Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    Thank you for entering this note!  It made me realize something that
    I've never been able to verbalize before...
    
    I have 4 sisters (no brothers), and there have been many times when
    I've wondered if my parents were still hoping for a son, but stopped
    trying after my youngest sister arrived.  We have all accomplished many
    things in athletics (2 of my sister have sailed in the Newport/Bermuda
    race), education (4 of us have master's degrees) and our professions in
    varying degrees.  Despite these successes, there's still a feeling of
    it not being enough of an accomplishment.  My father's beginning to
    understand that we're each very bright, capable people, but his
    chauvenism isn't going to disappear over night.
    
    At times I wonder if he feels as though he failed because he does not
    have a son.  As he encounters more professional women on his
    committees, he's beginning to understand that we are capable, and
    there's nothing "wrong" with us because we're women.  He still takes
    men's opinions more seriously, and I can remember his reaction when
    Rotary Club decided to admit women.
    
    Part of his attitude is based on the way he was brought up, and it's
    encouraging to see that it *is* changing, but oh so slowly.
    
    Are there any others who grew up in a family with all brothers or all
    sisters?  What kind of messages did you get as you were growing up?
    Internalized sexism is indeed subtle, and it requires a constant inward
    and outward questioning to come to terms.  If we grow up with certain
    messages and accept them as given, how will that affect our outlook as
    adults and our decisions.
    
    I'm still working on that one.
    
    Judi
    

    I discussed this to some degree in my note 922.132 in the misogyny
    topic.
    
    One of the places I first discovered an account of how pervasive these
    "second-class" feelings might be - how they are perpetuated towards
    women, and sometimes even by women, is in the book "Women's Reality" by
    Ann Wilson Schaef.  Hard to think about, particularly when a woman
    becoming aware of the *possibility* of this must stop to look at the
    metaprocesses that are going on not only outside her, but within her,
    and *may* come to the conclusion "wow, I thought life was unfair
    before....now I *know* it is".  And once awareness may dawn, the even
    greater overshadowing thought may be "I *know* it's unfair, and now I
    realize it may be so pervasive that I can't change the world, the
    problem is too huge, and I may not be able to affect anyone but
    myself - and that too may be a struggle."
    
    the possibility of rude awakenings like this generally make me cringe.
    
    -Jody

    Re: .0
    
    >messages that go so deep that often we're not even aware they are
    >there.
    
    Actually, I consider this the most common cause of sexist behavior.  A
    great many people we deal with will tell you that they believe women
    and men to be equally capable.  They fully believe this --
    intellectually.  If their behavior was determined solely by philosophy,
    we'd have no problem.  But we run into trouble when people react (which
    denies the possibility of conscious thought).  Reactions are based on
    non-intellectual processes.
    
    It's easier for me to see this in myself as it pertains to race
    relations, but it's very much the same kind of thing.  I don't have
    much trouble dealing with the concept of homosexuality, since I was
    hardly exposed to the idea before high school and therefore had less
    opportunity to "inherit" a bias before forming my own opinions.

    Good points, Steve. Thanks. I agree. We can be our own worst enemies.
    Some of the most obvious, obnoxious anti-feminists I've ever met are
    women. 
    
    Kate
     
    
    
    

    re: -1
    I'm Sue Kallas, no relation to Steve Kallis.

    I'm thinking about this Judi, and trying to see where I fit. I am the
    third daughter and youngest child of three. We even have a matched set
    of girl cousins. I was always kind of sad that no one could pass on the
    name and we used to talk about how we could get around that. But none
    of us had the balls to have a child out of wedlock... yet. One of our
    male cousins born to an aunt used to talk about taking on the Foster
    name, but I don't think he's ever getting married...
    
    I grew up in some ways like D!. My mother is a librarian and pushed
    very hard for her daughters to have professions. So I am an engineer
    and my sister is a doctor. We got together this weekend and realized
    that both of us are debating going into teaching. Me in my spare time,
    my sister as a vocation. My third sister is also considering this. And
    we ranked on mom, jokingly, for telling us to go for the money! :-)
    
    My father was the weaker influence of the two; he moved out when I was
    12. But he is a very unusual man anyway. Quiet, keeps to himself,
    doesn't really push for much. He was thrilled when I liked math, and
    both parents encouraged us toward science. I asked my dad once if he
    had wanted me to be a son; mom says I would have been Wm. Harris Foster
    III, but he said no.
    
