Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    Lighten up. It is a comedy.
    
    Besides remember she is a rabbit.
    
    

    No she's not...she's a woman but she loves Roger because he
    makes her laugh.
    
    Bonnie

    Re .2, typical - women love men who make them laugh
                     men love women who look beautiful
    
    Lorna
    

    re .3
    
    Cartoons imitate life? :-)
    
    Bonnie

    Yes, the Jessica character bothered me a bit. I have tempered that
    with the knowledge that: a) She was modelled after Veronica Lake
    and b) The movie is supposedly in the style of the 40's hard-boiled
    detective story.
    
    It almost works.
    
    --DE
    

    It's not clear to me whether Jessica is really a rabbit - it could
    be that she is "Jessica Rabbit" because she's married to Roger
    and took his name.  But there are some references that suggest she
    is a rabbit.  No matter.
    
    Look at it this way - if you are insulted by the image of Jessica,
    should I be insulted by the image of Roger?  I mean, is HE what
    women think men should look like?  Pretty silly, isn't it?
    
    Jessica is clearly a "larger than life" character (impossibly so
    in many ways).  A cartoon, in many senses of the word.  I don't
    see how anyone can take offense at her, especially with her line
    of "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way".
    
    				Steve

    When she first came out on stage to sing -- and acted like a
    strip-teaser might (except she didn't), I was vaguely uncomfortable.
    And I could see people getting insulted in the scene where she moves
    up real close to Eddie and almost smothers him.  But she was purposely
    overdrawn just to poke fun at the old stereotypes.  At least, that's
    my impression.  

    
    
    I wasn't offended at all, in fact, my husband and I got quite a
    laugh when we first saw Jessica. So much for the theory of gravity!
    
                            ;-)     -sunny-     (-;

    Another media portrayal is that of the ever caring dependably
    empathetic Vincent in Beauty and the Beast.  He is always there
    when she needs him because he can sense it.  That also is very
    very far from real life so far that it becomes entertainment.

    
    
    I am glad that I am not the only person who was uncomfortable with
    the character Jessica.  It really ruined the whole movie for me.
    
    _peggy
    
    

    Some of you are saying that the Jessica character is such a caricature
    that no one could take her seriously.  Well, the reason I posted
    this note (109.0) in the first place is that I was reading the "True
    Confessions" note, and someone wrote that he lusted after Jessica
    Rabbit.  Maybe he was just kidding.
    
    	Nomi

    re: .12

    I don't think you have to see the movie to get more than a snootful of
    Jessica Rabbit -- I've only seen the movie once, but have seen
    Diet Coke commercials and ads for the movie and TV reviews of the movie
    featuring snippets of her "Torch Song" scene uncounted dozens of times
    since then.  I can see how she could be offensive to women.

    This movie was, after all, something of a period piece.  Even if
    "sexist" (whatever that means 8^) imagery can be eliminated from the
    future, it was certainly a big part of the past, and Jessica was very
    appropriate to this film.  Most of the old cartoon images of women
    were exaggerated, and the male characters' eyes and tongues literally
    fell out of their heads as they passed.

    							-- Mike

    One could also look at the pre-Hayes-office Betty Boop cartoons,
    where Betty as a sexual object was quite explicit.  I haven't
    seen any of the commercials, but have seen the film twice.  I consider
    it silly to condemn the film without having seen it.
    
    To me, a male, I found Jessica's appearance to be so outlandish
    that I was not at all attracted.
    
    				Steve

    Like Steve, I didn't find Jessica to be at all attractive, though,
    as said in a previous reply, she was modeled after Veronica Lake,
    who I *do* find attractive. As Steve said, her features are too
    exaggerated to the point of caricature to be really attractive.
    
    I was far more attracted to Eddie's waitress girlfriend, more for
    her warmth and concern for Eddie tan for her looks.
    
    To reiterate what others have said, Jessica's appearance is *meant*
    to be a caricature of the 40's-style "bombshell".
    
    Last, but not least, having read the original novel, I can say
    with assuredness that Jessica Rabbit is not a rabbit toon, but a
    "humanoid toon". She took Roger's surname when she married him.
    
    --- jerry

    My brother is a cartoonist. All of the women he draws have big breasts
    and what he percieves to be a good woman's body. I once pointed
    out to him that it was quite sexist to always portray women like
    this. He pointed out that no one reads the comics for reality. 
    
    This is how I felt about the movie. I was not looking for reality,
    and was not offended by Jessica. (Maybe you have to grow up with
    a cartoonist to understand the logic :-)
                                     
    Dee                                      
    
    BTW - Shave and a haircut........

    Then why wasn't Roger Rabbit drawn with tight buns, fat wallet,
    slim hips, strong jaw and a nice little "package" in front?
    
    Because the focus "for men" is ok, in movies, ads, "serious" sex
    pictures and cartoons.  The equal focus "for women" however, is
    not.  Jessica CAN be a "fun little sexy caricature" for men but 
    Roger musn't be.  We musn't caricaturize men's sexual equipment.
    We must protect its quiet force and never laugh - we must always
    treat it with awe and reverence.  Tits on the other hand are just tits
    you see, fine and acceptable fodder for either taking seriously
    or just having a little fun or however "society" chooses to treat
    them.
    
    And we're supposed to "lighten up" and relax and accept this good
    naturedly.  I know for me it isn't the portrayal of this fantasy
    but the unequal portrayal.  The movie would probably be a real kick
    if her male was as "exaggerated" as she was - but we'll never see
    that.  Men keep their equipment safely behind clothing while judging
    women's.  Wonder why. 

    re .17, "tight buns, fat wallet, slim hips, strong jaw & a nice
    little "package" in front" - sounds good to me!
    
    I think men don't create cartoon men that way because then women
    might not be willing to accept what most men really look like!!
    They want us to be lulled into accepting the fact that gorgeous
    women go with fat, bald, middle-aged men!!!  :-)
    
    If women got as fussy about looks as many men are there'd be a lot
    more men who couldn't "get anybody"!!
    
    Lorna
    

    Re -1
    
    Because Rabbits do not have tight buns, fat wallets, slim hips,
    strong jaws and nice little packages in front. Roger was a cartoon
    *rabbit*, and Jessica was a cartoon *woman*. 
    
    Recall if you will the other male charactors. Eddie Vaiant was a
    heavy drinker. Judge Doom was cruel and rotten. Some people
    might consider these derogotory male stereotypes. 
    

    oops, some one snuck a note in before me. That should say RE: 109.17
    
    Dee

    Whoops, meant to say cartoon instead of rabbit!
    
    Haing seen the movie and read hte books this conversation
    is strange.
    
    Cartoons are fantasy. And yes a lot of women are protrayed
    as the sexual sterotype. But I think the guys could also 
    get upset-Dagwood, Charlie Brown etc.
    
    In the context of the book-the spoof is the 40's detective
    potboilers and the cartoons of that era also.
    
    While I will agree that language does structure reality and that
    media has an influence on people's opinions WFRR is still just
    a very funny fantasy.
    
    My comment to lighten up is that everything doesn't have to
    be a slur against womankind.
    
    But it maybe because I am an animation freak and and science
    fiction and fantasy person that I accept WFRR for what it is.
    An outstanding example of F/X,animation,and a good parody of
    the 40's Sam Spades.
    
    As for men being portrayed with over abundant sexual organs
    in cartoons that is a whole different topics. There are very few
    women cartoonists at this time in relation to the body of work
    produced. Who knows perhaps there are cats out there who hate
    Garfield for being fat,lazy etc.
    

    re .21:
    
    As Sigmund Freud once said to Anna:
    
    "Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar."
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    I would believe that the female "just happened" to be a human woman
    and the male "just happened" to be a rabbit if it were indeed, just
    coincidence.  But since I have NEVER seen a sexually mediocre, (or
    downright repulsive), woman being fawned over by Rob Lowe types
    but quite often see the reverse, I'd be foolish to assume that this
    imbalance is just coincidence.  You can try, but you won't convince
    me that it is always integral to plots what the heroine's breasts
    look like.  Read any book and nearly always you'll find a description
    of the heroine's breasts.  There is never any direct reference EVER
    made to male sexual equipment - either in "serious" stuff or in
    fantasy.  A female character in any plot is nearly ALWAYS there
    for titillation of either the hero or the male audience and
    occasionally, to justify this, she may get a "side-plot".
    
    The point is not how the female OR the male was actually depicted,
    but that their depiction was quite different from each other.  I'm
    interested in the dynamic behind why that is so.  Sometimes a cigar
    IS just a cigar and you know what?  Sometimes a woman IS just a
    woman and not an opportunity for fun for men.
    
    I still think that if it's a cute little giggle to see mammoth breasts
    defying gravity then it would also be a laugh riot to have seen
    the male lead tripping once or twice over his "exaggeration".  Think
    about how tacky the movie would appear if they'd thrown in a humongous
    wang on the male lead strictly for the giggles and fun for women.
    
    High tack?  You bet.  It looks just as tacky to see the mammoth
    jugs swinging in the breeze just for fun.  But we have a long history
    of poking fun at breasts and we've come to accept it as more or
    less "normal" and any woman who reacts to seeing her sex organs
    parodied on the screen, (like a man would to seeing HIS organs so
    parodied), we're told to "lighten up" because it's "a cartoon",
    "all in fun".  Ahem, that's just the point.  Women can easily be
    portrayed as hot playthings for relatively temperate men.  I agree
    with you Lorna, that men need to be fed the continual fantasy that
    hot women really DO go with ugly, fat, balding men - that his looks don't
    matter - only hers do.  Can you really believe Bo Derek would have
    so easily accepted Dudley Moore?  Only a man could have written
    that one!  ;-)

    Re: .23
    
    >Read any book and nearly always you'll find a description of the
    >heroine's breasts.  There is never any direct reference EVER made
    >to male sexual equipment
    
    Perhaps they're just keeping it above the waist.  You usually don't
    get descriptions of the groin area of either gender.  That's just
    'too dirty' and it's all hidden away.  Legs, chests, rears -- now
    those are safe.  Don't you get descriptions of the man's build as
    well?  Any mention of *his* chest?
    
    If the breasts are sex organs or sexual equipment, then any erogenous
    zone is also.

	well, if you want books that discuss both sex's bodies try 
	"Tropic of Cancer", or was that "Tropic of Capricorn"? At any
	rate it's been a long time since I read it and the descriptions
	get quite weird. But maybe then this isn't a very typical book
	either. liesl

    RE: .23

    Just to be technical, breasts are not sexual organs.  They are
    secondary sex characteristics, like the growth of a beard -- something
    the development of which often but not always accompanies the onset of
    puberty. 

    I do agree with you, however.  Although we are sometimes confronted
    with images of masculinity with which most men cannot favorably compare
    themselves in advertising and entertainment media, it doesn't happen as
    frequently to men as to women.  (This has been on the rise in recent
    years, however, and threatens to reach parity soon -- almost all male
    underwear ads seem to be aimed at women, for some reason).  And I also
    have never seen a movie featuring a "hunk" who ends up with a less than
    appealing woman, and the reverse is very common.  John Candy is always
    walking around with a standard-model beautiful woman on either arm
    (give me a break).

    I still maintain that WFRR was set in the thirties or forties and that
    Jessica Rabbit was typical of the cartoon images of women during that
    period.  If she had been less of an exaggerated "sultry vamp" she would
    have been out of place in the picture.  I am not telling anyone not to
    be offended by her.  I am certain that many modern women, if
    transplanted to that period, would be almost constantly offended.

    Another image of women in entertainment that offends me is Robert
    Palmer's last three music videos (I realize that most of the people who
    follow this conference spend their time far too intelligently to have
    ever seen any of these 8^).  They feature Palmer and a few dozen lithe
    young models, dressed uniformly in skimpy, skin-tight costumes, with
    identical hairstyles, make-up jobs and vapid expressions.  Some of them
    appear to be playing instruments;  the rest are merely undulating to
    the insistent backbeat.  This imagery is aimed directly at young
    people, most of whom have fairly fragile egos.  Though I am very much
    against censorship of any kind, I do wish that the people who produce
    this stuff would be more responsible.

    Regarding "hunks" and "less than perfect women". Well, it's all
    a matter of taste, I suppose, but it seems to me that most of
    the "leading ladies" that Robert Redford ends up with (or dallies
    with during) are "less than perfect" in physical appearance. No,
    none of them look like Ruth Gordon (to choose an extreme example),
    but they aren't the typical Hollywood beauty, either. About the
    only exception I can think of offhand is Jane Fonda.
    
    --- jerry

    re:109.23
    
    What's wrong with balding men?
    

    re: the Size Syndrome
    
    Yes, most books do have descriptions of women's breasts.  This is
    a method employed by the author to invoke a mental image; they cannot
    detail every pore on the woman's body - instead, it must be via
    broad strokes.  Choice of name, physical characteristics, etc, all
    take advantage of existing societal stereotypes to aid the author
    in painting his picture.
    
    As for Jessica Rabbit - I thought it was quite a bit exaggerated,
    myself.
    
    Why do men like this?  Hmm.  Call it survival.  
    
    Survival of the fittest dictates that the strongest, fastest, and
    the "best" will survive at the expense of the lesser and weaker.
    A woman who looks better than some old crone is surely going to
    be vied for a bit more than average, thereby reinforcing Darwin's
    creed.
    
    Myself?  Well, I *am* impressed by Jessica Rabbit's defiance of
    gravity, as much as I am impressed by Dolly Parton's media coverage.
    Desire?  Out of curiousity's sake, perhaps, but not full-time.
    I kind of prefer something on the order of Hope, in _thirtysomething_.
    
    Say, notice that the title of this note says women in general, and
    we've all been talking about Jessica Rabbit?
    
    How about Dolly?
    
    What about women who are more in the "nice" to "oh boy" category
    (as opposed to the "holy ..."), but use it well?
    
    Bill

Thanks for starting this note!

Every time someone tells me how good the movie is, I ask if there are any
realistic women characters, to offset the charactature (I'd _like_ to like
it!). So far, no one has said there is.
	Mez

    Bill,
    
    I think you missed the entire point.  You write, "A woman who looks
    better than some old crone is..." as if it had some connection to
    Darwin's "strongest, fastest, [etc.]" dictum.  Where does it?
    Specifically, how do big breasts relate to survival?  They do not
    indicate good bone structure, fine muscle tone, dexterity,
    intelligence, or keen vision.  They do not even say if a woman
    will be able to nurse her child!
    
    As you indicate, they are appearance only.  Even so, they were not
    popular sixty years ago, so they are not *intrinsically* attractive.
    
    I read a review in "Ms." some years ago, which quoted the novel
    it was reviewing, and the quote went something like this:  ~This
    machine measures a woman's breasts, and compares them against the
    male ideal.  It has measured millions of breasts, and not one of
    them was perfect.~
    
    To me, this sort of thing looks like a technique to keep women
    down:  ~You don't measure up, so you're pond scum.  But maybe,
    just maybe, if you work hard, and don't annoy your betters, we
    won't laugh at you out loud.~  (An exaggeration, a `cartoon' if
    you will.)
    
    						Ann B.

    Exactly, Ann!
    
    And Bill, if it is indeed "survival", then caricatures of men would
    be more appropriate since an ability to "get it up" is far more
    telling of the chances of survival of the species than is breast size.
    As was pointed out, the amount of breast tissue in no way indicates
    the functionality of breasts.  However men's functionality CAN be
    ascertained visually.
    
