I think we need to be careful about assigning the blame for our current
unhappines about the way women are treated to unthinking, insensitive men.
I wish it were so simple; but I fear the cause of the problem is far more
complicated. Here are two illustrative examples from my own life:
1) When I was in seventh grade I *loved* my French class. I worked very
hard, and was eager to go to class. One day the teacher asked a
particularly difficult grammar question, and I proudly raised my hand and
gave the correct answer. There were two popular girls sitting behind me,
and one leaned over towards the other and whispered loudly, clearly
intending for me to hear, "She *would* know the answer." At that moment I
realized for the first time in my life that it wasn't always ok to be
smart; in fact, if I was going to be likable, I was going to have to learn
to keep quiet, and not to raise my hand when I knew the answers. The boys
in the class probably couldn't care less whether I was smart, stupid,
whatever. It was the girls who made my life so miserable in middle
school, who made me aware of what a nerd I was.
2) I have a little sister, who was a real trouble maker when she hit her
teens. But it wasn't the typical girl problems she was having. She
couldn't care less about boys, she wasn't stressed over her weight, and
popularity wasn't so important to her. Instead, she got in trouble with
her teachers, she seemed to have about 5 times as much energy as she knew
what to do with, she was sloppy with her school work, and her teachers
sent home notes complaining that her handwriting was illegible. My
parents responded by cracking down on her, scolding her, but that only
made things worse. Then one day my dad had an epiphany - if my little
sister were a boy, none of these problems would seems so bad; one would
say, "boys will be boys" and just wait for the child to grow out of it. So
my parents eased up on her, encouraged her to play sports to help get out
the extra steam (she's meanwhile become a field hockey superstar), and
while they didn't let her go wild, they eased up on her a lot. Sure
enough, my sister did fine. She's now applying to colleges with the
intention of being a math major. Let me note that my parents are raving
liberals, and my mother is not at all a traditional female role model; yet
it took them a long time to realize that the only way to succeed with my
sister was to let go of the traditional expectation of what a girl should
be/behave like.
So don't be upset that after a few weeks of discussion, we haven't solved
all of our problems. If such relatively brief discussions could come up
with answers, the problems would have been fixed long ago. That's not to
say we should stop talking - we just shouldn't get down on ourselves so
fast. More importantly, by talking we reassure ourselves that we're not
alone with our troubles and frustrations, and SLOWLY we may uncover some
truths and some solutions.
Finally, let the boys stay. How else are they ever going to learn to
understand what we're angry about? How else are we ever going to learn
that we're a lot more the same than we are different? Sure, sometimes
boys say stupid things; but at least here someone will let them know when
it happens.
:)
Ingrid
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[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
