Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    Once again, I think this note needs to be deleted.  EDP would you kndly
    put a muzzle on this, do some reading, say "drawing down the moon" by
    Margot Adler, "Spiral Dance" by Starhawk, or "The Chalice and the
    Blade" sorry I don't remember the author.  Then when you can come from
    a place other than distasteful, vicious, criticisms of a religion you
    know nothing about, we can talk.
    
    EDP, I had a lot of respect for you as a libertarian.  Please remember
    the creedo, and the Constition of the US that consistantly say you
    defend.
    
    Meg

    re 456.0
    
    i'm gonna pretty much echo the first response.
    
    if you don't know anything about it, why don't you do some
    research before smearing a religion with lables like 'hate'
    and 'cause more misery'.
    
    most religions are intended to be positive things.  just because
    some of them are used to carry out the designs of evil people
    does not mean that ALL religions are evil.
    
    why did you say what you said?
    
    jonathan
    

 I originally read the original topic as a nasty dig.  But a little further 
thinking persuaded me (and a couple of others at our site) that Eric is 
being serious in his advocacy of a religion based on hatred.  I read a lot of
internal bitterness, anger and pain in Eric's notes in this file.  Maybe he has
finally found a religion which meets his needs, and he is attempting to start a 
discussion of it.

					Nigel

    .3 contributes nothing but sarcasm to a subject that is sore to all.
    
    I don't know why what edp writes in this file feels so bitter against
    women, but it does.  In other files where I've come across his notes he
    seems to value the individual and the rights of individuals.  I don't
    know why it's different here, he has not chosen to discuss it, and it's
    not my place to make him.  But ridicule will not make it better.
    
    Others have (what I think of as) skewed perceptions of this file, too. 
    One man has stated that he sees no humor in this file.  edp seems to
    think all the women here are man-haters who want to enslave men
    (exaggeration alert!).  I don't agree with either perception, but I'm
    not going to slur the authors, nor bend over backwards to reassure
    them.  I expect the same of them.
                                       

    	RE: .4  Sara

    	> edp seems to think all the women here are man-haters who want 
    	> to enslave men (exaggeration alert!). 

    	Actually - slight correction.  edp has indicated to me through
    	offline conversations (correct me if I'm wrong on this, Eric)
    	that he thinks most of the people in this file want to see all
    	or most men dead.  No exaggeration.

    	Just wanted to help clarify the stunning depth of the misconception.
    

    I wish we'd all be a little nicer to each other and practice a
    little more active listening and a little less turf defense.
    
    I also wish that the people who are concerned about other people
    denigrating their goddess would be a little more careful in other
    contexts about referring to my more traditional Christian religion
    in terms such as "slave of the partriarchy" and "institutionalized
    mysogyny."  I'm sure they didn't intend to hurt me with these
    characterizations, but it does hurt and sometimes it does offend,
    though I'm not one to take my complaints to the moderators.  I'll
    either defend myself or shrug it off.  More often than not I'll
    ignore it unless I think I can accomplish something positive,
    loving, and healing by commenting on it. 
    
    And I don't know what I think I'm going to accomplish here, with
    so many people already having their opinions set, but I'm going to
    try.
    
    It might help for us all to keep in mind that just as not every
    man thinks the only position for women in an orginazation is on
    her back, not every woman working at Digital, not even every woman
    in this file, is ready to throw out centuries of tradition and
    start over from scratch with the woman on top.  Not every woman in
    this file thinks that all of history is a long string of unbroken
    attempts to repress women.  Not every woman is even willing to say
    unequivokably that all sex-based role distinctions are always
    invalid.  And that doesn't necessarily make them slaves of the
    patriarchy, any more than focussing on femaleness to the exclusion
    of the male half of the human race means they hate that on which
    they choose not to focus at this time.  
    
    But a lot of us, both men and women, both in this file and
    elsewhere, have fallen into the trap of thinking that a
    disagreement is a lack of suport, that having an opinion at one
    end of the spectrum implies rejection of other opinions, that
    expressing my opinion means I reject yours.  There's room for all
    of us, and if we all listen to each other and try to really hear
    the truth behind the words, maybe we can build a little peace here
    instead of deepening gulfs that are already too wide.
    
    Please, can we take a few deep breaths and in good faith try to
    explain ourselves openly instead of through slams, and try to
    honestly listen to the other?  And not say the other person has to
    start first?
    
