Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    I spend most of my voice hollaring, "Daniel, Lisa. Where are you? Come
    home for supper".
    
    Actually I think I'm going to be spending mine talking about ecology.
    The survival of our species, (and others) depends upon activism. Let's
    not hold our breath waiting for the government to do something. (we'd
    turn blue along with our voices) Kind of like large Smurfs.
    
    I love your note, Suzanne. You REALLY should post more!!
    
    Kate
    
    

My MS thesis - security and usability can, must, work together! I'm going to
start a whole discipline, and I'm going to bring feminist sensibility, whatever
the heck that is, to it.
	Mez

    If we ever got together to say "NO" and "STOP" the world would end.
    
    Briana

    Oh, Briana, that sounds lovely.  Not the world ending part, but the all
    getting together and saying "NO" and "STOP."  In my imagination I can
    see all the women of the world, joining hands and voices to whisper
    down (we wouldn't need to shout, as long as we all joined together) war
    and poverty and homelessness and selfishness and power in the wrong
    hands and mis-placed priorities and disease and helplessness and --
    well, you get the idea.  The list is long.
    
    And we could be SOOOOOOOO strong, if we could just get together and...
    
    Karen

    re: .5
    
    Because sometimes the most thought provoking and shocking response one
    can give (particularly as a woman - when one is often expected to
    support, nurture, heal, and help) -
    
    is silence.....
    
    -Jody
    

Politics!    Go into Politics!   Start at your local government level,
then work up to the state and federal morass.   I sometimes think that 
this is the ONLY place where the voices might make a difference.  

Mobilize the people; inject some fire into the tired and corrupt American 
political machine; get those people to the polls!!!   

				Nigel

    re:  .7
    
    I totally agree!
    
    
    -Dotti.

    
	       SNOW



	Such beauty in power, 
	the slow sifting of crystals 
	on pine boughs, 
	making the world 
	white with silence.

	Who can remember 
	the russet tongues of October, 
	blazing voices
	now still:

	     "We are women 
     	     loving ourselves, 
             claiming our lives, 
             arcing the stars..."

	The North Wind 
	roars at the panes 
	of the Ice Palace, 
	dark clouds 
	lower their freight.

	Now in sunlight 
	all the fields are 
	shawled in diamonds, 
	soft curves erasing
	autumn's fire, 
	marking her grave.

            -- DBK (c) 1989

    
    	Speaking of life in the Universe...
    
    	The most serious threat to the Universe seems to be when women
    	(and some men) agree and show support with one another.  If you
    	look up at the sky, at least half the stars seem to be gone -
    	probably burned out in protest.
    
    	Just the other day, I heard that there's a good chance that the
    	Laws of Physics may not be valid in all situations.
    
    	You just KNOW that's our fault, too, somehow.  ;^)
    

   Women's voices do not threaten life in the universe.

   I do not consider their voices a threat to anyone.

   Except, maybe, themselves.

                                                  -Robert Brown III

    
    ooooooooo
    subtle
    

    	RE: .12  Robert Brown III

    	> Women's voices do not threaten life in the universe.

    	No, women's voices are only scrutinized (with a bent on severely
    	limiting the things we are allowed to say) AS THOUGH life in the
    	Universe were at stake.

    	> I do not consider their voices a threat to anyone.

   	> Except, maybe, themselves.

    	Yes, I agree that women sometimes pay a terrible price for making
    	a point of speaking up when our culture would rather we didn't.
    
    	The rationale for trying to keep women silent is often promoted as
    	though it were the highest possible moral ground (such that nothing
    	women could possibly say is enough to refute the idea that we should
    	be severely governed in the way we're allowed to use our voices.)

    	If what we say isn't such a threat (equivalent to the threat of
    	losing life in the Universe as we know it,) doesn't it ever make you
    	wonder why so much effort is put into scrutinizing and attempting to
    	control what women say?  I wonder about it myself.