    So, in general, I'm the strong professional type. And thus, I'm
    wondering where all of my internal misogyny came from; there's so much
    of it. And I think it came from my grandparents, who were very
    traditional, and my grandfather, who was very sexist and very racist.
    (Don't ask how he was racist, you don't want to know.)
    
    He sat me and my sister down at one point, when we were around 10-14
    and told us his expectations of how we should marry. What kind of man
    we were supposed to find. What his qualifications had to be. And as we
    grew up, and became successful, etc., I still  hear, ringing in my
    ears, the three things he stressed... including that I must be a
    virgin. I've rebelled against the other two as well! :-)
    
    I have a pre-occupation with being married. I fight with myself
    constantly to believe that I can be successfully single. That I don't
    need to be dating a man to be happy. But every day, it is a tough
    fight. Every week, at some point, I ask myself how my life will be
    fulfilled if I do not become a mother. I'm starting to look at teaching
    as the answer, but still its a substitute to a strange requirement that
    I must do something to nurture the young of the community, or I have
    not truly lived.
    
    I look around me at the frantic scurry of my friends and peers to find
    male companionship, and I want to CRY! SCREAM!!! Because my male
    friends are not frantic at all. They are calm, they are unconcerned for
    the most part. Marriage is the ultimate burden to them, while for me
    and so many of my female friends, it is the first step toward
    motherhood and fulfillment of some major life requirement.
    
    I HATE THIS! I HATE THIS! I HATE THIS! I HATE THIS! I HATE THIS! 
    
    But it strangles me in my sleep, brings me to tears at work, nags at my
    psyche during the moments of my most glorious achievements. There is
    probably nothing that would make me happier than to be rid of this
    "priority". To my mind, if there was ever a characteristic of misogyny
    it is the panic of successful women in search of a mate.
    
    (Admittedly, maybe if my hunt was more successful, I'd feel
    differently. But somehow, I doubt it.)
    
    'ren

I think women are in the somewhat unique position of often
being raised by those who are prejudiced against them.  If 
you are a member of an ethnic minority, it is most 
likely that you will be raised by at least one member of 
that minority.  You might receive negative messages about your 
ethnic group but this will be outside your home and not coming 
from a parent you love and trust.  Also, if you do hear 
negative statements about your ethnic group, you can go home 
and be told that is garbage and shown an example of how it is 
garbage.  This is not the case for many women, who are raised 
by probably well-meaning parents to believe any number of 
negative and limiting things about themselves based strictly 
on their sex.  Their mothers have already accepted (at least, 
some of) this view of women and pass it on to their 
daughters.  That is why I think that internalized feelings
of inadequacy, of not being worth quite as much as a man, go 
so deeply in many, many woman.  We were told and shown this 
from the time we were babies by the people we loved and 
depended on. 

Sue
                 

    From whatever I've read and heard though, Sue, black kids get the
    racism of the white society ground into them very early and deeply: 
    there's some very poignant evidence in the literature of *little* kids
    drawing their white peers as being much bigger and better-defined than
    themselves, and there's a lot about parents teaching their kids how to
    survive by limiting their aspirations (tho that was from the 60s, maybe
    it's different today?).  I was really struck by how similar those
    accounts are to mothers teaching their daughters not to want too much.
    
    						=maggie

    Maggie, yes, you're right.  I remember crying at a Whoopi Goldberg
    routine where she was a little black girl who had tied some yellow
    cloth around her head and was asking if she were pretty now that
    she had blonde hair.   

    I grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s.
    Childhood memories of sexism.  What, that I was allergic to dust
    and my brother to grass but I had to clean house and he to mow the
    lawn becuase these were proper chores?
    
    That when it became apparent that my brother was not going to go to
    college my folks spent the college fund?  (I put myself through,
    against their wishes.)
    
    That I did my laundry as well as my brother's?  That I had an after
    school job and had to give $10.00 a week to the household and he got to
    keep all his money because boys need pocket money.
    
    That I was told that had I been born a little brother my name would be
    Harry but that my parents never had any name for my brother but the one
    he got.  
    
    That my grades in school were never right.  If they were good, I was
    making my brother feel bad.  If my grades were bad, I wasn't as good as
    my brother.  And so on.
    
    I hated being a girl because girls were worthless, too much worry, and
    not as worthwhile to the family as boys.  The very first thing I
    remember writing (I'm a writer for DEC and have been a writer most of
    my working life) is a story about how a little girl becomes a hero and
    her reward is to become a boy.
    