    --bonnie

    Since *this* posting has survived 1.5 hours I'll ask again:
    
    re .0 Would you please offer evidence that 'Goddess worship' is
    a religion of hatred ? My observation has been that it is less
    hatred-oriented than mony other religions. 
    
    What exactly are you objections to this type of religion ? That
    many of its proponents are feminists ? 
    
    Your contention in in this and several other notes seems to be that 
    since a small minority of self-proclaimed feminists 'hate men', *all* 
    feminists hate men, and therefore anything *any* feminist says,
    does, or professes is a case of 'man hatred'. Frankly, your logic
    does not impress me.
    
    Dana L. Charbonneau

    "I call this narrowminderness"........
    
    Folks, there is room for all

    I signed "the list". Somethings aren't worth the effort.
    
    Kate

    
    re:.6ff
    you know, this is all very fine and good. but i guess to me it's
    less a question of politics than simple politeness, and i've held
    this position since the early days of volume 1. it is rude and
    wrong to be offensive. if i were to write something offensive and
    the person who was offended informed me, i would try to alter what
    i'd written, i'd apologize, i'd delete it, *whatever it would take*
    to remove that offense. i cannot understand or respect those who
    choose to offend.
    

    In .6 I wasn't trying to say that any one or more particular
    people in this file hold any of these particular beliefs, just
    that we have a very wide variety of beliefs in this file, from
    what's normally characterized as far left way over to the far
    right, with most of us somewhere uniquely off the scale forging
    our own new ways of thinking and living.  
    
    If we weren't all concerned that the old ways weren't working,
    that we had to find new ways to cope with the new ways of living,
    we wouldn't be here.  None of us would.  It may be a lot harder
    for some of us.  Some have farther to come from, some have more
    personal pain to deal with, and we all have different experiences
    and viewpoints that make us view the situations faced by women at
    Digital in drastically varied lights.
    
    Even with the best of intentions and the most care in phrasing,
    it's easy to say something that accidentally hurts someone.  (See
    the splash note, recent entries.)  When our passions and deepest
    beliefs have been hurt, it's not easy to keep hold of our best
    intentions and take the care that's needed, and everyone fails
    to keep their cool, says things from the hurt and the conviction
    they've been deeply wronged.  Maybe they have.  Maybe -- and my
    impression is that this is the case most of the time -- both
    parties have been wronged. 
    
    That's why we have "I'm sorry."  We have, "I didn't realize that
    kind of thing was hurtful."  We have, "I didn't know those words
    would be interpreted that way."  We have, "You're right and I was
    wrong."  We have, "We've been hurting each other for so long that
    we can't even speak to each other any more.  Do you think perhaps
    we could call a truce and try to look at this one particular issue
    that's so important to us afresh, as if we were strangers, without
    interpreting it through all the old hurts?" (extract of note a
    friend sent to his ex-wife on the eve of their custody hearing.) 
    We have, "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt this time, even
    though you always take advantage of it."  We have silence -- one I
    frequently use.  If I can't keep my reply polite, I don't enter
    it; another person's rudeness does not justify my rudeness.

    	We already have the proof that the least little thing a woman can
    	do is enough to cause a major crisis.

    	In a "lite" topic describing the perfect man, a woman responds from
    	a bad mood and writes "Dead."  She later explains it came from a
    	bad mood.  But it's too late, of course.

    	Suddenly, it's blown up into a death wish for men, with Corporate
    	Personnel and lawyers involved.

    	Meanwhile, women in this file are called sexist and filthy every
    	day for months on end - something no one else here would have the
    	gall to do - and the person who does this claims HE is being
    	treated unfairly.

    re .12, eric's justaposition of patriarchal and goddess religions
    
    interesting.  i never saw a "male is evil" trend to the religion; i saw
    more a "female is fantastic" trend (specifically related to aspects of
    childbirth and creation).  i don't see how "female is fantastic" means
    the same thing as "male is evil" - i see very little in the religion
    that has to do with men at all, much less stating where they lie in
    comparison with women.  
    
    "man cut umbilical to Great Mother", eh?  my blind side strikes again:
    i recognize it now that you point it out, but did not notice it or
    remember it later.  hmmm... to ponder.
    
    lee
    
    ps.  i find this discussion interesting despite the, ahem, unfortunate
    wording of the basenote.  is it possible, mods, to keep this topic? and
    is it impossible for you, eric, to TRY avoid offending EVERYONE (okay,
    okay, a huge fraction of the readership) because SOME have offended
    you, yet still ask valid questions?