    Therefore, Roger should have been a wickedly sexy human man and
    Jessica a fur-covered, funny little rabbit, according to your theory.
    
    Dolly Parton is not a caricature, a cartoon, a media portrayal or an 
    image.  She is a woman.  There is a difference.

    
<    And Bill, if it is indeed "survival", then caricatures of men would
<    be more appropriate since an ability to "get it up" is far more
<    telling of the chances of survival of the species than is breast size.
<    As was pointed out, the amount of breast tissue in no way indicates
<    the functionality of breasts.  However men's functionality CAN be
<    ascertained visually.
    

	I think Sandy has hit on a big part of the issue here. (I'm going
       off the deep end here stating what men might be thinking but it's
       what I think they think :*)) -

       The fact that you CAN make some judgement of a man's capability
       to perform intercourse (notice I don't say sexuality since
       defining a man's sexuality as only a penis is far too limiting a
       statment of what can be sexually pleasing) has to affect how they
       view their bodies and what threat the exposure of that means. 

       How much easier for them to say "I can't get it up because you
       aren't beautiful enough, or you were too domineering" instead of
       wondering what might be wrong with them. While I believe it's men
       themselves that have created and bought into being the image that
       being a stud somehow equated to being a man it's women that pay
       for it.

       The ugly truth of sexual bias/sterotypes is that both men and
       women suffer from the fear of not being "right". It must be a
       man's worst nightmare to fail in a sexual performance and have
       other men find out. Women have their fear blasted at them from
       every magazine cover and every emaciated model that designers
       make clothes for.

       liesl
       

    . . .and I'll not deny that I deserve it. . .irreverence follows
    
    
    
    re: .33
    
    "However men's functionality CAN be ascertained visually."
    
    Usually this is true. . .and nearly always without the aid 
    of a magnifying glass. . .
    
    Maybe you should stop now.
    
    No?  O.k, but don't say you weren't warned. . .
    
    
    re: .34
           
    "How much easier for them to say 'I can't get it up because. . .you 
    were too domineering'. . ."
    
    Or, in these modern timz ". . .because you weren't domineering enough."
    
    
    More?  Methinks thou art a garbage glutton. . .
    
    
    "It must be a man's worst nightmare to fail in a sexual performance 
    and have other men find out." 
    
    A close second. . .it's when the women find out that it's time to
    fix a cyanide cocktail.
    
    
    As my friend Louie always said, I ain't got no couth,
    
    Steve (definitely *somebody's* fool. . .)

Well .... I saw the movie too, and even though I thought it was amusing,
I was amazed by Mrs. Rabbit.  I dare say that maybe she _was_ 'drawn' that 
way, but she could have had better taste in clothing ... 

    re:.31
    
    �Every time someone tells me how good the movie is, I ask if there
    are any realistic women characters, to offset the charactature...
    So far, no one has said there is.�
    
    I already mentioned the ladyfriend (played by Joana Cassidy) of
    Eddie Valiant, who works the restaurant/bar, and I think (memory
    is shaky here) even owns it, or at least manages it. I found
    *her* appealing rather than Jessica.
    
    She, Jessica, and Betty Boop are the only human/humanoid female
    characters in the film.
    
    --- jerry

    When I was in grad school, the school newspaper put out a
    quarterly review of music.  At this time Dolly Parton was getting
    a lot of press for _Nine_to_Five_ and Cher had just recorded [a?]
    [her first??] solo album, so one of the issues reviewed the movie
    soundtrack and the Cher album.
    
    The Dolly Parton review said in so many words that it was hard
    to take seriously any view of women offered by a woman with
    that large a chest.  
    
    The Cher review said that while Cher had an okay voice, she'd
    never make it as long as she looked like a 17-year-old boy instead
    of like a mature woman. 
    
    There you have it: Dolly can't make good music because her breasts
    are too large and Cher can't make good music because her breasts
    are too small. 
    
    I can hope that the college senior who wrote the Cher review
    learned something as he grew up, but the music prof. who wrote
    the Dolly Parton review is probably beyond hope.
    
    --bonnie 

	re .35 (giggle)

    	With all of the reading I've done in my life, I have never read
    any description in good literature or smut that has ever made the
    penis or vagina sound like something I would want look at, touch,
    taste, smell, or even be bothered with. That may be why they are
    never described in a novel. More often a novelist will refer to
    them as "her womanhood" or "his manhood" which relates neither to
    size or shape but more to a sensual, comfortable imagery for each
    individual to suit to his/her own "correctness".
    
    	On the other hand, I can remember breasts as being fruitful,
    bountiful, soft, hard, blue viened alabaster, etc. I wonder if we
    who were breast-fed, subconciously long for the security that we
    (men) no longer have in our lives as we did when were infants. 
    
    	I think that Jessica is the bookend to the blonde bombshell
    that hangs onto Mickey Spillane in the Lite Beer commercials. The
    1940's poster gal.

    re: .40
    
    Say Ken, (or anybody else) can you tell me why, when men can wax
    so poetic over the female breast, how is it they can also be so
    ...er....salivatingly *possesive* about them? How is it they can
    make fun of, insult, and denigrate this...well.. object which they
    supposedly love so much?
    
    How is it that whether you have small breasts or big breasts, the
    media, the society, all let you know they aren't *good* enough?
    
    How is it that this society, in particular, makes a *GREAT BIG DEAL*
    of the fat pads which cover (to a greater or lesser extent) the
    milk-producing glands of the female?
    
    Don't talk to me about erogenous zones, males are as sensitive as
    females in that ...er...area.
    
    What *is* the big deal here? What turns (generally sensitive,
    intelligent) men into salivating idiots or insulting fools?
    [Gaak! I almost said "boobs". The heavy burden of the punster..;-)]
    
    --DE
    

    
    	Did I read "men's functionality CAN be ascertained visually"?
    
    I guess that depends on what you mean by "functionality"...I'd have
    to disagree if functionality in the "Well, we tried it twice and
    it worked (produced children) both times" vein.
                                  
    I once knew a man with "size" problems...he drove a Cadillac, yet
    was unconvinced of his equal functional ability, even after assuming
    no responsibility for getting his girlfriend pregnant! See how it
    goes round 'n round? His functional ability was *proven* for him,
    yet, he just blew it off (Including the person he created) so he
    could continue to believe in his supposed inadequacy. That way,
    he can buy more Cadillacs and other "Big, Tough-Guy" things, to
    offset the pain of his own belief.
    
    It's those types that "need" the big this, the perfect that, in
    a Woman to believe they're fully functional beings sexually.
                    
    Fantasy (Leaving this world for one created by the imagination)
    is one way of coping, I guess. Certainly a lot easier than working
    through pain associated with self-beliefs to yield complete self
    acceptance. Let alone acceptance of another's, er, imperfections.
    
    Joe Jas
       
    

    
    	Where does it come from?
    
    I believe it comes from things that happened / didnt happen when
    men were infants, small children, "big" boys and teenagers. It's
    called "appropriate age developmental abandonment" or something
    like that. An attribute of a dysfunctional family system. Of course,
    "it" gets reinforced by the similar multitudes of men who became
    this way. Just cause "That's the way everyone else is" doesnt make it
    best or right. However much it may seem so within "your" gender's
    camp.
    
    This theory is of course not without exception. I'm not saying that
    every man who reads playboy has been soul-murdered by his
    quasi-military-absolute-rule parental upbringing. What I mean is
    that self dissociation by need-abandonment in early life can lead
    to sexual objectification in later life.
                   
    	Joe Jas
    	Joe Jas

re: .32:
>    Specifically, how do big breasts relate to survival?  They do not
>    indicate good bone structure, fine muscle tone, dexterity,
>    intelligence, or keen vision.  They do not even say if a woman
>    will be able to nurse her child!

However, they do indicate that the woman has been sufficiently successful
in finding food that she has been able to store body fat.  Body fat storage
is necessary for fertility (see recent Scientific American article) and
is also necessary for survival during times of low food supply.

Such a woman is more likely to be healthy, and thus more likely to produce
viable offspring.  Since foraged food would be shared within the family,
she would be considered a "safer" partner -- better able to contribute to
the success of the family.

As to the other discussion of size and function, you may recall quotes
from two American philosophers:

    "It ain't what you got, but the way that you got it."
			-- Mae West

    "I'm thin, but fun."
			-- Woody Allen

M.

    And then there were the old airline commercials.  Robin Tyler, a
    wonderfully irreverant comic does a great routine re: the airline
    commercials...
    
    A sexy stewardess speaks in a very high-pitched, sweet voice...
    
    "Hi, I'm Melissa, Fly ME, Fly Worldwide..."
    
    Another voice, low, soft and seductive...
    
    "Hello, my name is Marlene, Fly ME, Fly Worldwide..."
    
    Another voice, tough, rough and no nonsense...
    
    "HI, my name is Helga, Fly me anywhere and I'll kick your f--king
    butt in..."                                
    
    Robin then goes on to suggest that men might have felt uncomfortable
    if they got a fellow out there, dressed up in an airline pilot's
    uniform...
    
    "Hi, I'm Captain Jack and I can get it up for you...."
    
    
    For more information please refer to Robin's album, Always a Bride's
    Maid, Never a Groom...great comedy album.
    
    But remember, boys, it's just all in fun...
    

    re: .41
    
    � What *is* the big deal here? What turns (generally sensitive,
    � intelligent) men into salivating idiots or insulting fools?
    
    Two answers:
    
    1)  Solve that mystery and someone may nominate you for a
    	Nobel; my own theory is that it has something (maybe
    	everything) to do with growing up in America  during
    	this century.  I dunno, maybe the drinking water.
    
    2)	Perhaps it would be as productive to as the question
    	"What is it that turns salivating, idiotic, insulting
    	fools into sensitive, intelligent men?"
    
    	Solve this one and you *will* be nominated. . .
    
    Steve
    

    re: .41 ff
    
    I remember reading (was it in _Argonauts_of_the_Western_Pacific_?) about
    a pre-technological society in which the males were incredibly
    agressive towards women (rape was considered normal) and males of
    other tribes (headhunting, etc.).  The women of this society, while
    feeding male infants, would tease them until they screamed with rage
    by repeatedly offering and then withdrawing the breast.  The author
    seemed to think these two cultural patterns were related.
    
    
    Pilar

    re: mammaries
    
    I had a talk recently with my X-SO, who is extremely fond of breasts.
    He said he and a few friends have been breast-watching (when I
    expressed exasperation and slight shock, he mentioned they had done
    it subtly and non-vocally, so as not to offend) for the past few
    days.  They had come to the conclusion that breasts were the most
    fantastic things since sliced bread.  And, generally, they were
    always attractive, whatever the size.  
    
    Also, not all men have the same degree of sensitivity in the chest
    area as women. 
    
    I'd guess the fascination men have with women's chests is a combination
    of, "Wow, that's so different from me - so soft, so round, so firm,
    so fully packed", and "Gee, you mean they're pleasure organs, too?"
    and "It's the curves on the woman that make them special", and "I
    remember this very fondly from when I was young".  Also, breasts
    are difficult to hide - the other pleasure organs are not quite
    so "on display".  And there's the media hype - and the fact that
    breasts are only shown in R-rated movies and X-rated magazines.

    I dunno - in the 1890's, corsets emphasized them.  In the 1920's
    flappers bound them and hid them.  In the 1950's, sweater girls
    were in.  In the 1960's, Twiggy had a 32" chest.  What next?
    
    -Jody
    

    re:41
    
    I dunno what make we men "boobs about BOOBS". I've stated before
    that they held little interest for me when I was in the dating game.
    If they were of a great importance I would never have met some of
    the most fasinating women of my life. Many a small breasted women
    has been extremely attractive to me, not because of the smallness,
    but because she didn't let the smallness effect her sensuality.
    I think that loose hanging, pendulous breasts are a turn-off. They
    take away from the female, often making her less feminine. (Am I
    coming across clear???) 
    
    Anyway....off to work.
    
    Ken

    Re .44
    
    This is ridiculous. The women of my family maintain their body
    fat in the hips and thighs. I can assure you that we've all been
    QUITE successful in finding food, we are extremely healthy, several 
    of us have proved our fertility more than once, and we've got SMALL 
    T**S! We're charter members of the IBTC! 
    
    Where on EARTH did you get this theory? (And I know its not a function
    of race, because I know plenty of white women who store their fat on
    their hips. There are PLENTY of large women who have a lot of body fat
    evenly distributed who happen to have small breasts. This is just like
    saying that the breast is the only legitimate place to store body fat.
    I'm not buying this one.
    
    lkf 

    Re: .41
    
    >when men can wax so poetic over the female breast
    
    I recall reading somewhere that men's definition of attractive is
    somewhat related to economic or social class.  "Lower class" men
    tend to find large breasts attractive, while "upper class" men seem
    to prefer a more stream-lined model with long legs.

Whew!  I can finally add my 2 cents worth!

First of all, in response to the argument of whether
Jessica's shape was deliberate or not...

Yes, it was a characature (spelling?), it was meant to be a joke.
But it does show some underlieing concepts in our society.  Many
people have been very insightful about that.  The concepts have
less to do with big breasts (since, as someone pointed out, they
come in and out of fashion), and more to do with the idea that
women are judged by their looks.  If you have a hard time believing
this, look at advertising.  How many unattractive women have you
seen selling a product?  (I'm sure you can find some exceptions,
but what is the overall scene look like?)  Advertisers put a lot
of money into research.  They find out what sells.  And good looking
women sell.

On to the real purpose of this reply.  Earlier in this topic, there
was a lot of confusion as to why Roger himself wasn't a spoof of 
masculinity.  I think he was.  The problem is, men aren't judged by
their looks (at least not to the degree that women are).  How are
men judged?  I think it's by how successful they are.  Roger Rabbit
was enormously successful (despite his bumbling characteristics).

The subliminal message I got pretty clearly?  To women:  If you want 
to be a successful and sought after woman, look like Jessica.  
(Every man in that nightclub wanted her, including our hero the 
detective).  To men:  If you want to get the beautiful (and, of
course, by virtue of that beauty, sought after) woman, you'd better
be successful.

I don't like either of these messages, but that's how I saw them.
I think they are as damaging to men as they are to women.  VERY few
of us (none?) will ever meet that goal of the impossibly beautiful
girl or the incredibly successful guy.  What happens to the rest of
us?

    RE Note 109.52

    >>  To women:  If you want 
    >> to be a successful and sought after woman, look like Jessica.  
    >> (Every man in that nightclub wanted her, including our hero the 
    >> detective).

    I would not consider it a mark of success to be "wanted" by every
    man in a nightclub.

    Dale

    re: .53
    
    But that's how a great many of us were raised to define success --
    like Scarlett O'Hara at a barbeque, judging her happiness by the
    number of beaux around her. 
    
    I'm not saying this is right, only that this is the only model of
    "success" is the only one many women ever had.
    
    Oh, I almost forgot the other model of success -- having a couple
    of sons who are doctors or lawyers . . . 
    
    --bonnie

    I don't think the messages, (If a woman wants to be successful
    look like Jessica - if a man wants to be get women like Jessica be
    successful), is equally as damaging to men as it is to women.
    
