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=> Re: Furthermore

Re: Furthermore
Posted by parhad (Guest) - Thursday, July 8 2004, 18:23:49 (CEST)
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Qasrani wrote:
>This is the shrill stuff I have gotten past because it is unproductive.


...it might be for you...but you only got to a point where this is so because others did the shrill stuff...I`m just saying honor those who didn`t have the luxury you do having had someone else do the shrill stuff that needed doing before you could afford the luxury of not having to be shrill yourself...I trust that made no sense. When the time calls for it..as it does every day..I can be shrill on cue and I can clobber too...and I can snaek up and I can confront. being shrill is nothing more than a tactic and it`s usefullness and applicabillity depends entirely on how stuffed up the ears are of those who will pay attention in no other way. No one WANTS to be shrill.


What you are speaking about is the conditioning that has come over time and these are the circumstances that have been given to you. It doesn't really matter what the circumstances are, but the issue is how you react to these things.

...again, you can only say that because of your privilleged position on this planet and I would remind you that you did nothing to get born where you are...and had not others fought the good fight, you wouldn`t be able to say these things in such an offhand manner. All second-class citizens who have internalized the Man`s hatred would like to believe such a thing never happened...and as soon as they can, will forget the indignities heaped on the rest of their group that they escaped through some quirk of fate...but if you never internalized it..never believed you were a Nigger or a Cunt or a Dirty Jew OR Muslim...you can always see it for the device it was...a device that had to be fought by every available means, including "raising you voice above a modest pitch"...people who never internalized that hate have no need to claim it never affcted them...it`s so obvious to them and it is mostly because they see it was never OF them...just piled ON TOP of them..no more to be hated or denied than if someone called them a squirrel and offered them nuts to eat...they simply acepted the realñity of it, rejected it vehemently and fought it to the death..they had no need to deny it`s presence, its power or its effct on their lives.


That's what I've learned. Growing up, Assyrians would tell/ask my father (when we would engage in discussions), "What are you doing, trying to raise her as a son?" That's telling, right? But at the end of the day, it's how you react to things that has the greatest impact. My father did not even find such comments worthy of response. In our house, we all did chores, boy or girl, much to the annoyance of my grandmother who would have connpition fits over the fact that the yak'ana son was doing dishes while the girls sat watching tv. Try and explain to a Mosulneta that it wasn't your turn to do dishes and that the chores you were assigned, you had already completed....

..as I said, your circumstances were uniue...but had you exited that wonderful home into a world as Sexist and degrading and humiliating but so "natural" to women...instead of the one you face now...you`d quickly come to realize that it was personal luck and no unique quality in you that gave you that brief moment of sanity, to be forever reminded of just how rare it was by never being treated as an equal again. What you enjoyed growing up was what other women and girls had to fight for in the world before you had to go out there and get your heart broken..at least be sensitive to the fact that none of them wanted to shrill, any more than they wanted to be miss out on your life...it is equally offensive to say "all women are hysterical and shrill by nature" as it is to lump Feminist Literature, thought and action under a "shrill" umbrella. Maybe you just read the wrong two books.


When I was in my teens I was very sensitive about gender issues and irritated at how society tried to hem you in. I'm over this sort of thing now.

..it`s wonderful how you can get over things...what Feminists were trying to do wasn`t merely getting over personal issues..they were trying to get a Masculist world to get over ITSELF so girls born without your lucky stars would have a fighting chance.

I try to delve into the nuances of every interaction because every single interaction is quite complex. It's too easy to say, "male chauvinist pig." Actually, it's so easy that it rolls right off the tongue.

..it wasn`t easy at all to say those words once..they just rolled of your tongue "easier" because a lot of women were beaten and arrested and humiliated in prisons BY male chauvinist pigs...to even stand up and ask for the vote once got women thrown in jail and they went on hunger strikes they were forcibly fed..probably by having their breasts held tightly to "soften them up".
>
>Your boob staring experiences are not unique, as you can imagine. It happened to me just a week ago at a July 4th event at a bigwig political thingy. And I was wearing business casual dress. These men would ask a question and just stare there the entire time I was answering then look up when I was finished and ask a follow-up. They were listening, but I think the boobs gave them a focal point to focus on the words. :) But seriously, I thought it was sad (for them) and darkly comic.
>

..it is indeed..but at least now when a man assumes he can tougch your boobs at work..and not just stare at them..as he was always able to do back when even complaining about it was unheard of..at least you can sue the jerk...at least you can get girlie calendars taken down..it may not change the behavior...but then no one asks men to stop picking their nose...just not to pick yours.

>I wonder why they aren't listening to you. Seriously, though. I did all this speech and debate when I was younger and I discovered that I didn't have to speak high-pitched and I had more command of my audience's ear when I spoke in a deeper tone. Most people don't listen to higher pitch; men and women filter it out. Are you high-pitched? I actually get compliments on my voice now (because I think they don't realize that its neutral in intonations--until I break out the California slang, then it's valley all the way!). And that isn't the way I speak every day, but it is the voice that I use at conferences and at work. My friend had actually sat in on a conference that I was moderating and when I was done, he came up to me afterward and told me that he had not heard any of my presentation because he had spent the entire time waiting to hear me and didn't realize until the panel was done that the first presentation was actually mine. That's how different I sound. Call it what you want, but this is me being practical. You do what you can to get to where you want to be. Stilletos are out, kitty heels are in...high-pitched is out, deeper voices are in... long skirts are out, short skirts are in.

