O, the Irony... (Controversy possible, please keep it nice)

[cindybc]

still, i will resist their depredations with tenderness and a spiritual self. what else can i do? without these things, i wouldn't like myself, and i'd probably go crazy.

-ell

I do agree with this statement as well. Someone has to stay back to pick up the pieces afterwards.

Cindy

[NicholeW.]

Its good old capit(a)lism that will make women triumph.  Companies need all their best resources just to survive and sexism in promotion can only lead to self-destruction of the company unless everybody does it (which you can no longer assure (you could in the 70's).

Well, it worked for racism pretty much that same way.  In the end it will work out that way for TG also.

Did it now? *shakes head*

I agree with Lisbeth in part one. We don't often lynch blacks.

But places where the standards are set, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, etc one could observe and see de facto segregation that you'd never find in Alabama and Mississippi. Delineations into townships where people are actively avoiding minority people. And saying, "well, most of them don't WANT to live here anyway."

Probably true, any idea why?

NJ has a law that allows rural/suburban (really very little difference there) to allocate their required low-income housing units to Camden, Newark, Elizabeth, Trenton, Paterson, New Brunswick, Hackensack and the Amboys. Now just make a guess as to what ethnic/racial groups tend to over-populate those areas and under populate white and economically viable areas. Take a guess to where, invariably, the worst school systems are located.

Jim Crow in practice. If you guessed Latino, African-American, new immigrants without advanced degrees you'd be absolutely spot-on.

Attitudes by many, like some I have seen here, that the racists are "in the states of the old Confederacy" are just plain wrong. They are alive and well throughout the country. It's easy, apparently, for people who do not live among minorities to suppose that the old state-racist areas are the places where the problem exists.

A trip to Oakland and a stay for a few days might illustrate that.

still, i will resist their depredations with tenderness and a spiritual self. what else can i do? without these things, i wouldn't like myself, and i'd probably go crazy.

-ell

That's all most of us can do.

And disagree with her in part two.

And that is what normally keeps change from occurring, that sense that we individually are too small to make a difference. Which is true, individually. Collectively 'we' tend to be much stronger, albeit, less well-organized and more easily discouraged, more inclined to decline collective-action and more inclined to dismantle those mechanisms earlier than the power-brokers.

Let's just say that Obama becomes president and defeats McCain by 57%-43% -- a landslide defeat. Does anyone suppose that the Bushes and the very wealthy and very influential are going to throw-up their hands and say, "O, well, so it goes. We gave it a good shot, but got badly beaten. Let them run the country their way. We quit."?

Or will they re-congregate and begin to build for the future when they will take their outward control right back?

The more liberal, spiritual and humane amongst us could take a very good lesson from them.

N~ 

[lady amarant]

Attitudes by many, like some I have seen here, that the racists are "in the states of the old Confederacy" are just plain wrong. They are alive and well throughout the country. It's easy, apparently, for people who do not live among minorities to suppose that the old state-racist areas are the places where the problem exists.

You just have to look in the mirror really. Every time your heart beats a bit faster because you are alone at a busstop with a black guy, you are reinforcing it. Stereotypes may be rooted in history, but that does not mean that they are universal, or even common. They are just visible. And the reason they stay around is because they are reinforced through social and economic inequalities. It's easy to think oneself done with the bad bits of your past when the laws change, but if the kids in the townships still don't have books to read, they are gonna grow up just like mom and dad.

The most damaging form of bigotry is the subtle kind, because it's so very easy to miss. Especially within oneself. And sadly it is all too common for people to think they are accepting when they really aren't.

As to part two. Individuals can and do make a difference. All they have to do is lead. And a leader isn't somebody who expects people to follow. It's just a person who says "I'm gonna do this, despite what it might mean for me.". Nelson Mandela and FW De Klerk. Gandhi. Harry Benjamin and Christine Jorgenson. Hell, Thomas Beattie.