    Think about it.  Would you rather your sucess in life be determined
    by what you DO with that life or by the genes you happened to be
    born with?  I fully agree that this is the message of our society
    but it seems to me that people who only have to be successful in
    business have a bit more control over their overall success than
    do people who have to be born a certain way.  That's like telling
    a minority person to forget it because of what he/she was born.
    But I truly believe this is the message to women and nobody bats
    an eye.  
    
    Either you were born to have mile high legs, long silky hair,
    perfect little nose, wide-set eyes, (whatever they're currently
    monitoring the female population for this year), or you will be just 
    another one of the zillions of women trying to get by on their
    brains.  
    
    We all know women with perfect genes usually don't even have to learn
    to drive!
    
    So we don't need Jessica to tell us this yet again.  TV, movies, books, 
    skin mags and our own men tell us often enough, thanx.  Men can
    get more schooling or another job to affect their success.  Women
    are expected to paint themselves, suffer foot pain, submit to surgery,
    pay for fashion, etc, in an attempt to "make up" for their lack of genetic
    "success".  I'd rather get another job.  It's a lot easier.  Men
    can DO but our society says women must BE.  Don't men see the nasty
    tyranny in that?  How can Jessica be anything BUT a slap in the
    face of any woman who has failed by our standards of female "success"?
                                                      
    Think of competing for your lady with Donald Trump and you might
    begin to understand.  The difference is you don't see women creating
    movies, magazines, cartoons, commercials, etc plastered to the gills
    with images of men you can never be for them.  Men have the luxury
    of relative ignorance of their competitors and a certain feeling
    that their women are "locked in" by their love.  They have a vague idea
    of someone "richer" taking their women away, but they don't have
    it embodied in hit movies or intimated in commercials or enshrined in 
    magazines month after month after month after month...  They would
    hate us if we did that to them.

    
    re.11
    
    Sigh.. Yes it was meant as a joke, light humor whatever. I found
    the movie amusing, but only form my 5 year olds view point.
    
    In actuality I found it to be in the same catagory as the Saturday
    morning cartoons, a cartoon.
    
    I personally don't focus on a womans Breasts, only in the privacy
    of my relationship. The size is of the least importance to me, there
    are other things that matter more.
    
    I'm sorry if it offended anyone, it wasn't meant to be offending
    or crude. 
    
    My one question though from my view point, why does it seem that
    many entries into this note file are taken apart, dissected and what
    ever to find some hidden meaning, or assault to all.
    
    Cal.
     

    Re 109.55 by CSSE::CICCOLINI- 
    
    >>                  How can Jessica be anything BUT a slap in the
    >> face of any woman who has failed by our standards of female "success"?
                                                                
    I thought to myself, "thats a bit hyperbolic" until your next line-
    
    >> Think of competing for your lady with Donald Trump and you might
    >> begin to understand.
    
    I don't like him or his style, but dammit, thats a good point.
    I had thought I'd begun to understand.  Thanks for showing me even
    more of why the traditional objectification of women is so irritating.
    
    >> They would hate us if we did that to them.
    
    I have to ask- do you hate us for it?
    
    DougO
    

.52 makes a good point that the 'charicature' is an art form that is supposed to
exaggerate an obsession to the point that it is distasteful, to point out the
obsession.  From the comments in this note, it appears that Jessica Rabbit
fulfilled her design specs admirably.

There's no doubt about it... women are more sensitive/picky about breast size
then men are...  Personally, breast size is largely irrelevant to me, er ah,
sensitivity is more important to me...  how much pleasure a woman finds in
having 'her' body.

"Would you rather your success in life be determined by what you DO with that
life or by the genes you happened to be born with?"

I think needing to be successful can be at least as damaging as being judged by
traits people have no control over.  For those that 'do' there is never any
excuse for not being successful; 'you should have *worked* harder!'  Being
judged by something people have no control over gives people a redeemed excuse
for any failure; 'Sally got Rob because she's got better breasts'.  For those
who must 'do' there can never be any rest to simply be who we are.

"They have a vague idea of someone "richer" taking their women away, but they
don't have it embodied in hit movies or intimated in commercials or enshrined in
magazines month after month after month after month..."

Are you saying that women have the image of 'a more beautiful woman taking their
man away' (the counterpart of the above) constantly thrust at them by the media,
or is it something else? I don't see that at all in the media. 

JMB

>> "Would you rather your success in life be determined by what you DO with that
>> life or by the genes you happened to be born with?"
>
> I think needing to be successful can be at least as damaging as being judged 
> by traits people have no control over.  For those that 'do' there is never any
> excuse for not being successful; 'you should have *worked* harder!'  Being
> judged by something people have no control over gives people a redeemed excuse
> for any failure; 'Sally got Rob because she's got better breasts'.  For those
> who must 'do' there can never be any rest to simply be who we are.

I agree with Jim.  But the most important point is that this dual
expectency is just as damaging to both sexes, it just manifests itself
in different ways.

>> "If this were true men would hate us"  (sorry, I don't remember the
					   exact quote.  If my reply is off
					   base, please forgive me.)

I reply to this with some trepidation, but I think this is an important
point... so, here goes...

First of all, I want to point out that not all woman hate men, so 
men's alledged objectifying does not have the effect of making all
women hate men.  Some women do, however, and I think that feminism
can be seen as a response to this male behavior.

As to men not hating women... (this is the part I'm afraid to say)
I cannot give an entire supporting argument for the claim I'm about to
make, (because of space) so think about it on your own.  Hopefully, 
after thought and discussion, we may be able to figure out the merits 
of this thought.

Men's hatred for women comes out in rape.  Not every man rapes, not
every man hates women, but the way I've heard rape discribed is "a
violent crime against women."  Why do these men want to be violent
against women.  This is what I want to think about.  I have some ideas
but they are by no means definative.  Please do not take this as an
attempt to place the blame of rape upon women, it is an attempt to
understand why it happens.  

    re: .58 
    
    >  Are you saying that women have the image of 'a more beautiful
    >  woman taking their man away' (the counterpart of the above)
    >  constantly thrust at them by the media, or is it something
    >  else? I don't see that at all in the media. 

    Well, Jim, in the length of time it took me to read your note,
    the radio supplied an example -- they played the old Dolly
    Parton song "Joleen," which was a megahit when I was in high
    school.  The words include the following:
    
        Joleen, Joleen, Joleen, Joleen, 
        I'm beggin' of you please don't take my man
        Joleen, Joleen, Joleen, Joleen, 
        Please don't take him even though you can
    
        Joleen, your face is wondrous fair 
        With flaming locks of auburn hair
        And I cannot compete with you, Joleen . . .
        He talks about you in his sleep
        And there's nothing I can do but weep
        When he cries out, and he calls your name, Joleen
    
    I think you get the picture.  
    
    Then, just for yucks, I picked up the teen romance my daughter is
    presently reading.  It's pretty liberated -- the heroine turned
    down a date to a dance because she's a graphic artist and she had
    to work on the set for the school play.  But here, on page 89, is
    the information that "Sandra turned away slowly, tears stinging
    her eyes.  But even the tears could not obscure the image of Don
    looking down into Mallory's tender, uplifted face, the swimming
    blue eyes.  How could she have believed he cared for her when
    Mallory, beautiful Mallory, wanted him?"  (I'd go on, but the
    writing style is beginning to disturb my stomach.) 
     
    Anyway, it took me less than ten minutes to find two examples.
    Is that enough, or would you like a more detailed analysis?
    
    --bonnie

Hmmm.... Country music, and teen romance books....  not things I'm well
aquainted with...  Could it be that the type of media women listen to has more
of this sort of stuff then the type of media men listen to? 

Country is famous for it's 'done me wrong songs'.... depressing... I don't
listen to it...

JMB 

SKYLRK::OLSON

>I have to ask- do you hate us for it?
 
Do you think we should?  Would you hate us?
    
    Are you asking me personally or women in general?  For the most part, 
    women in general are resigned to it.  "Boys will be boys", "that's
    men's stuff", "all men do that" are some of the lines we're fed when
    we realize we've been brought up thinking of men = love and they've
    been brought up thinking women =  sex.

   
YODA::BARANSKI
                                      
>the 'charicature' is an art form that is supposed to exaggerate an obsession 
>to the point that it is distasteful

Oh - charicatures are SUPPOSED to be offensive.  I see.  So you're saying
Jessica was INTENDED to piss women off?

>There's no doubt about it... women are more sensitive/picky about breast size
>then men are...  

And men are more picky about dick size than women are.  A good offense is the 
best defense, eh?  "Pickiness about size" isn't the issue here.  It's who gets
to make fun of who's sexuality.  Try again.

>For those that 'do' there is never any excuse for not being successful; 

For those that must "be", (women), there isn't any either, Jim.  You're 
thinking of "in theory" there should be.  But we all know in practice there
isn't.  No one forgives a woman for being ugly.  She's bombarded with advice 
about her hair, her face, her body, etc.  An ugly woman who TRIES is sometimes
forgiven.  But the duty to beauty is the same.  We cannot get another face
or more breast tissue.  Men on the other hand CAN get another job or more
training.   That's the difference.  No one says, "well, she just wasn't
born that way".  Instead they think, "Christ, why can't all women look like
Christie Brinkley?"

>Are you saying that women have the image of 'a more beautiful woman taking 
>their man away' (the counterpart of the above) constantly thrust at them by 
>the media, or is it something else? I don't see that at all in the media. 

Hoo-boy!  It'll take the weekend at least to recover from this one!   ;-)

re .63

    Not only nice buns, but broad shoulders, and all those lovely
    muscles on young tanned construction workers...  :) :) :) 

    -- Linda (still giggling)

    I think Sandy and Steves notes belong well together....
    
    thankyou to you both
    
    Bonnie

    re 109.62-
    
    .57>> I have to ask- do you hate us for it?
    .62> Do you think we should?  Would you hate us?
    
    Oh drat- now that we are asking questions of each other which may 
    be seen as serious and rhetorical at the same time, I want to 
    backtrack and take it more slowly.  I'm sorry that I didn't make 
    the effort earlier to be concise, when I asked my question; may
    I start again?
    
    This started from your .55 which I found enlightening.  Near the
    end of that message, you said
    
    .55>                                           Men have the luxury
    > of relative ignorance of their competitors and a certain feeling
    > that their women are "locked in" by their love.  They have a vague idea
    > of someone "richer" taking their women away, but they don't have
    > it embodied in hit movies or intimated in commercials or enshrined in 
    > magazines month after month after month after month...  They would
    > hate us if we did that to them.
    
    Here is where I short-sightedly asked a semi-rhetorical question.
    Since I'm doing it over, I'll try to be much more explicit.  OK,
    so men have this luxury, they don't have that "vague idea" pushed
    down their throats by our media "month after month after month after
    month..."  Women obviously are objectified in just this manner in
    our society, I'll accept the point. You contend that were it to 
    happen to men, men would hate women ("They would hate us").  
    Here is where I take issue, and the reason I asked the first question.
    
    [short aside here about how if we weren't being generous with each
    other we could pick ourselves to shreds for generalizing about men
    and women without saying "some men" and "some women".  I think I
    know what you mean with your phrasing, and I hope you'll grant me
    the same room.]
    
    Back to why I took issue- if it were really the case that women
    objectified men in the cited fashion (and I appreciated Eagle's
    satire of just that point in .63) I think men would have resigned
    themselves to it just as women have, and as you pointed out in .62.
    They would have been socialized to it.
    
    So I asked rhetorically if you hated men, and merely intended to
    emphasize that when you said men would hate you, to suggest that
    if women didn't react that way (putting words in your mouth which
    you later entered yourself)
    
    .62> women in general are resigned to it
    
    then maybe men wouldn't react with hatred either.
    
    .62> Do you think we should?  Would you hate us?
    
    No. Emphatically not.  I hope we would try to educate you, as so
    many of you have tried for so many years to educate us.  Here, of
    course, I will emphasize again that I'm not speaking for all men.
    I merely *hope* we would go about it without burning bridges (or
    athletic supporters, to tread dangerously close to a tasteless analogy,
    so I'll stop).
    
    DougO

    I appreciate your explaining the question further, Doug.  But you
    haven't imagined your scenario to the point of women's existence
    now.
    
    You say you hoped you would try to educate us.  Fine.  What if that
    didn't work?  Would you hate us then?  What if we just called you 
    "strident" for your attempts at education?  And what if we dismissed
    you as simply a woman-hater which everybody knew meant you were just 
    ranting and raving because you HAD to use a rolled-up sock?  (Steve, 
    your note is priceless!).
    
    You're looking at one point and saying how you would deal with that
    point in a vacuum.  But what you're missing is the zillions of words
    spoken by billions of women which have fallen on deaf ears while
    we continue to have to spend our miniscule paychecks buying clothes,
    hair colors, depilatories, fingernail paints, eyelid paints, lip
    base, color and gloss, having to spend more for the same car a man
    gets for less, more expensive dry cleaning because it's a BLOUSE
    and not a SHIRT, etc.  And then to have all the new season rags
    come out that all the Urban Cowboys are wearing and you've just
    recovered from tring to keep up with LAST year's couwboys!  Whew!
    You think you'll get a raise this year?  You're lucky if you keep
    up with the inflation rate.  God help you if get pregnant.
    
    I guess the question is not whether you'd get pissed at women if you 
    lived in Steve's world, but when.  And what minor incident would put
    you over the edge.  Perhaps one cartoon with a woman who's sexuality 
    was "hidden away" while the man brandished the exaggerated elements of 
    women's desires just might do it.  Maybe not.  Maybe when you got
    called "sweetie" by yet another woman you weren't particularly
    intimate with.  Who knows. 
    
    I just don't think most men realize "the edge" many women are always
    at but instead think we're being just silly about some singular
    silly point.
    
    "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" and "women are more picky about
    breast size than men are".  These are just two examples that make
    me believe that what's being considered by these respondents is
    merely the drawing of Jessica and not the WHY.
    
    And to help us in our "resignation" to this all-male world, we have
    to ponder the why constantly.  I know I do.  But it's easy for men
    to just take it all at face value because they and their sex are
    not diminished by doing so, in fact they are enhanced.  Buying a
    skin mag and seeing women shaved and powdered and poofed and pouting
    certainly doesn't make a man feel less of a man or bad about being
    a man at all, does it?  Then why in the world would he spend time
    exploring the 'why' of it?  Just fork over the bucks and head off
    to dreamland!   Yeah!
    
    You can be sure women think plenty about the why and always have.
    In the old file I opened a topic called "Your first lesson in
    sexism" and that was intended to show that little girls learn early
    and often that the world belongs to men first.  Nearly every one
    of us has asked the question "why" and not gotten answered.  I still
    ask that question but I've paid very close attention to men all
    my life and now when I ask it it's rhetorical.  I know why.  Still,
    most men never answer the question.
    
    And you can't as me rhetorically, "Do you hate men?".  That's a
    direct question requiring a direct answer.  Contrary to what many
    people in this file may believe, I have always been careful to never
    state how I felt about men.  I have said how I THOUGHT about them,
    what I believed their motives were, but I have never said whether
    or not I liked them, loved them or hated them for the observations
    I have made.  Read again through Steve's world.  Read it and really
    imagine it - growing up in it.  That will tell you far more than
    asking a woman if she hates men.
    

