead, it's simply a way to address certain issues
Let's consider this. On "Take your daughters to work day" the
girls get off from school and the boys have to go to school. Why
is this. Why go to such lengths? Why not just take the children
to work. My dad used to take me to work sometimes, but it was
always when I had off from school. He drove a truck and I would
sit in the truck and talk to him. It made me feel special, and it
didn't make anyone feel punished. The boys who have to go to
school while the girls are given a day off to go and have fun do
feel punished. Do you understand that?
Rich Soyack
Stephanie Smith
>>>
>>>jbuc...@csc.com (Joseph Buckley) wrote:
>>
>>Before getting into the specific discussion below, I just want to
>>reiterate the point of my original post, which appears to have been
>>lost. I asked *why* TYDTW Day bothered men, since it does not
>>*disadvatage* boys. Instead, it's simply a way to address certain
issues
>
>girls get off from school and the boys have to go to school. Why
>is this. Why go to such lengths? Why not just take the children
>to work. My dad used to take me to work sometimes, but it was
>always when I had off from school. He drove a truck and I would
>sit in the truck and talk to him. It made me feel special, and it
>didn't make anyone feel punished. The boys who have to go to
>school while the girls are given a day off to go and have fun do
>feel punished. Do you understand that?
>
>Rich Soyack
First, I have said repeatedly that I would prefer that boys be given
something special to do that day as well, or that it be held on a school
holiday or in the summer. Second, I have never heard that actual little
boys feel punished -- my 10 year old cousin has no problem with it --
it's only grown men whom I've heard complaining. If I was given
some evidence that actual little kids were bothered by it (beyond
simply being bothered by having to go to school), I would probably
change my mind. Third, there is a big difference between having a
special activity for some and *disadvantaging* others -- the boys are not
harmed by TYDTW Day.
Stephanie
Stephanie Smith
>
>
>>Stephanie Smith (us01...@interramp.com) wrote:
>> This is why I find it so hard to take some of you anti-feminists
>> women have to be taken as a slam on men.
>
>all over", and when women (or girls) are being given to, we hear "It's
>no skin off your back"? (Illustrative quotes)
>
>We don't forget one as soon as the other is mentioned, you know.
Okey-doke, you tell me exactly when *I* have advocated *taking-from* men.
Hint: my entire point in this thread has been that TYDTW Day does not
take anything away from boys -- in fact, I asked that someone tell me how
it disadvatages boys. If you could explain this to me, I might change my
position. Instead, I think TYDTW Day encourages girls to do what boys
already have been encouraged to do, which, to the extent it changes
attitudes, will ultimately help both men and women. I would be happy to
have boys come along, except I think it would add nothing to the message
boys are already getting (that careers are important for them) and would
do nothing to counteract the message girls are somehow picking up (that
careers are not as important to them).
If you can tell me a less objectionable (to you) way to send this
message, I would be happy to institute that program (or whatever)
instead.
>
>
>>TYDTW Day is intended to
> ^^^^^^^^
>> encourage girls to
>
>"Intended" is an invitation to substitute alleged goals in place of
>facts. And of course it lays the trap where feminists can tell any lie
>they please about their intentions and we're not supposed to disbelieve
>them because "How could you know?".
>
Intentions should not be measured only but what people claim, but also by
the overall effect of the program. If that's what you're saying, I agree.
However, I evaluated the intention behind TYDTW Day based on what I think
it does, not on what anyone said it does. You may think I'm wrong, and
if so explain why, but I *was* evaluating facts, and not intentions. (My
experience with the program has been mostly with girls who come to my
workplace.)
Stephanie
ti...@world.std.com
alienating are still on the other side of puberty.
Feminists, especially female feminists, won't see the implication. They
can't. They are intent on demonizing men. They are intent on loathing
male sexuality. They are intent on pretending that TYDTWD is perfectly
just. They are intent on making the advancement of females the only
issue. They cannot admit just how much they have relied on male
chivalry. And female chauvinists, like any bullies, cannot consider the
feelings of anyone who can't kick their ass, and little boys can't kick
the ass of NOW.
And it's something that pretty much any non-feminist man in the world
could tell them, but feminist leaders are so arrogant they won't ask and
won't be able to countenance it when it's directly told to them.
The boys they're alienating are still on the young side of puberty.
Feminists have forced them to think seriously about gender issues while
they are still too young to have a buffer of chivalry to protect
females.
They will grow up hating femninists, they will grow up hating female
privelege, and many will even grow up hating females. She who sows the
wind will reap the whirlwind.
Stephanie Smith
>> Why does every program aimed at improving the position of
>>women have to be taken as a slam on men.
>>
Maybe the original impetus behind it is -- I'll admit I don't know much
about why it got started -- but the people who generally organize it in
the schools and workplaces have no connection with those people. As I've
seen it occur, it has nothing to do with "slamming men", and is simply
encouragement for girls to pursue careers.
>>
>> TYDTW Day is intended to
>>encourage girls to pursue careers and show them that they have just as
>>much a right and ability to pursue the career they are interested in as
>>boys.
>>
>If everyone has "just as much right," why stress that right only for one
>group? Especially when it goes hand in hand with anti-male
discrimination
>and affirmative action? Why tell these little girls that their rights
have
>to be obtained through *special programs and segregation* (which is
>precisely what Take Your Daughter to Work Day is?)
>
Because: 1) the boys already know that have just as much right as girls
to pursue careers -- there is absolutely no danger that they will feel
otherwise in our society; and 2) girls are somehow getting the message
that it is not as important to them to be able to make money and support
themselves -- this leads to many of the complaints I've seen *from men*.
The point is that somehow kids are getting the message that careers and
earning money are more important for boys, and that you can't counteract
that message simply by bringing both to the workplace (especially since
most workplaces show the effect of our society anyway). If you can think
of a less objectionable method of doing this, please let me know, I
frankly don't think TYDTW Day is all that effective anyway, but the fact
is that counteracting this message is in the interest of both men and
women (based on men that I know who feel obligated to remain in careers
that they hate, and feel it's not appropriate for them to take time off
when kids are born, etc., since that would reflect badly on their them,
and they need to be earning enough to support the kids, etc.).
I don't at all see this program going hand-in-hand with "anti-male
discrimination and affirmative action", in fact I don't like such
programs and think programs like TYDTW Day are a potential way to
eliminate any demand for them by creating inequality by changing
attitudes and differences in the way men and women prepare for and pursue
careers.
I don't think you're telling little girls that their rights have to be
obtained through special programs at all -- I see it more like you're
taking them aside and saying that careers are important for them *too*,
and they should work hard to achieve whatever it is they want --
basically giving them a *message* that boys already receive, not giving
them any aid in achieving their goals. In that way TYDTW Day is a
broader-scaled, one day, less effective type of mentorship program. And,
as I've said over and over, I'd love to do something at the same time for
boys to address the societal attitudes which harm men, but since I think
boys and girls receive different messages, simply doing the same exact
things does nothing.
If you want equality, and don't like "anti-male discrimination like
affirmative action" which I don't, how would you recommend achieving it,
other than programs that emphasize girls that it's important for them to
pursue careers and that certain traditionally male careers are
appropriate for them too, before they make decisions which result in less
success in the workplace, etc.?
Stephanie
Stephanie Smith
says...
Just had to correct a typo -- I no longer appear to be able to
proof-read. :-)
[snip]
>I don't at all see this program going hand-in-hand with "anti-male
>discrimination and affirmative action", in fact I don't like such
>programs and think programs like TYDTW Day are a potential way to
>eliminate any demand for them by creating *equality* by changing
>attitudes and differences in the way men and women prepare for and
pursue
>careers.
>
Obviously, I meant *equality*, not inequality -- but have a field day if
you want. :-)
Stephanie (and please pardon my other typos, I really shouldn't reply
when I'm half asleep)
Shawn Larsen
>>Stephanie Smith (us01...@interramp.com) wrote:
>> This is why I find it so hard to take some of you anti-feminists
>> women have to be taken as a slam on men.
Just out of curiosity, are you the same Stephanie Smith who voted no for
the creation of the group talk.masculism?
Rich Soyack - CSD
Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
<In article <4jncht$8...@nntpa.cb.att.com>, r...@karin.mt.att.com says...
<>
<>In article <4jmvna$j...@usenet4.interramp.com>,
<>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
<>>>
<>>>jbuc...@csc.com (Joseph Buckley) wrote:
<>>
<>>Before getting into the specific discussion below, I just want to
<>>reiterate the point of my original post, which appears to have been
<>>lost. I asked *why* TYDTW Day bothered men, since it does not
<>>*disadvatage* boys. Instead, it's simply a way to address certain
<issues
<>
<>girls get off from school and the boys have to go to school. Why
<>is this. Why go to such lengths? Why not just take the children
<>to work. My dad used to take me to work sometimes, but it was
<>always when I had off from school. He drove a truck and I would
<>sit in the truck and talk to him. It made me feel special, and it
<>didn't make anyone feel punished. The boys who have to go to
<>school while the girls are given a day off to go and have fun do
<>feel punished. Do you understand that?
<>
<>Rich Soyack
<
<First, I have said repeatedly that I would prefer that boys be given
<something special to do that day as well, or that it be held on a school
<holiday or in the summer. Second, I have never heard that actual little
<boys feel punished -- my 10 year old cousin has no problem with it --
<it's only grown men whom I've heard complaining. If I was given
<some evidence that actual little kids were bothered by it (beyond
<simply being bothered by having to go to school), I would probably
<change my mind. Third, there is a big difference between having a
<special activity for some and *disadvantaging* others -- the boys are not
<harmed by TYDTW Day.
<
<Stephanie
<
I'm not sure what you mean by proof, but my son and his friends
complained about it every year that it happened.
Rich Soyack
PS:
Your last point makes me doubt that your mind could be changed on
this subject.
Carolyn Jean Fairman
>Carolyn Jean Fairman (cfai...@leland.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
>
>: change this. That was what I was trying to say. That Per made the
>: first step if indeed filing a grievance is a first step.
>
> Carolyn: I can find little to disagree with in your post, but I
>couldn't really bring myself to let this one slip by. While our friend
>eaf pagan did not say that men ought not to work to change "this" there were
>CAPS LOCK statents to the effect that there was no problem.... to be
>fair, I can see from you post that this is not -your- position, but it
>is pagan's
Yep, I acknowledge that. I think pagan needs to read Per's first
post, as well.
And, thanks for realizing that it isn't my position that there was no
problems or anything.
> The one thing that cannot be allowed in any fight to correct such
>a problem is denial that the problem exists. This can only lead to inaction.
>Which is why I felt compelled to respond here.
Fair enough.
Carolyn Jean Fairman
[snip]
>[...]In fact the same social pressures that encourage women to
>be submissive keep men from talking about harrasment (including me). Men
>were a major part of the women's movement, women should be a pat of the
>men's movement. If nothing else for selfish reasons. i.e. we are not
>going to have 50% female CEO's until 50% of men have primary custody of
>the their children. BTW I would take my kids over the CEO spot any day.
This is interesting. I raised the exact same point, and also from the
POV of women and what women would gain, and, wow, did I get some, er,
feedback. The simple idea is that women "get men" to take care of
their own kids and be primary caregiver (as indeed, I have all along
said he would be), while the women goes out and is the breadwinner.
Oh, one interesting slip, or maybe it was intentional. You talk about
50% of men getting primary **custody**. Do you see men only serving
in this role after a divorce and never withing the context of a
successful marraige? Does the men's movement actually deal with men
as pri ary caregivers within a happy, successful marriage?
I find it worrisome that the men's movement does not address the
pressures of the primary caregiving Dad *in a marriage*, and only
focuses on the Dad taking on this role *after* divorce.
I had used the terms of women getting men involved at that level
because women start out with an emotional head start of carrying and
birthing the baby, breastfeeding and being _expected_ by all of
society not only to be *good* at caregiving but to want to to it and
learn about it and for this to be cool -- for women.
So it would help a lot, I thought, if women were the ones to make the
effort to get the Dads more involved from the get go, since men had
not been given the expectations and confidence and social feedback
that it was cool for them to want to be a primary caregiver, or to
learn about it and all. Granted, reassurance from other men would
then also be key. Recently on misc.kids.pregnancy, a woman posted
that her husband was very unhappy about the pregnancy and worried. I
suggested the book _The Expectant Father_ by Brott and Ash (Brott is
involved in the men's movement) because it tries to deal with
pregnancy from a man's POV. At the same time, the women needs to
*get* the man involved after birth, when all the pressure is for her
to do it and not for him to. I want to say that she needn't worry, it
is expected of men to plan to invest signifigant time and effort to
emotional bonding and learning of caregiving. So far, things have
improved a heck of a lot, but men are not yet beating down the doors
of involved parenhood *in marriage*. It's funny. On misc.kids,
someone asked if the people there though only women could nurture
'properly'. so to speak. Almost everyone said, naw, Dads can do it
all *if* they learn how, just as Moms learn how and from personal
experience of the posters, were were some highly competant men and a
number of primary caregiving Dads (and, I agree fully that those were
primary caregiving Dads. Please note this as I have been accused of
setting up Catch-22s to prevent such things. Not the case at all.).
So, er, are you the CEO or the SAH Dad? Do you agree that women needs
to change their thinking of marrying a man who can support them, as
well as men changing to seeing being a SAH Dad as fulfilling?
Hillel
Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>If you want equality, and don't like "anti-male discrimination like
>affirmative action" which I don't, how would you recommend achieving it,
I suggested several times the following idea:
Affirmative action by income level. Between all candidates with similar
skills, pick the one with lowest (as reported in 1040) income. Since
most feminists believe that women are paid less for the same job,
it will let women a priority without being sexist.
Of course most feminists rejected it because it will eliminate many
real discriminations (fat people, old people, short people, out of
closet gays, poor people, people with Politically Incorrect opinions,
etc.), but women will probably not benefit from it because, actually,
they are not paid less for the *same* work.
What is your opinion?
Angilion
# ma...@leasion.demon.co.uk (Mark Evans) wrote:
#>Gail Thaler (gth...@cs.com) wrote:
#>: Perhaps you guys should try looking feminism up in the dictionary.
#>: Anyone can define an ideology they don't like by changing the meaning of
#>: the word. But then maybe you don't want to know what feminism is about.
#>: Maybe you just want to attack it.
#>
#>Maybe they know full well what it IS about, and that reality
#>might not match the dictionary definition...
#
#So you get to define it anyway you choose, just to bash it? Fine, do I
#get to define "mens rights" as an aggressive pathological
# syndrome that seeks to take away women's rights? Do I get to define
#"masculinity" as male-dominance ideology painfully insecure about women and
#thus seeks to control them.
#
#I don't think so. If you have a problem with NOW or NARAL or whatever,
#why don't you say so, instead of vague "feminism." Or are you just upset
#that your Mommy didn't take you to work?
My dictionary defines feminism as "The advocacy of women's rights". Note
that this in no way includes allowing men any rights whatsoever. Nor does
it exclude doing so. Feminism is solely about females, that is it's name
and purpose. Some feminists may also be concerned about the position
of males in society, indeed probably most are to some degree, but that is
not a necessary part of feminism.
And of course, it might be a good idea to judge feminism by the words and
deeds of feminists and feminist organisations. Why do you have such a
problem with this that you have to resort to insults? Worried about
people basing their views of an ideology on what it does rather than what
that ideology tells them to believe? Do you have such a low opinion of
feminism?
This is my point of disagreement with feminism; it is divisive and exclusive.
The Take Your Daughters To Work Day that you refer to in such a patronising
way is a perfect example of this. It divides humanity in two according to
a person's sex, and vigorously excludes all members of one sex.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A WAR, | Prejudice can play no part in equality |
| IT'S NOT A CASE OF EITHER/OR! | |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Angilion (The Cerebral Aardvark) email: ua...@cr47c.staffs.ac.uk |
| |
| I protest against the excessive censorship of the net by the US Govt |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephanie Smith
says...
>
>
>
>
Stephanie Smith
>
>In article <4jnt0j$l...@usenet6.interramp.com>,
>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
><In article <4jncht$8...@nntpa.cb.att.com>, r...@karin.mt.att.com says...