    There is an old joke about an old Jewish man that seems to fit:

    This old  Jewish man works hard all day and earns barely enough to
    get  by  on. His one luxury is a rabidly anti-semitic paper, which
    he  reads  whenever  he can afford to buy a copy. When his friends
    asked why he read such trash, he said: Here I am, barely earning a
    living,  and it makes me feel so powerful to read how the Jews are
    running the country.

--David

    re:-1
    
    David,
    	How apropos.
    
    Kate

Referencing 297.15:

   Despite the inability (or is it unwillingness?) of certain persons to
properly interpret what I said in my entry 297.12, it seems that someone is
able to express what I tried to say though using a different approach.

   It is, I guess, nice to imagine that one is so powerful that hir voice
has such a shattering impact on "life in the universe" (albeit a negative one),
but reality seldom follows imagination, and anyone who prefers to believe
otherwise is usually, at worst, a threat to hirself. That is what my previous
entry was intended to convey.

   However, those who prefer to believe that they are so threatening to
men that men must "control" or "silence" them will, I'm sure, continue to
believe so despite what I've said here. Within their reality they will
be right to do so. I, personally, will not make too hard an attempt to 
convince them that they are wrong.

   After all, for some people maintaining the illusion that their behaviors
are threatening will prevent them from starting behaviors that really are.

                                                       -Robert Brown III

    
    	Interesting, but I don't recall anyone saying that this note
    	applied to "one" who happens to have any specific belief about
    	"one's" solitary voice.
    
    	As Ms. Magazine points out, very few people seem to recognize
    	that feminists have senses of humor, so it isn't too surprising 
    	when someone takes a humorous diversion and treats it as being
    	a serious discussion.
    

    "Let a woman learn in silence with submissiveness. I permit no woman to 
    teach or to have authority over men; she is to be kept silent... Yet 
    women will be saved through bearing children."

                                              -- I Timothy 2:11-15

    
    	RE: .19
    
    	Well, I'm sure they made these rules to keep women from hurting
    	ourselves, that's all.  :-}
    

    Well as long as you woman REALIZE that there was a reason for the
    rules, seeing as its for your own, and our own good.  Smiles,  Jeff

    Robert, I think you're the one missing the point.
    
    I think the point is that COLLECTIVELY, if women spoke out, they would
    create change. And change is often very threatening. Since it has
    mainly been men who have defined how we see the world, how we
    conceptualize, how we acknowledge and examine the world, life,
    ourselves, our environment, etc., if women were to collectively espouse
    a set of completely different concepts, it would be a very
    destabilizing experience. For ALL of us.
    
    The point being made is that whether one recognizes/does this
    consciously or not, there is a great deal of pressure brought on by the
    mores of our society to keep women quiet/submissive/subordinate.
    
    Maybe you think we're puffing ourselves up with importance. I have to
    disagree. I think that women comprise ~53% of the world's human
    population, but have never been encouraged to be the dominant thinkers
    and molders of world opinion and activity. I think that if this
    happened, if women threw out EVERY CONCEPT that they had been taught
    and began to reformulate the ideas of the humans and the universe,
    world opinion might change.

Referencing 297.18:

   Oh, apologies for my use of "one". Perhaps it will help if I rephrase
myself and say "anyone" or "all". If I do so, I will still be saying
the same thing.

   And concerning the "seriousness" or "humerousness" of this Topic:
I am more than prepared to take it as seriously as you want to.

                                               
Referencing 297.19:

   You know, I never did agree with a lot of what the "good book" says.
Timothy's attitude is one area of disagreement.

                                                    -Robert Brown III

    
    .24
    
    You may not have agreed, but a whole heck of a lot of people have sworn
    by it...
    
    D.

Referencing 297.23:

   But since this Topic is, as indicated in .18, humerous, then there
is nothing for me to miss! ;-)

   But seriously, while what you say may be true about other men, I 
doubt if most of the men feel threatened by any changes that noting in
this Notesfile might bring about (I say I DOUBT it, not that it isn't true).

