I studied everything from Adrienne Rich and Bell Hooks to Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray, and believe me, those French feminists make the Americans look like amateurs when it comes to absolute raving wildness. But it's still as much of a range as any other -ism; there are moderate, liberals, and even conservatives (like those who say there are sex-based differences, but that the material and social should be equal, perhaps?).
I find the gender differences to be much smaller than some people realize; if I take the tests which purport to rank (stereotypical) masculine and feminine traits, I *always* come out between 80% to 90% male, even down to some of the things a few scientists have tried to argue might be genetic, like how we organize and understand space. (I think it's supposed to be that men go by direction, while women use landmarks, but then, perhaps I'm the exception that proves the rule.)
Still, there's a difference between knowing enough to be able to qualify where you stand, and painting everything with the same tarring brush of I HATE _____. CP, above, is right; it's much like saying you hate all Xtians because some Catholic priest molested a child, and thus all Xtians are child molesters. Then again, this does seem to be the type of hasty generalization used so often in politics... maybe next week I'll plan a rant about people who throw around stereotypes of 'conservative' and 'liberal'. Hah.
To those women who are ignorant of their past, not much can be expected of their futures.
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Date: 4 Aug 2005 09:42 pm (UTC)I find the gender differences to be much smaller than some people realize; if I take the tests which purport to rank (stereotypical) masculine and feminine traits, I *always* come out between 80% to 90% male, even down to some of the things a few scientists have tried to argue might be genetic, like how we organize and understand space. (I think it's supposed to be that men go by direction, while women use landmarks, but then, perhaps I'm the exception that proves the rule.)
Still, there's a difference between knowing enough to be able to qualify where you stand, and painting everything with the same tarring brush of I HATE _____. CP, above, is right; it's much like saying you hate all Xtians because some Catholic priest molested a child, and thus all Xtians are child molesters. Then again, this does seem to be the type of hasty generalization used so often in politics... maybe next week I'll plan a rant about people who throw around stereotypes of 'conservative' and 'liberal'. Hah.
To those women who are ignorant of their past, not much can be expected of their futures.
Beautifully said.