    
    	It's a lie to say Lorna wants men dead, so therefore it is also
    	a lie to claim that my understanding of Lorna's real comment means
    	that I think death for men is the least little thing.
    
    	This is yet additional proof that the things women say here can
    	be blown up beyond recognition - light years past the point of
    	absurdity.
    

    
    	If someone inadvertently hurts another person's feelings, the
    	logical thing to do is to let the person know - acknowledging
    	the posted explanation that the author was in a bad mood, of
    	course.
    
    	It does no good to blow the phrase up into a lie (and threaten
    	everyone in sight with Corporate Personnel and lawyers.)
    

    	Lorna didn't repeat her comment over and over.  She said it once
    	(in the context of responding to a "lite" topic when she wasn't
    	in a great mood.)  One comment deserves one message to the author
    	to explain how it made you feel.  It doesn't deserve lawyers.

    	As for "attacks against men," you define them differently than
    	most people I know.

    	You had me officially reported for telling you "Think" and "You 
    	don't understand" (even though I'd deleted the note saying "Think"
    	within an hour after you demanded I do so.)  I replaced the word
    	"Think" with something like "Let's look at this another way" -
    	and the official complaint still reached my site the next day.

    	I'd be hard pressed to find many people in Digital who regard
    	"Think" and "You don't understand" as attacks against men, but
    	evidently you do.  Is it any wonder you don't get much support for
    	these views?

    	Meanwhile, you call women sexist and filthy day after day after day
    	after day (and tell me "F*ck y*u" in the file) - and you think
    	*you're* being treated unfairly.

    
    
    
    Suzanne (and everyone):
    
    In this company (and I'm very pleased that this is true) we have
    an open door policy.  That means that we can pursue grievances to the
    very highest levels.  If anyone in this company feels that he or she
    has not been given a fair hearing, I absolutely support his or her pursuing
    other avenues.  It is both illegal and unfair to punish someone who has
    take his or her her issues to a higher level, and that kind of
    criticism and/or speculation will not be tolerated here.
    
    Please use this topic to discuss whatever the topic is, and stop
    discussing who sent mail to whom about what.
    
    Justine

    
    	RE: .22  Justine
    
    	You're right, of course.
    
    	It is anyone's right to complain about the word "Think," even if
    	he feels free to say "F*CK Y*U" in the same notesfile later.
    
    	It's just good to see the kinds of things one person finds worth
    	complaining about versus the kinds of things he says himself.
    

    	RE: .23

    	> But that wasn't the idea; I wanted them to provide leadership --
   
    	- under his explicit direction.

    	> ...so it would be taken seriously, so they could navigate a path 
    	> they felt comfortable and safe with, et cetera.  

    	- so they could navigate HIS path, which the rest of us would believe
    	was the moderators' path, not his.

    	How nice to offer to make it comfortable for them to subjugate
    	themselves to his direction (while subjugating the rest of us
    	to his direction without telling us.)  HA!

    
    	> The whole universe is a male conspiracy out to get you.
    
    	You're not the whole universe, Eric.  No matter how firmly
    	you believe it.
    

    
    Please take discussions of the conference to the processing topic.
    Any subsequent replies to this string that are really about the
    conference will be moved there.
    
    Justine 

    
    Eric,
    
    Thank you for changing the title of this basenote.
    
    
    Justine as member of womannotes

    
    	Not that friendly mail means much to you in the long run.
    
    	In the first crisis, we exchanged mail over a whole weekend,
    	and in the last crisis, another woman sent you mail you
    	appreciated.
    
    	Both our notes ended up in Corporate Personnel and/or featured
    	in a harassment complaint anyway.
    
    	Your attention-getting behavior doesn't always yield the best 
    	long-term results for those of us who do try to communicate with 
    	you.
    

    
    	RE: .34  Herb
    
    	Understandable for someone to bite the hands that reached out
    	to him in the last crisis?  Interesting that you think so.
    
    	The reported sins were far less objectionable than nearly
    	anything you could possibly find to say to me in the form
    	of disagreement.  Wonder if he sent your notes to Personnel.
    

    The last three replies are, to my mind still more processing topic
    than related to the base note.
    
    Will all of you please move this discussion to note 22?
    
    I don't relish having to do a major notes move.
    
    Bonnie J
    =wn= comod
    

    The last four replies are, to my mind still more processing topic
    than related to the base note.
    
    Will all of you please move this discussion to note 22?
    
