To add my 24 year-old perspective to the pot:
When I got to college, I thought very much like that one woman's
(wymn's?) daughter who said "it's all equal & all that other stuff is in
the past." I took one women's studies class fall term frosh year, and
suddenly became aware of all sorts of *hidden* social dynamics of which
I had been oblivious. You see, at least in my household and in my
community growing up, I had *never* been TOLD that since I was a girl I
couldn't do something. I was raised with all that 70's and 80's good
stuff free-to-be-you-and-me, with strong female role models, where the
vast majority of the top students in math and science were girls, and
camps where girl's swimming and soccer was just as fierce and physical
as the boy's and being smart and athletic and talented was not
necessarily easy, but okay in a group of peers.
As I understand it,
this is largely different from the bringing-up (bringing-down) of girls
in the past. And this is largely due to the feminist work of the past.
I certainly don't see any of that stuff as a thing to roll my eyes at
and go "Oh, Mom, lighten up" to--it's more like what I owe my life to!
But at the same time, what that class opened me up to is that there are
subtle social dynamics that can shape a female's life just as much as
any verbally spoken directive of "you can't do that; you're just a
girl." Things like how teachers, even female teachers, tend to call on
boys in class more than girls, and that boys are not reprimanded for
experimenting with the science lab equipment, even breaking it, because
"boys will be boys." It is this very playing that makes boys more
comfortable and at home with being in lab, while the girls are sitting
there being docile. Girls are complimented for being neat in their
work--penmanship, etc, while boys are complimented on getting an answer
right and being bright---even when the girl is also getting the answer
right. When girls ask for help in something, the teacher is more likely
to take over the problem and "show by doing" while if it is a boy who
asks for help, the teacher will explain it to them while the boy works
it through--thus empowering them and leaving the girl having to ask for
help next time, or at least being less "hands on" in her ability to
tackle problems. As I get older, I recognize that many of these learned
helplessness behaviors are no longer useful to me (if they ever were).
My peers, both men and women, expect me to be outspoken, experimental,
and active. The men who were those boys speaking more in class and so
on didn't *mean* to keep me silent (they were being socialized too) and
they weren't aware they were. That is the environment I seek for
myself--it isn't universal, but it is *findable* now, in its imperfect
form.
So in my liberal arts liberal politics college (Carleton College, in
Minnesota) where most classes were discussion classes, we would all
fight and discuss brutally--but in that great academic debate structure.
And I would notice that often it was 5 men and maybe 2 women who would
be the most vocal. It is in learning to speak out--or even learning
that we maybe *do* want to speak out, when we think we don't--that women
have the most room to stretch out into. But the men I worked with -- in
the Green party chapter we founded, in MPIRG, in the Forest Service as a
wilderness volunteer doing heavy labor -- I found them to be men who
both had the tendency to silence and disempower women *and* had the
ability and the desire to watch themselves for these tendencies (esp.
when called on) and turn around and instead empower their peers. Even
if it meant not saying that thing they thought was so important, and
instead letting their collegue speak. I also find that the
relationships I build, both friendship and otherwise, with men of my
generation (and background--I should say that, because there are
definitely many men who have not been brought up by feminist
sensibilities or been exposed to these ideas and emerging culture) seem
impossible to many women older than me. True *friendship* between
"opposite" sexes--where we are emotionally intimate and so on and I'm
not the one "taking care" of the guy all the time. Men who don't have a
problem with me being more expert in how to paddle and portage a canoe
or being physically stronger than them. Etc.
At the same time, there is work work work to be done. And sometimes I
get into seeing men as the enemy, man as the oppressor, and it goes from
being a broad-scale cultural imperative that we must all work to
re-shape, to being *men's* fault, even the "good" men--the men I love.
When I am really angry, about date rape and incest and violence, I want
to just go and create a women-only world and kiss this one goodbye.
Inevitably, I find my two sides--my bisexual perspective, I think it
is--both tearing me in two different directions and pushing me to create
a world where there is a women's world where pure empowerment work can
be done, a sort of gym to work out in and build up one's strength and
voice AND a world where the stong feminine and the gentle masculine can
coexist and balance each other.
And that's my 2 cents!
Jennifer B. Norris
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon Mar 20 12:09:41 MST 1995
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 1995 14:09:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Michelle_Covi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Emerging Women
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I just finished reading the excerpt from Shere Hite's new book on the
family in the new edition of "Ms." and I thought that it might have
bearing on the topic of Emerging Women. In the article Hite points out
many of the differences between the typical two parent households that
the older age group probably grew up in contrasted by the changing family
that today's college students probably grew up in. Although I am 29 (in
between?), I grew up in the old-style family with a doctor father and a
stay-at-home mother. In many ways our family is atypical, but we did grow
up with the model of a very unfulfilled and depressed housewife mother.
