Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site randvax.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sdcrdcf!randvax!edhall
From: edhall@randvax.ARPA (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: womanspace
Message-ID: <1659@randvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 30-Jan-84 22:12:53 EST
Article-I.D.: randvax.1659
Posted: Mon Jan 30 22:12:53 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Feb-84 02:56:15 EST
References: <6425@watdaisy.UUCP>, <1635@randvax.ARPA>, <3486@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: Rand Corp., Santa Monica
Lines: 103

-------
My response to Laura's response.  (And I hope some new ideas, too--
pure rebuttal gets boring fast!)

I tried to use such words as `many' and `some' in my article to
indicate that I was making generalizations. (I submitted an article on
generalizations and the dangers thereof a while back, but a near site
had been eating all of randvax's submissions for a couple of months,
so you may never have seen it.  I'll re-post, but only if there is
interest.) Far be it from me to say that `women are X and men are Y'.
Here is my first point, as plain and as terse as I can make it:

In our attempts to develop equal opportunity, respect, and freedom
for women and men, let us not commit the falacy of trying to make
women and men the same.

In the rest of my article I was speaking more in terms of the
traditional roles than trying to define `how men are' or `how women
are'.  One point was that it has been part of the traditional male
role to be what I'd call an emotional cripple.  Now, many men `fall
short' of this `ideal'--and some of these actually feel guilty for it!
This is a generalization, of course, but I consider it a useful one in
viewing the problem of sexism, especially its social origins.

Part of my article requires a direct defense.  I'll use indentation,
with my original words indented 8 spaces, Laura's 4.


	Furthermore, whether inborn or socially caused,
	there are differences in the ways most women experience their lives
	than the ways most men experience theirs.

    This statement could do with some references, could it not?
    I personally see very little evidence for this now that women are working.

Actually, I consider it pretty obvious.  I've never menstuated, nor
can I give birth to children.  Last time I checked, just about all
women did the first and the majority have done or will want to do the
latter.  Now, I *don't* think women should be discriminated against on
the basis of these differences, but I have noticed that these two
things create concerns in women that men only can peripherally share
in.  These are blatently obvious examples of inborn differences; I'm
sure most people can think of many others, for both women and men.

Just because differences between the sexes have been used to justify
discrimination is no reason to deny the differences--it is reason to
attack the discrimination!

Social differences are there, too.  I've really never felt
discriminated against on the basis of sex, except for the `traditional
male role' which, truth to tell, is usually easier for men to shed
than women can shed their roles.  Many (probably most) women have been
discriminated against because of their sex.  This is an example of a
social difference, a difference of environment.  I'm pretty much an
outsider; I can understand, but not as a matter of shared experience.

	So it makes perfect sense to me that a women might prefer the company
	of other women.  I can nod sympathetically when a female friend talks
	about being discriminated against (or even shake my fist in anger at
	the injustice), and I can try to be knowledgable about those things
	peculiar to the female experience, but I'll never really understand
	the way another woman can. 

    I gather that you really believe this, so it isn't a cop-out, but I really
    don't believe this at all. There is one level where "nobody can ever
    understand anybody else" (unless you have got the telepathy trick down
    pat, in which case go collect from Randi), but to suppose another level
    where "only women can understand women" and by analogy "only men can
    understand men" seems terrible to me.

I agree 100%, Laura.  But I feel that there is a difference between
understanding through shared experience, and understanding through
perception of an experience one has not shared.  Some times this
distinction is important, some times it isn't.

And there are definitely times when I prefer to try to understand
a person who is different from me; it is what I'd call a `growing
experience'.  In fact, I suspect that most people (another general-
ization, folks!) seek such experiences, and the more secure they are
in themselves, the more such adventure feels pleasurable and
comfortable.  (And the more they indulge in it, to mutual benifit.)

Which brings me back to my original point.  This is, after all, about
`womanspace', and my original article was defending the idea of
womanspace against those who say it is somehow divisive or discrimin-
atory.  Some women, at some points in their lives, feel the need to
share the experience of being female in an environment of females.
There are times when the male-dominated world (an admitted
generalization) feels hostile, and where it feels like men cannot
understand some of the very personal hurts (and occasionally joys) of
being a woman in our society.  It can be a stage a woman goes through,
or a place she finds comfort in from time to time for her entire life.

Should men organize into `support groups' to help themselves become
more comfortable with themselves and their experiences, and less
attached to ill-fitting sex roles?  Positively, if they wish to!!

		-Ed Hall
		decvax!randvax!edhall

P.S. As to the `being intolerant about intolerance' argument: I'll
pass.  This has been beaten into the ground in net.philosophy and
net.religion.  Someday I may take you up on it, but not today.