   I certainly don't feel threatened by women's "voices" or by any of the
women in this conference, nor do I feel threatened by feminists. Feminists
who have stuck with the original purpose of feminism have done more to
liberate me as a man than any other group of people who have ever existed.

   Why should I feel threatened by people who have helped to free me??? Why
should anything they say, singly or collectively, frighten me???

                                                        -Robert Brown III

But D:

   I am not a whole lot of people! Am I responsible for their attitudes?
I think not.

   If you think otherwise, then we'll just have to disagree.

                                                    -Robert Brown III

    This is one of the reasons Quaker women (and Quakers in general) were
    so despised.  It has always been a given that Quaker women speak in 
    meeting just as Quaker men speak; that "the Light" speaks to *all*.
    During the colonial period, there were women Quaker ministers walking
    all about the colonies (gutsy).  One Quaker woman was even hanged on
    Boston Common for daring to come back to the Commonwealth after
    having been banished.  
    
    It is such a given, but was SO opposed, that in 1666 Margeret Fell, one
    of the earliest Quakers, wrote a tract called "Womens Speaking.
    Justified, Proved and Allowed of by the Scriptures,..."
    
    Heretic!
    
    So this is not a new issue by any stretch of the imagination.  As long 
    ago as 1666, a woman felt the need to defend Woman's voice.
    
    E Grace

    
    	As for the humor in the basenote...
    
    	It was a serious idea (eg, that women's voices are treated as though
    	a serious threat were involved) phrased in humorous terms (eg, the
    	threat being described as life in the Universe as we know it.)
    
    	Considering the forces at work in our culture that put pressure on
    	women to refrain from speaking up (unless, of course, we're voicing
    	opinions deemed acceptable by our male-dominated culture!!), it would
    	seem as though the threat must involve the safety of the Universe
    	at the very least.  ;^)
    

    Robert asked the question "Why should I feel threatened by people who
    have helped to free me?".  While he probably meant it rhetorically, and
    for him personally the probable answer is "You shouldn't", in a generic
    sense it deserves some exploration.
    
    Many folks *do* feel threatened by people who free them.  Freedom can
    be pretty scary.  It means that you have to (gasp) make decisions.  And
    live with the consequences.  You can *fail* if you have freedom.  Many
    folks, many of them women, *don't want that responsibility*.  It is
    far, far easier to be able to blame your jailor for what goes wrong in
    your life.
    
    Caged birds will refuse to leave their cages, even when the doors are
    left open, if they've never been allowed to fly free.  Traditional
    cultural roles, ways of behaving, and the like, can be just such a
    comfortable cage.  And I'm not at all sure that forcing folks who are
    comfortable there to fly free is "goodness".
    
    Alison

           
"Women have...recoiled before the first experience of male attack upon 
their femininity. It is a moment that I surmise is close to the experience of 
rape: men's aim is to tell women that her sole destiny is for male uses. 
Men who would not dream of sneering at Blacks, or Jews...can be confident
of hearty male support (and some female support, too) if they make jokes
about women. And because women have so long been told that to be shrill, or
emotional, or argumentative is reprehensible in the circles of power, the
merest hint that they are transgressing is enough to silence most of them."

	-- Carolyn Heilbrun (otherwise known as Amanda Cross), 
           Reinventing Womanhood, 1979

    Most....but fortunately for us not all!
    
    -Jody
    

    re: .34
    
    i don't agree with this, and didn't want to silence be mistaken
    as agreement.
    
    jonathan (yet another pussy whipped new age male)
    
    

    
    	Gee, I guess that must be why men struggled for 72 years to win
    	the vote in 1920, and why men are nearly completely excluded (or
    	exist in miniscule numbers) in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of
    	Representatives.
    
    	It must also be why men only constitute a fraction of a percent 
    	of the CEO jobs in our country.
    
    	We've sure managed to shut men up, alright.
    