She seemed to live through my father- her only contact to the outside
world. I saw the inequality and even though she never encourage her
daughters to follow in her footsteps, she didn't seem able to save
herself. For me, the family was formative in my embracing feminism.
The young women that grow up today with a strong single mother, or
parents that have more equal roles in the family may not have the same
essential experience of inequality. In many ways I am so happy for them
to have such a wonderful experience, still I hope that they can open
their hearts to those who haven't been so lucky, and see the
inequalities.
Did anyone else read this article and see the connection that I did?
Michelle
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon Mar 20 14:56:29 MST 1995
id <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Tue, 21 Mar 1995 09:48:42 +1200
; 21 Mar 95 09:47:52 +1200
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 09:47:11 +1200
From: "STEFANIE S. RIXECKER" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: US FAILS ATTEMPTS TO OVERTURN WASTE (fwd)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Organization: Lincoln University
Here's some forwarded econews for all of you. Stefanie
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 1995 14:07:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Greenpeace -- DC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Recipients of conference <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: US FAILS ATTEMPTS TO OVERTURN WASTE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MARCH 17, 1995
US FAILS TO OVERTURN WASTE DUMPING BAN:
YOUSSOU NDOUR AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS JOIN IN CONDEMNATION
Dakar, Senegal--17 March 1995--Popular singer Youssou N'Dour from
Senegal joined Greenpeace, Senegalese and South African
environmentalists today to denounce efforts undertaken by the US,
German, Australian, French and Canadian governments, as well as
the International Chamber of commerce and other industrial
organizations to undermine the international ban on the dumping
of hazardous wastes in developing countries.
The hazardous waste dumping ban agreed in March last year was
passed by a consensus decision of the Basel Convention Parties.
The decision prohibited all exports of hazardous wastes from the
industrialized countries of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) to non-OECD countries for
final disposal (immediately) and for recycling (from 1998).
The Ban decision was the culmination of 8 years of effort by
African nations, and the G-77 group of developing countries.
Senegal played a leadership role in all of the Basel Convention
negotiations and particularly at the March 1994 conference in
support of the ban.
This week in Dakar, Senegal sponsored an international workshop,
to discuss implementation of the ban. However, leaked documents
obtained by Greenpeace revealed that the International Chamber of
Commerce representing waste exporting industries and certain
governments like the USA, the EU Commission and Australia
intended to use the workshop to sabotage the Basel Ban rather
than implement it.
However, the effort to discredit the ban failed, despite the fact
that 80% of workshop speakers represented industries associated
with hazardous waste export and very few speakers at the meeting
represented governments of non-OECD countries.
At the close of the workshop, Denmark proposed that an
extraordinary meeting of the Basel Technical Working Group be
held in Copenhagen to resolve the questions over waste
definitions in order to implement the ban decision.
"For those seeking to sabotage the ban, the meeting was an utter
failure," said Dr. Kevin Stairs, toxics policy advisor for
Greenpeace. "For Senegal, the rest of Africa, and the entire
world, the meeting was successful in that it began to grapple
with the details of implementing this historic decision."
2-of-2
"Hazardous waste is not a commodity like bananas or rice," said
Mr. Abou Thiam of ENDA (Environment Development Action in the
Third World), "It is a disease which must be prevented at source
rather than spread around the globe."
"In South Africa, hazardous waste importation for recycling has
killed at least 3 persons outright and contaminated our country
irreparably," said Mr. Tebogo Phadu of EJNF, (Environmental
Justice Networking Forum) of South Africa. "This type of
business is not development, it is a crime against humanity and
the environment."
Singer Youssou NDour of Dakar, who four years earlier had written
the song "Toxique" about toxic waste dumping on third world
countries, stated, "When I wrote my song years ago, the fashion
was dumping toxic wastes on the beaches and jungles of Africa,
now the fashion is to call the dumping 'recycling'. But once
poisoned you cannot recycle human life, nor our precious nature.
Therefore we must not relent to the powers that would traffic in
toxic waste.
################
CONTACT: Marcelo Furtado, Greenpeace US, 202-319-2454
Jim Puckett, Kevin Stairs, Greenpeace International: Hotel Croix
de la Sud (Senegal): ++221 23 29 47
Mr. Abou Thiam, ENDA (Senegal): ++ 221 22 42 29