>                                                      Nearly every one
>    of us has asked the question "why" and not gotten answered.  

	You might find the book _Why_Men_Are_The_Way_They_Are_ interesting.
	I'm half way through it, so I can't vouch for the whole book, but
	as yet it's given me countless insights into the horrors women must
	face, and has been very accurate at the horrors I have faced.

	It is written by the same author that wrote _The_Liberated_Man_
	in 1970.  I think is name is Dr. Warren something, or just Dr. Warren.
	He is a feminist himself, has been for quite sometime, so don't
	fear that he's going to be a "female basher."  If you're curious,
	just read the intro in the book store, it tells why he wrote it.

	Hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Sandy- (may I call you Sandy?)

Re your .67.  Thank you for your thoughtful continuation
of our dialogue.  I'm ordinarily of the opinion that men
are too vocal in =wn= and thus my previous replies have
been circumspect.  I think you've given some of my statements 
short shrift.  Perhaps thats my fault because I tend to 
offer very short explanations which may presume too much,
in the attempt to be brief.  But this time, I'd like to 
expand my explanations, because I hate to be misunderstood 
or misrepresented, as I think has happened.

>    I appreciate your explaining the question further, Doug.  But you
>    haven't imagined your scenario to the point of women's existence
>    now.

>>    Back to why I took issue- if it were really the case that women
>>    objectified men in the cited fashion (and I appreciated Eagle's
>>    satire of just that point in .63) I think men would have resigned
>>    themselves to it just as women have, and as you pointed out in .62.
>>    They would have been socialized to it.

Here I was being circumspect.  When I said I appreciated Eagle's 
satire I didn't mean that I just laughed at it.  As I entered 
this paragraph, I was picturing to myself just *what* kind of a
society it would be, if women objectified men as men currently 
do objectify women.  It would be a far different place...and as
I thought about it, I recognized Steve's satire in a far stronger 
light, and went back to reread it.  It fit, so I referenced it
when I wrote my paragraph.

But I didn't want to belabor the point.  I was trying to emphasize
something else, and while I certainly wasn't belittling Steve's 
statement by mentioning it en passant, neither did I think I could 
improve upon it.  It made its point well, I tried to use what had 
gone before by giving him credit...and you then told me  "But you 
haven't imagined your scenario to the point of women's existence 
now."   With Steve's help, I had done exactly that.

When I asked in what I later called a semi-rhetorical fashion,
if you hated us, all I was doing was turning around the phrase
you used in .55.  You turned it back on me in .62, so there we
were, throwing that "hate" phrase back and forth.  *That* was
rhetorical and not of much use, and that was what I was trying
to clear up.  

Permit me to offer my apologies if I touched a hot button with
you.  I think the phrase has touched off far more anger than 
I expected and if my insensitivity made you angry, I accept the 
responsibility for being insensitive and profer my apology and 
regret.  *I didn't intend to be insensitive*.  And I'm trying 
desperately to avoid the appearance of being patronizing as 
well, if its coming across that way I'm just not as skilled
a communicator as I could wish.

>>                           I hope we would try to educate you, as so
>>    many of you have tried for so many years to educate us.

>    You say you hoped you would try to educate us.  Fine.  What if that
>    didn't work?  Would you hate us then?  What if we just called you 
>    "strident" for your attempts at education?  And what if we dismissed
>    you as simply a woman-hater which everybody knew meant you were just 
>    ranting and raving because you HAD to use a rolled-up sock?  (Steve, 
>    your note is priceless!).

If that didn't work...well, I didn't really address that.  I
did try to indicate that I recognize the education process has 
gone on for a long, long, time, and by that recognition, tacitly
imply that I know it hasn't worked yet, not fully.  I'm also 
implying here that some of us have been educated (obviously, only 
partially.)  I threw up my hands (well, not really; to be honest, 
I admit I quietly dropped it right there) because no, I don't know 
what I would do if I were in that situation.  Would I hate women?
I don't know.  What would I do were I to be labeled strident?  I 
don't know. What if I were simply dismissed as a woman-hater? 
How would I react?  *I really don't know*, but I suspect I'd 
still hate to be misunderstood.

On that touchy phrase, would/should men/women hate the other due to
objectification...and on my personal reaction:  would I hate women
if I were there?  I hope not, but I really and truly don't know.  
I haven't been in the situation, so I have to ask the only folks I 
know who have.  Their example so far has been that, no, not in the 
main... I hope I would be human enough, too, not to hate women
were our positions reversed.  But how can I know?  

>    I guess the question is not whether you'd get pissed at women if you 
>    lived in Steve's world, but when.  

We weren't using the word "pissed".  We were using the word "hate".
I hope you'll grant me that the distinction is important.  If it
isn't important then we really and truly are on separate wavelengths
and I understand nothing.  I hope I'm not so dumb.
    
>    I just don't think most men realize "the edge" many women are always
>    at but instead think we're being just silly about some singular
>    silly point.
>    
>    "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" and "women are more picky about
>    breast size than men are".  These are just two examples that make
>    me believe that what's being considered by these respondents is
>    merely the drawing of Jessica and not the WHY.

You are right, I doubt that most men recognize that many women are
at that edge.  This comparison business; what do we feel like and
why- I previously complimented you on bringing it home with a comparison
to competing against Donald Trump.  I think Steve managed to do it even
better by taking it from "this" real world where folks compete in terms of
"success", to "that" real world where folks compete in terms of their
sex appeal, and deal with the objectification it causes.  Your examples
of living in that world every day, keeping up with the urban cowfolks,
continues the good imagery.  I have no contention with you here.

>    And to help us in our "resignation" to this all-male world, we have
>    to ponder the why constantly.  I know I do.  But it's easy for men
>    to just take it all at face value because they and their sex are
>    not diminished by doing so, in fact they are enhanced.  Buying a
>    skin mag and seeing women shaved and powdered and poofed and pouting
>    certainly doesn't make a man feel less of a man or bad about being
>    a man at all, does it?  Then why in the world would he spend time
>    exploring the 'why' of it?  Just fork over the bucks and head off
>    to dreamland!   Yeah!

Your caricature of what enhances a man and his sexuality is nearly
as offensive as Jessica is.  Both, however, reflect unpleasant aspects
of our society.  Thanks for reminding me of how ugly it can all be.
   
>    You can be sure women think plenty about the why and always have.
>    In the old file I opened a topic called "Your first lesson in
>    sexism" and that was intended to show that little girls learn early
>    and often that the world belongs to men first.  Nearly every one
>    of us has asked the question "why" and not gotten answered.  I still
>    ask that question but I've paid very close attention to men all
>    my life and now when I ask it it's rhetorical.  I know why.  Still,
>    most men never answer the question.

You know why?  I don't.  In that sense, I agree, most men never answer
the question; I certainly don't feel that I have much more than a
tenuous hold on what makes the world go around.  I think it is also
true that most men never even *ask* the damn question and thats more
of a clue to its answer than anything else I know.
  
>    And you can't as me rhetorically, "Do you hate men?".  That's a
>    direct question requiring a direct answer.  Contrary to what many
>    people in this file may believe, I have always been careful to never
>    state how I felt about men.  I have said how I THOUGHT about them,
>    what I believed their motives were, but I have never said whether
>    or not I liked them, loved them or hated them for the observations
>    I have made.  Read again through Steve's world.  Read it and really
>    imagine it - growing up in it.  That will tell you far more than
>    asking a woman if she hates men.

As I mentioned- I asked it because you posed it yourself 
in .55.  I felt that the way you put it attributed to men
everything you have objected to here (by implication) about 
the accusation of man-hating.  If that was your point, I 
was calling you on it.  So much for my attempt to do so 
with brevity.

DougO

"Oh - charicatures are SUPPOSED to be offensive.  I see.  So you're saying
Jessica was INTENDED to piss women off?"

No, I am saying that the charicature of Jessica is supposed to make fun of
'men's obsession with breasts', that Jessica is supposed to make that obeseeion
offensive.

I finally saw the movie in question, and I was more offended by Jessica's
psychological profile then her physical one.

""Pickiness about size" isn't the issue here.  It's who gets to make fun of
who's sexuality."

Hmmm... who's issue is what???  If you're not concerned with size, what are you
worried about?  Sexuality?  Someone told me breasts weren't sex organs...

As for making fun of one's sexuality, I submit that the one who makes the most
'fun of one's sexuality', is one's self, not other people.  This goes for the
adolescent male who may have erections more sizable then erect nipples at
inopportune moments as much as for women. 

"No one says, "well, she just wasn't born that way".  Instead they think,
"Christ, why can't all women look like Christie Brinkley?""

My standard is that people should make the most of what God gave them.  I have
yet to find a person who does that that I cannot find beauty in. I hope that you
don't mean the latter literally; I can't believe that more then 1% of males wish
every Y looked like Z.

"we continue to have to spend our miniscule paychecks buying clothes, hair
colors, depilatories, fingernail paints, eyelid paints, lip base, color and
gloss, having to spend more for the same car a man gets for less, more expensive
dry cleaning because it's a BLOUSE and not a SHIRT, etc.  And then to have all
the new season rags come out that all the Urban Cowboys are wearing and you've
just recovered from tring to keep up with LAST year's couwboys!"

I have little or no sympathy for anyone who would demean themselves to be a
"slave" to fashion, male or female. 

"Buying a skin mag and seeing women shaved and powdered and poofed and pouting
certainly doesn't make a man feel less of a man or bad about being a man at all,
does it?"

I would certainly feel less of a man if I made a habit of such, and that was my
main sexual outlet, and I couldn't 'get it' any other way.  I believe that this
feeling is common, especially amoung those 'addicted' to pornography.

JMB

    re .67 Ouch! but thanks, Sandy. hurts to have one's eyes pried open.
    
    >Why ?  
    
    If you're sitting pretty, you don't rock the boat. And you resent
    the people who try to. Even if you do offer them 'words' of 
    encouragement, and applaud their efforts to change things, you 
    secretly root for the status quo, as long as it's been in your
    favor. 
    
    There's room in that seat for us all.
    
    Dana
    
    "Real boats rock!" Darwi Odrade (Frank Herbert)

    Although I understand the spirit which prompted .72 and the replies
    prior to it...I am quite put out that there is an assumption that
    there is an either or society...
    
    Most of us want equality....we are not interested in power and we
    certainly would not put the pressures on men that we as women have
    endured.
    

    Dear Eagle...
    
    Most of your satire involved male/female relationships...and my
    comment stands that men will not need the sock in their pants as some
    of us have needed the padded bra.
                                
    There were flames galore over an article I typed in that said in
    one way or another that women have generously allowed men to enjoy
    the parenting role.  If we had held on to that role as tightly as
    men and white males in particular have held on to their positions
    of power...
    
    We want equality we do not want an unbalance...we want to do the
    job whatever it is and get the credit and the reward.
    
    This is a diversion from the original note...sorry back to the media's
    perception of women...I think that is the subject.
    
    

>    Most of your satire involved male/female relationships...and my
>    comment stands that men will not need the sock in their pants as some
>    of us have needed the padded bra.

    Sorry, Joyce, but at least one instance of history does not bear
    this out. 
    
    In the late medieval and early Renaissance, something called
    "courtly love" was in fashion.  It's a complex social phenomenon,
    but at bottom it was a situation in which women were in charge of
    the game and men were begging for favors within that situation.
    
    At the same time -- and there may or may not be a connection --
    male fashion consisted of a short tunic, tights, and a codpiece to
    cover the, er, cod. 
    
    Men regularly stuffed the codpiece with handkercheifs or other
    padding to look bigger than they were.  There are old posters
    advertising the making of custom-padded codpieces as part of a
    tailor's repertoire. There are diatribes written by older men
    against younger men who seek women's affection by effeminately
    stuffing their codpieces.  There are entire plays whose plot turns
    on discovering what's *really* filling the codpiece.  In comedies
    it's padding, in tragedies it's liable to be a gun or other
    instrument of assassination, but it's seldom the, er, real thing. 

    There are also passages and letters making fun of some courtesan
    or other (note that at this time the term 'courtesan' applied to
    members of either sex living at court and didn't imply
    prostitution) because the contents of his codpiece were so tiny. 

    It appears to be a human failing to judge others by arbitrary
    standards of appearance and fashion.
    
    --bonnie

    Re .74, Steve, I don't mean to be picky, but I wish you would refer
    to white males instead of WASP males.  WASP means white-anglo-saxon-
    protestant, right?  There are plenty of white males running things
    who are not white-anglo-saxon-protestants.  Don't forget all the
    white males who are Catholic, Jewish, Italian, Irish, Polish,
    Russian, etc., who are running things.  Women just want their equal
    share of running things.  They want their share of power, not all
    the power there is to be had, like the white men have had for so
    long.
    
    Re Bonnie, everytime I see Bruce Springsteen in concert I wonder
    if his, er, codpiece, is real?  :-) :-)  (or does he have those
    jeans stuffed with socks?  It doesn't matter - I'd like him either
    way)
    
    Lorna
    

    
    re -.1
    
    >Women just want their equal share of running things.    
                                
    So run things... saying you want to is not the same as doing.
    
    Btw: Bruce is still a white male, and he is still helping run things.
    

>    It appears to be a human failing to judge others by arbitrary
>    standards of appearance and fashion.
    
	Yea! Yea! Yea!  A voice of reason decends upon us!

	I think we're not going to get out of this mess until
	we realize that this is a *human* failing and not a
	*male* failing.

	I can understand people's frustration with the problem,
	but flaming at one sex is not going to get them to seriously
	consider what's being said.  I don't think it would work
	with me.

	My mother always used to say, "You get more bees with 
	honey than with vinegar."

Note 109.69 SKYLRK::OLSON

>Sandy- (may I call you Sandy?)

Where the heck does this line come from?  Someone else said this too.
Why might you not be "allowed" to call me by my name, for heaven's sake??
If you don't want to sound patronizing, please skip this.

>    I appreciate your explaining the question further, Doug.  But you
>    haven't imagined your scenario to the point of women's existence
>    now.

When I said this I meant just exactly what you later admitted:

>If that didn't work, [educating men]...well, I didn't really address that.

That's what I was challenging you to address.  You just said you'd try to
educate women.  You didn't go "far" enough to realize that women have already 
tried that.  So again - when that didn't work, what would you do?

>Permit me to offer my apologies if I touched a hot button with
>you.  I think the phrase has touched off far more anger than 
>I expected and if my insensitivity made you angry, I accept the 
>responsibility for being insensitive...

Not at all!  I don't know about other feminists, (since men are routinely
antsy around them), but strangers do not have the power to make me angry.
And don't sweat sounding "insensitive" or anything else.  You are what you 
are and your views are valid when you calmly explain your reasons for holding
them, (as you have).  So just continue to speak your own truth and let your 
words fall where they may.  If you do happen to sound "insensitive", (and 
I don't think you do), nothing you can say to the contrary will change that
anyway.

>I did try to indicate that I recognize the education process has 
>gone on for a long, long, time, and by that recognition, tacitly
>imply that I know it hasn't worked yet, not fully.  

Then back to my original question.  What would you do?

>I threw up my hands (well, not really...

>I don't know what I would do if I were in that situation.  

>I don't know.  

>I don't know. 

>*I really don't know*, 

>I hope not, but I really and truly don't know.  

>But how can I know?  