The only thing keeping us from changing the world is fear and the need to save our own skins.

~Simone.

[NicholeW.]

The only thing keeping us from changing the world is fear and the need to save our own skins.

~Simone.

She gets a gold star.

N~

[Ell]

um, sorry, Sage, but i heard the main reason that the women's movement is no longer moving is because of -- women!

if a man stays at home, he's a wimp. the women's movement cannot progress further until women, themselves, can accept men in the roles of stay-at-home dads. This has not happened. it's a double standard that women expect to receive equal treatment in male roles but consistently refuse to allow men to remain in traditionally female roles.

^ that was paraphrased from a sociology show i was watching a while back.

men still have to be providers. men still have to pay. if they don't, what woman would want them?

[NicholeW.]

At 77% of the salary men make, what woman could afford them, Ellie? 

And then add-in all the objectification and women vilified consistently, even by TSes and you've got what...?

N~

[Keira]

Actually the man as provider is going off in dodo land
at least with the women I speak too.

A couple of studies substantiate this in the younger generation at least.

Women want men to be stable, but they're not asking for
them to shoulder the burden.


Women have children later and later (now 28 I think around here),
by that time they have time to establish a career (they also have less children).

Here, they're only espected to pay on a first date (and not expecting anythign out of it)
after that, it all depends on how much money the partners have.
Often having people paying in alternance is a good way to go.

As I said Nichole, much of the 77% is due to different life choices between
men and women and past systemic discrimination, not current one.

Maybe 10% is still due
current to systemic discrimination. Even if every job paid the same for both
sexes of same experience and hours worked,
there would still be a difference in pay.
If you work more overtime,
you get more money. For genetic or societal reasons, men work more hours.
Women do a lot more part time work (partly because in the past they
didn't have the education so they had difficulty on the job market, not
sure if it will hold up in the future of if this is just transitory)

I had the whole pay list of an engineering firm of 200 and all the 20% of female
engineer with similar experience had similar pay to their male counterpart.

[NicholeW.]

... For genetic or societal reasons, men work more hours....
Women do a lot more part time work. 

Middle-class white women in the US often are paid comparably in professional areas as the men working the same jobs.

Men work more because they are generally given a 'pass' for picking up children, doing homework with the children, and caring for a household. Many, if not professional women do all of that.

Single women have very difficult times doing all of the above and making living wages, professional or not. How many 'single fathers' you figure you'll have on the welfare rolls?

I worked six years at a major city DHS office. I had one single male raising children. He was a major anomaly. My co-workers were astonished he was there. None of them had ever had one.

N~

[Ell]

At 77% of the salary men make, what woman could afford them, Ellie? 

And then add-in all the objectification and women vilified consistently, even by TSes and you've got what...?

N~

i'm just passing along the info, my dear.

and, by the way, the women's movement shadows the really important power structures in the US: Families. when it comes to powerful families, true, sis doesn't have as much clout as her older brother. still, she doesn't have to work, if she doesn't want to. she can get educated anywhere she wants to, or not. try going up to her and telling her she hasn't got any power.

the powerful families want us to focus on such 'national' (read as plebian) things as the women's movement, to deflect attention from themselves, and their sons and their daughters.

[Keira]

That men get the child is something a bit out of men's control
right now.
But, there has been a fast marked increase in joint custody right now,

I'm just tired of woe me dialog that I hear that seem to not
reflect all the data on the ground.

There's a lot of movement right now, a lot.

There are problems with certain segment, and many women are
in poverty, but that reflect as much past discrimination as current ones.
We have to fight for those women in the present, but we also
must look towards a much brighter future. I believe it and
because I see it in the face of the flood of young women going to university
(university is very cheap around here $2200/year so anybody can go).

I feel feminism is often disconnected from the masses of young women
or look down on those who are oblivious to their whole manifesto.
This is a very widespread view amongst women, I haven't invented it.
Feminists should question what went wrong to lose the ear of most women?