><>
><>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
><>>In article <4jm4io$2...@news.tiac.net>, tre...@tiac.net says...
><>>>
><>>>jbuc...@csc.com (Joseph Buckley) wrote:
><>>
><>>Before getting into the specific discussion below, I just want to
><>>reiterate the point of my original post, which appears to have been
><>>lost. I asked *why* TYDTW Day bothered men, since it does not
><>>*disadvatage* boys. Instead, it's simply a way to address certain
><issues
><>
It probably could, I really don't feel that strongly about it. I just
wonder (maybe unfairly) how much the critics really mind the supposed
unfairness of the day, and how much they just oppose the goals it
supports. I do think there's a difference between thinking -- oh, they
get to do something fun that I don't, no fair, in the casual way kids
often do, and really feeling that the boys are being punished. The best
solution might be to have the boys do something fun that day too. Sorry
if this sounds a bit disjointed. :-)
Stephanie
Stephanie Smith
>
>In article <4jnurj$l...@usenet6.interramp.com>,
>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>>If you want equality, and don't like "anti-male discrimination like
>>affirmative action" which I don't, how would you recommend achieving
it,
>
>I suggested several times the following idea:
>Affirmative action by income level. Between all candidates with similar
>skills, pick the one with lowest (as reported in 1040) income. Since
>most feminists believe that women are paid less for the same job,
>it will let women a priority without being sexist.
>
>Of course most feminists rejected it because it will eliminate many
>real discriminations (fat people, old people, short people, out of
>closet gays, poor people, people with Politically Incorrect opinions,
>etc.), but women will probably not benefit from it because, actually,
>they are not paid less for the *same* work.
>
>What is your opinion?
Actually this is an idea I've advocated for a couple of years wrt
university admissions, although for some reason I've never really thought
about it for jobs. I can't think of any reason right now why it wouldn't
work well in that context as well, especially since in my job anyway
(anecdotal, but have to have some frame of reference :-)) the biggest
advantage has less to do with sex than with sharing a certain
upper-middle class suburban background and having connections. However,
(please excuse my ignorance) I'm not sure where AA is most common (other
than government jobs/contracts), so I'm not really sure what the effect
would be -- I work at a private firm and we don't use it. But barring
some weird distribution pattern, it sounds like a good idea.
Stephanie
Stephanie Smith
says...
Sorry to follow up my own post, but something I forgot to mention:
Having said all this, while I think income-based AA is likely a good
idea, I don't think it addresses the real problem of women's inequality
in the workplace (nor does AA or any of your "anti-male discrimination").
Instead, I think both women's under-representation as breadwinners and
men's under-representation as child-rearers (which IMO leads to the
problems for both sexes outlined in the TYDTW Day posts by several of the
participants) stems primarily from choices made by individuals rather
than actual discrimination in the workplace.
In fact, the problems women face at my job tend to come from: 1) the lack
of women in leadership positions, since many of the older men feel more
comfortable with other men and prefer to work with them -- something that
will just have to change naturally as they are forced to work with more
women (simply due to the job, no special program) and more women work
their way into leadership positions, which is happening; and 2)
expectations by most of the men, even many of the younger, least "sexist"
ones, that the women take their jobs less seriously and will eventually
stop competing as hard, since they will marry/have kids, etc. (and thus
have less need for mentoring, the best work/experience, etc.). These
men, even the ones who are most sensitive and into their families,
generally have wives who do the primary child-related tasks.
Unfortunately, this stereotype is rooted in truth, both within their
families and wrt the actual actions of many of the women I work with, so
it is hard to work past.
I'm sure some will say that that's just the way men and women are --
these preferences would exist despite societal conditioning, and maybe
that's true to some degree (although I'll need more convincing to
believe it), but I know enough career-oriented women, who do not wish to
take on the primary child-rearing tasks, and many men who say that they
would prefer to spend more time with their family, but simply feel
duty-bound to work the hours required to get ahead. Unfortunately, either
the choices they make earlier in life or the relative guilt they feel
(many men seem to feel more guilty about blowing off work; women for
blowing off their family) seem to prevent them from being able to make
the choices they want.
Oh well, there may be no "program" that could work for this problem, it
may just have to be accomplished on the individual level.
Stephanie
Gail Thaler
>Let's consider this. On "Take your daughters to work day" the
>girls get off from school and the boys have to go to school. Why
>is this. Why go to such lengths? Why not just take the children
>to work. My dad used to take me to work sometimes, but it was
>always when I had off from school. He drove a truck and I would
>sit in the truck and talk to him. It made me feel special, and it
>didn't make anyone feel punished. The boys who have to go to
>school while the girls are given a day off to go and have fun do
>feel punished. Do you understand that?
>
>Rich Soyack
What's the matter Rich? Didn't like going to school? Do you
figure having to learn something is a form of punishment?
Bill Edison
us01...@interramp.com (Stephanie Smith) writes:
.
.In article <4jq9qc$q...@usenet6.interramp.com., us01...@interramp.com
.says...
..
..In article <4jq22p$f...@lear.cs.duke.edu., ga...@lear.cs.duke.edu says...
...
...In article <4jnurj$l...@usenet6.interramp.com.,
...Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com. wrote:
....If you want equality, and don't like "anti-male discrimination like
....affirmative action" which I don't, how would you recommend achieving
..it,
...
...I suggested several times the following idea:
...Affirmative action by income level. Between all candidates with
.similar
...skills, pick the one with lowest (as reported in 1040) income. Since
...most feminists believe that women are paid less for the same job,
...it will let women a priority without being sexist.
...
...Of course most feminists rejected it because it will eliminate many
...real discriminations (fat people, old people, short people, out of
...closet gays, poor people, people with Politically Incorrect opinions,
...etc.), but women will probably not benefit from it because, actually,
...they are not paid less for the *same* work.
...
...What is your opinion?
..
..
..Actually this is an idea I've advocated for a couple of years wrt
..university admissions, although for some reason I've never really
.thought
..about it for jobs. I can't think of any reason right now why it
.wouldn't
..work well in that context as well, especially since in my job anyway
..(anecdotal, but have to have some frame of reference :-)) the biggest
..advantage has less to do with sex than with sharing a certain
..upper-middle class suburban background and having connections. However,
..(please excuse my ignorance) I'm not sure where AA is most common (other
..than government jobs/contracts), so I'm not really sure what the effect
..would be -- I work at a private firm and we don't use it. But barring
..some weird distribution pattern, it sounds like a good idea.
..
.
.Sorry to follow up my own post, but something I forgot to mention:
.
.Having said all this, while I think income-based AA is likely a good
.idea, I don't think it addresses the real problem of women's inequality
.in the workplace (nor does AA or any of your "anti-male discrimination").
Actually- it's not a good idea at all. What you call "the same work"
usually tosses any concept of quality control, merit, motivation or
a sense of urgency about one's job to the wind. It all but does away
with the notion of individuality.
.Instead, I think both women's under-representation as breadwinners and
.men's under-representation as child-rearers (which IMO leads to the
.problems for both sexes outlined in the TYDTW Day posts by several of the
.participants) stems primarily from choices made by individuals rather
.than actual discrimination in the workplace.
I still have yet to hear a substantive argument outlining *how*
"underrepresentation" equates to discrimination. An absurd notion.
.
.In fact, the problems women face at my job tend to come from: 1) the lack
.of women in leadership positions, since many of the older men feel more
.comfortable with other men and prefer to work with them -- something that
.will just have to change naturally as they are forced to work with more
.women (simply due to the job, no special program) and more women work
.their way into leadership positions, which is happening; and 2)
.expectations by most of the men, even many of the younger, least "sexist"
.ones, that the women take their jobs less seriously and will eventually
.stop competing as hard, since they will marry/have kids, etc. (and thus
.have less need for mentoring, the best work/experience, etc.). These
.men, even the ones who are most sensitive and into their families,
.generally have wives who do the primary child-related tasks.
This entire paragraph is based upon subjectivity and has no basis in
fact. And your notion "even those who are most sensitive and into their
families" says it all. Have you seen the recent survey of 23 different
nations that found the majority of people, including women, prefer males
as bosses?? Not a single nation voted otherwise- so what you say about
"changing naturally" just isn't gonna happen. Lastly- how can you
put forth the notion "generally have the wives do the primary
child-related tasks" but then turn around and blame men for being sexist??
Maybe if MEN raised the children, they wouldn't grow up to be such
bigots, eh?
.Unfortunately, this stereotype is rooted in truth, both within their
.families and wrt the actual actions of many of the women I work with, so
.it is hard to work past.
That must be it. Held back by stereotyping. Sheeesh.... I'll send you
a box of tissues.
.
.I'm sure some will say that that's just the way men and women are --
.these preferences would exist despite societal conditioning, and maybe
.that's true to some degree (although I'll need more convincing to
.believe it), but I know enough career-oriented women, who do not wish to
.take on the primary child-rearing tasks, and many men who say that they
.would prefer to spend more time with their family, but simply feel
.duty-bound to work the hours required to get ahead. Unfortunately, either
.the choices they make earlier in life or the relative guilt they feel
.(many men seem to feel more guilty about blowing off work; women for
.blowing off their family) seem to prevent them from being able to make
.the choices they want.
"Get ahead?"
.
.Oh well, there may be no "program" that could work for this problem, it
.may just have to be accomplished on the individual level.
Heaven forbid we should do anything on an individual level.`
Bill Edison
.
.Stephanie
.
Hillel
##Affirmative action by income level. Between all candidates with similar
##skills, pick the one with lowest (as reported in 1040) income. Since
##most feminists believe that women are paid less for the same job,
##it will let women a priority without being sexist.
##Of course most feminists rejected it because it will eliminate many
##real discriminations (fat people, old people, short people, out of
##closet gays, poor people, people with Politically Incorrect opinions,
##etc.), but women will probably not benefit from it because, actually,
##they are not paid less for the *same* work.
In article <4jq9qc$q...@usenet6.interramp.com>,
Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>Actually this is an idea I've advocated for a couple of years wrt
>university admissions,
There is a proposition in the November ballot in California to do just
that in the University of California system, and you can hear the
feminists battle cry against it (especially NOW) all across America.
What does it tell you?
Rich Soyack - CSD
No, but apparently trying to talk to you is.
Rich Soyack
Hillel
Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>Having said all this, while I think income-based AA is likely a good
>idea, I don't think it addresses the real problem of women's inequality
>in the workplace (nor does AA or any of your "anti-male discrimination").
>Instead, I think both women's under-representation as breadwinners and
>men's under-representation as child-rearers (which IMO leads to the
>problems for both sexes outlined in the TYDTW Day posts by several of the
>participants) stems primarily from choices made by individuals rather
>than actual discrimination in the workplace.
But why is that?
What is the social reaction to a man who takes a couple of years off to
take care of a baby, and what is the reaction to a woman who does the same?
The man is "weird," while the woman just does something very natural.
Affirmative action by income level will solve that because the man
who will stay at home will have no income, and so he will be the first
to be hired. (One more reason why feminists hate the idea.)
What all of that boils down to is that if you really want to break
gender roles for women then you have to break down gender roles for
men as well. A movement like feminism, that tries pretty hard to
keep the gender rolls in place when ever it benefits women (divorce
& custody, no choice for men, double standards for sexual harassment,
etc.) is counter-productive for breaking gender roles.
Hillel ga...@cs.duke.edu
"It's odd how feminism changes you -- I no longer believe
in co-education, at least not for the present. I do believe,
obviously, that there should be no schools which are closed
to women. But I do think that there should be schools which
are closed to men." -- Robin Morgan, "Going Too Far," 1977, page 193
Bill Edison
Gail Thaler <gth...@cs.com. writes:
.
.
..Let's consider this. On "Take your daughters to work day" the
..girls get off from school and the boys have to go to school. Why
..is this. Why go to such lengths? Why not just take the children
..to work. My dad used to take me to work sometimes, but it was
..always when I had off from school. He drove a truck and I would
..sit in the truck and talk to him. It made me feel special, and it
..didn't make anyone feel punished. The boys who have to go to
..school while the girls are given a day off to go and have fun do
..feel punished. Do you understand that?
..
..Rich Soyack
.
.What's the matter Rich? Didn't like going to school? Do you
.figure having to learn something is a form of punishment?
.
I agree. Boys are the only ones who learn ANYTHING on
that particular day.
Bill Edison
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Mark Evans
Nor does it exclude feminism being about denying men rights.
Stephanie Smith
>
>##I suggested several times the following idea:
>##Affirmative action by income level. Between all candidates with
similar
>##skills, pick the one with lowest (as reported in 1040) income. Since
>##most feminists believe that women are paid less for the same job,
>##it will let women a priority without being sexist.
>
>##Of course most feminists rejected it because it will eliminate many
>##real discriminations (fat people, old people, short people, out of
>##closet gays, poor people, people with Politically Incorrect opinions,
>##etc.), but women will probably not benefit from it because, actually,
>##they are not paid less for the *same* work.
>
>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>>Actually this is an idea I've advocated for a couple of years wrt
>>university admissions,
>
>There is a proposition in the November ballot in California to do just
>that in the University of California system, and you can hear the
>feminists battle cry against it (especially NOW) all across America.
>
>What does it tell you?
I agree that the majority of feminists, and certainly organized feminists
who have an official position on the issue (like NOW) are pro-affirmative
action, in the same way that most organizations which advocate the
equality of Blacks are pro-affirmative action. The difference is, when
individual Blacks do not support AA, you can't tell them they are white
(although people often do call them Uncle Tom's, etc.), when a feminist
disagrees with the majority on this issue, she is simply told she's not a
feminist.
What you're ignoring is that many people support AA because they believe
it is necessary not to compensate for past wrongs, but to prevent
discrimination which would otherwise occur and ensure equality. Ronald
Dworkin is a proponant of this position, for example. While I may not
agree with it entirely, it allows me to understand how people can both
claim they are pro-equality and pro-AA. As long as their positions on
other issues support this, I don't question their honesty.
On the whole, current feminism is very fragmented and really has no
leaders, so I just go by my own notion that those who are interested in
improving the condition of women are feminists. Within the feminist
movement there are two broad groups -- those who to some degree accept
the stereotypes of gender difference (or have other difference theories)
and tend to play up women's weakness and need for government help, and
those who want equality and fully support ending women's privileges as a
matter of fairness (the draft, differences in criminal treatment of women
and men, women's dominance in wrt childrearing/custody matters). Both
can support AA, for the reason I mentioned above, but the 2nd group is
much more divided about it.
Finally, even if some feminists are against AA, their personal opposition
to it is unlikely to become a focus of any aspects of organized feminism,
simply because while it's a political issue (opposition) it's not a
feminist one, so to the extent individual feminists are anti-AA, they
will not be considered as feminists, but conservatives, or whatever.
Finally (last in my litany of excuses :-)) the fact is that ending AA
does end privileges for some women and some may simply feel that women
are under attack and be caught up in fighting for what they have -- I
don't think this is good, but it is human. (And they might also want to
show support for Blacks, since they are unfairly the ones who bear the
brunt of the anti-AA rhetoric, and Black/feminist relations aren't always
so good.)
I consider myself a feminist because I support women's equality with men
(and thus, necessarily, men's equality with women). The fact is however,
I find the views of some feminists completely aggravating
(MacDworkinites, for example), and may disagree with others on certain
issues or methods. However, since I believe the best way to help women,
over the long run, is to achieve equality, and since the goal of feminism
is to help women, I don't care what other individual feminists think, I
*am* a feminist. Since many may have different ideas on how to help
women (and they may not even be part of any organized feminist group), I
think trying to define feminism as a whole is useless and just likely to
irritate people who disagree. Does that make any sense?
Anyway, I hope the proposition passes, it sounds like a good idea.
Stephanie
Stephanie Smith
>
>In article <4jqi7m$q...@usenet6.interramp.com>,
>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>
>>Having said all this, while I think income-based AA is likely a good
>>idea, I don't think it addresses the real problem of women's inequality
>>in the workplace (nor does AA or any of your "anti-male
discrimination").
>>Instead, I think both women's under-representation as breadwinners and
>>men's under-representation as child-rearers (which IMO leads to the
>>problems for both sexes outlined in the TYDTW Day posts by several of
the
>>participants) stems primarily from choices made by individuals rather
>>than actual discrimination in the workplace.
>
>
>What is the social reaction to a man who takes a couple of years off to
>take care of a baby, and what is the reaction to a woman who does the
same?
>The man is "weird," while the woman just does something very natural.
>Affirmative action by income level will solve that because the man
>who will stay at home will have no income, and so he will be the first
>to be hired. (One more reason why feminists hate the idea.)
I doubt this is why feminists hate the idea, since they are
probably either liberal feminists, who like the idea of men staying home
with the kids, or gender fems, who can't conceive of it. :-)
Actually this is a point that I made in the TYDTW Day thread -- I have
several male friends who are totally envious of women for having the
choice to do this, while they don't think they do (whether they'd
actually do it or not), since it would (in their belief) mess up their
career much worse than it would a woman's.
I don't think income-based AA would solve the problem on the large scale,
however, since not enough employers use it, especially at the high-paying
private jobs where you are most likely to worry about not looking
ambitious enough (or just plain weird).
Also, the impact goes beyond not getting a job again to how you are
perceived at that job (as well as among your acquaintances, relatives,
etc.). In my job (sorry to keep being so anecdotal) this impacts women
who do it negatively somewhat, so they are less likely to advance as
quickly afterwards. While no men have done this yet, my impression is
that the negative impact would probably be even greater, simply due to
people's reactions (just as men have several weeks of paid paternity
leave, but generally only take a couple of days).
Thus, while your proposal would probably help some (and do more than the
current system IMO), I don't think it would do that much.
>
>What all of that boils down to is that if you really want to break
>gender roles for women then you have to break down gender roles for
>men as well. A movement like feminism, that tries pretty hard to
>keep the gender rolls in place when ever it benefits women (divorce
>& custody, no choice for men, double standards for sexual harassment,
>etc.) is counter-productive for breaking gender roles.
>
Completely agree with the first part -- beyond fairness, which does
concern me, to the extent that women try to hang on to their advantages
in the family.child area, they simply cannot achieve equality in others.
I really don't think that feminism is unanimous in trying to keep those
advantages, however. I've been reading lots of child custody related
scholarship lately (due to my participation in the Choice for Men
thread), and feminists are split pretty evenly on these issue -- liberal
feminists pushing for more equality for men.
Also, one thing you have to keep in mind is that a lot of the gender
feminist ideas are successful, not because of the power of the feminist
movement, or the power of the gender fems among women, but because they
are in alliance with conservatives, who buy into the same stereotypes.
This is true for the family/custody law issues, as well as for crime and
pornography. Also, I think part of the problem men have in getting
recogition for harassment and rape are the stereotypes about male
behavior that are enforced by other men more than feminists. I've heard
men joke plenty of times that if they got harassed they'd love it, and
men certainly aren't supposed to show any weakness, especially it the
harasser is a woman. This is IMO a large part of why it's much harder
for men to get attention or sympathy from the powers that be for these
issues, not some plot by feminists.
Stephanie
Stephanie Smith
says...
>..In article <4jq22p$f...@lear.cs.duke.edu., ga...@lear.cs.duke.edu
says...
>...
[snip]
What on earth are you talking about? What did I call "the same work"?
Are you referring to the same series of posts you're replying to?
>
>.Instead, I think both women's under-representation as breadwinners and
>.men's under-representation as child-rearers (which IMO leads to the
>.problems for both sexes outlined in the TYDTW Day posts by several of
the
>.participants) stems primarily from choices made by individuals rather
>.than actual discrimination in the workplace.
>
> I still have yet to hear a substantive argument outlining *how*
> "underrepresentation" equates to discrimination. An absurd notion.
Where did I say that it did -- read the last sentance.
>
>
>.
>.In fact, the problems women face at my job tend to come from: 1) the
lack
>.of women in leadership positions, since many of the older men feel more
>.comfortable with other men and prefer to work with them -- something
that
>.will just have to change naturally as they are forced to work with more
>.women (simply due to the job, no special program) and more women work
>.their way into leadership positions, which is happening; and 2)
>.expectations by most of the men, even many of the younger, least
"sexist"
>.ones, that the women take their jobs less seriously and will eventually
>.stop competing as hard, since they will marry/have kids, etc. (and thus
>.have less need for mentoring, the best work/experience, etc.). These
>.men, even the ones who are most sensitive and into their families,
>.generally have wives who do the primary child-related tasks.
>
> This entire paragraph is based upon subjectivity and has no basis in
> fact.
Yep, never claimed it was anything but anecdotal. Gonna sue me?
And your notion "even those who are most sensitive and into their
> families" says it all.
What does it say?
Have you seen the recent survey of 23 different
> nations that found the majority of people, including women, prefer
males
> as bosses?? Not a single nation voted otherwise- so what you say about
> "changing naturally" just isn't gonna happen.
Why not? Since when do the people bossed have any say over who their
boss is?
Lastly- how can you
> put forth the notion "generally have the wives do the primary
> child-related tasks" but then turn around and blame men for being
sexist??
How is that sexist on my part? I was referring to specific people.
Anyway read more carefully, I said "generally have wives *who do* the
primary child-related tasks". And when have I blamed men for being
sexist?
> Maybe if MEN raised the children, they wouldn't grow up to be such
> bigots, eh?
Well is your mom or your dad at fault for your inability to read and
comprehend?
>
>
>.Unfortunately, this stereotype is rooted in truth, both within their
>.families and wrt the actual actions of many of the women I work with,
so
>.it is hard to work past.
>
> That must be it. Held back by stereotyping. Sheeesh.... I'll send you
> a box of tissues.
Who's crying?
>
>.
>.I'm sure some will say that that's just the way men and women are --
>.these preferences would exist despite societal conditioning, and maybe
>.that's true to some degree (although I'll need more convincing to
>.believe it), but I know enough career-oriented women, who do not wish
to
>.take on the primary child-rearing tasks, and many men who say that they
>.would prefer to spend more time with their family, but simply feel
>.duty-bound to work the hours required to get ahead. Unfortunately,
either
>.the choices they make earlier in life or the relative guilt they feel
>.(many men seem to feel more guilty about blowing off work; women for
>.blowing off their family) seem to prevent them from being able to make
>.the choices they want.
>
> "Get ahead?"
What?
>
>
>.
>.Oh well, there may be no "program" that could work for this problem, it
>.may just have to be accomplished on the individual level.
>
>
> Heaven forbid we should do anything on an individual level.`
We should, but since many of the people with whom I've been discussing
this issue seem to agree that the current system has negative
consequences for both men and women, it would be nice to think of ways to
help change this. If you disagree, try stating a coherent argument which
actually addresses the points to which you are attempting to respond.
>
>
>Bill Edison
>
>.
Stephanie
Bill Edison
.says...
..
..In article <4jqi7m$q...@usenet6.interramp.com.
..us01...@interramp.com (Stephanie Smith) writes:
.
....In article <4jq22p$f...@lear.cs.duke.edu., ga...@lear.cs.duke.edu
.says...
.....
.
.[snip]
.
.....I suggested several times the following idea:
.....Affirmative action by income level. Between all candidates with
...similar
.....skills, pick the one with lowest (as reported in 1040) income. Since
.....most feminists believe that women are paid less for the same job,
.....it will let women a priority without being sexist.
.....
.....Of course most feminists rejected it because it will eliminate many
.....real discriminations (fat people, old people, short people, out of
.....closet gays, poor people, people with Politically Incorrect opinions,
.....etc.), but women will probably not benefit from it because, actually,
.....they are not paid less for the *same* work.
.....
.....What is your opinion?
....
....
....Actually this is an idea I've advocated for a couple of years wrt
....university admissions, although for some reason I've never really
...thought
....about it for jobs. I can't think of any reason right now why it
...wouldn't
....work well in that context as well, especially since in my job anyway
....(anecdotal, but have to have some frame of reference :-)) the biggest
....advantage has less to do with sex than with sharing a certain
....upper-middle class suburban background and having connections.
.However,
....(please excuse my ignorance) I'm not sure where AA is most common
.(other
....than government jobs/contracts), so I'm not really sure what the
.effect
....would be -- I work at a private firm and we don't use it. But barring
....some weird distribution pattern, it sounds like a good idea.
....
...
...Sorry to follow up my own post, but something I forgot to mention:
...
...Having said all this, while I think income-based AA is likely a good
...idea, I don't think it addresses the real problem of women's inequality
...in the workplace (nor does AA or any of your "anti-male
.discrimination").
..
.. Actually- it's not a good idea at all. What you call "the same work"
.. usually tosses any concept of quality control, merit, motivation or
.. a sense of urgency about one's job to the wind. It all but does away
.. with the notion of individuality.
.
.What on earth are you talking about? What did I call "the same work"?
.Are you referring to the same series of posts you're replying to?
You said "I don't think it addresses the real problem of women's
inequality in the workplace." Does that refer to some
"situation" *other than* unequal pay for similar work?
If not, then why include it?
.
..
...Instead, I think both women's under-representation as breadwinners and
...men's under-representation as child-rearers (which IMO leads to the
...problems for both sexes outlined in the TYDTW Day posts by several of
.the
...participants) stems primarily from choices made by individuals rather
...than actual discrimination in the workplace.
..
.. I still have yet to hear a substantive argument outlining *how*
.. "underrepresentation" equates to discrimination. An absurd notion.
.
.
.Where did I say that it did -- read the last sentance.
-The same place I accused you of saying it- point it out.
.
..
..
...
...In fact, the problems women face at my job tend to come from: 1) the
.lack
...of women in leadership positions, since many of the older men feel more
...comfortable with other men and prefer to work with them -- something
.that
...will just have to change naturally as they are forced to work with more
...women (simply due to the job, no special program) and more women work
...their way into leadership positions, which is happening; and 2)
...expectations by most of the men, even many of the younger, least
."sexist"
...ones, that the women take their jobs less seriously and will eventually
...stop competing as hard, since they will marry/have kids, etc. (and thus
...have less need for mentoring, the best work/experience, etc.). These
...men, even the ones who are most sensitive and into their families,
...generally have wives who do the primary child-related tasks.
..
.. This entire paragraph is based upon subjectivity and has no basis in
.. fact.
.
.Yep, never claimed it was anything but anecdotal. Gonna sue me?
Nope- stay right where you are. You're becoming quite a help.
.
.And your notion "even those who are most sensitive and into their
.. families" says it all.
.
.
.What does it say?
It reinforces the perception that the "oppression" which feminists seem
to constatntly whine about, will be perpetrated at greater levelsby them.
.
.
.Have you seen the recent survey of 23 different
.. nations that found the majority of people, including women, prefer
.males
.. as bosses?? Not a single nation voted otherwise- so what you say about
.. "changing naturally" just isn't gonna happen.
.
.Why not? Since when do the people bossed have any say over who their
.boss is?
.
Since the invention of something called "the interview". Noone forces
anyone to work anywhere.
.Lastly- how can you
.. put forth the notion "generally have the wives do the primary
.. child-related tasks" but then turn around and blame men for being
.sexist??
.
.How is that sexist on my part? I was referring to specific people.
.Anyway read more carefully, I said "generally have wives *who do* the
.primary child-related tasks". And when have I blamed men for being
.sexist?
Good attempt at a dodge. Why'd you preface it by "even the ones who
are most sensitive"? - relegating all others as "non sensitive".
Care to offer further unsibstantiated generalizations? Of course
any woman who selects an "insensitive" spouse has obviously been
duped, right?
.
.
.. Maybe if MEN raised the children, they wouldn't grow up to be such
.. bigots, eh?
.
.Well is your mom or your dad at fault for your inability to read and
.comprehend?
More subjective stuff. I'd suggest before you start bashing other people
for their ability to "read and comprehend", you at least learn the correct
way to spellthe word "sentence".
Back to the subject...
What I'm comprehending here is a gaggle of "dodging" attempts used
commonly by liberal feminists. They usually consist of "Well I really
meant<this>", a distortion of what they wrote, a clouding of the issue,
or repeating their own words out of context.
..
...Unfortunately, this stereotype is rooted in truth, both within their
...families and wrt the actual actions of many of the women I work with,
.so
...it is hard to work past.
Can you elaborate on this? Or is it just another subjective blur?
..
.. That must be it. Held back by stereotyping. Sheeesh.... I'll send you
.. a box of tissues.
.
.Who's crying?
"It is hard to work past"- Whining to pine someone else's plight I
suppose.
Ever think of trying to support you assertions with facts?
.
..
...
...I'm sure some will say that that's just the way men and women are --
...these preferences would exist despite societal conditioning, and maybe
...that's true to some degree (although I'll need more convincing to
...believe it), but I know enough career-oriented women, who do not wish
.to
...take on the primary child-rearing tasks, and many men who say that they
...would prefer to spend more time with their family, but simply feel
...duty-bound to work the hours required to get ahead. Unfortunately,
.either
...the choices they make earlier in life or the relative guilt they feel
...(many men seem to feel more guilty about blowing off work; women for
...blowing off their family) seem to prevent them from being able to make
...the choices they want.
..
.. "Get ahead?"
.
.What?
.
..
..
...
...Oh well, there may be no "program" that could work for this problem, it
...may just have to be accomplished on the individual level.
..
..
.. Heaven forbid we should do anything on an individual level.`
.
.We should, but since many of the people with whom I've been discussing
.this issue seem to agree that the current system has negative
.consequences for both men and women, it would be nice to think of ways to
.help change this. If you disagree, try stating a coherent argument which
.actually addresses the points to which you are attempting to respond.
Why not try deviating from the usual subjective stuff and offering some
fact-based solutions?Okok..forget the "some"- how 'bout just one? Is
that an unreasonable request?
Bill Edison
.
.
..
..
..Bill Edison
..
...
.
.
.Stephanie
.
.
Hillel
Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>In article <4js3e1$g...@lear.cs.duke.edu>, ga...@lear.cs.duke.edu says...
>>What is the social reaction to a man who takes a couple of years off to
>>take care of a baby, and what is the reaction to a woman who does the
>>same?
>>The man is "weird," while the woman just does something very natural.
>>Affirmative action by income level will solve that because the man
>>who will stay at home will have no income, and so he will be the first
>>to be hired. (One more reason why feminists hate the idea.)
>I doubt this is why feminists hate the idea, since they are
>probably either liberal feminists, who like the idea of men staying home
>with the kids,
No, they like saying "men have this option." It is not that they are
anti-men as much as they don't care about men. They don't want to see
a large number of men take time off, and then go back to work in the
same positions as before and competing against hard working women.
>or gender fems, who can't conceive of it. :-)
Do you think that they want to see anything that may contradict
their prejudices?
>Actually this is a point that I made in the TYDTW Day thread -- I have
>several male friends who are totally envious of women for having the
>choice to do this, while they don't think they do (whether they'd
>actually do it or not), since it would (in their belief) mess up their
>career much worse than it would a woman's.
Agree.
>I don't think income-based AA would solve the problem on the large scale,
>however, since not enough employers use it, especially at the high-paying
>private jobs where you are most likely to worry about not looking
>ambitious enough (or just plain weird).
*Most* big companies that work for the government must have affirmative
action today. Since the government budget is so large, almost every
large company does business with the government because it can't ignore
the richest consumer around. That's why so many feminists are not willing
to give up their affirmative action. It is *useful* for them. And they
certainly don't want to see men in large companies with such an option.
>Also, the impact goes beyond not getting a job again to how you are
>perceived at that job (as well as among your acquaintances, relatives,
>etc.). In my job (sorry to keep being so anecdotal) this impacts women
>who do it negatively somewhat, so they are less likely to advance as
>quickly afterwards. While no men have done this yet, my impression is
>that the negative impact would probably be even greater, simply due to
>people's reactions (just as men have several weeks of paid paternity
>leave, but generally only take a couple of days).
That's obvious.
>Thus, while your proposal would probably help some (and do more than the
>current system IMO), I don't think it would do that much.
Don't be so sure. Quite a few men are "burned out," and they think
(rightly or wrongly) that they have no choice.