<       <<< Note 297.36 by JARETH::EDP "Always mount a scratch monkey." >>>
<
<    Re .35:
<    
<    Switching words does work, in this case.  The sentence that are true in
<    .34 are true in .32, and the ones that are false in .34 are false in
<    .32.
<    

	re: .36,

	to quote one of our more eloquent recent submissions:

	just ignore.....

	m

    re:.0
    
    	� More and more, it seems that women's voices are
    	perceived as the worst threat to life in the Universe
    	as we know it. �
    
    	Only when they're used to sing the national anthem. :-)
    
    re:.5
    
    	� But, if that were true, how do you now reconcile
    	your decision to hide away such a powerful weapon
    	and voluntarily refuse to reply to some people
    	here? �
    
    As Tom Lehrer sings, "But it's just a deterent, and it won't be
    used."
    
    --- jerry

    
>    re:.5
>    
>    	� But, if that were true, how do you now reconcile
>    	your decision to hide away such a powerful weapon
>    	and voluntarily refuse to reply to some people
>    	here? �
    
    
Jerry,
    Did you ever eat soup with a fork? It's a marvelous example of an
    exercize in futility, isn't it?  :^|.
    
    Kate   
    
    
    --- jerry

	The following was forwarded to me from a women's forum
	distribution list.  I thought I would share it with everyone.

	kath
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

         Extracted from Chapter 1, "Confessions", of
         _Reflecting_Men_at_Twice_ _Their_Natural_Size_ by Sally Cline
         and Dale Spender, from Dale Spender's part:

         My starting point was that in my earlier research on
         mixed-sex conversations I had come to appreciate that men
         talked more than women.  I had been able to document the
         greater number of interruptions performed by men
         (approximately 99%) and the greater extent to which men
         determined the conversation topics.  I had also found that
         `What you mean is...' is one of the most common utterances of
         men (on my tapes) as they talk to women.  And while I had
         used this research it began to assume a new significance in
         the context of reflecting men.  For I realised that when
         women were interrupted by men (sometimes rudely), when they
         had the topic of conversation taken from them (often with the
         `take over' of `what you mean is') they rarely protested.  On
         the contrary, when I replayed those tapes I could sometimes
         *hear* the smile of the woman who made way for the man to
         take the conversational floor.  There are many `How very
         interesting' and `What did you do then?' and `I'm most
         impressed...do go on' comments made by women on the tapes. 
         And each time I listen to those supportive and eliciting
         comments coming from the women... it is my own voice that I
         can hear. ... Again and again my tapes have recorded the
         evidence to be used against me; again and again they have
         revealed that in conversation with men it is almost unknown
         for any woman to talk for more than one third of the time.* 
         This is in itself quite astonishing; what is more
         astonishing, however, is that women consistantly report that
         they had a fair share of the conversation, even if their
         `share' was less than 20%.

         * There are some exceptions.  When the woman is a medical
         practioner, soliciter, educator -- or in some other
         profession and informal professional advice is being sought,
         women can talk for more than 33% of the time.

         When I first began to amass these findings, they represented
         something of a challenge to me.  I set up conversations with
         men (which were taped) and I determined to talk for 50% of
         the time.  Even when the disapproval started, I persevered. 
         I have believed myself to be aggressive, rude, inconsiderate,
         domineering and unpleasant, as I have tried to get an equal
         share.  And before the tapes were analyzed I was prepared to
         claim that it felt as though I *had* talked for 50% of the
         time; perhaps I had even talked for longer?  That was
         certainly the opinion of my male conversationalists; without
         exception each volunteered the information that I was
         impossible, that I didn't listen to a word he said, and that
         I was overbearingly rude.