It's called empathy.  "Putting yourself in the other person's shoes".  And 
I believe men have just as much capability of doing this as women do!

Why I believe men don't USE this capability when it comes to how they
regard and treat women was explained beautifully by Dana Charbond:

"   If you're sitting pretty, you don't rock the boat. And you resent
    the people who try to. Even if you do offer them 'words' of 
    encouragement, and applaud their efforts to change things, you 
    secretly root for the status quo, as long as it's been in your
    favor."

Thanx, Dana.

>We weren't using the word "pissed".  We were using the word "hate".

Point taken.  One implies acute, the other chronic.

>Your caricature of what enhances a man and his sexuality is nearly
>as offensive as Jessica is. 

I wasn't discussing what enhances a man and his sexuality.  I was discussing
why men don't have a problem with objectification.  I was discussing an
apple - not fruit.

>Thanks for reminding me of how ugly it can all be.

I agree with but resent the fact that men can so easily and conveniently
"forget".  Women, you see, are reminded constantly.  It's only fair we
remind men once in a while.

>I think it is also true that most men never even *ask* the damn question 
>and thats more of a clue to its answer than anything else I know.
  
Agreed!  See Dana's paragraph.


Note 109.70  YODA::BARANSKI 

>No, I am saying that the charicature of Jessica is supposed to make fun of
>'men's obsession with breasts', that Jessica is supposed to make that obeseeion
>offensive.

But you're wrong.  Jessica is NOT making fun of men.  She is the joke.  I 
don't think I'd have a problem with being so "insulted" as to have men fawn
and preen and stuff their pants for me.  This is one possible long stretch
way of rationalizing this but her caricature is not intended to make men
squirm about their "obsessions" and I doubt outside of this note many men
did squirm.  I find it hard to believe the artist was intending to insult 
or enlighten men in any way by this portrayal - but rather to merely enter-
tain them.  Most female characters are considered "opportunities" for male
entertainment.  That's why the heroine always has to be beautiful but the
hero can be an ugly guy overcoming that ugliness.  (Dudley Moore in 10,
Roger Rabbit - countless plots).

>Hmmm... who's issue is what???   If you're not concerned with size, what 
>are you worried about?  

I'm concerned, (not worried), about just what I said:  It's who gets to make 
fun of who's sexuality.

>Sexuality?  Someone told me breasts weren't sex organs...

So?  Neither is a woman's behind but... (and that's a BIG but! ;-)

What breasts actually ARE and what our society THINKS they are are two VERY
different things.  I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with this - at least
not any woman since we really know what breasts are and are willing to face
that.  Remember my other note that spelled the difference between "milk glands
protected by fat to nourish a woman's young" as opposed to "creamy globes 
spilling out of a strapless dress"?  Did Jessica ever use her breasts to
nourish her young in the movie?  Or were her breasts playing some other role?

I know they're not sex organs but our society treats them as such and I'm
discussing not what breasts ARE but how our society TREATS them.  We're dis-
cussing "creamy globes" and not breasts.  Big difference in this culture!

It won't work if men get to think of them as peek-a-boo taboo and women must 
think of them as "just secondary sex characteristics - no big deal".  Let's 
call a spade a spade, agree on the definition and get on with this.

>As for making fun of one's sexuality, I submit that the one who makes the most
>'fun of one's sexuality', is one's self, not other people.

Maybe YOU do...

>This goes for the adolescent male who may have erections more sizable then 
>erect nipples at inopportune moments as much as for women. 

The adolescent male in this situation, (I'm assuming "inopportune" means 
a "public" situation where others are noticing), is more mortified and 
embarassed than just "making fun" of his sexuality.

>My standard is that people should make the most of what God gave them.

I agree.  but we're not discussing this.

>I have yet to find a person who does that that I cannot find beauty in. 

Nice.  But obviously, society has a more, um, narrow vision of what consti-
tutes female beauty.  Do you fight publicly for your vision?

>I have little or no sympathy for anyone who would demean themselves to be a
>"slave" to fashion, male or female. 

No, neither does society.  But it also has little time or sympathy for women 
who don't.

	RE .38

	I may be in the minority but I find Cher most attractive. She
	looks better than ever.  A lot of her beauty is due to her
	maturity.

	As far as the 'perfect woman' is concerned: There was a story
	about men who obtained the 'perfect women'. They were known
	as the Stephord Wives.  Perfect in every way - Yawnnnnnnnn.

	Anyway a smile goes a long way in attractiveness.

    My apologies - Dana's last name is Charbonnd.  I'm usually more
    alert to spelling than that.

�< Note 109.80 by CSSE::CICCOLINI >
�
�>Sandy- (may I call you Sandy?)
�
�Where the heck does this line come from?  Someone else said this too.

       It is a famous comedian's 'catch phrase' from the old days. (He's
       so famous I forget his name :-)  - Fred Emery comes to mind, but I
       don't think it was him)

       /. Ian .\

    Re .78, *I* as an individual, have no desire to run anything, except
    my own life (and I really can't do that as long as I have to work
    at a stupid job to get money to live).  I was attempting to speak
    for all women, since I do get the impression that most women do
    want to help run the world.  
    
    I'm sorry, but I really have no idea how to help run the world.
     I'm just a weak, little woman.  But, people do tell me I'm cute
    for my age.
    
    I know Bruce is a white male, who earns a ton of money, too, but
    it's okay with me.  Anybody who looks that good is okay with
    me.
    
    Re .81, For what it's worth, I think Cher is attractive, too.  Maybe
    she should run the world.  It might be more interesting.
    
    Lorna
    

    Probably wouldn't be any wars!  Why waste time fighting?  So many
    men, so little time...  ;-)

    re .82:
    
    > My apologies - Dana's last name is Charbonnd.  I'm usually more
    > alert to spelling than that.
      
    actually his name is Dana Charbonneau, his _username_ is CHARBONND.
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /

re 109.80-  Sandy-

> Then back to my original question.  What would you do?

>> But how can I know?  

> It's called empathy.  "Putting yourself in the other person's shoes".  And 
> I believe men have just as much capability of doing this as women do!

   I don't for a minute have the arrogance to claim that because 
   I empathize that I truly *know* what someone else feels.  In
   past readings of this file I've seen many people assert that
   without having been oppressed/made_to_fear/raped/humiliated
   that one *cannot* know how it feels.  I believe them. Empathy 
   I will claim, but knowledge?  Like I said: *HOW* can I know?
   It hasn't happened to me, and all the rest is a thought-
   experiment.  I learn, I empathize, but my arrogance has limits.

> That's what I was challenging you to address. 

   No kidding.  And for admitting, in direct response to your 
   questions, for admitting that I *know* I don't know how I
   would react, you parade my admission in quintuplicate.  Is
   this useful?  I'll admit something else; for me, it wasn't.

> Why I believe men don't USE this capability when it comes to how they
> regard and treat women was explained beautifully by Dana Charbond: [sic]
> 
> "   If you're sitting pretty, you don't rock the boat. And you resent
>     the people who try to. Even if you do offer them 'words' of 
>     encouragement, and applaud their efforts to change things, you 
>     secretly root for the status quo, as long as it's been in your
>     favor."
>
> Thanx, Dana.

   Yeah, thanks Dana, hand her another cudgel ;-).  For the record,
   while your timing was abysmal, I agree with you, too; except on
   the 'resent' part of it.  Would I be in here taking this on if I
   were interested in the status quo?  [ by 'taking this on', I refer
   to my goal in =wn=, education, and not the discussion at hand. ]

>    And to help us in our "resignation" to this all-male world, we have
>    to ponder the why constantly.  I know I do.  But it's easy for men
>    to just take it all at face value because they and their sex are
>    not diminished by doing so, in fact they are enhanced.  Buying a
>    skin mag and seeing women shaved and powdered and poofed and pouting
>    certainly doesn't make a man feel less of a man or bad about being
>    a man at all, does it?  Then why in the world would he spend time
>    exploring the 'why' of it?  Just fork over the bucks and head off
>    to dreamland!   Yeah!

> I wasn't discussing what enhances a man and his sexuality.  I was discussing
> why men don't have a problem with objectification.  I was discussing an
> apple - not fruit.

   I called the first paragraph "your caricature of what enhances 
   a man and his sexuality" and I found it offensive.  It is
   instead intended to show "why men don't have a problem with 
   objectification".  I've provided the whole paragraph above so we 
   don't lose context.  I still can't read this as you intended it:

>                                               But it's easy for men
>    to just take it all at face value because they and their sex are
>    not diminished by doing so, in fact they are enhanced.  Buying a
>    skin mag and seeing women shaved and powdered and poofed and pouting

   The first sentence states your point.  But the juxtaposition of 
   the next sentence implies that "to take it [objectification] at 
   face value", "they [men] and their sex are ... enhanced" and 
   "Buying a skin mag" are equivalent.  For you to close with such 
   sarcasm "Just fork over the bucks and head off to dreamland!   
   Yeah!" completes your offensive caricature.  Thanks for telling 
   me it wasn't intended to be read this way, maybe you can see
   now how I found it offensive.

>> Thanks for reminding me of how ugly it can all be.

> I agree with but resent the fact that men can so easily and conveniently
> "forget".  Women, you see, are reminded constantly.  It's only fair we
> remind men once in a while.

   Fairness is another issue, but I'll accept the reminder.

   -and- in a minor aside-

>> Sandy- (may I call you Sandy?)
>
>Where the heck does this line come from?  Someone else said this too.
>Why might you not be "allowed" to call me by my name, for heaven's sake??
>If you don't want to sound patronizing, please skip this.

   My "line" is a mere attempt at courtesy.  /.Ian's.\ interesting 
   recollection aside, I'm not in the habit of addressing people by 
   their first names until I feel that I've been given permission
   to do so, either by their use of their name as a signature or
   some other signal.  OK, I got your signal.  Incidentally, I don't 
   much care for this style of address:

> Note 109.69 SKYLRK::OLSON

   because my 'nom de notes' is

   DougO

DougO, (my previous designations were not salutations but rather
references to the note and author)

>I don't for a minute have the arrogance to claim that because 
>I empathize that I truly *know* what someone else feels.

That would be arrogance, I agree.  But no one is asking you for the
"correct" answer - for the real, honest-to-goodness truth within another
person's mind.  With empathy, you would be much more able to surmise how 
YOU would feel in the other's position and certainly not how the person 
in the position DOES feel.  I wasn't insinuating that you ever could know 
another person's mind, but that with a little empathy, and knowledge of your 
OWN mind, you would know how YOU would feel.  And that self searching, rather 
than just a quick, easy, "I don't know", is what I'm asking - nothing more.

I listed your "I don't knows" because the frequency made it seem to me
more of an "I don't know because I don't care to think too deeply about that".
The "I don't knows" came quick and easy.  They always do.  I challeneged you
to accept that you don't really know but that you still could explore your-
self and get closer to that knowledge - if you wanted to.

>It hasn't happened to me, and all the rest is a thought-experiment.  

But it isn't "just" a thought-experiment.  It's worthwile.  It will en-
lighten you.  It will help women.  This "thought-experiment" IS empathy.

>Would I be in here taking this on if I were interested in the status quo?  

Are you asking me now to know what YOU are thinking?  I don't and I can't,
but I do know that there are many reasons men note in this file and a sin-
cere desire to learn and understand is only one of them.  I don't know
what your particular reasons are but I will not assume that just because you
are here your reasons are sincere and honest.  So my answer to your question
is "Sure, you could be".

>  Fairness is another issue, but I'll accept the reminder.

Nein, nein!  Fairness is THE issue!  The WHOLE issue.  The ONLY issue.  What's
good for the goose, etc.  If Roger Rabbit had had been an exaggeration of
women's desires, I doubt this note would be here!  We might instead be dis-
cussing the merits, reasons, results of portraying PEOPLE this way.  But we're
not.  We're discussing the unfairness of the social acceptance of female
sexuality being parodied and the blatant absence of the same treatment of
men in the media.  The imbalance.  The unfairness.  That is the issue.

Sandy  (yes, you may).
    

Hi Sandy,

I've been reading along and have been interested in this particular
conversation.  I appriciate your thoughtfulness (read as: you think
a lot), and your willingness to share your thoughts with us.  I
mention this, not to be condesending, but to say I know how hard it
can be sometimes, especially in this type of conversation.  I like
to be thanked once in a while if someone really means it so I try
to take the time to do so myself.

Now, on to my ideas and thoughts.

This conversation has seemed to center around our society's 
obsession with female appearence.  I will not grant you that
this is a MALE ONLY fault.  I think women are just as obsessed
with it.  I don't think YOU are, but I don't think *I* am either.

I don't expect you to accept this without some examples.  I could
give you many, but I'll stick to just one for breivity's sake.

Beauty contests.  Miss America in particular.  It has about the
same number of viewers as the Super Bowl (75 million), 75% of
which are female.  Have you ever watched a beauty pagent?  I
have, although not by choice, I was staying over a friends house 
and his mother wanted to watch it.  I stayed so as not to be rude, 
and watched with interest.  Not at the women, at the spectacle.
I found it offensive, but was surprised at one major item.  The
commercials.  The commercials were not geered towards men.  They were
geered towards women.  Advertisers pay a lot of money for that time.
They make sure they know who they are selling to and what they
are selling.

Do they advertise to women during the Super Bowl?  I don't know,
I don't watch that either.

>>  Fairness is another issue, but I'll accept the reminder.
>
>Nein, nein!  Fairness is THE issue!  The WHOLE issue.  The ONLY issue.  What's
>good for the goose, etc.  If Roger Rabbit had had been an exaggeration of
>women's desires, I doubt this note would be here!  We might instead be dis-
>cussing the merits, reasons, results of portraying PEOPLE this way.  But we're
>not.  We're discussing the unfairness of the social acceptance of female
>sexuality being parodied and the blatant absence of the same treatment of
>men in the media.  The imbalance.  The unfairness.  That is the issue.

OK, so we agree that this is not fair to women.  But is it only
men who are perpertrating this unfairness? 

My friend's mother made a point of pointing out which contestants
she thought were pretty, which were not.  Not one male in the
room would volunteer such opinions unless asked.

Other's have said that they don't know how they'd feel
if in this situation.  You've pointed out quite correctly that if
they thought about it harder, they might be able to emphasize.  I've
thought about it quite hard for quite some time, and I have a 
possible way for men to empathize with women in this position, AND
for women to emphasize with men who do judge by appearence.

It's been said before, but it hasn't really come out strongly yet
in this discussion.  It is the pressure on men to perform.  One
woman said she'd rather be judged on her performance than her
looks, after all, she has some control over her performance.  Good
point, but she's not grown up with the pressure on her to ALWAYS
perform.  I don't think many women realize the pressure that is
on men to perform.  He must perform in the work place if he expects
to be able to support a wife and kids.  

A woman who works to help support the family is hailed in our new
society (except by people who condemn her for the fall of the family,
inaccurate and disagreeable, but a different discussion, too).  A woman
who does not work is perhaps looked down upon by feminists, but only
because they know she's "missing out."  But, by most of society,
a woman who stays at home (and, if there are any, takes care of the
kids), is normal. 

What of a man who stays home and lets his wife support him.  If 
there are kids, he's heralded by some (but not by all) as the new 
liberated father.  What if there are not any kids?  I don't know
your view, but society's view (that's what we're talking about, right?)
says he's lazy, using her, a layabout...