    I don't relish having to do a major notes move.
    
    Bonnie J
    =wn= comod
    

    Um, Mods... doncha think .33 ad nauseum is getting somewhat, ok very
    far over the limits?  Personal attacks, mentions of spacific issues
    that are being delt with at a corp level etal.....
    
    RE: Conlon
    
    Your baiting tactics are getting rather weak.  I mean, Its so darn easy
    to see them now.
    
    RE: Eric
    
    Take it easy pal.  Lifes too short to let spacific people taunt you
    into making possibly reprimandable comments.
    
    RE: The whole barf bag 
    
      Funny eh?

    
    	RE: .41  -d
    
    	Discussions of the Goddess religion should be taken to a new
    	topic designed for this purpose:
    
    		463.0   "The Love of the Goddess"
    
    	This note is about hate - let's leave the hate here.
    

    
    	RE: .44  -d
    
    	Wrong.  This topic is still about accusing a CERTAIN IDENTIFIED
    	RELIGION as being one for people who sometimes hate, per the
    	basenote/title.
    
    	If you want to discuss religions in general, the basenote/title
    	should be changed or a new topic should be opened.
    
    	Meanwhile, those who wish to discuss the LOVE of the Goddess
    	should try the topic set up in 463.
    

>        <<< Note 456.17 by CSC32::CONLON "Cosmic laughter, you bet." >>>

    
>    	It's a lie to say Lorna wants men dead, so therefore it is also
>    	a lie to claim that my understanding of Lorna's real comment means
>    	that I think death for men is the least little thing.


	It's a lie when men tell anti-women jokes too.


	but it still hurts.


	kathy

    What do you mean it's a lie when men tell anti-woman jokes?
    How do you know?
    

    re .20, edp, I haven't read the replies beyond .20 yet, so I don't know
    yet what anyone else has said, but I would like to point out right here
    and now that you *never* called me or sent me mail saying that my
    saying the perfect man is a dead man hurt your feelings.
    
    This, even though you and I have exchanged personal mail since I put
    that reply in notes.
    
    If this situation ever comes up again I would appreciate it if you
    would call me or send me mail and tell *me* personally that what I
    wrote hurt your feelings.  My reply would probably have been that I was
    upset, I was feeling very hurt myself, and yeah, you're right, I should
    probably not have said it.  I didn't say it completely in anger.  I
    have the type of sense of humor where I sometimes joke around even 
    when I'm angry or hurt.
    
    
    Lorna
    

    I have a question, and I am asking this seriously:  What do we
    mean when we talk about a goddess-based religion anyway?
    
    It seems that most people are using it to refer to the "worship"
    (I'm using that word in the loosest sense possible -- spiritual
    regard and honor, not necessarily ritual or other official
    approaches to religion, though not excluding those, either.) of
    the particular goddess often known in Europe and central Asia as
    the White Goddess.  
    
    Other people are using it to refer to female gods generally,
    including parts of the ancient Egyptian pantheon, etc.  Some of
    these goddesses have been, er, somewhat less than savory.  Like
    the Hindu goddess whose cult, Thuggee [probably spelled wrong],
    believed that the goddess would only be satisfied when the human
    race was exterminated, and granted another eternity in paradise to
    anyone who helped further that end, i.e. killed someone else. 
    Thugs were popular as bodyguards in the early Renaissance since
    they could be persuaded to save their employer for last.
    
    Still others seem to be talking about simply restoring the
    feminine side to traditional Judeo-Christianity.  A Catholic
    theologian -- might be Father Greeley -- wrote a fascinating
    speculative essay recently that appeared in several national
    Sunday magazines in which he speculated that the aspect of God
    normally called the Holy Spirit in traditional theology is the
    female principle and has been in the religion all along, and it's
    the wrong of the believers to have not seen it. 
    
    One note in this file mentioned Wicca as a goddess-based religion
    and another one specifically excluded it.  
    
    So it seems that we need a narrowing of terms.  If we're talking
    about all religions that ever existed anywhere at any time that
    had a goddess as the main object of worship, then it probably
    won't be very hard to find examples of hate -- women, like men,
    are fully human and sometimes participate in the basest as well as
    the most noble emotions and activities.  But if we're talking
    about a specific modern religion, the issues are quite different.
    
    --bonnie

re: .12
    
>    I wish the moderators had supported the Splashes topic.

