Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19980901125324.00713e60@mail.iinet.net.au>
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1998 20:53:24 +0800
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Steve <tramont@iinet.net.au>
Subject: To Edryce from Stephen Springette
Here is the post that didn't make it to the memetics list yesterday:
At 11:48 AM 8/30/98 -0500, Aaron Lynch wrote:
---snip---
>The idea that men should speed-seduce and then control women certainly
>strikes me as gender-supremacist. I think that clarity would be well served
>if it were not promoted in future memetics newsletters.
Actually this belief, as well-intentioned as it is, disempowers women. Why
do women *let* themselves get seduced by certain types of men? What is the
nature of the very important role that women play in sustaining and
perpetuating the types of men that dominate our cultures?
Men and women were equals before feminism. And men and women are equals now.
We are all equal players in the living systems in which each of us is
accomplice, perpetrator and victim.
The following is a post that had been approved and posted by the moderators
of a feminist newsgroup (for this I give them credit, as I had not expected
it to be published - there are signs of hope for Truth on the horizon. I've
changed the name of the person to whom my post was a reply. And in case
anyone fails to see the connection between the following post and memetics,
let me clarify my position - men and women choose from their cultures, the
memes that they conceptualise. All choice is memetic):
___________________________
Subject: Re: Men and Feminism
Date: 10 Dec 1996 17:44:18 -0500
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix2.panix.com
In article <32A2F370.702A@janus.swipnet.se>, mary says...
----snip----
>they themselves do that, considering the rapes and murders done on women
>every day. Women do not rape. Men do. Women do not kill (with few
>exceptions). Men do. Women do not congregate in groups and harass people
>of other ethnic origin. Men do. Okey. This is generalizing, but can you
>deny that this happens. My whole point is that men who do Not do these
>things and actively want an equal world, must start to oppose the perps
>of all these crimes. Women alone can not acheive equality. =
>
>I do not see men as enemies, just because they are men, but the
>men who hold all women in contempt and behave thus, are they my
>friends?? I do not see men as incapable of decent behaviour, its
>just that our culture promotes a "manly" behaviour that is not
>acceptable. I see that I did leave out a lot in my post, things that
>I see as understood. =
----snip----
>
>Mary
>
Here are a few simple facts that we can all see:
1) Men rape. Women do not;
2) The vast majority of perpetrators of violence against both men
and women are men;
3) Wars are always run by men, fought by men against men and women.
Very rarely do women fight wars. Men kill. Women do not;
4) Men run the companies, the institutions and every other social
organisation that ultimately oppresses both men and women;
5) Men *might* be more often the perpetrators of domestic violence,
but in view of the powerful taboo that forbids men to ever hit a woman, I'm
not so certain. Playing devil's advocate though, I am happy to concede that
men are more often wife-beaters than are women husband-beaters.
Thus far, Mary and I are probably mostly in *perfect* agreement.
Here are a few simple facts that many of us choose not to see:
1) Men were once little boys with mothers;
2) Men's mothers choose men's fathers. Women choose the types of men
that they would like their sons to be. Mothers wield enormous influence in
the type of men that little boys grow into. Mothers have a say in the
schools that little boys go to, the types of careers they choose, and the
types of company they keep;
3) Women choose men, and in choosing a type of man, a woman casts
her vote in favour of what she thinks all men should be. It is a vote which
other men notice, and from which they learn;
4) When a woman marries a man to share experiences, life and
property, a woman casts her vote in favour of the entire package - including
the way in which property was acquired. Societies and cultures are systems
in which every person is an accomplice. Every person is a voter and
collectively, all votes shape the system, the nation, the economy and the
manner of property ownership. When men go to fight wars to protect property,
they go to wars to protect the property that women also own and desire. In
other words, men do the dirty-work of men. And men do the dirty-work of women;
5) When men used to burn witches at the bidding of women, men did
women's dirty-work as much as men's. When men rape women in times of war,
men do women's dirty-work as much as men's. When men rape women in times of
war, they are fighting those who chose the men, who nurtured the men, who
encouraged the men, who are the enemy that threaten home and state;
6) When a woman chooses a wife-beater, she is casting her vote in
favour of what she thinks all men should be. The type of man she chooses is
the type of man all of us have to wear. He is the type of man that decent
men must be prepared to fight in order to protect home and hearth.
The bottom line is this. Women choose the men that oppress men and women. My
life is affected by women's choices and behaviour as much as by men's
behaviour and choices. When Mary says, "our culture promotes a "manly"
behaviour that is not acceptable", I hope she includes women equally under
"culture". If she does not, then:
1) She is being dishonest;
2) She disempowers women. To deny women's power is to belittle women.
If we wish to accomplish equality between men and women, then let us be
careful not to exclude those whose greatest power is the power of veto, the
power of choice. To do so is to diminish their true value, and to make them
appear less than what they really are..
Stephen Springette
______________________________________________
Newton's Laws of Emotion:
http://opera.iinet.net.au/~tramont/biosem.html
There can be no complexity without simplicity
______________________________________________
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