    I feel as if most everything I do is uphill, not good enough, and kind
    of a side issue to real life.  It is so difficult to ignore those
    messages.  It is also difficult to realize those messages exist in
    order to ignore them.  It amazes me that I've gotten this far. 
    But that's on good days....  
    

    Your note was depressing.  The feelings are familiar to me, too.

    > I feel as if most everything I do is uphill, not good enough, and kind
    > of a side issue to real life.  It is so difficult to ignore those
    > messages.  It is also difficult to realize those messages exist in
    > order to ignore them.  It amazes me that I've gotten this far. 
    > But that's on good days....  
    
    Being around with Far Out Women helps a lot!  It's amazing how good it 
    feels to be "accepted as is" (and even appreciated!) and I've found this 
    to be the case more often with women than with men.

    Hang in there, you're better than good enough!

    CQ

re: 10

I agree, you are better than good enough! (and I'd like to 
give your folks a smack even if they didn't know any better)
Did you think it was unfair when you were a kid, too?  I 
tended to accept the sexism in my family when I was growing up 
as just being the "natural" order.  Naturally, my brothers'
educations were more important, they'd have to support 
families some day.  Naturally, my brothers were allowed to buy 
cars and I wasn't; boys drive on dates.  Naturally, I had to 
make my brothers' lunches even when we were all teenagers, if I 
didn't my mother would have to.  Naturally, (s)ad nauseum.

re: 2

Jody, do you think it has to be a rude awakening when women 
become aware of how they've been affected by sexism?  
Personally, I've found it tremendously exhilarating (my 
options seem a lot wider now in my old :-) age than they did 
when I was younger) and also often amusing.  When I think
how we used to tiptoe around my father because he Worked...
the idea that anyone could be considered a minor diety 
because they get a paycheck!

Sue

re: .12

>Jody, do you think it has to be a rude awakening when women 
>become aware of how they've been affected by sexism?  
    
    I was speaking primarily of when women realize they may have sexist
    attitudes towards other *women*. 
    
    I really felt *that* could be a rude awakening.
    
    -Jody

I broke through many of the negative ideas that had been limiting 
me when I got a divorce as a young mother (BTW, I've been happily 
remarried for lo these many years.)  Anyway, I'd decided that living 
with an alcoholic who was drinking wasn't what I wanted for 
myself or my baby, so I asked him to move out.  I was left in 
the old house we rented with the baby and no job.  
I had always had full responsibilty for the baby so taking 
care of her by myself was no change.  And I'd had full responsibilty for 
dealing with the bank, the landlord etc. so that was nothing new.  
To my surprise, I figured out that there were really only 
three things my husband had contributed: (1)money, (2)fixing my 
old car when it broke down, and (3)going down into 
the bowels of our old house and (drum roll) restarting the 
furnace when it went out (I always ooh-ed and ahh-ed 
over this one!).  Well, replacing 1 and 2 weren't that hard. I 
got a job and I learned how to fix the car - there are only 
so many things that can go wrong with a car, I 
mean, hey, it's not like taking care of a small child!  But I 
was still a little antsy about that furnace - that was real MAN 
stuff, you know? I'd never gone near a furnace in my life.  
So, the first cold day that the furnace dies, I gird my loins 
and go down into that old, dark cellar.  I approach 
the furnace cautiously.  Then I see this big red switch marked 
Re-start.  I flick the switch and the furnace turns back on. 
Amazing!  The point of this is not that men are replaceable 
because I don't believe any person is replaceable.  The point 
is that we'd had a very unequal marriage, both of us doing 
what tradition demanded, and it had reinforced my feelings of 
inadequacy. I couldn't do MEN things.  But doing MEN things 
is actually pretty easy.  After that, I began to question other
things that I'd assumed.

re: -1  I know what you are saying, if I jumped to a misinterpretation 
it's because I've always identified with other females, my problem was
    that I thought female was somehow inferior to male.
    
    Sue
    
    
    
    
       
        

    RE: .12
    
	>Did you think it was unfair when you were a kid, too?  I 
	>tended to accept the sexism in my family when I was growing up 
	>as just being the "natural" order.  Naturally, my brothers'
	>educations were more important, they'd have to support 
	>families some day.  Naturally, my brothers were allowed to buy 
	>cars and I wasn't; boys drive on dates.  Naturally, I had to 
	>make my brothers' lunches even when we were all teenagers, if I 
	>didn't my mother would have to.  Naturally, (s)ad nauseum.
    