	 Yet never had I talked for more than 42% of the time.  My
         average for such `unacceptable' behaviour is 39%.  Which says
         something about the amount of verbal space that both sexes
         consider a proper share for women and men.  While women
         encourage men to speak (...) for about two thirds of the
         time, the social code is observed.  But let women take more
         than one third, and there is social disaster. ... ... There
         was a time when I wondered whether this form of behaviour was
         culturally specific.  That was before I spent a few weeks in
         Sweden, where I could not understand a single word.  I didn't
         need to.  [Examples given.]  And then I knew that this female
         habit was not peculiar to the English, nor to
         English-speaking countries. ... My students questioned the
         validity of this research (...), so I suggested we conduct
         our own experiment.  Accordingly, three unsmiling women
         students set off to run the gauntlet of a short pathway, and
         their fellow students (who were observing) were astonished. 
         All three women were accosted; `What's wrong with you?' was
         the standard demand. One was told `Cheer up, love; it's not
         that bad', and the same woman was twice physically stopped
         and abused.  Because they were unsmiling. ... ... ...I found
         an account of the first [sic] women's rights conference in
         the United States.  It was held in Salem, Ohio, in 1850, and
         it had one peculiar characteristic.  It was officered
         entirely by women; not a man was allowed to sit on the
         platform, to speak, to vote.  `NEVER DID MEN SUFFER SO,'
         wrote Elizabeth Cady Stanton who had played a part in setting
         up this peculiar arrangement.  `They implored just to say a
         word; but no -- the President was inflexible -- no man should
         be heard. If one meekly arose to make a suggestion he was at
         once ruled out of order.  For the first time in the world's
         history, men learned how to sit in silence when questions
         they were interested in were under discussion'  (Staton et
         al, [History of Woman Suffrage] 1881, vol. I, p. 110,
         original emphasis).

         Some of the men were enraged by this treatment.  How could
         women expect to present a convincing case if they treated men
         in this barbarous fashion? ... ... Whenever I tried to
         discuss these research findings, however, I met with many
         protests.  `Your material may be all right but your manner
         lets you down.  It's too threatening.  You have an accusing
         tone,' I was told.  On one occasion I was speaking at a
         conference and was listing my findings -- that males talk
         more, interrupt more, and are more likely to insist on
         telling you what is *really* meant.  Before I could finish I
         was interrupted by two men in the audience.

         This was not true, they protested.  It wasn't at all the way
         I described it.  Men did not talk more, interrupt more, or
         insist that they knew all the answers.  They would tell me
         what it was really like -- and they proceeded to do so at
         great length.  They were angry and emotional as they
         repudiated my agressive, embittered and negative image of
         men. I presented my research findings -- and they accused me
         of being a man-hater.  It was clear that my facts were
         violating the social laws.

         Later I was congratulated on setting up such a good example
         of male behaviour to illustrate my thesis. ...

    Re:.41 I can remember my father getting after me to remain smiling. It
    was considered rude for me not to look pleasant. At the same time he also
    chided me for laughing to much. I guess there's a limit to how much we
    are allowed. Laughing is probably too active. liesl

    Liesl, I can't believe that anyone would chide you for laughing too
    much.  I'm glad to see that you apparently didn't take your father's
    advice. 

    -- Mike

    
    I laughed when I first read this.  Not that .0 is so funny, rather
    that it is so true and we don't realize it.
    
    I've been doing lots of reading lately (actually not lately, more 
    like always) and the more I read the more convinced I become that as 
    soon as women vote with their hearts and minds on a REGULAR basis, 
    things will change in government, because they CAN'T ignore the numbers.
    But we can't just vote in this election and not the next, then it gets
    wishy-washy and the message doesn't come through.  We have to vote
    every single time.  
    
    Actually we vote all the time.  We vote when we buy one brand before 
    we buy another, or listen to one radio station instead of a different 
    station.  So the same concept is applicable to lots of different
    situations.  Can't you just imagine the turmoil that "Madison Avenue"
    would be thrown into?  
    
    Kids.  Raise your kids to know that anything is possible and equal
    work means equal pay and gender doesn't guarantee wisdom or perfection.
    These children will meander into the "work" structure with that
    information and the first time they run into the "you can't do that,
    you're a <male/female>", they'll want to know "what is that turkey-head
    talking about?"  Those thoughts will work their way up the corporate 
    ladder, in fact it's happening right now.  Granted it takes time, but 
    all change takes time.  
      
    
    Miriam