[Seshatneferw]

Men work more because they are generally given a 'pass' for picking up children, doing homework with the children, and caring for a household. Many, if not professional women do all of that.

Isn't this what Ell was saying in the first place, except for the extra bit that it's not just males that expect this to happen? There's been a very strong emphasis on making it acceptable for women to show more traditionally masculine traits, but much less on making it acceptable for men to show traditionally feminine traits. Sure, that has happened too (which is inevitable, since someone has to do the laundry and pick up the kids), but more as a result of women getting more career-oriented rather than a way to enable that.

  Nfr

[NicholeW.]

Isn't this what Ell was saying in the first place, except for the extra bit that it's not just males that expect this to happen? There's been a very strong emphasis on making it acceptable for women to show more traditionally masculine traits, but much less on making it acceptable for men to show traditionally feminine traits. Sure, that has happened too (which is inevitable, since someone has to do the laundry and pick up the kids), but more as a result of women getting more career-oriented rather than a way to enable that.

  Nfr

The reason we all work more is a demand for 'productivity.' Americans work longer with less time off and less job satisfaction than any other western european-based nation. Feminism hasn't declined to work for men showing "traditionally feminine traits." Men themselves have chosen not to do that.

To blame the female for most of the problems is nothing new at all. We bleed, the crops don't grow. Someone becomes psychotic, its the way his mother raised him.

So if both parents have to work, then it's only fitting that the woman do the laundry and pick-up the kids? (Surely that was not your point!?)

N~

[Ell]

The reason we all work more is a demand for 'productivity.' Americans work longer with less time off and less job satisfaction than any other western european-based nation. Feminism hasn't declined to work for men showing "traditionally feminine traits." Men themselves have chosen not to do that.

To blame the female for most of the problems is nothing new at all. We bleed, the crops don't grow. Someone becomes psychotic, its the way his mother raised him.

N~

Sage, your anger about this is extreme. what is more, it is guiding you.
-L

[lady amarant]

From my experience, there is still a very definite sense of male privelage around the question of work and domestic duty.

Case in point: I'm quite close to the receptionist who works at our offices. Her partner is semi retired, while she works a full week, over and above spending about 2 hours a day in commute. Half the time he's around the house or out playing golf.

She still gets to go home and make supper; Do the cleaning, washing etc. Neither her partner nor her son will lift a finger to help. And this is not an isolated incident, amongst many of my female friends and acquiantances, this is a common theme - even people in their early 20's.

~Simone.

[NicholeW.]

Sage, your anger about this is extreme. what is more, it is guiding you.

Anger? Hardly. Passion? Yes.

I find nothing to be angry about and much to change, Ellie. I also find that many people, but maybe trans women in particular, tend toward accepting the propagandist views that "equal pay for equal work" are the only colorations that are privileged for males to be narrow and short-sighted. The notion that "everything has changed?" Hardly.

For instance, I have no problem being what you referred to as a 'soft female.' It's who I have always been. But, I am not looking to recapitulate my mother's generation's ideas about 'the place and deportment' of women. Why would I, for example, be at fault for my own sexual assault? Yet, that idea still maintains itself as people look at what someone was wearing, where they were, did they flirt, did they have a drink, or three, etc when the matter of rape comes up.

Often enough I am held responsible for some male's urges and controlling them! Now how, just exactly, is that supposed to work? In the example I gave a few pages back. The cops' sense that they 'couldn't tell' seemed to be the problem. "This says MALE!"

I'm not able to be convinced that the problem was mine for not looking like they 'expected' a trans woman to look to them. Instead, the problem was them. My existence said nothing about their sexuality or manliness. Write the ticket and begone. Pretty simple.

The examples Simone gives above are all too usual. The 'privilege' is to work ouside the home to make ends meet, take care of the home and the emotional needs of everyone but yourself who lives in the home and be 'pretty and perky' all at the same time. Ever heard any guys being asked to be 'pretty & perky?'

