Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    On the money, Peggy.
    
    I find the heat is a lot more productive when we are _personal_,
    when we talk about what we _feel_, what has _happened_, what is
    happening to us and our sisters.  Notes of this sort are substantial,
    hard to write, but so full of _meaning_.
    
    Advice feels trite, semantics loses all interest VERY quickly (this
    is what for we have Da Box), but saying, "this happened.  I felt
    this.  It was awful/great."  Geeze, that works so much better than
    dissecting a note line by line.
    
    Lee

    Thankyou Peggy, I felt very much the same way that you did.
    
    One of the things that I liked most about Womannotes when I 
    first joined was that it reminded me of two times in my
    life when I had a strong woman's support group....once
    in college and once again with a group of friends when I
    was around 30. 
    
    and the most special and precious thing about those two
    situations was the ability to share view points and feelings
    and to learn from each other and to value and love each other.
    
    Bonnie

    Reply to the last few,
    
    There is a definite need for separation on a temporary basis. I have
    seen the fruits of separate mens and womens groups. It is positive.
    
    Keep working toward that goal, it will reward you.
    
    Blessed Be 

    Re: <-- all of the above
    
    Yes!  "Not valid for me" is precisely what I meant, which in no
    way _invalidates_ Lee's feelings or experiences.  One of the arguments 
    that gets my dander up the most (either on my own behalf, or someone
    else's) runs along the lines of "since it didn't happen to me, it
    can't have happened to you."  We often hear this type of argument
    couched in pseudo-logical terms ("What you are saying is "logically
    impossible", therefore your experiences and feelings are false.")
    What the person is often saying, really, is "it never happened to
    me."
    
    So I think it's a terrific idea to get more personal, more
    experiential.  If we debate the existence of sexism in the workplace,
    for instance, merely quoting studies _and accepting it when studies
    are quoted "at" us_ does us not much good in dealing with the nitty
    gritty of our lives.  What I love to examine instead is "Well, here's
    what Statistican X and Publication Y are saying, but what's actually
    _happening_ to me and my friends?"  If women feel they are being
    discriminated against at DEC what I really want to know is what
    actual form that has taken for each person who feels it is so. 
    If we debate some of the issues of "training in sexism", I want
    to know what happened to each person, what they now perceive as
    messages they got, what effects they had, how they might be struggling
    with them now.
    
    BTW, I have begun, in the last few years, to use the "get personal"
    approach with my husband.  He is something of a master debater and
    I have a hard time keeping up with him in a strict logical sense.
    But when something he asserts "couldn't happen" _has_ happened to
    me, I now tell him so.  "I don't care if it's not reasonable,"  
    I say.  "It happened to me!  It may be ludicrous, but it's true!"
    And I've found that, rather than provoking increased argument, the
    simple assertion "it happened" does more to open his eyes to another
    way of seeing reality than all the half-baked, unsound arguments
    I can muster at a moment's notice (which is not many; I'd be a 
    terrible trial lawyer).
    
    Many thanks,
    
    Marcia

    RE: priors
    
    What's been said about invalidating people's feelings is right
    on the money.
    
    As my shrink is constantly saying to me: "Alan, you're entitled
    to your feelings. You own them. They're yours." (Of course, there
    IS a problem if I have "feelings" that little green people are
    out to get me.)
    
    I think a lot of the heat generated in Note 479 was a result of
    this invalidating of people's feelings. Some women were saying
    that they knew what they felt, that they were not anti-men.
    Some men were saying they knew what they felt, that they felt
    that some women were anti-men.
    
    Sadly, neither group was listening to the *feelings* of the other.
    Hearing (reading), perhaps. Listening, no.
    
      Alan
          

        I, too, support this idea. Many, if not most of my notes here
        are based upon my own experiences and trying to express them in
        a way to share them and contrast them with those of others here.
        This kind of sharing of very different perspectives is one of
        the real strengths of this file. 
        
        It is very hard to grasp that other intelligent, well-informed,
        people of good will can view the same data as you and come up
        with completely opposite conclussions. It is very easy to try to
        deny the validity of the differing position, to blame the
        difference in viewpoints on malice or other ulterior motives.
        
        Men often have a hard time believeing women's stories of sexism
        because they are way well outside of their own personal
        experience. Similarly, women will often hear men say things and
        assume that the only reason that they could say or believe such
        things is because they are sexist. In point of fact, in many
        cases it is just a completely different perspective. 
        
        JimB.

        The following reply is from a contributor who wishes to remain
        annonymous.
    
        Bonnie J
        moderator
    
    
                        < Well, personally....>

	One reason a particular note may have been written in a dispassionate 
	or lecturing tone is that the author may prefer NOT to make it personal!
	Reasons for this may vary; some may simply preferring not airing their 
	problems in "public".  Others may not want to implicate or hurt other 
	people (ex's, coworkers, relatives, friends) who read or who might be 
	told of notes here.  And some may have found that the only way they 
	can (currently?) cope with the topic is to treat it as objectively as 
	possible....  If they felt that they needed to speak to the topic, 
	this may have been the only comfortable way they could do it!

RE: .0

"I believe that WOMANNOTES can be a place where women's opinions are taken as
valid without having to fight for each word we say."

Why should not men's opinions be treated the same way?  Men's opinions are
*not* treated this way in this file.

'women should have their own space'

Hmmm... perhaps, but then I think that you need two WOMANNOTES conferences,
one public, and one private, because a public WOMANNOTES is definitely needed...

RE: .5

I don't really think that either sex is anti<opposite sex>.  But it does
appear that way sometimes.  *That* is the problem.

Jim.