The simple fact is, for women who get married, if the husband can
afford to support both, her career is an option (by society's 
standards).  A man's career is never an option.  It simply is.  Men
have it drilled into them from birth that they have to support 
themselves, and, if they are responsible, other people too.  

Meanwhile women have it drilled into them to be pretty to reward 
their man.  I neither want to have to support another adult nor
do I think having someone who is nice to look at is ample reward
if I do.  

>			 If Roger Rabbit had had been an exaggeration of
>women's desires, I doubt this note would be here!  

This is why I said before that Roger Rabbit was an exaggeration of
women's desires (again, not YOUR desires, women in general).  In the
movie, people wondered why Jessica loved Roger.  She claimed it was
because, "he makes me laugh."  She doesn't point out that he's also
a movie star.  But as if that's not a slap in the face enough (to
men), he's drawn extremely UNattractive.  

If Roger was just a funny rabbit then my point would be mute, but
Roger was a funny movie star.  Would Jessica have married a funny
but regular rabbit?  We don't know.  Jessica could have married
Rogger when he was an aspiring actor waiting on tables.  (We could
also say that Roger started seeing Jessica when she was still an
ugly duckling).  

I could go on, but I know this is already too long.  I hope this
time this issue continues to be discussed.  I look forward to your
comments (Sandy and others :->).

Kerry

>        I don't think many women realize the pressure that is
>on men to perform.  

Just realized the hidden implications of this statement and I want
to correct them.  The major thing is: I don't think many MEN realize
how much pressure they are under themselves.  So, it should read
I don't think many PEOPLE...

Thankx for bearing with me

Kb

    Kerry,
    
    In the matter of Miss America, you seem to have failed to look just
    a bit below the surface.
    
    Of COURSE women watch the beauty pageants!  How else are they going
    to know what this year's model is going to be?  How better to learn
    what changes they'll have to make to be competitive?  Why do you
    think those women were asking those men whom they found most attractive?
    (My off-the-cuff guess as to why the men didn't volunteer the
    information, is that the men had learned not to speak when the
    women were concentrating, but only then they had gotten the signal
    that the women were now ready for new data points.  (Oh!  Does
    that sound like technicalese!  Sorry.)
    
    Beauty doesn't just lie there, Kerry.  A woman has to perform hard
    to get it and to keep it.  And in the end, she always loses it.
    (May I recommend _The_Princess_Bride_ by S. Morgenstern, er, by
    William Goldman?  The chapter on how Our Heroine became the most
    beautiful woman in the world is very entertaining; for some reason
    it isn't in the movie.)
    
    You may not realize it, Kerry, but the women in this file are also
    rated on their performance, since we all work.  Many of us have
    known since we were small children that we would be working all
    our lives.  However, unlike boys and men, we also learned that
    our best performance was insufficient if our appearance was judged
    unsatisfactory in some way.
    
    One last thing.  Roger Rabbit *became* a movie star *because* he
    was funny first.  He was not a movie star who blossomed out into
    comedy from heavy dramatic roles -- Toons never played drama in
    the human-controlled entertainment industry.  I don't remember at
    what point in his career that Jessica and Roger married, but if
    she didn't marry him before he made it big, then she wasn't paying
    attention to him because she was too thick-skulled to have noticed
    him sooner -- and whom does that reflect on?
    
    							Ann B.

Ann,

>    Of COURSE women watch the beauty pageants!  How else are they going
>    to know what this year's model is going to be?  How better to learn
>    what changes they'll have to make to be competitive?  

Thank you for pointing that out very clearly, Ann.  I did see it, but
I'm sorry not have made that absolutely clear.

But I think we're dealing with a slippery point here.  You're saying
"Women are watching because they need the information of how to look
beautiful in the way that's in fashion" (I wish I could talk to you
in person so I could see if that's true or not right now, before I
reply to it, but alas, it is a notes world in which we live...)

One thing I think I should make clear is before I go on.  For women
attractiveness is a source of power (maybe it doesn't seem as powerful
as you may perceive a man's power, and that is a good point of 
discussion, but for now, I just want to talk about women's power).
As many have said and I think most of us agree, a beautiful woman
may not even need to learn how to drive a car.  Hence, a beautiful
woman is more powerful than a less beautiful woman (again, I'm
talking about society and making observations about society.  I
want to stress that THIS IS NOT MY VIEW.  ie.  Don't flame me for
making observations about society, either flame my observations as
wrong or flame society.)

Now, it would seem to me that when women watch to find out how to make
themself's more beautiful, they are buying into that power scheme.  
Just as a man, who goes to school to learn a trade buys into the male
power scheme of performance and ability. 
    
>    Beauty doesn't just lie there, Kerry.  A woman has to perform hard
>    to get it and to keep it.  

Same with a man.
    
>    You may not realize it, Kerry, but the women in this file are also
>    rated on their performance, since we all work.  Many of us have
>    known since we were small children that we would be working all
>    our lives.  However, unlike boys and men, we also learned that
>    our best performance was insufficient if our appearance was judged
>    unsatisfactory in some way.

Exactly, this is the major problem.  The power structure as it is set up
in society *actively* suppresses women who try to work outside of the
existing framework (ie. if a women tries to achieve sucess via ability
and performance while ignoring society's idea of how women should gain
power).  Image society's outrage if a person tried to become president
without using our voting framework.  Such things are called a coup.

>    One last thing.  Roger Rabbit *became* a movie star *because* he
>    was funny first.  He was not a movie star who blossomed out into
>    comedy from heavy dramatic roles -- Toons never played drama in
>    the human-controlled entertainment industry.  I don't remember at
>    what point in his career that Jessica and Roger married, but if
>    she didn't marry him before he made it big, then she wasn't paying
>    attention to him because she was too thick-skulled to have noticed
>    him sooner -- and whom does that reflect on?
    
Elaboration please?  I'm sorry, I've read it four times and I'm not
sure what you're saying.

Thanks so far Anne, looking forward to more.

    Re: .89
    
    >With empathy, you would be much more able to surmise how YOU would
    >feel in the other's position and certainly not how the person 
    >in the position DOES feel.
    
    Ah.  That's not how I define empathy.  Empathy is knowing; sympathy
    is surmising.  Sympathy is an intellectual appreciation of the
    situation; empathy is an emotional appreciation of the situation.

    RE: .44 , .50 
    
    As I recall the Scientific American Article did not specifically
    cite women with large breasts, but rather discussed women with more
    that average (or something like that ) amounts of body fat as those
    most likely to have their offspring survive through the lean times
    encountered by all hunting and gathering societies. ie. The lots
    of extra body fat could be converted to milk (deliverd thru the
    breasts). 
    
    I think the author of .44 made a little too much extrapolation from
    the article. Anybody else read the article?
    

    Kerry,
    
    Yes, we are agreed on some points.  Some women are trying to get
    power in this society by looking attractive.  Etc.  But.  1. Of the
    twelve kinds of power in this society, only sexual power does not
    translate into any of the other kinds of power.  (See _Men,_Women_
    _and_Rape_ by Susan Brownmiller.)  2.  You *seem* to be saying
    "society" is to blame (True.) without looking behind that concept
    to see what it is built from.  Who made this society?  (Hint:  Look
    at the faces on the money in your wallet.)  3. A beautiful woman
    has power UNLESS there are no men around.  Here is a scene that has
    stayed with me from _A_Wind_to_Shake_the_World_:  A woman was sitting
    on the front steps of her house at the water's edge of Long Island
    as the hurricane of 1938 howled down upon it.  She declined to leave;
    she was waiting for her husband.  He didn't manage to get home that
    evening; her body was never recovered.  So.  You may say of a
    beautiful woman, "But she has power!", but I will say "Power that
    demands reliance on *anyone* else is deadly dangerous to the `wielder'."
    and I will strongly recommend against it.
    
    Now, about Roger Rabbit.  I *think* my paragraph derives from your
    three on the subject.  To continue/elaborate:  So Roger is a *movie
    star*.  So?  He is a movie star because he is funny.  He is Jessica's
    husband because he is funny.  He is not funny because he is a movie
    star.  He is not Jessica's husband because he is a movie star.  He
    is not funny because he is Jessica's husband.
    
    In fact, it's one of the points of the movie:  The beautiful,
    desirable Jessica married unattractive, little Roger *because* he
    is funny, and not because he is a movie star.  I.e., although only
    a few men can be movie stars, many men can be funny, and *therefore*,
    many men (and this means you, dear moviegoer) can possess women
    like Jessica.
    
    Jessica is a nightclub singer because she can sing *and* because
    men enjoy watching her breathing (and you, dear moviegoer, do not
    look like Jessica, so just forget the whole thing).
    
    Well?  Are we talking at cross-purposes?
    
    						Ann B.

"Jessica is NOT making fun of men.  She is the joke."

I can agree with that.  Jessica is not making fun of men any more then Jessica
is making fun of women.  Jessica is making fun of men's obesssion with women's
breasts.

"That's why the heroine always has to be beautiful but the hero can be an ugly
guy overcoming that ugliness."

It's no surprise to me that male and female are pre-judiced/pre-judged in
different ways.  My point is that men are pre-judged just as women are, albeit
in different ways.

"Most female characters are considered "opportunities" for male entertainment."

I'll remember that next time someone hits me on the head with a frying pan and
stuffs me in the trunk of a car.

"Did Jessica ever use her breasts to nourish her young in the movie?"

The only role I saw Jessica's breasts used for was to hit men in the face, get
their attention, and manipulate them.

"Do you fight publicly for your vision?"

That depends on what you consider 'fighting publicly'...  I fight publicly for
my vision every day, here amoung other places.

"I may be in the minority but I find Cher most attractive. She looks better than
ever.  A lot of her beauty is due to her maturity."

I heard that Cher has had 38 plastic surgery operations...  and is now sueing
her surgeon...

I agree that perfection is boring...  Perfection requires being completely
controlled.  I'd rather have seperate entities, people who cannot be controlled
so that there is the sense of there being 'others'.  In complete control, there
is no sense of seperation, individuality, or otherness.  There becomes only one
way to look at the world, a 2 dimensional view, rather then the myriad different
ways different people are. 

or...  can there be different ways of being perfect?  can there be more then one
way of being perfect?  maybe the definition of "prefect" needs to be changed?

"If Roger Rabbit had had been an exaggeration of women's desires, I doubt this
note would be here!"

It some ways Roger Rabbit *is* an exaggeration of women's desires.  Roger Rabbit
is cute, funny, falls about without his love, bumbling and incompetant, etc....
Jessica likes him because he makes her laugh.  The worst thing Jessica could
imagine is Roger Rabbit losing his job!

"Of the twelve kinds of power in this society, only sexual power does not
translate into any of the other kinds of power.  (See _Men,_Women_ _and_Rape_ by
Susan Brownmiller.)"

I don't understand that.  Perhaps you could summarize or start a topic on the
twelve kinds of power?  It sounds very interesting.  Incidentally, I don't agree
that sexual power does not translate into other kinds of power.  Ask any
centerfold's banker. 

JMB

    
    Without male admirers, a centerfold would need no more
    banking services than the average working putz (unless
    she brings to bear other attributes such as buisness
    acumen. etc.)
    
    It must be deeply frustrating to be female and attractive
    in this culture.
    
    
    

Hi Ann,

>    Yes, we are agreed on some points. 

I'm glad you pointed this out.  I think it's important (for me anyway)
to realize that we are debating over minor points of the same theory.
For the most part, I accept you view of the world (as I've seen it
described in =wn=).  Now, on to the minor (but important) points.
 
>					Some women are trying to get
>    power in this society by looking attractive.  Etc.  

I think the unfortunate thing is that the power is given to them
(naturally attractive people) whether they want it or not.  Since
this is true, people who are less naturally attractive see "making
up" their natural attractiveness as a way to increase their power.

>							But.  1. Of the
>    twelve kinds of power in this society, only sexual power does not
>    translate into any of the other kinds of power.  (See _Men,_Women_
>    _and_Rape_ by Susan Brownmiller.)  

I'm interested in the _12_ kinds of power as well.  I think of
six kinds of power, only one being the traditional power (power over
other people) and the other centering around the power to be happy
and content with ourselves.  I'll read your book (as soon as I find
it.  It'll take me a while, I'm reading 5 concurrently right now.
Much of what I'm debating is stated eloquently in another book:
_Why_Men_Are_The_Way_They_Are_ by Dr. Warren Farrell, see it for
my ideas of six kinds of power).

>					2.  You *seem* to be saying
>    "society" is to blame (True.) without looking behind that concept
>    to see what it is built from.  Who made this society?  (Hint:  Look
>    at the faces on the money in your wallet.)  

It's true that men wrote the constitution, but at that time, children
where brought up almost exclusively by women.  The women brought their
male children up to be different then their female children (society 
still does this).  Now, I realize that women bring their children up
to give them the best chance of surviving in the world, so I don't
*blame* them for bringing their children up that way.  But I don't
*blame* the men for being the way they were brought up to be.

>						3. A beautiful woman
>    has power UNLESS there are no men around.  

Hmmm. I'm not sure, I've never been around women when no men were
around.  But, the fact is, men are always around.  This world is
populated with both men and women.  Even if a group of women get 
themselves lost in the Grand Cayon, men are still in the world.  
Society goes on without these women, not the other way around.  If
we are going to change society we have include men in that change.
I don't think it's fair for women to say, "I'm this way because
men made me this way..." then to ignor the fact that women bring
up the men as well as the girls.  (BTW, if I ever have kids I hope
that the laws around giving BOTH parents maternaty leave have been
set down.  I don't like the idea of leaving bringing up my children
only to my wife.  We should do it together.)

>						Here is a scene that has
>    stayed with me from _A_Wind_to_Shake_the_World_:  A woman was sitting
>    on the front steps of her house at the water's edge of Long Island
>    as the hurricane of 1938 howled down upon it.  She declined to leave;
>    she was waiting for her husband.  He didn't manage to get home that
>    evening; her body was never recovered.  So.  You may say of a
>    beautiful woman, "But she has power!", but I will say "Power that
>    demands reliance on *anyone* else is deadly dangerous to the `wielder'."
>    and I will strongly recommend against it.

I agree with your recommendation.  As for the woman sitting on the steps,
wasn't she choosing to let her husband have power over her?  Again, a
slippery issue, but would you suggest that the man be charged with the
woman's death?  We all choose what we are going to believe in and who's
authority we are going to accept.  Often we do so because the authority
figure (ie. the government) has physical power over us.  But in the case
you described, the power was emotional.  I don't blame the woman, but I
don't blame the man either.
    
>    In fact, it's one of the points of the movie:  The beautiful,
>    desirable Jessica married unattractive, little Roger *because* he
>    is funny, and not because he is a movie star.  I.e., although only
>    a few men can be movie stars, many men can be funny, and *therefore*,
>    many men (and this means you, dear moviegoer) can possess women
>    like Jessica.

Hmmm, I'm a little uncomfortable with this.  I think because we are
taking Jessica's word that she married Roger for his sense of humor
(and not for his money as a movie star), but we are assuming Roger
married Jessica for her body.  Why don't we assume he married her
for her voice, her her warmth or intelligence?  She seemed to have
all of these.  True, she had a body of ridiculous proportions, but
maybe Roger married her in spite of this.  I know I've thought twice
about bringing a girl home who was big busted, because I knew my 
father would oogle then joke when she wasn't around.  But, damn it,
she was one of the most intelligent PEOPLE I've ever met.  