    
    I wrote the absolute FIRST RESPONSE to the splashes topic as
    reposted below and it is extremely supportive of the splashes
    topic........I used the topic as was defined in the base
    note of the splashes topic, and encouraged other to do so as
    well....
    
    -Jody
    
    
                <<< MOMCAT::PIGGY:[NOTES$LIBRARY]WOMANNOTES-V3.NOTE;3 >>>
                        -< Topics of Interest to Women >-
================================================================================
Note 343.1                          Splashes                             1 of 28
LYRIC::BOBBITT "water, wind, and stone"              35 lines  28-AUG-1990 19:07
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    First, I apologize for splashing others.  I attempt to not generalize,
    and I attempt to restrain any anger or confusion or frustration to the
    actual people or situations that provoked those emotions, and try to do
    so in as non-blaming a situation as possible particularly if they
    provoked those unintentionally, but I am imperfect.
    
    Second, I have been being splashed by some of Eric's notes, because I
    tried to explain my pain in a poem, and tried to apologize for any hurt
    I caused him, or other men.  Part of me realized I may not have been
    intended to be the one pained by some of his broad-brushed paintings,
    but part of me was saddened by the fact that he was hurt, and in turn
    felt a need to scream loudly enough that people would respond to his
    hurt, and may have splashed them by his responses....
    
    I have a sincere hope that by admitting when things genuinely hurt (as
    Martin Minow kindly explained in his note about how it felt when he
    encountered FWO stuff) - and having those admittances accepted and
    supported (whether restitution is given or not) that some healing can
    occur in this community, and thereby some sense of increased 
    peace and comfort and reduction of threat and pain can be accomplished.
    
    This is no diatribe against Eric or Martin or Anyone.  We all have
    pain.  The greatest amount of pain I feel in this conference is for
    those who feel unheard, and those who feel they have wondrous things to
    say and nobody is listening, for I have BEEN one of those people on
    occasion (although I am too vocal these days and suffer from a surfeit
    of verbosity sometimes, I guess ;).
    
    May this topic flourish and may the conference be healed by the
    resulting discussion. 
    
    Blessed be.
    
    -Jody

This was posted to Usenet rec.humor.funny this morning.  I'm not sure
why someone thought it was funny, however.

Martin.
-------
Article 394 of rec.humor.funny:
Path: mountn.dec.com!shlump.nac.dec.com!decuac!haven!udel!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!sun-barr!lll-winken!looking!watmath!maytag!oddjob!watserv1!looking!funny-request
From: [email protected] (Peter van der Linden)
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Subject: Astounding vacation news: pagan goddesses were better
Keywords: true, smirk
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 19 Oct 90 10:30:06 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 39
Approved: [email protected]

If, like me, you travel through life hopefully and with an
open mind for all new encounters, you surely won't be disappointed.
So it was that last week I found myself waking up in the Earl 
of Wharton's old country seat in the Yorkshire Dales.  I happened
to catch some of the English morning news on tv, and an interesting
interchange took place.

The newsreader was giving details of a new church report that
described how large numbers of young people are leaving the church
and abandoning organized religion.  Then the newsreader introduced
a guest speaker to comment on this phenomenon.  I was expecting
a bishop, an inner-city priest, or at least a professor of religion.

But no!  To my astonishment, they wheeled on an anthropologist to
comment on the religious crisis.  I was flabbergasted... to me,
this represented the clearest tacit admission that the BBC thinks
religion is all a load of hooey, best interpreted as the superstitions
of primitive people, and argued over not by archbishops but by
anthropologists!

It got even better from that point...  The anthropologist said that
he believed religion started to go downhill at the point when the
supreme deity changed sex from female to male.  If you go back just
a few thousand years (claimed the speaker) the god model was feminine in
nature; a wondrous, nurturing, caring, reproductive goddess.  At some
later point the model of omnipotence changed to masculine, and 
became aggressive, jihad-inspiring, awful, and hard.  And that's
where religion took a left turn downhill.

Well, it's a great theory.  The old pagan deities were the best.  Has
a kind of comforting veneration for tradition, doesn't it?  Quite
unlike anything you ever see on morning tv in the good ol Silicon
Valley, eh?  Flame on these ponderings all you like:- we'll just make more.

--
Edited by Brad Templeton.  MAIL your jokes (jokes ONLY) to [email protected]
Attribute the joke's source if at all possible.  A Daemon will auto-reply.

Jokes posted instead of mailed often don't have a valid reply address.

    I've got the words; we already know the tune.
    
    					:-)  Ann B.