> In view of Lee Daniel's pronouncements on the irrationality
> of feminism, I suppose the following question is in order:
> How is feminism irrational?
If I had said such a stupid thing, I should certainly be taken to task for it, but I think most of us on the list have sufficient reading comprehension skills to know that I did not. What I said, and stand behind, is that complete 100% dogmatic egalitarianism-- the idea that men and women are completely equal in every respect and should treated equally in every case--is just as stupid and irrational as our society's historic subjugation of women. The example of statutory rape laws was a case in point--there /should/ be a double standard there, just as there /should/ be a double standard in reproductive choice: a mother has the right to choose to carry a child or not; the father does not have that choice, and I don't believe he should, because the reality is that the choice affects the mother far more than it does him.
I am not blind that women have suffered horribly throughout history, and I am delighted that those wrongs are starting to be redressed. I am also not blind to the fact that they still suffer from perceptions and policies that try to keep them subjugated. I have fought many of those policies, even to the point of using genderneutral pronouns. My father was a military pilot in Vietnam, so I grew up mostly with my mother and older sister. I gained a great deal of respect for strong, bright, capable women and the injustices they had to suffer to succeed. I would not for a moment suggest that the feminist movement as a whole was anything but positive. But by the same token, I should be able to say, for example, that Andrea Dworkin a certifiably insane man-hater without implying that I have anything against more enlightened women struggling for their freedom.
I do not apologize for valuing facts more than motives.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC