Theos-Talk Archives (August 1997 Message tl00445)

Titus wrote:

>If your attitude on sexism is "I'm standing for my little corner of truth and
>digging in my heels until people see it," I think you're asking us to follow a
>red herring because you focus on such a small part of the picture; straining
>at a gnat and swallowing a camel. Healing first takes place by listening
>without being quick to retort with charges of male bashing.  I agree there is
>some of that, but it is much less a problem than what women have had to >endure from men for millenia.  Picture forced clitorectomies, brutal abuse, >denial of basic rights ... etc.

As far as I know, women have always generally outlived men.  If women
have had it so much rougher, I wonder why this has been the case.
But, regardless, I don't particularly care what happened in the past.
Correcting present imbalances is my primary interest.  Also, abuse and
sexism are two different subjects, and in the place and time for which
I am primarily responsible, I have no idea what I could do about
abuse, anyway.  Would anything I could have written on this list have
increased the probability of stopping O. J. by enough to make it worth
writing?  But when social pressures sanction such ridiculous outcomes
as women tennis players successfully demanding to be paid as much as
men tennis players, there is imbalance, and when I am directly
confronted by the attitudes which created that imbalance, I am prone
to believe there is sufficient probability that I can do something
significant enough about it to make it worth trying.  To bring up a
similar issue and compare it to sexism, I wonder, considering United
States prison statistics which suggest that men commit,
proportionally, far more crimes than women do and that blacks commit,
proportionally, far more crimes than whites do, how many people would
say that it was racist to even say the latter but not sexist to say
the former.

>If you first demonstrate that you understand the legitimate angers of >women, I think you'll stand a much better chance of your point being taken.

I agree, which relates to one of my points.  Women's legitimate angers
would be far more credible and be taken far more seriously if their
illegitimate ones were eliminated.  That isn't my primary motive, but
truth and balance, the increase of which is my primary motive, and is
what I believe Jesus meant when he said to, first and foremost, love
God, are win-win, and should always come before anyone's agenda, no
matter how poorly he or she has been treated.  The same principle
applies to environmentalism.  No one denies that a clean environment
is better than a dirty one, but when "environmental-nazis" take
people's property away from them for killing snails on it, combatting
that imbalance takes the focus away from maintaining a clean
environment.  Feminists are capable of being their own worst enemies
by going too far.