>>What all of that boils down to is that if you really want to break
>>gender roles for women then you have to break down gender roles for
>>men as well. A movement like feminism, that tries pretty hard to
>>keep the gender rolls in place when ever it benefits women (divorce
>>& custody, no choice for men, double standards for sexual harassment,
>>etc.) is counter-productive for breaking gender roles.
>Completely agree with the first part -- beyond fairness, which does
>concern me, to the extent that women try to hang on to their advantages
>in the family.child area, they simply cannot achieve equality in others.
>I really don't think that feminism is unanimous in trying to keep those
>advantages, however.
Ha?
Just read all NOW claims when the debate about ERA was going on.
They said, loud and clear, that equal rights does not mean that men will
have any chance for custody. They also fight against joint custody. E.g.
"A NOW LDEF staff attorney has been appointed to the American Bar
Association Custody Executive Committee. From that vantage point, we
successfully opposed a proposed A.B.A. model statute that would permit
judges to impose joint custody over a parent's opposition."
-- A NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, November 16, 1988
Custody and support became a cash cow for quite a few women, I don't
think that they have intention to give up on that.
>I've been reading lots of child custody related
>scholarship lately (due to my participation in the Choice for Men
>thread), and feminists are split pretty evenly on these issue -- liberal
>feminists pushing for more equality for men.
They want laws that will look more fair, but will still give men sole
custody only in 1% of the cases. It is the old liberal approach that
equality is great, but not in *my* backyard.
>Also, one thing you have to keep in mind is that a lot of the gender
>feminist ideas are successful, not because of the power of the feminist
>movement, or the power of the gender fems among women, but because they
>are in alliance with conservatives, who buy into the same stereotypes.
The gender feminists get elected in liberal states, you know.
>This is true for the family/custody law issues, as well as for crime and
>pornography.
The first Dworkin & MacKinnon anti-porno ordinance was passed in
Minneapolis, a pretty liberal city. (Fortunately, the mayor vetoed it.)
Speech codes are enforced in liberal universities. The men's custody
percentage went down in California in the same time that feminism went
up. It makes you think that it is all those bad conservatives, IMO
the story is different. The gender feminists adopted from traditionalism
every negative myth about men, while rejecting negative myths about women.
The result has no internal logic, but is very popular between feminists.
>Also, I think part of the problem men have in getting
>recogition for harassment and rape are the stereotypes about male
>behavior that are enforced by other men more than feminists.
And who pushed the laws and regulations that make it so much easier
for a woman to claim harassment?
>I've heard
>men joke plenty of times that if they got harassed they'd love it, and
>men certainly aren't supposed to show any weakness, especially it the
>harasser is a woman.
Once upon a time the boss of my boss was a woman who used the word
"fuck," on a regular basis. (About 20 times when she talked for an hour.)
Once one of the men said after she talked "if I had said fuck so often
then it would be sexual harassment," and the rest of the men (about
ten of us around him) agreed.
That's my reality.
>This is IMO a large part of why it's much harder
>for men to get attention or sympathy from the powers that be for these
>issues, not some plot by feminists.
So, if researchers find out that there are about the same number of
battered husbands and battered wives, and the state gives money only
to battered women shelters, it has nothing to do with feminism.
Do you really try to say that?
(I hope not.)
Hillel ga...@cs.duke.edu
And let's put one lie to rest for all time: the lie that men are oppressed,
too, by sexism-the lie that there can be such a thing as "men's liberation
groups." -- Robin Morgan
Mcdwcimsa
Like it's fear hyping predecessor 'McCarthyism' (the feminism of the
50s), there must be a central theme to justify any lies, disinformation,
misrepresentation and other fallacies falling under the general heading of
"The ends justify the means". (For Feminazis the 'ends' are acceptance of
their anti masculine propaganda as Holy Writ, and the silencing of
Heretics who might dare to point out the sexist hypocrisy inherent in
their tirades)
To this end the Subjects of "Rape & Violence Against Womyn" serve the same
basic purpose as did the "Red Menace" in the 50s, They are the universal
justification for any and all hysterical rants used by such as NOW and
company to scream to the world just who the 'Evil Ones' truly are (Non
Feminist Males). Like McCarthyism's use of the Red Menace, the use of
Rape is based on certain facts which all can agree on, the real crime of
Rape (of both men & women) is one such undeniable fact ( so too are false
accusations of rape, soon to be a seperate post in a newsgroup near you).
Like McCarthyism, the truth of the underlying facts are then used to build
a house of cards based on the presumption that any criticism of weaknesses
in logic, reasoning or linkage may be turned back on the critic by
accusing them of being a:
( Commie Sympathizer, Pinko, Fellow Traveler.....Rapists, Brutal Pig ,
Patriarchal Oppressor...) who really doesn't care about the Red Menace /
Rape..... It is as old a tactic as any demagogue wrapping themselves in
the flag and denouncing their critics as attacking the flag itself.
Such as NOW and company have a special hatred for the likes of Warren
Farrell and Christina Hoff Sommers, Authors who know their work will be
attacked for the 'debunking' it performs, and who are thus exceedingly
careful about the verifiability of their source material. Feminazis
instead prefer Politically Correct Propaganda developed by those in
Academia / Government / Media who share their agenda (or at least pander
to it in fear of their jobs) and help 'massage' reports to defend the
conclusions demanded at the outset. ( Anyone really think that the
"Commission on the Glass Ceiling" was going to come back with a report
saying it doesn't exist and the money spent on their salaries was a waste
of tax dollars?) This is an all to often overlooked factor in evaluating
information central to promoting feminazi bigotry, the Fact that it Not
Only Pays Well, But Advances Hatred Against Men in an Innocuous Guise.
It is far more palatable for bureaucrats ( who generally have the spine
of a slinky) to be mau maued by groups claiming to be some sort of womyn
against rape, than to swallow such raw tripe from a more accurately
described group, such as lesbians against men. Such misnomers also help
promote the receipt of tax funding for professional victims, who Need A
Constant Atmosphere of Crisis relating to Rape to Justify their Entire
Agenda, which is far more Focused on Misandry than any real crime (like
the pentagon needed the Soviets to justify their expenditures on $400
hammers), and who generate false and fabricated statistics (or those which
deliberately ignore information contrary to promoting their agenda) to
promote income and growth in their own power structures. This is, IMHO, a
fair picture of the majority of the feminist 'victimization industry' in
America, Trashing Men for Fun, Power and Profit (with tax dollars supplied
by those same men)
I think it therefore behooves those of us interested in True Equality
for the Disposable Male Minority, to start asserting some greater voice
in the debate over a system that treats us as testosterone poisoned
villans and yet makes us pay for choices made by others against our will.
More to Follow.
Remember, Big Sister IS Watching, and Shye is NOT Amused
McD
Eric V Conrad
Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>This is why I find it so hard to take some of you anti-feminists
>seriously. Why does every program aimed at improving the position of
>much a right and ability to pursue the career they are interested in as
>arguing that boys might believe that men's careers are more important
>that women's careers.
What the boys "might believe" is irrelevant. At least in a public school,
TYDTW to work day is
(1) Sexual discrimination against boys.
(2) Public establishment of religion.
Both are violations of the 14th Amendment. Since NOW supports TYDTW
day in public schools, it follows that NOW favors discrimination against
boys.
>> Given that more boys than girls drop out of high school, that
>> girls' average school grades are higher than boys' (and more girls
>> than boys go to college), that boys get in trouble with the law
>> at far higher rates than girls, that boys even kill themselves
>> at two to four times (depending on age) the rate of girls --
>> what *possible excuse* could there be for a "Take Your Daughter"
>> day, rather than a "Take Your Children" day?
>
>
>Because you haven't shown that any of these problems have anything to do
>with the goal of TYDTW Day, or would be helped if boys also were
>encouraged to believe they had an equal right to pursue a career. (Like
>they don't already know this.)
And just why should daughters not believe they don't have an equal
right to pursue a career?
Of course, no matter how noble and lofty you think the goals of
TYDTW Day, the fact is that it discriminates against boys. It
is a violation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Since NOW (a self-described feminist organization) promotes TYDTW
Day in public schools (along with a man-bashing teaching package
for the boys in school), it follows that NOW supports discrimination
by law against boys.
>Given your statements, why is it that close to 70% of working women still
>work in low-paying female dominated jobs, and 30% of working women are
>secretaries? (Midge Wilson, Woman to Woman, Chicago Tribune, 3/26/96)
>Why do women on average still make less than men? Why do most women
>still make less money than their husbands?
This does not support your contention that women are not aware of their
right to pursue a career.
Nor does it take away the fact that TYDTW Day discriminates against
boys. As NOW supports TYDTW Day celebration in the public schools,
NOW supports discrimination against boys.
>Also, you have not separated out your stats sufficiently for them to be
>helpful. For example, I believe that there is a significant difference
>in inner-cities between male and female graduation rates, but this is not
>really the population TYDTW Day is aimed at. (Since it does not address
>the much greater problems faced by both girls and boys in those
>circumstances.)
Oh. So NOW we have TYDTWEITIC Day (Take Your Daughter To Work Except
In The Inner Cities Day).
> Additionally, while girls do much better than boys in
>school in the earlier grades, I don't believe this holds true through
>high school.
Only if you neglect dropout rates.
> . Anyway, none of this has anything to do with TYDTW Day,
True. TYDTW Day doesn't have much to do with anything except
discrimination against boys in school.
>since it does not negate solutions aimed at boys' problems.
No connection to the previous clause.
>How the hell is this a special treats/punishment thing?
(1) The girls get an exemption from attending school on a day that the boys
don't.
I'd call that a special treat for the girls.
(2) With the high number of absences, all material covered in class will
either be time-wasters or the boys will be forced to sit through a second
lecture going over the same material.
I'd call that punishment for the boys.
> How does it
>give boys the message that they are bad?
Either way the boys get punished.
> (Give me quotes/subject matter
>from the recommended lecture and some evidence that it is actually used in
>many schools if you want to rely on that.)
Don't need to rely on that.
> Girls are being encouraged to
>look into careers. It's supposed to be educational, not a trip to
>DisneyWorld. If you want to encourage boys to pursue options which they may
>not believe they have or in which they are underrepresented, feel free.
Why do you feel a need to have TYDTW Day on a day when school is in
session? Why not during the summer?
>Maybe men would be more likely to take an active role in
>child-rearing and be more likely to get custody of their children (a
>common complaint on this newsgroup) if an effort was made to convince
>boys (and society) that men can have as important a role in this area as
>women.
Maybe. But it sounds pretty far-fetched to me.
>I for one would certainly not consider such programs aimed at boys
>discriminatory.
If they were done under the auspices of the public schools and not
available to girls, then they would be discriminatory.
>It's not obviously discriminary, since the boys are not being
>disadvantaged or deprived of anything they don't have.
The girls get a day to play hooky. The boys don't. That's obvious
discrimination.
> If you really
>want men and women to be treated equally why complain about every effort to
>accomplish this simply by changing attitudes -- <snip>
If you really want men and women to be treated equally, why do
you promote unequal treatment of boys and girls.
>Programs like TYDTW Day are aimed at creating equality by changing
>attitudes -- <snip>
By preaching equality but practicing inequality.
> You'd think people who are so quick to
>yell about government programs which "favor women" would prefer that the
>inequality which these programs are partially designed to address be
>eliminated through informal efforts (such as things like TYDTW Day) before
^^^^^^^^
>the programs become necessary.
Informal efforts would be during the summer when school is out of session.
TYTDW is formal discrimination.
> (Unless you think we need do nothing to
>address women's inequality in the workplace because this is the natural
>state.)
No. I think it suffices to deal with sexual discrimination in the
workplace by legal means.
Eric
--
----
Feminist Folklore 101 -- Annual deaths in the U.S. due to anorexia...
150,000 women -- Gloria Steinem, The Revolution from Within
100 people -- National Center for Health Statistics
Eric V Conrad
Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>In article <4jncht$8...@nntpa.cb.att.com>, r...@karin.mt.att.com says...
>>
>>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>First, I have said repeatedly that I would prefer that boys be given
>something special to do that day as well, or that it be held on a school
>holiday or in the summer.
I have no objection to it being done in the summer when school is out
of session. I have a problem with a special school holiday -- public
establishment of religion.
> Second, I have never heard that actual little
>boys feel punished -- my 10 year old cousin has no problem with it --
>it's only grown men whom I've heard complaining.
Among other things, it's illegal. But your 10 year old cousin
probably doesn't see the 14th amendment as a big deal either.
> If I was given
>some evidence that actual little kids were bothered by it (beyond
>simply being bothered by having to go to school), I would probably
>change my mind. Third, there is a big difference between having a
>special activity for some and *disadvantaging* others -- the boys are not
>harmed by TYDTW Day.
They are discriminated against (that should be enough), and for no
good reason.
Stephanie Smith
>
>In article <4jt06p$7...@usenet6.interramp.com>,
>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>>In article <4js3e1$g...@lear.cs.duke.edu>, ga...@lear.cs.duke.edu says...
>
>>>take care of a baby, and what is the reaction to a woman who does the
>>>same?
>>>The man is "weird," while the woman just does something very natural.
>>>Affirmative action by income level will solve that because the man
>>>who will stay at home will have no income, and so he will be the first
>>>to be hired. (One more reason why feminists hate the idea.)
>
>>I doubt this is why feminists hate the idea, since they are
>>probably either liberal feminists, who like the idea of men staying home
>>with the kids,
>
>No, they like saying "men have this option." It is not that they are
>anti-men as much as they don't care about men. They don't want to see
>a large number of men take time off, and then go back to work in the
>same positions as before and competing against hard working women.
I can't agree with you here, simply because I would love it if more men
stayed home with the kids. It'd make my life easier, because there would
be less of an assumption that women would be the ones to eventually
quit/take their advancement less seriously, etc. Plus, I don't want to
be the one to stay home (or to take on the primary responsibility),
assuming I eventually have kids. :-) So there's a self-interest involved on
the part of at least some feminists.
>
>>or gender fems, who can't conceive of it. :-)
>
>Do you think that they want to see anything that may contradict
>their prejudices?
No. Many don't. I had the misfortune to be at a viewing of a supposedly
pornographic video which MacKinnon was trying to prevent from being shown
in the Michigan Union (student union at U of M). Several men were
present at the viewing. Afterwards, MacKinnon explained that the effect
of the video would be to cause the male students to run around raping and
pillaging and thus it was important to keep it from being shown (as if
the average male undergrad has never been exposed to pornography and
would be so deeply affected by a video in the student union anyway).
Anyhow, a few of the men said that they did not feel like raping anyone
(or anything at all similar) despite having just seen the video, and
MacKinnon totally discounted their own feelings and explained to everyone
else why they were wrong. Totally psycho!
>
>>Actually this is a point that I made in the TYDTW Day thread -- I have
>>several male friends who are totally envious of women for having the
>>choice to do this, while they don't think they do (whether they'd
>>actually do it or not), since it would (in their belief) mess up their
>>career much worse than it would a woman's.
>
>Agree.
>
>>I don't think income-based AA would solve the problem on the large scale,
>>however, since not enough employers use it, especially at the high-paying
>>private jobs where you are most likely to worry about not looking
>>ambitious enough (or just plain weird).
>
>*Most* big companies that work for the government must have affirmative
>action today. Since the government budget is so large, almost every
>large company does business with the government because it can't ignore
>the richest consumer around. That's why so many feminists are not willing
>to give up their affirmative action. It is *useful* for them. And they
>certainly don't want to see men in large companies with such an option.
Then it may be a lot more effective than I thought. I told you I didn't
know much about employment AA. :-)
>
>>Also, the impact goes beyond not getting a job again to how you are
>>perceived at that job (as well as among your acquaintances, relatives,
>>etc.). In my job (sorry to keep being so anecdotal) this impacts women
>>who do it negatively somewhat, so they are less likely to advance as
>>quickly afterwards. While no men have done this yet, my impression is
>>that the negative impact would probably be even greater, simply due to
>>people's reactions (just as men have several weeks of paid paternity
>>leave, but generally only take a couple of days).
>
>That's obvious.
