In a message dated 97-05-15 17:49:44 EDT, you write: >If I get any more self-conscious, I might end up some sort of Hegelian >pretzel. Can we get pictures? :-) :-) >But no matter. I've been on several feminist lists where men have >been rebuked for their style of debate. After a brief exchange, the men >shut up. And then...nothing. There is no discussion. Actually, I have seen several long winded, and relatively boring, male female exchanges on femecon. The results were that one man did leave, after emailing abusive/sexist/nasty/drunken--you name it messages (he even called me at home--a scary item and a little too close to stalking for my taste). And the other man simply changed genders and became a she. However, to my knowledge, no one ever resolved a good solution to male female debate patterns. I want to point out that email is only one place where these patterns exist. In fact, both men and women bring to email the discussion patterns they use in the world at large. I think one reason left groups tend to be either very male or very female is that no one, to my knowledge, has come up with a solution agreed to by both sides. > Last time I visied >FEMECON, and I admit it's been a while, there was plenty of networking and >syllabus exchange, but very little discussion of ideas or politics. On email as in real life, women deal with the practical, men deal with fantasies (er, oops, ummm) oh yes, men deal with theories. Well, anyhow, debate on femecon, as with all long lasting lists ebbs and flows. There are many months of little or no idea bashing, and then there will be short, vigorous back and forth, and then months of practicalities. One reason I stay tuned to pen-l is to watch the theories (ha) flow. >When I've pointed these things out, I've been told that it's macho to debate; >women prefer to create nurturing safe spaces. So maybe we phallus-bearers >do carry on with excessive violence and at excessive length. The truth is, I've been told I debate too vigorously too. (who me?) One of the most interesting longer debates held on femecon was what was more important--safe space or ideas. eventually, there was no resolution. Oh yes, this is a MAJOR gender difference. Women talk, men look for solutions, women deal in practicalities, men battle over ideas. Is this a contradiction? damn straight it is. >But isn't this gendered interpretation of discourse one of those troubling binaries that >we should all be suspicious of? Isn't one of the forms of women's >oppression their expected reticence, which is internalized as the urge to >be "good" (or at least not to be "bad"), not to give offense, not to cause >trouble? >Doug Good point, one (I SAID ONE) of the feminist responses to this would be that loud debating is a male value and why should that take precedence over female values which are gentler and allow for more grey areas? Personally, I think women are just as stubborn and just as theoretical in their debates, it's just that the frame work on which they hang their arguments are so different that men (hide bound cretures that they tend, I SAID TEND, to be) don't recognize the theories in a different frame work. The other problem is that so few men are really versed in the feminist debates that they don't recognize a theoretical disagreement when they see it. In fact, within the feminist community there are huge disagreements, we just don't call each other "protoplasmic menshvites." (welll, that's not really true either, one of iaffe's founding members sets up a round table discussion at every conference set up so she can duke it out with the marxist feminists over what ever issue). maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