Why do I have to feel suspect for liking someone just because they have 
what society thinks is a nice body.  Personally, I had to learn to
like her body, following the thought that her body was part of her,
if I liked her, I should like her body.  I find myself more easily
attracted to small breasted women, but why should I have to explain
this?  When a women falls in love with a man with money, she doesn't
have to explain that, "Well, I really like him, not his money."  We
just take it for granted that she likes him and the money is not
the important part.  Meanwhile, men have to put up with an extreme
amount of distrust from society, which frankly has a wearing effect
on my own self worth.

By admitting this I'm not trying to belittle the problems that women
have, I'm trying to say, "Hey, I've got problems too.  In fact, I think
my problems are the flip side of your problems.  Maybe if we look at 
our problems as part of the same coin, we can begin to change the
monatary system."

Throughout this discussion, I've brought up that men have the pressure,
throughout their lives, to perform well enough to support both themselves,
another adult, AND children.  Some people have pointed out, quite correctly,
that women today have to support themselves too, and maybe children as
well.  But they still don't have to support another adult, ever.  If they
do the other adult must be injurred.  Otherwise he is suspect (assuming
the other person is her husband).

Noone else has pointed out that men, too have to worry if they are
attractive.  True, it's less important for men, because they can get
respect by performing.  But one women said she'd follow Bruce Springstein
because of his looks.  If I said I'd follow Chyrl Tiegs because of her
looks, I'd be sexist.  But only one person even pointed out what she 
had said.  She defended herself (by saying, I don't care, I'd still follow
him), and that was the end of it.  

Notheless, when I hear her say that, I hear, "If you look good, I'll give
you power."  I'm not trying to condemn that person, I'm just saying, if
this discussion is about fairness, lets be fair.

Whew!  Ok, I'll let someone else talk for a while.

Again, thanks Anne, I'm glad to see this continuing as an open
conversation and not a shouting match.

Kerry

Note 109.90  MARX::BELLEROSE 

>I think women are just as obsessed with it [female looks].  

Would you say that men are "obsessed" with taking women out on dates?  Do you 
think the men in sales or marketing are "obsessed" with ties?  Are you 
"obsessed" with putting gasoline in your car?  With paying taxes?  The
word "obsession" carries a whole lot of meanings but none of them indicate
whether the obsession stems from personal DESIRE or from something else -
perhaps from a demand from without rather than a need from within.  

And this distinction is important because it's at the heart of women's
"obsession" with female looks - which is very different from the obsession 
MEN have with female looks.  One is obsessed with looks as a comodity to
be had.  The other is obsessed with survival.  You can not ever draw a
comparison between the two.  And never can you exonerate men's obsession
with female beauty by pointing to women's.

If you tell me that the posession of bicycles is my only avenue to success,
you'll soon find me "obsessed" with bicycles!  And it wouldn't draw any 
parallels to the kind of obsession men have with female beauty.  One comes 
from hedonistic desire, the other from desperate need.

Your friend's mother is of the last generation to spend her whole life
having internalized this "beauty as career" thing.  That's why she isn't 
apalled at the idea of women competing with each other on their looks or 
why she isn't surprised at the magnitude of these "contests".  Women of 
my generation however are more likely to laugh at this rather quaint 
tradition.

For men, the dictates of success come from other men - it's a fair fight.  
But for women, the dictates come from MEN and don't think they don't use
that power balance to enjoy the extra special ways in which women can "pay
their dues" and become successful - something a man would never be asked
to do or be.  This too, in addition to the media, in addition to direct
teaching, direct example, (miss america contests), helps women learn very
well what role beauty plays in their lives and their success - the starring
role.

>I don't think YOU are, but I don't think *I* am either.

Don't be so sure!  I'm just as freaked out at being caught "undone" as 
the next woman!  I was raised to believe I was only as good as my looks,
too!

>Have you ever watched a beauty pagent?

Oh, sure.

>The commercials were geered towards women. 

Exactly.  And the complete message is, "Ladies, this is your lot in life.  
This is what you should aspire to.  This is the pinnacle of feminity and
feminine success.  And now a word from our sponsor who will bring you
hope".

It's supposed to be more of an "example of excellence" to women than a flesh 
show for men on the idea of the Olympics being more of an "example of
excellence" for, (traditionally), men rather than a show of sinew and sex
for women.  You may think I'm splitting hairs and taking this apart too much
but you have to realize how subtle and ingrained this pressure on women is.

> Advertisers pay a lot of money for that time.

Advertisers for women's products make a bundle selling women nothing but hope
in pretty little bottles.  But to sell a woman hope you must first make her 
feel hopeless.  And our society is geared to doing just that every chance they 
can.  Even in innocuous little cartoons.  It's a powerful message when it comes
at you from everywhere - even "innocent" cartoons, commercials, movies, books, 
etc.  Even in things that have nothing whatsoever to do with beauty, any woman 
shown or mentioned must possess the current standard unless her "ugliness" is 
integral to the story.  The average media man is the average man.  Averageness 
in the media is always depicted by the quality of the scenery or the quality 
of the clothes or of the men.  The quality of the females must always be con-
stant - and high.

That's what makes this cartoon stand out.  It's a blatant display of a very 
real, continuous and accepted misogyny.

>Not one male in the room would volunteer such opinions unless asked.

You forgot to finish with ...as long as a woman was present.

>One woman said she'd rather be judged on her performance than her
>looks, after all, she has some control over her performance.

That was me.

>but she's not grown up with the pressure on her to ALWAYS perform.  

And that's worse.  Because my generation of women were raised just to be 
pretty and to hold out on sex as a means to getting a man and his money,
(our only real measure of "success").

But now suddenly we are ALSO expected to perform!  

         "I can bring home the bacon - fry it up in a pan..."  

No longer is the pressure to perform ONLY a male problem.  Again, women are
now expected to go to beauty shops AND college.

>A woman who works to help support the family is hailed in our new
>society 

Define "hailed".  Evey woman I know who is working to support her family
receives no help or sympathy whatsoever from her society.  Even here at
Digital Ken Olsen stated "no daycare - women should be home with their
children".  How's that for "hail"?

>A woman who does not work is perhaps looked down upon by feminists, but only
>because they know she's "missing out."  

You mean she isn't looked down upon by men?  It's fashionable among men
lately to scoff at women who are "only" beautiful.  That is not the same as
scoffing at a woman who IS beautiful. but one who is ONLY beautiful.  It 
proves that there is indeed pressure on women these days to be BOTH beautiful 
AND to perform.

>But, by most of society, a woman who stays at home (and, if there are any, 
>takes care of the kids), is normal. 

What's your definition of "normal"?  It certainly can't be "majority"!

>Men have it drilled into them from birth that they have to support themselves,
>and, if they are responsible, other people too.  

That's nice.  Women simply find this out by accident when they wake up one
day after believing some guy's desperate declarations of love to find them-
selves pregnant.  On her miniscule paycheck she has no CHOICE of whether she 
is "responsible" or not.  She supports that kid unless the guy feels like 
helping her.  You seem to think the prior "warning" of reality that men get 
is oppression.  I'm not so sure if being blindsided into a situation of no 
choice isn't worse.

>I neither want to have to support another adult nor do I think having someone 
>who is nice to look at is ample reward if I do.  

That's you personally.  But nearly every man buys the highest level of female
beauty he can.  

When he could, Stallone dumped Sasha for Bridgette.  Billy Joel dumped whats-
her-name for Christy.  The phenomenon is extremely common.  So much so there's 
a common saying that goes, "Many a man owes his success to his first wife and 
his second wife to his success".  This little saying comes from the common be-
lief that men in general DO believe that someone who is nice to look at is 
ample reward.  What's Gary Hart doing on the Monkey Business?  Would he have
been there if he were just an engineer at Dec?  He was "rewarding" himself,
married or not, with a little feminine beauty.  Please, no debates over his
personal selection - that's irrelevant.
    

Re: Note 109.100 by CSSE::CICCOLINI 

Hi Sandy,

I'm not going to go though your note on a point by point,
because, for the most part, I agree with your observations.
Only one thing seems missing (you may well think it but I
haven't noticed you writting about it.  Correct me if you've
already seen this).

You mentioned that men often try to move "upwards" in terms
of beauty when they switch relationships.  The quote you used
said something like, "A man's first wife buys him success, his
success buys him his second wife."  

But men could not do this if there were not many attractive
women out there who were more interested in successful men then
attractive men.  Or perhaps, male attractiveness is based on 
success.  I once heard Playgirl rated George Bush as one of the
ten sexist men in the US.  Since I don't read the magazine I can't
verify this, but he's not one of the more physically attractive
men I've seen.  My point is, while men seem to be attracted to
looks, women seem to be attracted to success (=money).

I don't mean to say women should want money at all.  Money is
a necessity to survival.  But we're not talking about men just
wanting women to be physically attractive enough for arousal.
We're talking about the extremes that the media "pushes" on us.
But when we see shows like Dynasty, and scandles like Hart's,
we see that men want beautiful women, and women want rich men.

Since the average women does not live up to the standards models
must meet, she feels powerless in this situation.  Since the
average man does not live up to the success and earning potential
of the men that these women seek out, they feel powerless too.

I don't want to answer to anything else but this, becuase, so far,
you haven't answered to this.  I agree with you that this is a 
situation where women feel powerless.  But, if you begin to see
men's desires as geered towards wanting a beautiful women to 
love them, you'll see that it makes men feel powerless too.

If we attact economic security in women to their attractiveness,
the situation is harmful to BOTH men and women.  But SOME men
and SOME women benifit from this being the case.  Up 'til now
it has seemed that you have been saying that ALL men benifit from
this, while only some women do.  I think it's an important distinction
to say that attractive women and successful men benifit from it.

Note 109.101 MARX::BELLEROSE

>You mentioned that men often try to move "upwards" in terms
>of beauty when they switch relationships.  

>But men could not do this if there were not many attractive
>women out there who were more interested in successful men then
>attractive men.  

Your sentence appears to be saying it's women's own fault that men do
this.

You can't put the blame for why men do this on women once you understand 
that the reasons women are more interested in male success than male looks 
are because of societal (male) dictates.  It's a self-propelling cycle, each 
feeding on the other, but its origins lie in the male's desire to keep money 
and the ability to earn it with men so that women will have a need that men 
can fill.  Anthropology books talk about this often.  In every society there 
is the question of "what to do with the males", according to Margaret Mead.
Our society has answered that question by deciding that men will play a
"breadwinner" role and that women will intentionally be kept economically 
inferior in order to raise the value of men and the need for them in their 
lives.  The implications of this sounds terrible, I quite agree.  But I 
believe this economic inferiority, which most women sense is intentionally 
created, is what makes work so unrewarding for women compared with looks and
love as a "career".  Don't forget Paulina Porizkova has about an eighth
grade education.  But her income in one year beats that of most any female
college grad.  Why?  Because she has and is using what women are most valued,
(most well paid), for - arousing male desire.  Nothing for women is likely
to even come close in renumeration as our ability to arouse male desire and 
don't think women don't know it.  So in a world where work brings a woman only
woman's pay and love and sex can get her a man's pay, don't blame the woman 
who'd rather have the man's.  Most men would, too!

>My point is, while men seem to be attracted to looks, women seem to 
>be attracted to success (=money).

As written, it implies that men are not attracted to success (=money).  But 
of course we all know they are just as attracted to it as women are.  It's a 
human trait, not a female one as the above implies.  So given this very human
trait, (or shall we call it a need?), it isn't surprising that all humans
work to attain success (=money).  Do we agree that all humans want to attain
success (=money)?

The problem is that in our society men know that they can and expect that they
will work in order to fulfill this very human need.  Love, marriage, sex 
dating are all other areas of their lives, not tied into their needs for 
money, status and recognition.

But even today most women know that by busting their buns they still won't get
much further than the standard "women's jobs" unless they are very lucky.  So 
how DO women fulfill this very human need that men fill with work?  By finding
the likes of George Bush and Kissinger and other ugly men with beautiful 
incomes sexy.  (Gag!).  Starve me long enough and I'll find a man with a bagel 
sexy!

Because work in our society will not bring the personal and financial rewards
women, (like all humans), crave, women have turned to other means to satisfy
their, (very normal), desires.  But instead of thinking women goldiggers,
(or some other negative label), for using their attractiveness to get what
they need, remember that to do this women have had to GIVE UP the sexual
appraisal and enjoyment of men.

If a woman today wants to raise a family she cannot go off and marry the
sexy dishwasher or the gorgeous mailroom clerk.  Raising children costs money.
Only the very wealthy woman has the freedom to select a man who really 
scatters her acorns.  The rest are destined to having to select among men 
who will be able to support the family and they are lucky if they find the
guy "sexy" as well.

Women get their money and status through love out of NEED and not out of 
choice.  It is society, (which is male), that dictates that women will have 
to turn to men for money, status and recognition and not to themselves and 
their capacity to earn it because society sees to it that that capacity will 
simply not be considered very valuable.

I personally would rather my work take care of my needs for status, money
and recognition, like it does in men's lives.  That way I'm free to appraise
and enjoy men for the same things men appraise and enjoy women - 
companionship, physical attraction, etc.  I much prefer want to need when
dealing with men and I'll bet the majority of other women would too.  Men get
to try to reach their dreams through work, and love is another side of their
lives.  Women are traditionally limited to ONLY the love arena to fullfill
ALL their wants, needs and desires.  THIS is I believe is the real story
of the difference between men and women in terms of who's monogamous, who's
polygamous.  Women have a greater total investment in love because it's
usually their only road to anything and everything.  When it goes, everything
goes.  Men on the other hand have other parts of their lives and other avenues 
to personal fullfillment, achievement and satisfaction.

Now is it becoming easy to understand why women, 

a. seem neurotic about their looks and

b. appraise men for income?

It's just a clear response to the limits placed on them by men.  If you had only
one small avenue in which to "make it" in life, you'd be neurotically pro-
tective about it too and you would appraise your freer lovers to provide the
parts denied you.

Once women become convinced that effort in the work place WILL result in
the goodies women want just as much as men do, sex and love will become
just one part of their lives and not their whole lives.  But before women
become convinced of this it has to happen once or twice.  I'm certainly far
from convinced that women can get personal achievement and financial goals met
throught work.  So this "new" type of female psyche is still some time in the 
future.  For right now, marriage and/or sex is the primary avenue for the
ambitious woman to fulfill her desires.  Don't blame the ones who use their
limited avenues to advantage.  Take away the limits and then you CAN blame
the women who choose to do something other than work for their money.

For right now, the single woman caught physically "undone" by a a male, most
any male, is mortified in the same way a man would be if some horribly in-
accurate report he wrote found it's way to his boss's desk - that he has just 
compromised himself somewhat in his ongoing quest for "success".  She's shown
her weakness - her ugliness.

That women use the love arena to get what men use work to get is not women's
choice.  You can't blame them.  Men, (who are also human with the same human
needs), would do the same thing.

>But when we see shows like Dynasty, and scandles like Hart's,
>we see that men want beautiful women, and women want rich men.

