luvluv

Furthermore, your decison to exploit yourself involves women who have no real chance to benefit from that explotation. You personally, may be in a position to advance yourself through exploiting your sexuality, but there are millions of women, (housekeepers, teachers, pastors, women in the military) who can only be hurt by the image that you profit by. Just as the average African-American could only be hurt by the image of blackness projected by a person like Steppin Fetchitt, there are women who can only be hurt by the image of womenhood projected by strippers and women in pornography.

Secondly, I do not advocate, and I dare you to cite a point where I ONCE advocated, that women should be protected. The entire content of my statement proceeded from the assumption that women need to take care of their Uncle Tom problem THEMSELVES if they were interested in achieving freedom. The decision to refuse to be exploited is a decision that women MUST make for themselves: nobody can make it for them. I cannot understand why, in complete excess from anything I have ever said on the subject, I am persistently tagged as a person who wants to or even suffers from the delusion that he can, control women. That's a strawman, and does not at all address any opinion I have ever expressed on this board.

Lastly, I know that a person's occupation is only one part of a person's life, but the degradation a person endures on the job flows over into how they perceive themselves in every other aspect of life. My grandfather was a sharecropper. That was not all he was, but his occupation set the context for the demeaning conditions that surronded him, and it formed the pretext for his self concept. In America in particular, we have a tendency to believe that we are what we do. While that is a problem in and of itself, it is impossible to totally exclude our self concept from what we do for a living ESPECIALLY if our occupations are necessarily demeaning. Certainly a persons job is only one part of who they are but I don't see why ANY part of who they are ought to be demeaning to them.

Viti

You are appealing to emotions and specific stereotypes to make an inaccurate analogy luvluv.

You do not even understand that your comparisons are even further apart than apples and oranges. There are many different races...not just black and white, but there are only two genders. Racial stereotypes vary around the world, but gender stereotypes are universal. Pretty much everywhere women are seen as the weaker sex in need of protection...the US is the only place where African Americans are stereotyped by "shonuffs" and "massas".

bonduca

luvluv, I must object to your statements made to LadyShea. I do not feel at all degraded by her statements. I think she has a great deal more understanding of what it means to be a strong and independent woman than you do, however well-intentioned your efforts.

luvluv

I will continue to use the plight of African-Americans as an analogy because it is entirely fitting.

Overall, bonduca, we just disagree, and are getting off topic. I think you are a great person, but nothing of profit can really come from us talking with each other about this issue. No matter what I post, you will just ask for some unecessary digression which will go on for pages and with which, at the end of the day, you will still disagree. So lets just skip the middle man and agree to disagree, okay?

luvluv

"Racial stereotypes vary around the world, but gender stereotypes are universal. Pretty much everywhere women are seen as the weaker sex in need of protection...the US is the only place where African Americans are stereotyped by "shonuffs" and "massas"."

Well, firstly, you're wrong. The image of the African-American is pretty much the same everywhere. I've even had African friends while I lived in Brooklyn who had an image of African-AMERICANS (not black people in general) as being violent, lazy, and stupid. They attained this image largely from the media, and largely through our own self-explotation in music. In short we played the part of the "nigger" in our music, our music got transferred around the globe, and around the globe people operate under the impression that an African-American really is a nigger. Now, this would have been an impossible illusion unless black people PARTICIPATED in their own explotation. The same is true for women.

But at any rate, I don't see how the fact that the way blacks are regarded might be different in other parts of the world. The fact that women are regarded as sexual objects all over the world would seem to only reinforce the need for that stereotype to be broken. Speaking of jihads and the like, it is precisely the American image of the whore that some in the Middle East are so afraid of. Your exploting yourself as a sexual object only REINFORCES in the minds of men in those cultures of the need to "protect" their women. Please do not think that I mean to blame the phenomenon of burkhas on American women, I just say that it does absolutely nothing to liberate women everywhere and in it's own way reinforces the explotation of women.

Viti

luvluv...just nevermind....you don't get it and I am sick of trying to making you understand.

I do not know what it is like to be an African American man in the US so I would never dream of telling you the best way to live or how to fight unfair stereotypes.

Can you concede that you do not know what it is like to be a woman anywhere in the world, and so do not know the answer to fighting what you see as exploitation?

luvluv

No I don't even agree with the context of your statement. You can see perfectly well that it would be working against my dignity and my interests to act degrade myself no matter how profitable it was for me personally. From a politically correct standpoint you might not consider it to be your place to say, but it would be a stretch to say that you don't understand it.

I don't know what it is like to be a woman but that does not prevent me from being able to perceive that some behavior is harmful to their image. I am not politically correct enough to keep my observations to myself, I suppose.

Viti

I don't care about what nameless strangers think of me...I do not believe I am degrading myself and if more women would stand up and say "I belong to myself and if you cannot or will not see the whole person then I will use your stupid stereotypes against you" we wouldn't be having this discussion.

bonduca

So the input of actual women would be of inestimable value when formulating your theories, yes?

If the image you speak of is not one that we choose or even desire, merely one that is projected upon us, why should we work to preserve it?

Or well-intentioned, but misguided.

luvluv

Okay maybe I mispoke just now. I can see how, even if they were speaking the truth, a white man posting a thread on how blacks ought to behave would probably rub me the wrong way just on general principle. So, yeah I can see your point on further reflection.

However, it is worth mentioning that whites did participate in the civil rights movement and that there participation was necessary for it to be succesful. Ultimately, I think that men need to participate in the women's movement and I think that the women's movement can't be totally succesful unless men and women work together in that struggle. No, I do not think that men can impose their feminist agenda on women, and obviously men cannot enforce or participate in any movement for the advancement of women without the participation of women. But I think men can be heard, and that there opinions should not be dismissed on the grounds that they are not women. If I were a woman I would probably think the same things, my mother is a woman and she has largely influenced my opinions on the matter.

So yes, I can see how it would be patronizing to have a man tell you how you ought to behave, but I believe it is probably necessary for the women's movement to have male participation and that might include their ideas. I'm not against anybody, and I don't want to make anyone feel bad about themselves or their choices, but if I see their choices as harmful I won't silence my opposition to them to spare their feelings. It may be an understatement to say that I might need to learn some tact in giving voice to my opposition, but in principle I think it better than remaining silent or saying "that's none of my business."

I'm outta here kids. Tommorows my birthday so hopefully I will have something more fun to do than debate, but I will be back Monday for more fun with morality. Same bat time, same bat channel.

[ June 22, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>