[45] in peace2
Re: Sexism at MIT discussion
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (The Macomber Family)
Mon Jan 24 08:09:23 2000
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Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 06:07:17 -0700
From: The Macomber Family <artmacom@micron.net>
Reply-To: artmacom@micron.net
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To: Karen Sachs <karens@MIT.EDU>
Cc: peace2@MIT.EDU
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Karen, I find myself in agreement with about 101% of what you have shared. As I
have moved about the country, living on both coasts and the Mountain States, I
have watched women struggle with this "invisible force" and as a man, tried to
actively monitor and change my responses - away from some of the "unseen forces"
of my socialization. As a father, it has been necessary to separate the twine of
my upbringing into What I Want to Pass On and What I Want to Ditch - for my
children. Every generation has to do this on some level, right? When it comes to
paradigms, the sensitivity required is sometimes overwhelming, especially when
school, home, budgeting, and work are like gnats - swarming and stealing time and
energy.
Our next move will be back to one or another coast for various reasons, but
partially because of the the society constructed by the Mormons. They
purposefully and actively keep women in subordinate roles as part of the
patriarchal structure of their culture. Men dominate and believe they can run
everything with the women home knitting, cooking and raising children. I have had
many in-depth discussions with Mormons and I am convinced they are neither a
Church nor an influence I would like to have on any women or men I socialize or
work around. Not just for their insistence on gender-profiling but also for their
belief that God speaks to the head of their organization directly through
revelation about such topics as poligamy and taxation but not to the common person
about anything - and other philosophical and religious tenets they hold. Given
this reality, and given that this structure is unhealthy to me and my spouse -
much less, God help us, if our daughter falls in love with one of them - we have
to move away from our mountainous home.
This is not to blast away against their club, as much as it is to say that the
world has folks - a lot of them - aggressively seeking to BLOCK your
self-actualization in a non-traditional gender role. So, a toast to your
attempts, failures and successes! For myself, I realize that sometimes when I
fight these paradigms - as in the heat of battle one may - I take on the
characteristics of that enemy. Let me know if you can figure out some way to
characterize life as something other than a battle - that would be nice. :-)
BTW Anyone: How did the panel discussion go the other night? For those of us in
distant quarters, it is still an unknown. As Karen has shared, there are many
perspectives.....
Take care,
-Art
--------
Karen Sachs wrote:
> warning: this turned out to be a continuation of thurday's discussion. if you
> have no patience of such things, don't read!
>
> I was at the discussion on thursday and i was very interested, particullary to
> hear about the experiences and advice of the two professors, tenured and not
> (yet).
>
> i just wanted to clarify something, because i feel that i gave the wrong
> impression (my words were unprepared, and i guess i was distracted by the
> roomfull of people).
>
> i talked about how it is possible for girls in our society to grow up feeling
> confident, but i fear, and i have found it to be so in my experience, that
> this is only because they feel specifically extraordianry. my point in saying
> this was: the overall feeling is that women are generally incompetant. this
> is what we are taught to believe. this is what i was taught to believe. not
> by my physics/mathematics instructor mother, not by my two older sisters who
> are engineers. but some *mysterious* force taught me that women are generally
> inadequate. what my supportive background allowed me to believe was that i
> could be one of the way-above-average women who can succeed because i am
> particullary talented. i was able to feel this way because i did have role
> models, so i was able to believe that some women are capable, and i could be
> one of them.
>
> there arises the point at which i started to doubt myself, and at this point
> the situation was greatly intensified, i think, by this general belief that i
> was not really meant to be competant, only if i was of the trully elite. this
> is all on a subconsious level, but i belive it influenced me.
>
> i told how my undergrad school did have female profs, and how this did not do
> much for me. aimee asked me how it would have been had there been none; in
> retrospect, i realize that this question indicates that i got the completly
> wrong point across (and it bothers me, so i had to write all this now):
>
> my point was not that female profs and other role models are not important. i
> believe they are extremely important. my point is that they are not enough,
> certainly not when they are,say, 8% (which would be a great improvement over
> the current situation in most departments here).
>
> i believe that seeing female profs allowed me to believe that some women are
> extraordinary and smart and generally competant. this is wonderful, but in my
> mind at least, they were the exception to the rule.
>
> it is not good enough to teach girls that some women can be an exception to
> the general rule (that rule being that women are just not quite as good).
> that's why role models are just not enough.
>
> extremely important. but insufficient.
>
> how horrible for a girl to grow up feeling that she is a member of this
> generally inferior group of people. if i had a strong and supportive
> background and was therefore able to feel that this can't touch me, that's
> great for me (to a point), but it points to a horrible situation, one in which
> an entire group of people are raised with this feeling of incompetance.
>
> ( i think this problem is a larger one in our society that has nothing to do
> with men and women and everything to do with how we value people and how we
> teach children that their worth is measured in units of intelligence, or units
> of athletic ability, or units of popularity, or some mixture of all of these.
> we have so litte emphasis on the inherent value of the human being, and his or
> her ability to do wonderful things with his or her life)
>
> its high time we started teaching our children (i have none, i just mean in
> general) all about their intrinsic value as good people and less about the
> importance of being all these "important" things that we are all supposed to
> be.
>
> and if we are raising little girls, yes, i do believe it is very important to
> show them wonderful, extraordinary women who do wonderful things, so that they
> can know that women can be this way. but it is also (i strongly believe),
> absolutely vital to teach them that competant, strong, smart, able women are
> the NORM, not the exception. (yes, this means eliminating fairy tales with
> such important themes as: little gilrs should grow up to be very beautiful so
> men can and will want to rescue them. it also means much more)
>
> i hope we have more discussions, sorry for venting so much.
>
> :)
>
> karen