That's what we see and it's easy to just accept that women want rich men the
way men want beautiful women.  But it isn't so.  The men have money and are
buying the reward of female sexuality.  The women have given up the reward of 
male sexuality and are trying to fulfill the primary need for money and status.

>I think it's an important distinction to say that attractive women and 
>successful men benifit from it.

Sure - but for most people, it's easier to be successful than it is to be 
attractive!  That's how this harms women more than men.  You are either
born with certain genes or you may well not be able to fullfill your OTHER
desires for money, status, power, etc.  

An ugly man can turn to work to fullfill most of his needs and if society 
continues to keep women at an economic disadvantage, (which they are trying 
desperately to do), work can even bring the ugly man sex with centerfolds.
What can the ugly woman do to fullfill HER needs?  Work is likely to bring
her only "women's wages" and her ugliness limits her chances at getting her
needs filled through love.

It sounds like it should be equally harmful to both, but women's limited
roles and options make the impact on them much more severe.
    

    Re: .102
    
    >Your sentence appears to be saying it's women's own fault that
    >men do this.
    
    Why does it have to be somebody's fault?

    Most successful people earn satisfactory incomes.  But to say that
    the only similar characteristic of successful people is their
    income might be a simplification.  Successful people in the finance
    world tend to be well organized, tend to communicate well, tend
    to have good educations, tend to have leadership skills.  Successful
    people in the arts tend to be creative.  And we could take other
    professions and list common qualities that successful people have
    in those areas.
    
    Beauty is beauty....it is a known that men can be obsessed with
    beauty.
    
    But success has so many qualities only one of which is wealth that
    it is not as easy to say because women are obsessed with success
    their motivation is a desire for the man's wealth.  
    
    It is my theory that women choose their partners on the basis of 
    their personalities and likeable qualities.
    
    If a person has a good personality and likeable qualities (honest,
    hard-working, etc.) they most likely will have done well in the
    workplace.

Note 109.102 by CSSE::CICCOLINI

Hi Sandy,

This conversation is difficult for me because I agree with several
of you points and disagree with others.  Also I think that you 
sometimes attach meanings to the words I say that I don't intend.
I realize that I probably do this to your words as well, and I'm
trying hard not to.  But if I do, please correct me.  As I will
try for you.

I'll only handle a few points in this reply, even though there 
are many things I want to discuss in you note.  Unfortunately I
don't have the time to give it the attention I would like to.

On Society...

>You can't put the blame for why men do this on women once you understand 
>that the reasons women are more interested in male success than male looks 
>are because of societal (male) dictates.  
...
>It is society, (which is male), 

I don't think you can say society is male.  It is true that the
government is predominantly male, and the government does legistlate,
which does make it difficult for women to have their complaints 
quickly reflected by law.  But society is all members of our country,
and society often feels something (and acts on that feeling), that the
government has not acted on with laws.  

The simplest example is speed limits.  The only time most of us follow
them is when a police office is within sight.  Yet, the speed limit is
a law.  Why don't we abide by it like we do the law against killing
people?  Because our society thinks speeding (going 60 mph) is not that
bad while killing people is.  It is not just men who think this, it
is the majority of the group of people in our society which is made up
of both genders.

An example where women have showed that they do have power in society
is the fact that they got the vote.  If they had no power, they would
not have gotten it.  Of course, the fight for the vote was not an easy
one (UNDERSTATMENT ALERT), it lasted about two centuries in many countries.
But that was not because the men in power conspired to stop women from
getting the vote, it is because society did not believe that women 
should have it.  What (we now call) the feminist movement did was to
change society's view on this.  Since society in the US is made up
of 250 million people, changing it is not an easy thing.

On appearence as power...

A couple of replies ago I said that I thought power was thrust
upon those who were naturally attractive.  I'd like to explain
that comment.

Studies have show that naturally attractive kids are given much more
attention than homely kids.  As babies, cute kids are picked up more,
hugged more, and played with more by adults.  This is true for both
sexes.

In school teachers spend more time with attractive kids and are more
like to give higher grades to attractive kids than homely kids.  A
homely "problem" child is much more likely to be diagnosed as retarded
or a trouble-maker than an attractive "problem" child.

This is true for both males and females.  Still, kids learn VERY 
early that female attractiveness is more important than males 
attractiveness (this is what they *are taught*).  Notice that *kids*
learn this, not just females.  Male children can see that females
can get attention simply by her looks far more often than a male
can.  To get attention he must perform.

This is a good way to teach kids if men will be the breadwinner
and women will need to attract a breadwinner.  Unfortunately this
is not longer the case, at least to the extremes that it once was.

But read very clearly that I am not blaming anyone for this!!  
Least of all women or men.  Sandy, you seem to read into my ideas
as blaming women for their predicament.  I'm not.  I *am* trying to 
point out that their predicament makes life difficult for men too.
I can see why someone would resist this idea, thinking, "Why would
society do something that wasn't good for either men OR women???"

The answer is that it is good for some men and some women, while at
the same time it is devastating to other men and women.

You point out (correctly I think) that the media pushes attractive
women on us.  You go on to point out (correctly again) that this
puts pressure on women to try to live up to those standards.  What
you fail to point out is that these women are seen as unattainable
to men UNLESS THEY CAN PERFORM.

You said yourself, that women cannot afford to fall in love with
the sexy mailboy.  Raising a family costs money, and HE DOESN'T
MAKE ENOUGH.  This puts pressure on men to be as successful as
possible if he wants to have an attractive wife.  Just as there
is always someone more beautiful, there is always someone more
successful.

Someone has already mentioned that we fall in love with people,
not sex or success objects.  Wonderful point and I'm glad it was
mentioned.  But don't say that just women do this.  Men fall in
love with people too.  

Society's failed assumption when teaching children about attractiveness
and performance is that it is no longer possible for women to 
gain economic security solely by their looks.  It is not that
men conspire to keep women down, it is that society teaches both
men and women that this is THE WAY IT IS.  Luckily people like 
yourself can see, "no, this is not the way it is."

But by blaming men (or women) for the problem, I think you do both
an injustice, and I think we don't move any closer to solving the
problem.

    	Since the original note described a cartoon, and there was a
    comment that male sexuality was not caricatured I thought I would
    mention two cartoons I have seen recently.
    
    	One, without caption, just showed a man doing a pole-vault using
    his "equipment".
    
    	The other other, from a time of stock market instability, showed
    a woman. On each side of her there was a man holding a telephone
    and she was issuing "sell" and "buy" instructions. The men were
    holding the telephones because she was holding their penises, one
    in the graph of a "bull" market and the other in the graph of a
    "bear" market. The caption (roughly translated from French) said
    "This way I not only have fun but double my investment too".

    Where were these cartoons?  That has a lot to do with it.  This
    type of cartoon is often seen in Penthouse, Hustler, etc.
    
    Not in a Disney movie which is rated PG.
    
    -Jody
    

    	The second one originally appeared in a respected French 
    daily newspaper accompanying an editorial on the economic situation.
    
    	Are you saying that in the U.S. if female sexual characteristics
    are caricatured it is sexist while if male sexual characteristics
    are caricatured it is pornography?

    	The first cartoon I only saw in a book of collected cartoons
    of a particular artist, so I am not sure where it may originally
    have appeared. While all of the cartoons were grotesque the majority
    of them had no sexual content, and the book was on sale in a shop
    that resembles Jordan Marsh more than most French shops do, in the
    section of the shop for cartoons and comic strips.
    
    	Was the reference to Hustler and the query about where I saw
    them a cheap shot, or is this a real cultural difference?

    Cheap shot.

    
    oh please....
    I doubt that it was a cheap shot.... There are indeed some cultural
    differences.  I never cease to be amazed when I travel internationally
    at the more "explicit" nature of both the press and tv media....
    Many countries have nude advertisements where any/all can see...unlike
    here where they *tend* to be in "less respected" media.  Certainlyu
    you can find the types of cartoons mentioned in Playboy, etal, and
    maybe even in some of the 'rags' like the Voice, or Phoenix, and
    as time goes on, even in some of the more middle of the road things
    like Cosmo, or something (?) but in many foreign countries its in
    the daily news, on the tube, on billboards, etc....not around here
    it isn't.
    
    So, my guess is that is was a serious question....and I do tend
    to agree that a female body is considered OK to use in ads, but
    not the male body.  After all....if the guy is nude the movie is
    rated X ...but if its *just a woman* the movie is R--or even PG...
    
    just my opinion...
    
    d
    

    re: .109   no, it was not a cheap shot, that is honestly the only
    place I've seen cartoons like this.  
    
    re: .110   thanks for the vote of confidence  :(
    
    Perhaps it is revealing where visual ripostes such as these cartoons
    appear - i.e. where they are "accepted", who the intended audience
    generally is, and when it is "okay" to laugh at them.  Again, some
    people would be shocked to see certain cartoons in some places,
    or read certain jokes - whereas they are perfectly acceptable
    elsewhere.
    
    -Jody
    

    About the difference in standards in different countries...
    
    I remember when we first got to Germany (lived there for a while),
    in 1977.  We got a TV fairly quickly, and encouraged the girls to
    watch the children's shows, as that is a good way to learn a 
    language.  Anyway - we were sitting and watch a show, and they 
    had a little boy getting in the bathtub, and his mother bending
    next to the tub.  She was wrapped in a towel, when the little boy
    asked her why, since she saw him nude all the time, he could never
    see her nude.  Instead of answering him, she just stood up, and
    dropped the towel, with the camera picking up a full frontal view!
    
    The reactions in my house were hilarious! ranging from shock (the
    girls) to amazement (us), especially since the show was...
    
    
    
    SESAME STREET !!!!!!!     
    
    The muppet segments were the same as ours, but the "live" people
    segments were different - obviously!
    
    It wasn't that she was perfect or anything - the message was just
    that the body is natural!
    
    Linda
    

    While living in Germany again, friends and I were walking down a
    street with a multitude of stores, it was a family area, sunday
    afternoon, munching brauts and brochen, looking at window displays, you
    know, toy stores, fashion stores, houseware stores, sex toys
    stores.....
    My friends and I stopped, and cracked up.  never, never in America, 
    would we have seen that.  these were very explicit displays.  families
    were standing next to us discussing what things were howto's etc.
    There are some very obvious differences in the US and Europe standards
    of decency. 
    
    my .02 worth
    
    vivian

    my previous reply
   
    I went back and read my reply. I didn't mean to sound that the US's
    standards of decency are better or worse. just different. The moral
    majority would have had a fit if they had of seen those stores!
    
    vivian
    

re: shops and advertisements --

In 1967-1968, I met the American tv reporter Morley Safer when he was
in Stockholm on a reporting assignment.  When he had an afternoon free,
he wandered into one of the porno stores, with the vague idea of doing
a brief story on the phenomenon.  As he told it, he reached for a magazine,
when a voice from the counter said "don't touch."

"How do I know if you have what I want?"

"What do you want?"

"What do you have?"

"We have everything."

They did, too.  He decided there wasn't a chance he could take a camera
crew into the store and get anything he could show on American tv.

----

A few years ago, the advertisement that won the annual awards showed a
couple getting ready for bed, the guy lying on his stomach reading, and
his companion brushing her hair.  She puts the brush down:

"Honey, I quit the pill today."

"So, what are you going to use instead?"

She takes it out, stretches it and snaps him with it.  The announcer
then talks about how good their condoms are, and how you can get them
in snazzy colors.  The brand names are "Python" (squeezes like a snake)
"Pan," and "Blackjack" (black rubber, "Python" is green).

At the Stockholm airport, the local Aids awareness committee has cards
on display (they look exactly like airplane safety cards) with the
text
			Safety Abroad

"Use common sense with casual acquaintances.  Be careful when you drink
alcohol, avoid going to bed with someone you don't know."

If you should have sex, use a condom.  Open the package and roll the condom
on carefully so it remains in place during intercourse.

			To You Who Visit Sweden

There are more HIV-infected persons in Sweden now than ever before.  When
you meet other people, you can never tell if they are infected or not.
HIV spreads by sexual intercourse.  Be very careful.

If you should have sex with someone you do not know, use a condom.  A condom
will protect you if it remains in place during intercourse.  You can buy
condoms in grocery/tobacco stores, supermarkets, petrol stations and at
the pharmacist's.

Have a pleasant memory of Sweden.

---
The Swedish text is similar, but directed at people travelling out of
the country.  A condom is taped to the card.

    �After all....if the guy is nude the movie is rated X ...but if
    its *just a woman* the movie is R--or even PG...�
    
    Yes, this point gets made fairly often, but few people stop to
    think about *why* this is so, preferring to chalk it down as an
    example of sexism. It's not really a question of the nudity *per
    se*, but the exposure of the genitalia. In a fully frontal shot
    of a woman, her genitalia are hidden by her pubic hair. This is
    not true of a man.
    
    --- jerry

    
    Well, somehow, I can't see the difference...
    
    Re: discussion about nudity in films... (sorry I don't know
    how to get those <<< marks in the previous text...)
    
    Anyway, the full frontal female nude is erotic--right?
    so is the male -- right?  so what's the difference.  That one
    might "more exposed" than the other seems irrelevant as the
    arousal effect is the same.  If no arousal occured, then playboy
    would have to start 'spread eagle' shots like penthouse, etc...
    and they do not seem to need to do that to sell magazines.
    
    Personally I think an appreciation of the body...be it male
    or female is healthy..  The Europeans may have the right attitude.
    after all it is natural.  However, in the US we have equated nudity
    with naughtiness...interesting, on tv the other night, I was
    watching Designing Women, and the comic-brother at the end of the
    show made a joke about "n-a-k-e-d means without clothes, but
    n-e-k-k-i-d (said with southern accent) means without clothes and
    doing something wicked"  --- or something to that effect.
    
    just more opinions...
    
    d
    

    I read (or heard) somewhere recently that back in "The Sixties"
    we were trying to make sex "OK" instead of "dirty".
    
    And all we succeeded in doing was making it OK for sex to be dirty.
    
    

    < Note 109.118 by NSSG::ALFORD "another fine mess...." >

>   Anyway, the full frontal female nude is erotic--right?
>   so is the male -- right?

	Not necessarily.
    
>   Personally I think an appreciation of the body...be it male
>   or female is healthy..  The Europeans may have the right attitude.
>   after all it is natural.

       	So long as someone has attitude A (seeing a naked person always
	leads to developing sexual arousal) it will be impossible to
 	develop attitude B.  You're right that Europeans in general
	are more comfortable with their and other people's unclothed
	bodies, but there are plenty of Americans who are too.

I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.

	Jessica Rabbit

    Ok....I wrote this in Human_Relations "Obese Turn Offs" and "Sliced
    too Thin" files....The media does use beautiful models for catalogues,
    commercials, and movies.  But you have to look at it this way....there
    is only a handful of models that get picked to do those  types of
    jobs. And men all men do fantasize about beautiful woman like that(I
    mean they did kind of exaggerated jessica with the big b**bs), but
    in reality...beauty is in the eye of the beholder...some men like
    hour glass figures....some like stick figures...and some like someone
    with a little meat on their bones....nobody should feel inferior
    to those models...it doesnt bother me that I don't have a "Barbie
    Doll" Figure ( I am very petite)....I want people to accept me for
    what I am and not because of my body.....
    
                                           Lynne