>
>>Thus, while your proposal would probably help some (and do more than the
>>current system IMO), I don't think it would do that much.
>
>Don't be so sure. Quite a few men are "burned out," and they think
>(rightly or wrongly) that they have no choice.
Yeah, and maybe my friends will be more at that point by the time they
have kids, but right now most of them are still somewhat caught up in
worrying about being "successful" at the expense of a lot of their
happiness. The problem is, I really think your job success has a lot to
do with how men, in particular, are perceived, but that might be my
field/acquaintances more than the whole world.
>>>What all of that boils down to is that if you really want to break
>>>gender roles for women then you have to break down gender roles for
>>>men as well. A movement like feminism, that tries pretty hard to
>>>keep the gender rolls in place when ever it benefits women (divorce
>>>& custody, no choice for men, double standards for sexual harassment,
>>>etc.) is counter-productive for breaking gender roles.
>
>>Completely agree with the first part -- beyond fairness, which does
>>concern me, to the extent that women try to hang on to their advantages
>>in the family.child area, they simply cannot achieve equality in others.
>>I really don't think that feminism is unanimous in trying to keep those
>>advantages, however.
>
>Ha?
They have to realize they can't keep both -- I mean in practice it's just
impossible. Actually, this is why I think while you may have a point
about the academic feminists, real women who consider themselves
feminists (like my friends) are much more interested in equality.
>Just read all NOW claims when the debate about ERA was going on.
>They said, loud and clear, that equal rights does not mean that men will
>have any chance for custody. They also fight against joint custody. E.g.
> "A NOW LDEF staff attorney has been appointed to the American Bar
>Association Custody Executive Committee. From that vantage point, we
>successfully opposed a proposed A.B.A. model statute that would permit
>judges to impose joint custody over a parent's opposition."
> -- A NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, November 16, 1988
Well part of that was to try and mollify the Schaffly (sp.) effect -- you
know, getting everyone all afraid about how it would harm women and get rid
of all traditional social roles. And I don't think NOW is currently
representative of the majority of non-activist feminists (nor are the
academic feminists). But you are right that there's clearly an attempt to
appeal to both the women who want equality and those who want to ensure the
traditional privileges/get attention to women's problems. This split has
existed since the very beginning of the US women's movement, and it is
impossible to support both positions without losing sight of any kind of
coherent philosophy in favor of "if it's for women, it's good." But I think
most non-activist women (feminists or not) tend to support more coherent
positions and not try to stand for all things. Part of the reason for the
tension between working and SAH moms.
>Custody and support became a cash cow for quite a few women, I don't
>think that they have intention to give up on that.
The problem is feminists are so worried about being judgmental and
excluding certain women that they often feel a need to defend all women
(no matter what they may really think). Thus, the weirdness of arguing
in favor of equality and defending women who are the very epitome of the
negative female stereotype. I don't necessarily think it's logical to
represent the interests of all women (or all men) as a group -- not only
are they too big to have any meaning, as far as issues go, but it creates
this weird gender warfare, when women are just as different from
each other in many ways as an individual woman is from an individual man.
Basically, I just think that equality is important, and to the extent it
requires more responsibilities/hardships, as well as conveys more
opportunities, it's important to accept them. To argue that women
shouldn't have to is demeaning.
I do think many women (not activists or academics) really want equality
in these areas in general, but they're so influenced by societal
attitudes that it's difficult to trust on the individual level that the
man sincerely wants the kid and isn't just playing games absent a really
extreme situation (and yes, this is sexist). I don't think it's because
women always root for women ('cause they don't in other areas on a
personal level, at least in my experience).
>>I've been reading lots of child custody related
>>scholarship lately (due to my participation in the Choice for Men
>>thread), and feminists are split pretty evenly on these issue -- liberal
>>feminists pushing for more equality for men.
>
>They want laws that will look more fair, but will still give men sole
>custody only in 1% of the cases. It is the old liberal approach that
>equality is great, but not in *my* backyard.
I just don't see this, simply because it's *not* beneficial for women in
the long run if they continue to be the primary caretakers. They do tend
to support custody with the primary caretaker, but as long as this is
decided fairly and without regard to sex, I don't see a problem with it
(and many family court judges are *still* men, you know ).
>
>>Also, one thing you have to keep in mind is that a lot of the gender
>>feminist ideas are successful, not because of the power of the feminist
>>movement, or the power of the gender fems among women, but because they
>>are in alliance with conservatives, who buy into the same stereotypes.
>
>The gender feminists get elected in liberal states, you know.
Who do you consider influential gender fems who have been elected, and
on what issues do you think they were elected?
>>This is true for the family/custody law issues, as well as for crime and
>>pornography.
>
>The first Dworkin & MacKinnon anti-porno ordinance was passed in
>Minneapolis, a pretty liberal city. (Fortunately, the mayor vetoed it.)
Yeah, I know, but they still have that straight-laced midwestern
attitude. :-)
>Speech codes are enforced in liberal universities.
Yep, but this has to do with a lot more than just feminists, and I don't
think universities are at all reflective of the real world. (And the
gender fems clearly dominate feminist thought on campus, as well as being
united with all the other multi-culturalist groups.)
The men's custody
>percentage went down in California in the same time that feminism went
>up.
Anything more to suggest a connection? I'm not necessarily disputing it,
but it seems there could be many other reasons totally unconnected.
It makes you think that it is all those bad conservatives, IMO
>the story is different. The gender feminists adopted from traditionalism
>every negative myth about men, while rejecting negative myths about women.
I think they buy into a lot of the negative myths about women -- the
whole victim/weak/needing protection thing, for one -- they just might
not realize it. Besides, with MacKinnon it's just a prolonged rebellion
against her father, ya know. :-) It's people like John Stoltenberg who I
find the strangest -- a man who buys into all the negative things about
men.
>The result has no internal logic, but is very popular between feminists.
*Some* feminists. I think there's something about creating a theory from
a gender (feminist theory) that just skews how you look at everything.
So many of the prominent academics (the leadership, you might call it)
have these ideas, but the average woman who says she's a feminist because
she believes in equality and doesn't want to be limited to traditional
female roles and has been sensitized to some of the issues just by
being a woman outside of the traditional roles has very little to do with
those people.
>>Also, I think part of the problem men have in getting
>>recogition for harassment and rape are the stereotypes about male
>>behavior that are enforced by other men more than feminists.
>
>And who pushed the laws and regulations that make it so much easier
>for a woman to claim harassment?
The point wasn't to make it easier for women than men, but to make it
easier for women than it was before. If men started bringing suits more
often, the law would change for them too. (Although again I think it
will be harder to draw it to people's attention as a real problem.)
>>I've heard
>>men joke plenty of times that if they got harassed they'd love it, and
>>men certainly aren't supposed to show any weakness, especially it the
>>harasser is a woman.
>
>Once upon a time the boss of my boss was a woman who used the word
>"fuck," on a regular basis. (About 20 times when she talked for an hour.)
>Once one of the men said after she talked "if I had said fuck so often
>then it would be sexual harassment," and the rest of the men (about
>ten of us around him) agreed.
>
>That's my reality.
Oh, I don't know, I work for a man who talks like that, and I never
thought of it as harassment -- harassment should be directed at a person
in order to make them unable to do their job. I have a client who calls
me "Sweetie". That's kind of annoying, but nothing more. It's all in the
context and intent. (More offensively, a man I used to work for used to
go down to the health club in my building and watch the women who worked
for him do aerobics and make comments afterwards. We never did a thing,
but just figured it went with the territory, since too much bad can come
of complaining to make it worth your while.) Anyway, it sounds like you
work (or did) in a far different world than I do.
>>This is IMO a large part of why it's much harder
>>for men to get attention or sympathy from the powers that be for these
>>issues, not some plot by feminists.
>
>So, if researchers find out that there are about the same number of
>battered husbands and battered wives, and the state gives money only
>to battered women shelters, it has nothing to do with feminism.
>
>Do you really try to say that?
>(I hope not.)
Obviously it has something to do with feminism (and more specifically
battered women advocacy groups), since they have made battered women a
political issue, so politicians gain by supporting these causes.
Battered men have not been made into a political issue. Also, whatever
the numbers are, it will be much harder to make battered men into a
political issue, not because of feminists as much as because protecting
weak women is an easy issue to sell, whereas protecting men isn't. IMO
most men would have a hard time supporting that issue to the extent that
women can support battered women, since they would have a hard time
respecting a man put in a position of weakness. Again, I know this is
sexist, but those attitudes are out there.
I was thinking of the many conservatives I've seen fighting for the
pornography proposals, and the work that Jim Ryan (Ill. AG) and other
staunch conservatives here have been (at least they claim) doing for
various anti-crime against women's measures. I have a speech from Ryan,
where he basically says (referring to battering) that these are crimes
against women, not men, they almost entirely happen to women. Thus, at
the very least the conservatives are helping to spread the message of the
gender fems. (And these are attitudes which have been around a long
time.)
Stephanie
Stephanie Smith
says...
First, I want to apologize for being somewhat snide in my last response,
I shouldn't have been rude, but you don't seem to have any understanding
of what was being said. Even though this is unbearably long, I'm going to
leave in the previous posts in case you have any interest in what was
really being discussed.
I think you think we were talking about comparable worth proposals, but
this wasn't our topic. We were referring to AA based on income rather
than sex or race. I stated that I don't think AA of any kind really
addresses the *reasons* why women are under-represented in the workplace.
I brought it up because this was part of what we were talking about.
>..
>...Instead, I think both women's under-representation as breadwinners
and
>...men's under-representation as child-rearers (which IMO leads to the
>...problems for both sexes outlined in the TYDTW Day posts by several of
>.the
>...participants) stems primarily from choices made by individuals rather
>...than actual discrimination in the workplace.
>..
>.. I still have yet to hear a substantive argument outlining *how*
>.. "underrepresentation" equates to discrimination. An absurd notion.
>.
>.
>.Where did I say that it did -- read the last sentance.
>
>-The same place I accused you of saying it- point it out.
Okay, I'll quote from above: "stems primarily from choices made by
individuals rather than actual discrimination in the workplace." I have
no idea where you got your interpretation.
Helping what? If I'm the best you can do for your poster child for
anti-male feminism, then you're in pretty bad shape.
>.And your notion "even those who are most sensitive and into their
>.. families" says it all.
>.
>.
>.What does it say?
>
>It reinforces the perception that the "oppression" which feminists seem
> to constatntly whine about, will be perpetrated at greater levelsby
them.
>
I never mentioned "oppression", and I don't get what's offensive about
what I said. I was talking about specific people, but maybe I shouldn't
have stereotyped men likely to take time off as sensitive? Oh well, I
think you're being a little overly sensitive yourself.
>.
>.Have you seen the recent survey of 23 different
>.. nations that found the majority of people, including women, prefer
>.males
>.. as bosses?? Not a single nation voted otherwise- so what you say
about
>.. "changing naturally" just isn't gonna happen.
>.
Well, first, this isn't true. The question was who do you think
society generally favors, not who do you favor, and several countries
voted no preference. Anyway, I don't see why this attitude isn't likely
to change when people get more used to having woman bosses, and women get
more used to being in charge.
>.Why not? Since when do the people bossed have any say over who their
>.boss is?
>.
>
>Since the invention of something called "the interview". Noone forces
> anyone to work anywhere.
Yeah, but most people aren't going to decide on this issue -- people are
going to want the best overall job and most can't afford to be as
demanding as you seem to think. The person who promotes the "boss" will
be his/her boss, not the employee.
>
>.Lastly- how can you
>.. put forth the notion "generally have the wives do the primary
>.. child-related tasks" but then turn around and blame men for being
>.sexist??
>.
>.How is that sexist on my part? I was referring to specific people.
>.Anyway read more carefully, I said "generally have wives *who do* the
>.primary child-related tasks". And when have I blamed men for being
>.sexist?
>
>Good attempt at a dodge. Why'd you preface it by "even the ones who
> are most sensitive"? - relegating all others as "non sensitive".
Actually in that context and considering who I was referring to,
"sensitive" was a bit of a slam, but you probably have to know them to
understand. :-)
How was I "dodging" anyway? I merely restated what I said. I think
you're the one blinded by your prejudices, since you keep thinking I'm
saying things I'm not.
> Care to offer further unsibstantiated generalizations? Of course
> any woman who selects an "insensitive" spouse has obviously been
> duped, right?
I made no generalizations about men. If you think I implied that men
aren't sensitive, I'm sorry. I don't think there's a significant
difference really (just men who are get perceived as "icky" a lot more
often -- and I know that's sexist, so you don't need to tell me).
>.
>.
>.. Maybe if MEN raised the children, they wouldn't grow up to be such
>.. bigots, eh?
>.
>.Well is your mom or your dad at fault for your inability to read and
>.comprehend?
>
>
>More subjective stuff. I'd suggest before you start bashing other people
>for their ability to "read and comprehend", you at least learn the
correct
>way to spellthe word "sentence".
Spelling flames are more effective if somewhat close to the mistake
they're flaming -- makes more sense that way. And I'd be a little more
careful with your own proof-reading if you plan to criticize others on
these grounds.
>
>
>Back to the subject...
>What I'm comprehending here is a gaggle of "dodging" attempts used
> commonly by liberal feminists. They usually consist of "Well I really
> meant<this>", a distortion of what they wrote, a clouding of the
issue,
> or repeating their own words out of context.
Well why don't you read what I wrote, you'll see I was telling the truth.
>
>..
>...Unfortunately, this stereotype is rooted in truth, both within their
>...families and wrt the actual actions of many of the women I work with,
>.so
>...it is hard to work past.
>
>Can you elaborate on this? Or is it just another subjective blur?
>
Wow! Do you really want to discuss the subject? Wrt the people with
whom I work, the assumption that women are less likely to stay at the job
and more likely to take off time to raise kids, go part-time, or leave to
go to a less demanding job is based in truth, since many more women than
men have done this. Also, the vast majority of men with whom I work who
are both married and have kids have wives who work part-time or a less
demanding jobs and do the majority of the childcare tasks (this is
according to them). I know this is just my job, but I was explaining why
based on my own experience AA wouldn't really address the reasons women
are perceived differently than men.
>
>..
>.. That must be it. Held back by stereotyping. Sheeesh.... I'll send
you
>.. a box of tissues.
>.
>.Who's crying?
>
>"It is hard to work past"- Whining to pine someone else's plight I
> suppose.
I have no complaints about my compensation or job situation. This is
just something I and others I work with have noticed that makes it
somewhat more difficult for women to be successful within the structure
of my workplace. It was just an observation (I've said some things are
harder for men too, btw). You are unbelieveably hostile for no reason
that I can see.
>
>
>Ever think of trying to support you assertions with facts?
I was talking about my personal experience to evaluate the potential
effect of Hillel's proposal. It wasn't meant to be a determinative
study, just my reflections. Anyway, I still don't get why my conclusions
bother you so much -- are you very pro-AA or something?
We were discussing a specifc proposal -- income-based AA. I had
previously said that the answer was to focus on the attitudes of girls
and boys before they made the decisions which led to them having no
choice in the future -- for example, girls emphasize career less, so they
make less money, and when one takes of time from the job it has to be
her, even if both would prefer that it be the husband. Additionally, I
think things like paternity leave are very good, the trick now is to
encourage more men to take advantage of it.
You don't have to agree, but I don't see why you find my post so
upsetting -- you must really love AA.
Stephanie
Stephanie Smith
eco...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu says...
>
>In article <4jnt0j$l...@usenet6.interramp.com>,
>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>>In article <4jncht$8...@nntpa.cb.att.com>, r...@karin.mt.att.com says...
>>>
>>>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>>First, I have said repeatedly that I would prefer that boys be given
>>something special to do that day as well, or that it be held on a
school
>>holiday or in the summer.
>
>I have no objection to it being done in the summer when school is out
>of session. I have a problem with a special school holiday -- public
>establishment of religion.
Didn't mean a holiday for TYDTW Day, but a pre-existing day off. (And as
long as individual schools do it no problem even with real religious
holidays. That's why kids in IL still get Good Friday off.)