And are university women different? Many are, those without partners and children can live a very different life. Except that often enough they find that within the academy their opinions are short-shrifted in favor of a man's opinion. Good work is often "good for a woman." WTF is that all about?

Their job prospects upon graduation may be severely curtailed. "Do you plan on having children?" (At the same time it's still instilled to a great degree that women need to have children to be 'complete.') Yet, to say you want them is to hurt job opportunities in many respects. Or even if the question is never asked, and it is illegal to do so, often enough the presumption is that she will at some point. Even today there seems a very real prejudice that one "chooses a man, he's got a family to support."

Inequalities and unrealistic expectations and lack-of-expectations abound. And women with a trans history who pay no attention to such things truly should get a bit more educated, imo. Because it will affect them whether they 'pass' or not.

I know (trans) women who didn't think they were affected in such ways. They maintained executive-level work after they transitioned. But, now, a few years down-the-road, they see others promoted, their formerly respected views declined and womanhood has struck them like a ton of brick. They were not prepared to live life the way most girls are indoctrinated to some degree, even today, to live it. They thought nothing of substance would change: "I'm accepted by my employer."

For those that's true for, good for them. I am happier than I can express. But before anyone thinks they are through that door and that for her there is no 'glass ceiling' or double-standard, wait a couple of years. You may be very surprised. And for those that think what happened to you, Nichole, will never happen to me, pray it doesn't.

BTW, not living in Montreal seems a decided disadvantage. $2200/year for college? You can't find that in most community colleges in USA.

So, no, Ellie, I am not angry at all. I am concerned, flabbergasted and dismayed that women don't even manage to hold open the possibility that all is not well at this point in the relations between women, men and society.

N~ 

   

[lisagurl]

The only thing keeping us from changing the world is fear and the need to save our own skins.

~Simone.

She gets a gold star.

N~

The United States is becoming a dangerous place to live.  For anyone who is in a stigmatized group: people of color, women, LGBT people, immigrants.  I can feel the grip on our rights slipping.  --  Oh boy O, and then some.  Nor do I have any hope that the next occupant of 1600 is going to roll it all back either.  Make a couple of symbolic changes, but nothing major - they passed the Patriot Act, effectively suspending major sections of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Magna Carta (don't ever let anyone accuse them of thinking small, they did what every British King since 1215 had only been able to dream about).

World trade has made the world competitive. Cultures are now playing second fiddle. Fear is used to keep people from rebelling. Soon the food shortages will start to effect those that ignore the weak. It will only be then that people will see we are all in this same boat. Meanwhile back at the ranch they farm out costly labor to those willing to work for less.

Corporations have exceeded many nations in power. Marketing has a hold on people's behavior. It is only when we refuse to buy, live, and work in environments that discriminate will we free and have the rights that go along with the responsibilities being neighbors.

[NicholeW.]

I'm gonna run out of gold stars, Lisa, if you and Simone engender similar responses.

Give the woman a gold star!

N~

[debbie j]

I'm gonna run out of gold stars, Lisa, if you and Simone engender similar responses.

Give the woman a gold star!
N~

i hate to say this nichole but  maybe something more then just a good star is needed . and it maybe not be

much but might i suggest  a  big  and some  and a  to go with that

gold star

[cindybc]

Hi Nichole
Well me not know enough about woman's rights to argue much about it but I quite ready to take the course. Where do I sign for the course. It's all Paula's fault me going to whack her on head with newspaper. 

Cindy 

[Wing Walker]

Please advise me if I have stepped over the line of copyrighted documents as that is *not* my intention.

IMHO, the Feminist Majority Foundation and the National Organization for Women have darn near made themselves irrelevant in a world that cannot see the continuous sexual and gender discrimination.

I have no clue as to how the Feminist Majority Foundation or NOW feels about transwomen.

Wing Walker
Thank you


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