Deirdre Saoirse wrote:
>
> On Mon, 1 Nov 1999, Cat wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 31 Oct 1999, Deirdre Saoirse wrote:
> >
> > > Nothing stops the conversation around here faster than some CMOTW [1]
> > > (who obviously doesn't get it) posting a lot of things that create what
> > > is basically noise. And then everything stops.
> >
> > I absolutely agree with your observation. Notice how we never got
> > anything really resolved about the themes.org issue? T
Exactly. And as Cat said, our energy went into explaining to whatsisface
rather than to the actual topic.
> > Then it stopped, mostly because we had one audience member whose liberal
> > use of the term PC and ubiquitous posting made it impossible to talk to
> > anyone but him!
> Right. What I'm saying is that unless we recognize that this will happen
> over and over and over and that we need a better sense of deja vu, we'll
> have other discussions sidetracked and killed.
I think what we might need to do to resolve it is to resolve to ourselves
NOT TO EXPLAIN things to people who come in late... or who don't understand.
Of course, this is ME saying this - and we've all seen me derail myself
with long and involved explanations. I think I'm going to have to stop doing
that and simply go on with the discussion instead - perhaps with a note to
the individual after an explanation to go check out the archives.
Might this help? A resolution on the part of core participants in the
discussions to stay ON topic...?
> But I think it was more the railroading, the getting sidetracked by
> comments from men. I think that is a problem of female acculturation that
> I really hadn't even noticed before.
I have. We /defer/. We're usually unconscious of this deference - but it
happens in all walks of life (at least in Australia). As soon as a guy
opens his mouth, we tend to defer our conversation and modify it to be
more interesting to him.
Certain classes of men are aware of this and work to avoid it - and we
have a good selection of men who do that on this list. (THANK YOU!!)
Others may be aware of it and use it, or are unaware of it and just bull
on with the assumption that if we wanted to speak up we would.
> > 1) overpowering the conversation, in the kinds of ways Deirdre has
> > described; or,
> > 2) joining the discussion in a careful, thoughtful manner, as in the cool
> > ones Deirdre mentions in the next paragraph.
> >
> > Both types seem to be aware that they are treading in territory where they
> > are not on center stage. What is it that makes one accept that and
> > function respectfully and constructively, and the other trample over
> > everything in sight to take back the center?
>
> I don't know.
The respectful ones know - consciously or unconsciously - that women are
accultured to defer to men, and are careful - consciously or not - to back
off enough to let us speak freely.
The others are only aware that 'this is a place where things don't happen
like they normally do' and want to set things 'right'. I think, anyway.
'Right' being the usual circumstance - where things of interest to them
are discussed.
This is, of course, just theoretical. Feel free to tell me I'm being an
idiot. :)
> > > I don't want to diss all the men on the list; some of the ones who've
> > > been around a while are VERY cool. I'm not going to mention names because
> > > I know I'd forget someone. :)
> >
> > I'm glad you put this here. I definitely have been very impressed with
> > the tenor of most male contributions to this list.
>
> Agreed.
Oh HELL yes!
> > And I found I had nothing to say. I was disgusted, but I couldn't really
> > get it out onto the screen. I don't want to help him. He is free to do
> > whatever he wants, but why is he asking me to help him do it so it won't
> > offend women in the community? I mean, what is he after? Encouragement?
>
> Chris, I must admit, is also a friend of mine. I wouldn't have
> suggested he come here because I know him well enough to know the outcome.
> I don't know why he asked and it still boggles my mind that he thought we
> would be a sympathetic audience for that sort of question.
Unconscious assumption that women help and defer to men, perhaps?
Jenn V.
--
Humans are the only species to feed and house entirely separate species
for no reason other than the pleasure of their company. Why?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Jenn Vesperman http://www.simegen.com/~jenn/
************
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