..those are fads and fashions...we aren`t talking about that..we`re talking about the PRINCIPLE of equal rights for all...and that isn`t something anybody get`s born into and it isn`t a personal thing..it`s an issue you have to take arms and link arms up and fight...and women did...and that`s a large part of the reson you even GOT in the door to make that presentation at all..if you forget your roots and to honor those who went without fighting for a principle that could apply to all girls born way after their "personal" lives were over..then at least acknowledge that they made the lives of OTHERS less difficult and limiting.
>
>We do live in a men's world. I don't have any delusions about that fact, but my thing is: who cares? I am going to do what I can to prevail whatever the obstacles. This is just one of many many obstacles that people face in life. If I am in a position to help out another woman who is qualified and needs a break, I will do my utter best to ensure that happens.

...had Feminists only cared about those who are "qualified" to be free and in jobs...they would have looked out for themselves only and other "qualified" women. The point was to make your qualifications irrelevant, so long as the criteria was established by men based on their own masculinity. There was a time when NO woman was "qualified"...and we`re not far away from that yet.

It's not what I see from other women in the field... They are totally competitive and want to shut the door behind them sort of thing. I have gotten more breaks from men than I have from women (and at this point in my endless interviewing process, the interviewers are about equal men to women.)

...and Blacks still prefer white Niggers. Women are still insecure in their roles, in their jobs, they`re still conditioned to think of other women as competition..if not for the man then certainly for the job..being pitted against each other like mud wrestlers while men enjoy the sport.
>
>If there is anything that I can tell you it is to take yourself seriously. The recognition from anyone else might be piddley, but keep at it. In the end, you have to do it for yourself, right? So, do the best that you can and take yourself seriously. Gauge your audience. Example 3, I don't like sports. I work at a place where all the male partners are constantly talking about sports. The other law clerks that are all guys talk sports. So every Monday or whenever the day after the sporting event is, everybody hashes it out. But guess who gets the projects and the client contact? Guess who gets to keep their job when they get back from a 3-month leave of absence? It isn't the guys; it's me. If those guys left, they wouldn't be coming back. And it wasn't all the partners that I had won over, it was about gauging the partners that noticed my work and building a relationship with them. In my case, it took only 1 partner to convince the lot that I should come back. The point is, your work product always speaks louder than anything else, my friend. I don't care about your gender. If you produce top-notch work product, you can have this professor on his knees.

...American men, the only ones with jobs and paychecks before the Great depression felt as you do..that their jobs and status defined them...and their worlds crashed when the company went belly-up and it was none of their fault. We are more than our paychecks..we are more than our secuirty in the Man`s eyes or even our competance...there is more to creating a world in which dignity isn`t even an issue and if you don`t value Life as more than your staus of the moment...we will take longer to get there isall...it`s great to enjoy what men enjoyed..but if men and their positions and their approval is your standard of measurement...you`ve merely replaced their oppression of women for your own.

Janet Reno and Mdeline Albright were bright shining possibilities..and the Man was more than happy to slime them by giving them a "Man`s " job to do...much as Colin Powell and some Mexican Americans have been elevated to positions where they clean up the Man`s toilet INSIDE his house..I`m afraid when all is said and done you`re thrilled to have become a House Cunt instead of a field hand cunt. It`s progress...of a sort.


But you have to prove your worth. He might set a higher bar for you, whether that is fair or not is beside the point, that is your reality. Are you going to step up to the challenge? Do you really care? You can always reassess the situation and say, "no, this path is closed and I can't be bothered with it." Then you trek another direction, with another faculty member. But again, it comes back to you... You have to do it first and foremost for yourself. Maybe this professor is male chauvinistic, but maybe he sees himself in the male student, maybe the male student has similar interests to the prof inside/outside the lab. Maybe their personalities mesh better as far as cultural interaction. Is the other male student Assyrian or Middle Eastern or whatever? Maybe the professor senses your resentment. I hope you realize that there can be an infinite combination at work in this dynamic between you and your prof. I don't think it is fair at all to assume that he thinks you always have the option of marrying and being taken care of. That, to me, is a cop out.
>
>The stealing of your ideas by professors... That is academia. Welcome! Now you can never ever use the excuse that you didn't know. I have friends who had to go to law school because their professors (that did not have tenure) stole their proposed graduate topics of interest. Academia is competitive and there isn't enough tenure to go around these days, your experience is an effect of that. It isn't because you are a woman that you suffered this particular experience.
>
>You are not seen as a Ms. "Future MD or Phd" because obviously that is outside those people's direct frame of reference. That doesn't mean everyone thinks that way. I'm sure you have run into MANY people that got it right. It's the few that get it wrong that sting and linger in our memories. But then look at your frame of reference, you are approaching this entire experience as though you are a victim of some male-driven whatever.
>
>And lastly, it isn't corporate media that made "feminism" a bad word. I think if you are a humanist then you are a feminist by definition yes? We have two genders in this world, right? You can't turn to every guy that stares below your neckline and tell them off and call them chauvinist pigs... Wait, I mean, you could, you have the capability but that isn't going to create dialogue. I get sad when I hear women saying things like this, because for me it's about jumping over these hurdles, it's not about stopping in my tracks and yelling at the guy that put them there. He might set another one up in front of you just out of spite, yes? Or like when you have a bad waiter/waitress, they can very well "taint" your food before it makes it to the table if you rub him/her the wrong way... Then you will have eaten, but they will have had the last laugh.

...we aren`t talking about the same thing at all.....
>
>Q



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