>
>> Second, I have never heard that actual
little
>>boys feel punished -- my 10 year old cousin has no problem with it --
>>it's only grown men whom I've heard complaining.
>
>Among other things, it's illegal. But your 10 year old cousin
>probably doesn't see the 14th amendment as a big deal either.
No it's not, as I explained in response to your last post. But I don't
really care that much about the day itself, and we've moved on, so I'm
not going to debate this with you anymore. (And I do feel quite strongly
about the 14th Amendment.)
>
>> If I was given
>>some evidence that actual little kids were bothered by it (beyond
>>simply being bothered by having to go to school), I would probably
>>change my mind. Third, there is a big difference between having a
>>special activity for some and *disadvantaging* others -- the boys are
not
>>harmed by TYDTW Day.
>
>They are discriminated against (that should be enough), and for no
>good reason.
This was covered several times -- refer to previous posts if you care
about my response.
Bill Edison
.says...
.
.First, I want to apologize for being somewhat snide in my last response,
.I shouldn't have been rude, but you don't seem to have any understanding
.of what was being said. Even though this is unbearably long, I'm going to
.leave in the previous posts in case you have any interest in what was
.really being discussed.
.
Glad to see you decided to put a sock on the rudeness. When does it
take effect?
..
..In article <4jt11n$7...@usenet6.interramp.com.
..us01...@interramp.com (Stephanie Smith) writes:
..
...
...In article <1775D8F5...@npvm.newpaltz.edu.,
.EDI...@npvm.newpaltz.edu
...says...
....
....In article <4jqi7m$q...@usenet6.interramp.com.
....us01...@interramp.com (Stephanie Smith) writes:
...
......In article <4jq22p$f...@lear.cs.duke.edu., ga...@lear.cs.duke.edu
...says...
.......
...
...[snip]
...
.......I suggested several times the following idea:
.......Affirmative action by income level. Between all candidates with
.....similar
.......skills, pick the one with lowest (as reported in 1040) income.
.Since
.......most feminists believe that women are paid less for the same job,
.......it will let women a priority without being sexist.
.......
.......Of course most feminists rejected it because it will eliminate many
.......real discriminations (fat people, old people, short people, out of
.......closet gays, poor people, people with Politically Incorrect
.opinions,
.......etc.), but women will probably not benefit from it because,
.actually,
.......they are not paid less for the *same* work.
.......
.......What is your opinion?
......
......
......Actually this is an idea I've advocated for a couple of years wrt
......university admissions, although for some reason I've never really
.....thought
......about it for jobs. I can't think of any reason right now why it
.....wouldn't
......work well in that context as well, especially since in my job anyway
......(anecdotal, but have to have some frame of reference :-)) the
.biggest
......advantage has less to do with sex than with sharing a certain
......upper-middle class suburban background and having connections.
...However,
......(please excuse my ignorance) I'm not sure where AA is most common
...(other
......than government jobs/contracts), so I'm not really sure what the
...effect
......would be -- I work at a private firm and we don't use it. But
.barring
......some weird distribution pattern, it sounds like a good idea.
......
.....
.....Sorry to follow up my own post, but something I forgot to mention:
.....
.....Having said all this, while I think income-based AA is likely a good
.....idea, I don't think it addresses the real problem of women's
.inequality
.....in the workplace (nor does AA or any of your "anti-male
...discrimination").
....
.... Actually- it's not a good idea at all. What you call "the same work"
.... usually tosses any concept of quality control, merit, motivation or
.... a sense of urgency about one's job to the wind. It all but does away
.... with the notion of individuality.
...
...What on earth are you talking about? What did I call "the same work"?
Ah. Comprehension. You wrote: "Some feminists believe women are paid less
for the same job." in this post.Then you continued on .."Of course
most feminists rejected it because...."- which is incorrect- most
feminists simply do not reject the notion, much less for those reasons
you have offered. If you disagree, please provide some evidence.
...Are you referring to the same series of posts you're replying to?
..
..You said "I don't think it addresses the real problem of women's
.. inequality in the workplace." Does that refer to some
.. "situation" *other than* unequal pay for similar work?
.. If not, then why include it?
.
.I think you think we were talking about comparable worth proposals, but
.this wasn't our topic. We were referring to AA based on income rather
.than sex or race. I stated that I don't think AA of any kind really
.addresses the *reasons* why women are under-represented in the workplace.
.I brought it up because this was part of what we were talking about.
.
Fine.
.
....
.....Instead, I think both women's under-representation as breadwinners
.and
.....men's under-representation as child-rearers (which IMO leads to the
.....problems for both sexes outlined in the TYDTW Day posts by several of
...the
.....participants) stems primarily from choices made by individuals rather
.....than actual discrimination in the workplace.
....
.... I still have yet to hear a substantive argument outlining *how*
.... "underrepresentation" equates to discrimination. An absurd notion.
...
...
...Where did I say that it did -- read the last sentance.
..
..-The same place I accused you of saying it- point it out.
.
.
.Okay, I'll quote from above: "stems primarily from choices made by
.individuals rather than actual discrimination in the workplace." I have
.no idea where you got your interpretation.
.
We've already gone over this. How does what you wrote here apply to
the issue? Maybe it could apply, if by your logic, AA selection should
hinge on income level, then "individual choices" can also rightfully be
classified as choosing your own income level. And to a large degree-
I believe this is true. Even if it weren't, there are plenty of "glass
cellar" jobs, ...ie... "garbage man", "manitenance man" "truck driver"
which would probably bar most women from "income-based" AA selection.
Furthermore- most high paying jobs are found in the private sector,
where AA is not pushed as zealously as it is in Government.
....
....
.....
.....In fact, the problems women face at my job tend to come from: 1) the
...lack
.....of women in leadership positions, since many of the older men feel
.more
.....comfortable with other men and prefer to work with them -- something
...that
.....will just have to change naturally as they are forced to work with
.more
.....women (simply due to the job, no special program) and more women work
.....their way into leadership positions, which is happening; and 2)
.....expectations by most of the men, even many of the younger, least
..."sexist"
.....ones, that the women take their jobs less seriously and will
.eventually
.....stop competing as hard, since they will marry/have kids, etc. (and
.thus
.....have less need for mentoring, the best work/experience, etc.). These
.....men, even the ones who are most sensitive and into their families,
.....generally have wives who do the primary child-related tasks.
....
.... This entire paragraph is based upon subjectivity and has no basis in
.... fact.
...
...Yep, never claimed it was anything but anecdotal. Gonna sue me?
..
..Nope- stay right where you are. You're becoming quite a help.
.
.Helping what? If I'm the best you can do for your poster child for
.anti-male feminism, then you're in pretty bad shape.
.
Not really- you stated previously that most problems resulted from
individual choice. Later, you try to pawn "women's problems" off on
(1) men being more comfortable with other men" and (2) "expectations
of younger men that women take their jobs less seriously". Not only
does this contradict what you stated only a few paragraphs earlier,
it fails to address what problems are generated by these two notions.
Probably because they're both wrong.
...And your notion "even those who are most sensitive and into their
.... families" says it all.
...
...
...What does it say?
..
..It reinforces the perception that the "oppression" which feminists seem
.. to constatntly whine about, will be perpetrated at greater levelsby
.them.
..
.
.I never mentioned "oppression", and I don't get what's offensive about
.what I said. I was talking about specific people, but maybe I shouldn't
.have stereotyped men likely to take time off as sensitive? Oh well, I
.think you're being a little overly sensitive yourself.
Ah...so the 2 reasons you gave in the last paragraph don't cause any
problems? Could you please specify which problems they do (or don't
cause). Maybe you're saying women aren't "oppressed", they only have
"trouble in the workplace caused by older men who are more comfortable
with men or younger men who have expectations which causes them stress?"
.
...
...Have you seen the recent survey of 23 different
.... nations that found the majority of people, including women, prefer
...males
.... as bosses?? Not a single nation voted otherwise- so what you say
.about
.... "changing naturally" just isn't gonna happen.
...
.
.Well, first, this isn't true. The question was who do you think
.society generally favors, not who do you favor, and several countries
.voted no preference. Anyway, I don't see why this attitude isn't likely
.to change when people get more used to having woman bosses, and women get
.more used to being in charge.
Wrong again- it wasn't "thee question"- there were several questions,
including the "who'd you rather have for boss" question, to which most
people, including women, replied: "men". So, unless a jack-booted gistapo
chapter of "The Lesbian Avengers"is up to the task- the "male boss"
thing isn't likely to just "change naturally".
.
...Why not? Since when do the people bossed have any say over who their
...boss is?
...
..
..Since the invention of something called "the interview". Noone forces
.. anyone to work anywhere.
.
.Yeah, but most people aren't going to decide on this issue -- people are
.going to want the best overall job and most can't afford to be as
.demanding as you seem to think. The person who promotes the "boss" will
.be his/her boss, not the employee.
"Most people aren't going to decide on this issue"??? How silly. Then
they shouldn't blame their boss for causing their problems, should they?
.
..
...Lastly- how can you
.... put forth the notion "generally have the wives do the primary
.... child-related tasks" but then turn around and blame men for being
...sexist??
...
...How is that sexist on my part? I was referring to specific people.
...Anyway read more carefully, I said "generally have wives *who do* the
...primary child-related tasks". And when have I blamed men for being
...sexist?
..
..Good attempt at a dodge. Why'd you preface it by "even the ones who
.. are most sensitive"? - relegating all others as "non sensitive".
.
.Actually in that context and considering who I was referring to,
."sensitive" was a bit of a slam, but you probably have to know them to
.understand. :-)
.
.How was I "dodging" anyway? I merely restated what I said. I think
.you're the one blinded by your prejudices, since you keep thinking I'm
.saying things I'm not.
No- you restated *part* of what you said, out of context. And since you
still haven't owned up to it, let's just drop it.
.
.. Care to offer further unsibstantiated generalizations? Of course
.. any woman who selects an "insensitive" spouse has obviously been
.. duped, right?
.
.I made no generalizations about men. If you think I implied that men
.aren't sensitive, I'm sorry. I don't think there's a significant
.difference really (just men who are get perceived as "icky" a lot more
.often -- and I know that's sexist, so you don't need to tell me).
No generalizations? Want me to list some?
Spare us.
You missed most of my points- certain generalizations and stereotypes
are valid, but at least they should be based on some type of fact or
supporting evidence. You just shoot some subjective conjecture from the
him that tended to blame men for women's "problems" in the workplace,
"from the hip", based on off-the-cuff conjecture, not evidence. In fact,
not a bit of evidence.
...
...
.... Maybe if MEN raised the children, they wouldn't grow up to be such
.... bigots, eh?
...
...Well is your mom or your dad at fault for your inability to read and
...comprehend?
..
..
..More subjective stuff. I'd suggest before you start bashing other people
..for their ability to "read and comprehend", you at least learn the
.correct
..way to spellthe word "sentence".
.
.Spelling flames are more effective if somewhat close to the mistake
.they're flaming -- makes more sense that way. And I'd be a little more
.careful with your own proof-reading if you plan to criticize others on
.these grounds.
Look who's talking. I only offer grammatical flames when the flamer
hasn't checked her own grammar. I'm sure that somehow your flame was
"fair" but mine wasn't.
..
..
..Back to the subject...
..What I'm comprehending here is a gaggle of "dodging" attempts used
.. commonly by liberal feminists. They usually consist of "Well I really
.. meant<this.", a distortion of what they wrote, a clouding of the
.issue,
.. or repeating their own words out of context.
.
.Well why don't you read what I wrote, you'll see I was telling the truth.
Glad you said so.
.
..
....
.....Unfortunately, this stereotype is rooted in truth, both within their
.....families and wrt the actual actions of many of the women I work with,
...so
.....it is hard to work past.
..
..Can you elaborate on this? Or is it just another subjective blur?
..
.
.Wow! Do you really want to discuss the subject? Wrt the people with
.whom I work, the assumption that women are less likely to stay at the job
.and more likely to take off time to raise kids, go part-time, or leave to
.go to a less demanding job is based in truth, since many more women than
.men have done this. Also, the vast majority of men with whom I work who
.are both married and have kids have wives who work part-time or a less
.demanding jobs and do the majority of the childcare tasks (this is
.according to them). I know this is just my job, but I was explaining why
.based on my own experience AA wouldn't really address the reasons women
.are perceived differently than men.
Women are perceived differently than men because they ARE different.
IS this some revelation that you believe noone else seems to have noticed?
.
..
....
.... That must be it. Held back by stereotyping. Sheeesh.... I'll send
.you
.... a box of tissues.
...
...Who's crying?
..
.."It is hard to work past"- Whining to pine someone else's plight I
.. suppose.
.
.I have no complaints about my compensation or job situation. This is
.just something I and others I work with have noticed that makes it
.somewhat more difficult for women to be successful within the structure
.of my workplace. It was just an observation (I've said some things are
.harder for men too, btw). You are unbelieveably hostile for no reason
.that I can see.
Successful in your eyes or in their eyes?
"No reason that I can see". I can only imagine the forthcoming lecture
had those words escaped the lips of a man.
.
..
..
..Ever think of trying to support you assertions with facts?
.
.I was talking about my personal experience to evaluate the potential
.effect of Hillel's proposal. It wasn't meant to be a determinative
.study, just my reflections. Anyway, I still don't get why my conclusions
.bother you so much -- are you very pro-AA or something?
No- in fact I think AA may have looked good on paper when it was first
conceived, but it's turned into an abomination of multiple standards,
excessive trendiness, extreme liberalism, reverse-sexism,-racism, and
who knows what else.
.
.....
.....I'm sure some will say that that's just the way men and women are --
.....these preferences would exist despite societal conditioning, and
.maybe
.....that's true to some degree (although I'll need more convincing to
.....believe it), but I know enough career-oriented women, who do not wish
...to
.....take on the primary child-rearing tasks, and many men who say that
.they
.....would prefer to spend more time with their family, but simply feel
.....duty-bound to work the hours required to get ahead. Unfortunately,
...either
.....the choices they make earlier in life or the relative guilt they feel
.....(many men seem to feel more guilty about blowing off work; women for
.....blowing off their family) seem to prevent them from being able to
.make
.....the choices they want.
....
.... "Get ahead?"
...
...What?
...
....
....
.....
.....Oh well, there may be no "program" that could work for this problem,
.it
.....may just have to be accomplished on the individual level.
....
....
.... Heaven forbid we should do anything on an individual level.`
...
...We should, but since many of the people with whom I've been discussing
...this issue seem to agree that the current system has negative
...consequences for both men and women, it would be nice to think of ways
.to
...help change this. If you disagree, try stating a coherent argument
.which
...actually addresses the points to which you are attempting to respond.
..
..Why not try deviating from the usual subjective stuff and offering some
.. fact-based solutions?Okok..forget the "some"- how 'bout just one? Is
.. that an unreasonable request?
.
.We were discussing a specifc proposal -- income-based AA. I had
.previously said that the answer was to focus on the attitudes of girls
.and boys before they made the decisions which led to them having no
.choice in the future -- for example, girls emphasize career less, so they
.make less money, and when one takes of time from the job it has to be
.her, even if both would prefer that it be the husband. Additionally, I
.think things like paternity leave are very good, the trick now is to
.encourage more men to take advantage of it.
.
Why not leave it up the individual? If you want the reasonfor my
apparent "hostility", there you have it. Your post seems to take for
granted that you need to fix a "situation" and knowwhat's best for
everyone.
.You don't have to agree, but I don't see why you find my post so
.upsetting -- you must really love AA.
All forms of AA should be abolished.
Apologoies for any typos. I'm running late.
Cheers, Bill Edison
.
.Stephanie
.
..
..Bill Edison
...
...
....
....
..
..
.
Eric Pepke
> In article <4jt06p$7...@usenet6.interramp.com>,
> Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
> >Completely agree with the first part -- beyond fairness, which does
> >concern me, to the extent that women try to hang on to their advantages
> >in the family.child area, they simply cannot achieve equality in others.
> >I really don't think that feminism is unanimous in trying to keep those
> >advantages, however.
