Date sent: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 20:27:11 -0400
Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Lori Anne Parker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: STUDIES IN WOMEN AND ENVIRONMENT <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: separtism and saving the world
>
>
> Miguel Angel Ordorica wrote:
>
> > While I agree, I feel it is important to remember that women are often
> > subconciously tainted by patriarchal thinking too- it would be hard to
> > characterize Margaret Thatcher, for example, as an enlightened feminist.
>
> And it is, in part, due to the aformentioned conditioning that many women may
> need women-only spaces for consciousness raising, etc. Ultimately, efforts
> together -- both women and men -- are necessary, of course. But there are
> times that women may need to be with other women in their political work. And
> only women. Though female relationships are also "tainted" by patriarchy, for
> some women, it is only through being with other women first and getting out of
> spaces where they may continually answer to men (even if the men aren't
> demanding it outright, but due to socially conditioned gender dynamics, etc.)
> that they are able too become fully empowered -- to reject certain patterned
> behaviors/responses to and with men, or to stop defining themselves in
> relation to men, etc.
>
> In my own experiences -- even the women that i might least expect to see this
> in -- when in mixed company, such as graduate seminars with lots of men will
> act in "feminine" ways. i.e. give men the floor, apologize for their ideas,
> etc. When no men are present behavior often changes dramatically. So the
> need for women-only spaces in order to get to a point where the above
> mentioned "feminine" actions are not as likely to happen in mixed company...
>
> But all the above does not at all mean that i am advocating an ecofeminist
> politic minus men. The opposite is true. But i value my women-only time.
> And when one thinks of commonly shared public space as non-neutral space, that
> is, "male" space, then the idea that women-only space is discriminatory is a
> strange critique to make. Also, what needs to be clarified is the fact that
> when i talk about "male" space i am not meaning that all you men out there
> behave in the same way, but i think it is important to remember that by being
> men there are certain privileges, etc. that you have that i do not.
> Similarly, the fact that i am white, regardless of the extent to which i
> change my behavior/idea in efforts to create a non-racist society, means i
> need to remember that day in and day out i recieve lots of privileges because
> of my skin. That the world is in so many ways "white" space. If I don't see
> this it is because i have the privilege of not seeing it. I am privileged to
> think of the dominant white reality as a nuetral, non-raced reality. I always
> carry these white privileges with me. Regardless of whether i want these
> privileges or not. So then a question of how i use these privileges to create
> something different......
>
> that's all for now -
>
> Lori Anne
>
Men act different in the presence of women, too...a failed argument
when it came to V.M.I. and The Citadel. Should there be women-
only institutions but no men-only institutions? I would think that
equality would mean either both are ok, or neither are. The same
goes for forbidding a separate white college system, while
maintaining a de facto separate black one, when both blacks and
whites tend to act and react differently in each others' presence.
This can only be corrected by increased association, so that people
are more familiar with, and therefore more at ease with,each other,
and each other's social and conversational styles. In the racial
case, separate is inherently unequal; what dictates that separate is
more equal in the gender case, or that in the final analysis it is fair
to either men or women? Regardless of whether we're talking race
or gender, everyone will have to get along, become themselves, and
live and interact in our one common world together, as well as to
cooperate to preserve it.