    Yes, I did think it was unfair.  Like you, I also thought it was
    natural. There was a kind of inevitablity about the situation.  The
    belief in just desserts and God Punishes were strong concepts in my 
    family. So I felt as if I'd done something awful by having been born
    female and the treatment was reasonable because I deserved it. (Yet
    even the worst criminal pays off the debt to society eventually but the
    punishment for being born a girl is lifelong.) That was the essential
    unfairness.  Nothing I did could alter the situation.  Even being
    (gasp!!) a tomboy didn't fix things, I was still a girl.
    
    There wasn't much good stuff I was allowed to do and a lot of
    unpleasant stuff I got stuck with. Boys had much more freedom,
    privileges, more perqs, fewer responsibilities.
    
    Weridly (or reasonably) I got to hating girls too.  Easy to despise the
    others, ("If the other girls weren't so dumb, then maybe it would be
    okay to be a girl.").  Easy to chose to identify with the ruling class.
    Heck, who in their right mind wants to be the underdog?   Not to
    mention that if one couldn't be a privileged boy then one could adopt a
    most obvious characteristic:  putting down dumb girls.
    
    It's awful and painfull to recall.  It all happens so naturally and so
    very early in life. 
    
    I'd like to have a daughter so I can tell her *every day* that she is
    more than good enough, that she is better than adequate, that even when
    she messes up she is a wonderful person because messing up is allowed.

    
    re .15 (Egypt::Russel -- I've forgotten your first name)
    
    >>...I got to hating girls too.  Easy to despise the
    >>others, ("If the other girls weren't so dumb, then maybe it would be
    >>okay to be a girl.").  Easy to chose to identify with the ruling class.
    >>Heck, who in their right mind wants to be the underdog?   Not to
    >>mention that if one couldn't be a privileged boy then one could adopt a
    >>most obvious characteristic:  putting down dumb girls.
    
    I'd like to follow up on this if it's ok with you.  Do you have a sense
    of when in your life or why or how this changed?  It sounds like you
    really value your life as a woman now.  It seems so hard to overcome
    our own internalized misogyny; I was just wondering if you had a
    sense of how that changed for you.

    >>I'd like to have a daughter so I can tell her *every day* that she is
    >>more than good enough, that she is better than adequate, that even when
    >>she messes up she is a wonderful person because messing up is allowed.
    
    This brought a few tears to my eyes.  I've recently been getting in
    touch with how little my mother values me as a person, or at least
    that I've always felt that way.  I suspect that mothers who love
    themselves have an easier time making their daughters feel loved.
    
    Justine
                                                                     

re: .15

FWIW, when I was a young kid "sissy" was the ultimate put-down 
word. Sissy behavior included whining, threatening to report 
the other kids to the authorities, being afraid to try things, 
etc.  I knew sissy was supposed to mean girl-like but since I 
saw as many boys as girls acting like sissies, I never got to
looking down on other girls.  Quite often, I had other girls
tell me I was the only girl they liked and dismiss the rest
(I was tall for my age, extremely myopic, and quiet so it was probably
easy to think of me more as a misplaced adult than a girl :-) 
I would argue with them that there were just as many sissy, 
dumb, or whatever boys.

Sue

	re: 1082.17  (Sue Kallas)

	> FWIW, when I was a young kid "sissy" was the ultimate put-down 
	> word. 

	Something very similar in the latest issue of Computer Shopper
	appeared.

	In the directory page, the subtitle of a picture of a man with a 
	laptop started out with, "Hey, ya girlie man ..." where the point
	was how he must be a "girlie man" since he was having trouble lifting 
	the bulkie laptops, and that the newer versions will be lighter.

	Assigning feminine qualities to the guy was in the context of a 
	putdown.  

	Yep, I'd call that sexism.

	But I bet if I wrote to them about that, they would respond with
	"oh, now we all heard that while we were growing up... humor is
	humor...  you have my sympathies but not an apology..."  etc...

							nancy b.

    In case you're wondering, Nancy, "girlie-man" is what Hans and Franz
    call men who don't pump up.  They are Saturday Night Live caricatures
    of "macho men."  In this context, it is funny.  Lately, the term has
    been coming up all over the place  (yeah, it was "sissy" in grade school,
    then "femme" in junior high!), with the excuse that it's "funny." 
    Except that is usually isn't when Hans and Franz aren't on the screen
    (and good old H&F wear thin kind of fast, too!).
    
    Susan