I think that you're probably right that it isn't unanimous. But it doesn't
have to be unanimous. The point is that it is far from unanimous in it's
desire to give up those advantages. When you're trying to find an
essential definition of feminism (or anything else) it doesn't make sense
to include things which aren't unanimous, or at least in the overwhelming
majority. An individual feminist can want to give up female advantages,
just as she can have brown hair or enjoy ice hockey, but it's far from
required and is in many circles discouraged. Therefore it's a mistake to
say that it is part of feminism.
I know many women who want to give up female advantages and level
everything, though the overwhelming majority of them don't label them as
feminists precisely because they don't see anywhere near universal support
for real gender equality. I was just the other night talking to a woman
friend of mine. She's in a male-dominated profession, has faced
significant wage discrimination, and fought and won a sex discrimination
lawsuit, which occupied her for the better part of a decade. Surprise! her
contempt for the plurality form of feminism is similar to mine, for similar
reasons. The word she used to describe feminism was "wrongheaded."
A lot of feminists would consider her a traitor, but she's really just
knowledgeable. Since she has had direct experience with sex discrimination
and has spent a long time learning about the dynamics, then obviously her
perception of reality is going to be a little more accurate than that of an
upper middle class Greenwich Village author who wants to write books about
how horribly oppressed she is.
-Eric
Rich Payne
: In article <4jrcge$l...@alterdial.UU.NET.
: Gail Thaler <gth...@cs.com. writes:
:
: .
: .
: ..Let's consider this. On "Take your daughters to work day" the
: ..girls get off from school and the boys have to go to school. Why
: ..is this. Why go to such lengths? Why not just take the children
: ..to work. My dad used to take me to work sometimes, but it was
: ..always when I had off from school. He drove a truck and I would
: ..sit in the truck and talk to him. It made me feel special, and it
: ..school while the girls are given a day off to go and have fun do
: ..feel punished. Do you understand that?
: ..
: ..Rich Soyack
: .
: .What's the matter Rich? Didn't like going to school? Do you
: .figure having to learn something is a form of punishment?
: .
:
: I agree. Boys are the only ones who learn ANYTHING on
: that particular day.
spend the day blaming the boys for the girls supposed lack of self-esteem.
A more realistic appraisal is that TYDTWD has the secondary purpose of
getting the boys used to being discriminated against (because they are
male) at an earlier age.
: Bill Edison
Rich
--
Hillel
Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>In article <4juq8o$i...@lear.cs.duke.edu>, ga...@lear.cs.duke.edu says...
>>>I doubt this is why feminists hate the idea, since they are
>>>probably either liberal feminists, who like the idea of men staying home
>>>with the kids,
>>No, they like saying "men have this option." It is not that they are
>>anti-men as much as they don't care about men. They don't want to see
>>a large number of men take time off, and then go back to work in the
>>same positions as before and competing against hard working women.
>I can't agree with you here, simply because I would love it if more men
>stayed home with the kids. It'd make my life easier, because there would
>be less of an assumption that women would be the ones to eventually
>quit/take their advancement less seriously, etc.
The implicit (and IMO correct) assumption that you make is that the way
to achieve your work place goals (more women, easier promotions for women)
is by making it as easy for men as for women to stay home for the kid.
The assumption of the feminist leadership is that they have
their cake and eat it too. That by passing enough laws women will
be able to enter and advance in the work place as fast as men, even if
they will take a couple of years off to raise kids. And they may be
right, you know...
>Plus, I don't want to
>be the one to stay home (or to take on the primary responsibility),
>assuming I eventually have kids. :-) So there's a self-interest involved on
>the part of at least some feminists.
*If* they accept your assumption. The alternative is strict quota
system that will let them have their cake, even if they ate it. E.g.
Dianne Feinstein promised in her 1990 campaign for the governor of
California that if she would be elected than half of all the state
government jobs in California would go to women, in all levels.
A policy like that would allow you to take a couple of years off to
raise kids, but since you would compete against other women (and not
against men) for half of the jobs, you would advance as fast as men.
[Gender feminists]
>No. Many don't. I had the misfortune to be at a viewing of a supposedly
>pornographic video which MacKinnon was trying to prevent from being shown
>in the Michigan Union (student union at U of M). Several men were
>present at the viewing. Afterwards, MacKinnon explained that the effect
>of the video would be to cause the male students to run around raping and
>pillaging and thus it was important to keep it from being shown (as if
>the average male undergrad has never been exposed to pornography and
>would be so deeply affected by a video in the student union anyway).
>Anyhow, a few of the men said that they did not feel like raping anyone
>(or anything at all similar) despite having just seen the video, and
>MacKinnon totally discounted their own feelings and explained to everyone
>else why they were wrong. Totally psycho!
You look on that from the wrong side.
Supposed that you believe that some action will cause a lot of *good*
in society, will you lie to get that? Will you just tell the truth
even if it means that this good action will not happen?
If you will not lie than you are not a real revolutionary. And let's
face it, the feminist leadership has its roots in the 60's. Lying
for the revolution is fine for the people who believed in blowing
up buildings for the revolution.
>>*Most* big companies that work for the government must have affirmative
>>action today. Since the government budget is so large, almost every
>>large company does business with the government because it can't ignore
>>the richest consumer around. That's why so many feminists are not willing
>>to give up their affirmative action. It is *useful* for them. And they
>>certainly don't want to see men in large companies with such an option.
>Then it may be a lot more effective than I thought. I told you I didn't
>know much about employment AA. :-)
I applied for more than enough jobs in the time of the recession.
After filling more than 100 affirmative action forms I refused to
fill any more of those. I had *enough*.
Anyway, if you, or any other woman, don't want the affirmative action
advantage then the path is simple - refuse to fill the AA forms.
(And no, I don't think that such an action will ever be popular
between feminists, no matter what their position about equality is.)
>>Don't be so sure. Quite a few men are "burned out," and they think
>>(rightly or wrongly) that they have no choice.
>Yeah, and maybe my friends will be more at that point by the time they
>have kids, but right now most of them are still somewhat caught up in
>worrying about being "successful" at the expense of a lot of their
>happiness.
Don't you think that that will burn them out?
>The problem is, I really think your job success has a lot to
>do with how men, in particular, are perceived, but that might be my
>field/acquaintances more than the whole world.
The larger the company, the more important the image and visibility are.
>>>Completely agree with the first part -- beyond fairness, which does
>>>concern me, to the extent that women try to hang on to their advantages
>>>in the family.child area, they simply cannot achieve equality in others.
>>>I really don't think that feminism is unanimous in trying to keep those
>>>advantages, however.
>They have to realize they can't keep both -- I mean in practice it's just
>impossible.
If all companies will have rules that women should have maternity
leaves, if they want, and that half of the jobs (on all levels)
should go to women, will not women get both?
>Actually, this is why I think while you may have a point
>about the academic feminists, real women who consider themselves
>feminists (like my friends) are much more interested in equality.
So why affirmative action quotas are so popular between feminists?
>>Just read all NOW claims when the debate about ERA was going on.
>>They said, loud and clear, that equal rights does not mean that men will
>>have any chance for custody. They also fight against joint custody. E.g.
>Well part of that was to try and mollify the Schaffly (sp.) effect -- you
>know, getting everyone all afraid about how it would harm women and get rid
>of all traditional social roles.
There is also the possibility that the ERA supporters meant exactly what
they said (remember that debates before an Amendment passed are very
relevant when the court tries to decide what it means). The idea was
to deliver women's priority in custody, affirmative action quotas,
men-only draft, opening all army position for women, all in one package.
Why are you so sure that that was not the case?
>And I don't think NOW is currently
>representative of the majority of non-activist feminists (nor are the
>academic feminists).
So who represents them?
>But you are right that there's clearly an attempt to
>appeal to both the women who want equality and those who want to ensure the
>traditional privileges/get attention to women's problems. This split has
>existed since the very beginning of the US women's movement, and it is
>impossible to support both positions without losing sight of any kind of
>coherent philosophy in favor of "if it's for women, it's good."
Which is what modern feminism is all about.
>But I think
>most non-activist women (feminists or not) tend to support more coherent
>positions and not try to stand for all things.
Most of them adopt the things they like and down play the rest.
>Part of the reason for the tension between working and SAH moms.
I don't think that the tension is that high.
>>Custody and support became a cash cow for quite a few women, I don't
>>think that they have intention to give up on that.
>The problem is feminists are so worried about being judgmental and
>excluding certain women that they often feel a need to defend all women
>(no matter what they may really think). Thus, the weirdness of arguing
>in favor of equality and defending women who are the very epitome of the
>negative female stereotype. I don't necessarily think it's logical to
>represent the interests of all women (or all men) as a group -- not only
>are they too big to have any meaning, as far as issues go, but it creates
>this weird gender warfare, when women are just as different from
>each other in many ways as an individual woman is from an individual man.
You know, the USSR really liked the cold war - till the US started to
fight back in the 80's. Feminists really liked the gender warfare till
Newt and his friends took over Congress in 1994. In both cases, people
went to war without understanding that "the enemy" may fight back. Today
feminists don't like the gender warfare, but they have no intention to
stop it on their side. They just want Newt to go away.
>Basically, I just think that equality is important, and to the extent it
>requires more responsibilities/hardships, as well as conveys more
>opportunities, it's important to accept them. To argue that women
>shouldn't have to is demeaning.
But it gets them better jobs and more money...
>I do think many women (not activists or academics) really want equality
>in these areas in general, but they're so influenced by societal
>attitudes that it's difficult to trust on the individual level that the
>man sincerely wants the kid and isn't just playing games absent a really
>extreme situation (and yes, this is sexist).
In the early 70's feminism could change society toward equality. The
military industrial complex lost a lot of power because of Vietnam,
young men were open to new ideas, the ERA passed in Congress with 90%
majority. The rules of the game could be changed. Then the devil came,
put whoever he found on the top of the mountain, and offered them
a better deal. Get affirmative action quotas, keep the priority in
custody and child support, women's studies departments in universities,
and yes, you will be able to pass the equality agenda later, but have
good life now. When "later" came, it was discovered that the devil lied.
Feminists can't pass anything like the ERA, most men don't believe that
feminists are for equality, and the perception that women want to play
fair is not there any more.
Yes, the devil cheated you, but as they say in the movie "The Sting,"
you can't cheat a honest person.
>>They want laws that will look more fair, but will still give men sole
>>custody only in 1% of the cases. It is the old liberal approach that
>>equality is great, but not in *my* backyard.
>I just don't see this, simply because it's *not* beneficial for women in
>the long run if they continue to be the primary caretakers.
That's an assumption you make.
>They do tend
>to support custody with the primary caretaker, but as long as this is
>decided fairly and without regard to sex, I don't see a problem with it
And how exactly do you define primary care taker?
E.g. if the two parents work, should the kid be given to the nanny?
>(and many family court judges are *still* men, you know ).
The law is unfair. (E.g. "tender years" theory.)
>>The gender feminists get elected in liberal states, you know.
>Who do you consider influential gender fems who have been elected, and
>on what issues do you think they were elected?
Let's start with the two senators from California.
Both are strongly pro affirmative action.
>>The first Dworkin & MacKinnon anti-porno ordinance was passed in
>>Minneapolis, a pretty liberal city. (Fortunately, the mayor vetoed it.)
>Yeah, I know, but they still have that straight-laced midwestern
>attitude. :-)
Minnesota is as liberal as the only state that voted for a democrats in
1984 presidential election can get.
>>Speech codes are enforced in liberal universities.
>Yep, but this has to do with a lot more than just feminists, and I don't
>think universities are at all reflective of the real world. (And the
But those speech code have nothing to do with conservative values.
>The men's custody
>>percentage went down in California in the same time that feminism went
>>up.
>Anything more to suggest a connection? I'm not necessarily disputing it,
>but it seems there could be many other reasons totally unconnected.
For example?
My point is that blaming most of feminism's sexism against men on
the traditionalists is not a very good analysis.
>I think they buy into a lot of the negative myths about women -- the
>whole victim/weak/needing protection thing, for one -- they just might
>not realize it.
They *realize* it. (See Biden violence against women bill, for example.)
>Besides, with MacKinnon it's just a prolonged rebellion
>against her father, ya know. :-)
Her father is not pro-porno.
>It's people like John Stoltenberg who I
>find the strangest -- a man who buys into all the negative things about
>men.
Try to follow the following thought:
#"In the highest of ironies, he presents an allegedly feminist theory that
#women, incapable of deciding to ourselves, need men like John Stoltenberg
#to tell us how we should comfort ourselves sexually. Men have so
#oppressed women that we need men to tell us what to do."
-- ("nudes, prudes and attitudes", Avedon Carol)
>>The result has no internal logic, but is very popular between feminists.
>*Some* feminists. I think there's something about creating a theory from
>a gender (feminist theory) that just skews how you look at everything.
>So many of the prominent academics (the leadership, you might call it)
>have these ideas, but the average woman who says she's a feminist because
>she believes in equality and doesn't want to be limited to traditional
>female roles and has been sensitized to some of the issues just by
>being a woman outside of the traditional roles has very little to do with
>those people.
She just votes for them...
(And some buy Ms. magazine to keep R. Morgan's sand box in a good shape.)
>>And who pushed the laws and regulations that make it so much easier
>>for a woman to claim harassment?
>The point wasn't to make it easier for women than men, but to make it
>easier for women than it was before.
No matter if it is fair for men or not.
>If men started bringing suits more often, the law would change for them too.
I don't believe it.
>>Once upon a time the boss of my boss was a woman who used the word
>>"fuck," on a regular basis. (About 20 times when she talked for an hour.)
>>Once one of the men said after she talked "if I had said fuck so often
>>then it would be sexual harassment," and the rest of the men (about
>>ten of us around him) agreed.
>>That's my reality.
>Oh, I don't know, I work for a man who talks like that, and I never
>thought of it as harassment --
It is your judgment. If you will want to "get" him then claiming
sexual harassment is a great tool you have.
>harassment should be directed at a person
>in order to make them unable to do their job.
If you don't like the pictures in their office you can claim harassment.
>I have a client who calls
>me "Sweetie". That's kind of annoying, but nothing more.
One of the stories in NPR last weekend was about a worker in the Congress
cafeteria who calls everybody "baby." A man complained because she
called him a baby, she was told to stop that. She refused and quit her
job. A couple of senators asked the management to keep her because
they liked her, and she is back on the job. (And the reports made
fun of the over-sensitive man.) Try to reverse sexes, and you would
have a full scale sexual harassment case with feminist senators claiming
that women are not babies and please fire the MCP now.
Do you think that my prediction is not true?
Do you think that it is equality?
>It's all in the
>context and intent. (More offensively, a man I used to work for used to
>go down to the health club in my building and watch the women who worked
>for him do aerobics and make comments afterwards.
It was not professional, and IMO you had valid grounds for complaint.
>>So, if researchers find out that there are about the same number of
>>battered husbands and battered wives, and the state gives money only
>>to battered women shelters, it has nothing to do with feminism.
>Obviously it has something to do with feminism (and more specifically
>battered women advocacy groups), since they have made battered women a
>political issue, so politicians gain by supporting these causes.
The same approach can be extended to every problem that men and women
face, and that's exactly the backbone of feminism as a political movement.
>Battered men have not been made into a political issue. Also, whatever
>the numbers are, it will be much harder to make battered men into a
>political issue, not because of feminists as much as because protecting
>weak women is an easy issue to sell, whereas protecting men isn't. IMO
>most men would have a hard time supporting that issue to the extent that
>women can support battered women, since they would have a hard time
>respecting a man put in a position of weakness. Again, I know this is
>sexist, but those attitudes are out there.
Again, this is sexist and those are feminist attitudes.
>I was thinking of the many conservatives I've seen fighting for the
>pornography proposals, and the work that Jim Ryan (Ill. AG) and other
>staunch conservatives here have been (at least they claim) doing for
>various anti-crime against women's measures. I have a speech from Ryan,
>where he basically says (referring to battering) that these are crimes
>against women, not men, they almost entirely happen to women. Thus, at
>the very least the conservatives are helping to spread the message of the
>gender fems. (And these are attitudes which have been around a long
>time.)
Conservatives play chess against you. They played a gambit, and you
accepted it. Now you have more laws that give you special protection
and you are in a terrible position. I think that the gambit was
sound, and the conservatives got a great position in return.
Hillel ga...@cs.duke.edu
To me, the point here is that addressing something as "women's issue"
when it's "broken leg" is counterproductive and stupid. -- STella
Bill Edison
..
..In article <4jt06p$7...@usenet6.interramp.com.,
..Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com. wrote:
...In article <4js3e1$g...@lear.cs.duke.edu., ga...@lear.cs.duke.edu says...
..
..No, they like saying "men have this option." It is not that they are
..anti-men as much as they don't care about men. They don't want to see
..a large number of men take time off, and then go back to work in the
..same positions as before and competing against hard working women.
.
.I can't agree with you here, simply because I would love it if more men
.stayed home with the kids. It'd make my life easier, because there would
.be less of an assumption that women would be the ones to eventually
.quit/take their advancement less seriously, etc. Plus, I don't want to
.be the one to stay home (or to take on the primary responsibility),
.assuming I eventually have kids. :-) So there's a self-interest involved on
.the part of at least some feminists.
.
"Self-interest" to say the least. If you value your career more
than your kids, then you shouldn't be raising any.
Bill Edison
Stephanie Smith
says...
>
>Second-hand quoting again:
>
>> In article <4jt06p$7...@usenet6.interramp.com>,
>> Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>> >Completely agree with the first part -- beyond fairness, which does
>> >concern me, to the extent that women try to hang on to their advantages
>> >in the family.child area, they simply cannot achieve equality in others.
>> >I really don't think that feminism is unanimous in trying to keep those
>> >advantages, however.
>
>have to be unanimous. The point is that it is far from unanimous in it's
>desire to give up those advantages. When you're trying to find an
>essential definition of feminism (or anything else) it doesn't make sense
>to include things which aren't unanimous, or at least in the overwhelming
>majority. An individual feminist can want to give up female advantages,
>just as she can have brown hair or enjoy ice hockey, but it's far from
>required and is in many circles discouraged. Therefore it's a mistake to
>say that it is part of feminism.
[snip]
>-Eric
I agree with you. A good definition of feminism I read recently:
"Feminism is a political perspective that considers women unjustly
subordinated, finds that oppression to be humanly changeable, and
strategizes for women's advancement." Linda Gordon, _Pitied But Not
Entitled_ (1994).
Gordon was discussing early 20th Century feminism, and needed to include
both the faction which wanted equality and that which believed that women
and men had separate spheres and were quite different by nature, but just
wanted to bring attention to women's problems (women who were abandoned by
their husbands, beaten, etc.) in a "the government should protect women"
way. They were also the ones who argued that women should have the right to
vote not because they were equal to men, but because of their gentler
perspective. I think the gender feminists of today have several things in
common with this very traditional portion of the early women's movement, in
some interesting ways.
Just one addition to the definition above -- I do think more and more women
are realizing that for women to ever achieve equality, men's roles (and
inequality in certain areas, like children) will have to change too.
Stephanie
Gail Thaler
>>harmed by TYDTW Day.
>
>They are discriminated against (that should be enough), and for no
>good reason.
>
>--
Any parent can remove any particular child from any particular
school for any particular day.
Boys have been participating in TYDTWD to the chagrin of
some feminists because boys are actually spending time learning,
and girls are sometimes just stuck in the day-care center
or with the office pool.
I'm sure if you keep your son from school and tell the
teacher why, your son won't be punished. If you consider
learning things a form of punishment. And, Al, yes it does
seem that girls like school better than boys, but if boys
think school is punishment, than somebody ought to have
a talk with them.
Eric V Conrad
Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>I agree that the majority of feminists, and certainly organized feminists
>who have an official position on the issue (like NOW) are pro-affirmative
>action, in the same way that most organizations which advocate the
>equality of Blacks are pro-affirmative action. The difference is, when
>individual Blacks do not support AA, you can't tell them they are white
>(although people often do call them Uncle Tom's, etc.), when a feminist
>disagrees with the majority on this issue, she is simply told she's not a
>feminist.
Your comparison by analogy is faulty.
The correct analogy would be
"When a woman disagrees on this issue, you can't tell her that
she is not a woman (although she might be told she's not a feminist)."
The components of the analogy are [black |--> woman] and
[Uncle-Tom |--> not-feminist]. It is women, not feminists, who are
the "underprivileged minority group" that are the targeted beneficiaries
of AA programs.
As for equating advocacy of equality with advocacy of affirmative
action, that's hypocritical. (It does sadly suggest that there are
really very few organizations that actually promote equality.)
Stephanie Smith
EDI...@npvm.newpaltz.edu says...
>
>In article <4jvenh$j...@usenet2.interramp.com.
>us01...@interramp.com (Stephanie Smith) writes:
>
>.
>.In article <4juq8o$i...@lear.cs.duke.edu., ga...@lear.cs.duke.edu
says...
>..
>..In article <4jt06p$7...@usenet6.interramp.com.,
>..Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com. wrote:
>...In article <4js3e1$g...@lear.cs.duke.edu., ga...@lear.cs.duke.edu
says...
>..
>..anti-men as much as they don't care about men. They don't want to see
>..a large number of men take time off, and then go back to work in the
>..same positions as before and competing against hard working women.
>.
>.I can't agree with you here, simply because I would love it if more men
>.stayed home with the kids. It'd make my life easier, because there
would
>.be less of an assumption that women would be the ones to eventually
>.quit/take their advancement less seriously, etc. Plus, I don't want to
>.be the one to stay home (or to take on the primary responsibility),
>.assuming I eventually have kids. :-) So there's a self-interest
involved on
>.the part of at least some feminists.
>.
> "Self-interest" to say the least. If you value your career more
> than your kids, then you shouldn't be raising any.
>
>Bill Edison
>
Do you stay home with your kids?
Stephanie
Stephanie Smith
eco...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu says...
>
>In article <4jsutt$7...@usenet6.interramp.com>,
>Stephanie Smith <us01...@interramp.com> wrote:
>>I agree that the majority of feminists, and certainly organized
feminists
>>who have an official position on the issue (like NOW) are
pro-affirmative
>>action, in the same way that most organizations which advocate the
>>equality of Blacks are pro-affirmative action. The difference is, when
>>individual Blacks do not support AA, you can't tell them they are white
>>(although people often do call them Uncle Tom's, etc.), when a feminist
>>disagrees with the majority on this issue, she is simply told she's not
a
>>feminist.
>
>
>The correct analogy would be
>
> "When a woman disagrees on this issue, you can't tell her that
feminist)."
Wrong. Your analogy requires that we assume that all feminists support
AA. This is not true. I know many feminists (including myself) who are
against or at least highly skeptical of or questioning of AA.
>The components of the analogy are [black |--> woman] and
>[Uncle-Tom |--> not-feminist]. It is women, not feminists, who are
>the "underprivileged minority group" that are the targeted beneficiaries
>of AA programs.
And it is Blacks, not non-Uncle-Tom's who are also the targeted
beneficaries of AA programs. What does this have to do with my analogy?
>As for equating advocacy of equality with advocacy of affirmative
>action, that's hypocritical. (It does sadly suggest that there are
>really very few organizations that actually promote equality.)
Take that up with Ronald Dworkin.
Stephanie
Marion Delgado
"...
"It's not obviously discriminary, since the boys are not being
disadvantaged or deprived of anything they don't have. If you really
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
want men and women to be treated equally why complain about every effort to
accomplish this simply by changing attitudes -- encouraging girls that they
*should* or at least can think career and become financially
independant, instead of believing that a girl should be more concerned
about finding a man to take care of her and being primarily responsible
for the home and children. If girls focus on career as much as men, there
is less likelihood that they will end up doing the great majority of
child-rearing, and thus get custody in the majority of cases. There is less
likelihood also that they will be able to demand alimony. There is less
likelihood that people will want to use AA to address the disparities
between women and men in the workforce (since they will be lessened). Or is
this not what you want? ..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And if those of us who *oppose* tydtw day were really rush limbaugh-loving
male chauvinists, we would cite this post for its interesting definition
of terms: any program is *not* discriminatory if it simply *gives*
something to one gender (here, a day off from school and lots of positive
attention) that does not specifically *harm* or *deprive* the other gender
of something they already had, it is perfectly okay. Male-only government
funded programs are therefore fine as long as they don't specifically harm
women and girls. I propose the Give Our Boys (Only) Ice Cream initiative,
in cooperation with name-brand ice-cream makers and the school system.
If need be, this may make a subsequent Take Your Son to the Dentist Day
necessary, involving another day off.
marion d.
--
"The spectacle is a permanent opium war which aims to make people
identify goods with commodities and satisfaction with survival that
increases according to its own laws."
-- Guy Debord --
"There was a swirling mass of water that lived in a quiet pond which asked
permission of its master to visit all the lands beyond and its master
allowed it to fly so the wind swept the whirlpool across the sky."
-- The Meat Puppets --
Mark Evans
:
: What the boys "might believe" is irrelevant. At least in a public school,
: TYDTW to work day is
: (1) Sexual discrimination against boys.
: (2) Public establishment of religion.
This surely depends on exactly how "religion" is defined, it is certainly
arguable that there is as much faith involved in such a policy as there is
in many religions.
: Both are violations of the 14th Amendment. Since NOW supports TYDTW
: day in public schools, it follows that NOW favors discrimination against
: boys.
One problem with laws which supposedly outlaw discrimination is that they
are only as good as their enforcement.
: And just why should daughters not believe they don't have an equal
: right to pursue a career?
:
: Of course, no matter how noble and lofty you think the goals of
: TYDTW Day, the fact is that it discriminates against boys. It
: is a violation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
I wonder does the US law have the concept of "treason"???
It would appear to be that is what you are saying that NOW is in
direct opposition to the USA...
: Since NOW (a self-described feminist organization) promotes TYDTW
:
PangK
as human beings and not MONSTERS!
Stephanie Smith
If the girls already had ice cream and dental care, the boys were without
ice cream and dental care, and if we could show that boys' lack of interest
in ice cream and dental care caused problems for both men and women in later
life (which more closely approximates the point I was making), then I would
have absolutely no problem with the programs you mention. :-) And note that
in all of these cases the parents are the ones that provide the ice cream,
visit to the dentist, or day at work. There is no state action, so the 14th
Amendment is not implicated. Additionally (and this again was my point) in
order to show discrimination in a Constitutional sense, you must show harm.
Since the program does not prevent boys from being taken to work, even on
that day if the parents want, there is no harm.
Stephanie
Eric Pepke
(Stephanie Smith) wrote:
> There is no state action, so the 14th
> Amendment is not implicated.
Inasmuch as the program is supported by state schools, there is state
action.
Additionally, I know of one case which is clearly state discrimination
based on this day. Florida State University has a policy against parents
taking their children to work, ever. This policy is suspended ONLY for
daughters ONLY on take-your-daughter-to-work day. As FSU is a public
university, this is clearly discrimination by the state.
> Additionally (and this again was my point) in
> order to show discrimination in a Constitutional sense, you must show harm.
Fascinating, that. NOW will go on and on about subtle social pressures in
school causing vast amounts of harm, and this all gets swallowed. However,
when it comes to explicit, state-sanctioned discrimination against boys,
then it's all of a sudden "where's the harm?"
> Since the program does not prevent boys from being taken to work, even on
> that day if the parents want, there is no harm.
Wrong. The program specifies that the boys remain in school and be taught
for a day according to NOW doctrine.
-Eric
Ed Glamkowski
:P The point for me is that not all boys are encouraged by their parents or
:P teachers, and not all girls need extra encouragement. TYDTWD merely
:P reinforces sexist divisions.
well, politicians *need* to divide the populace to maintain
power, be it divisions along the lines of sex, race,
income or whatever. the more divided society is, the
more we play into the hands of those already in power :P
Robert Mobbs
: I agree with you. A good definition of feminism I read recently:
: "Feminism is a political perspective that considers women unjustly
: subordinated, finds that oppression to be humanly changeable, and
: strategizes for women's advancement." Linda Gordon, _Pitied But Not
: Entitled_ (1994).
I am surprised at the number of people who assert women are
"suboordinated", yet do not offer proof for this.
: Just one addition to the definition above -- I do think more and more women
: are realizing that for women to ever achieve equality, men's roles (and
: inequality in certain areas, like children) will have to change too.
So you are willing to oppress male freedom to bolster female
"equality". That is very revealing.
Robert L. Mobbs
Microsoft WPG Software Development Engineer
t-rm...@microsoft.com
-
"I'm gettin' happy cos my life is good.
It turned around just like I thought it would.
I get all happy cos my life is so damn good."
Los Lobos
Robert Mobbs
: What you're ignoring is that many people support AA because they believe
: it is necessary not to compensate for past wrongs, but to prevent
: discrimination which would otherwise occur and ensure equality. Ronald
: Dworkin is a proponant of this position, for example. While I may not
: agree with it entirely, it allows me to understand how people can both
: claim they are pro-equality and pro-AA. As long as their positions on
: other issues support this, I don't question their honesty.
Robert and Andrea Dworkin. It cannot be a coincidence.
It is logically impossible to be pro-equality and pro-AA. Period.
If you are pro-equality, you cannot be for special treatment of any one
group.
: I consider myself a feminist because I support women's equality with men
So far you have supported nothing but separation and special
treatment for women.
Robert Mobbs
: Because: 1) the boys already know that have just as much right as girls
: to pursue careers -- there is absolutely no danger that they will feel
: otherwise in our society; and 2) girls are somehow getting the message
: that it is not as important to them to be able to make money and support
: themselves -- this leads to many of the complaints I've seen *from men*.
Utter bullshit. You are not in any position of total knowledge,
nor one which would allow you to know universal truths like the one you
attempt to assert above.
It is so tiresome seeing "feminists" try to justify anti-male
or male-exluding actions as "necessary" or "non-sexist" because they
fill some imaginary gap. Even if the gap were there, the old argument
of the end not justifying the means comes to mind.
: The point is that somehow kids are getting the message that careers and
: earning money are more important for boys, and that you can't counteract
: that message simply by bringing both to the workplace (especially since
: most workplaces show the effect of our society anyway).
Can you prove this? Of course not. It is nothing but propaganda.
: I don't think you're telling little girls that their rights have to be
: obtained through special programs at all -- I see it more like you're
: taking them aside and saying that careers are important for them *too*,
: and they should work hard to achieve whatever it is they want --
: basically giving them a *message* that boys already receive,
Do you live in the real world? Where do you come up with the
idea that boys are given this self-fulfilling, you-are-important boost
from all of society? Men occupy most of the dangerous or high-stress
jobs in this world. Men occupy most of the "grunt" jobs in this world.
Your arguments fall flat.
Robert Mobbs
: Before getting into the specific discussion below, I just want to
: reiterate the point of my original post, which appears to have been
: lost. I asked *why* TYDTW Day bothered men, since it does not
: *disadvatage* boys.
So you would be for the instatement of a program which doesn't
take anything AWAY from females, but provides cash subsidies and
guaranteed employment for male college students? I mean, that doesn't
*disadvantage* girls, it just gives an advantage to boys.
Gerry Harbison
There is no state action, so the 14th
> Amendment is not implicated.
Ah, but there is. Several governmental organizations (this one, for
example) observe TYDTWD in a discriminatory fashion. And public schools
that accomodate TYDTWD by arranging the curriculum so that kids
specifically absent for this day don't miss anything are also
contravening the 14th amendment.
> Additionally (and this again was my point) in
> order to show discrimination in a Constitutional sense, you must show harm.
This is just plain incorrect. On the contrary, in engaging in
discriminatory practices, you must show a compelling state interest in
doing so.
> Since the program does not prevent boys from being taken to work, even on
> that day if the parents want, there is no harm.
It often does prevent boys from participating. For example, here at UNL
there is a specific girls-only luncheon on TYDTWD. My son and I will be
gate-crashing this year. I'll keep y'all posted.
--
Gerry Harbison mailto:ge...@chem-gharbison.unl.edu
http://chem-gharbison.unl.edu/harbison_group/harbison.html
Being awake never felt like this before - Julianne (Ben Folds Five)