On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Andrea L. Klein wrote:
[snip]
> I'm a teaching apprentice right now for a psychology of women course,
> though at a very liberal school with a lot of interested students enrolled
> in the class. It is still a concern, though, how to talk about the
> reality many women face--for example, today's topic was "wife
> abuse"--without seeming to demonize men or create a hostile environment
> for the men in the class. Suddenly the "science of psychology" (already a
> bit flimsy) seems utterly politicized--just as much feminist fiction seems
> to many to be too politicized to be good literature.
[snip]
Only over-simplification demonizes men. I sincerely doubt that many
rational, intelligent people think that all men are evil, violent, and
misogynistic, however radical thier feminist viewpoint. It seems like
many people are not able to handle anything more complicated than
something like "Men are scum" or "Women aren't good at math."
Even in _A_Door_Into_Ocean_ with it's all-female utopia, there were good
men. (at least, I read it that way :). I think it is quite reasonable to
isolate ourselves from the larger groups we are members of as long as we
really truly take lessons learned from studies of the larger group and use
them to work on ourselves as individuals. Women and men should be taught
about ways in which women have become ensnared in the position of victim,
and men have become victimizers in order that all can attempt to avoid
being either part of such a relathionship and attempt to prevent such
relationships in their society.
As long as the teacher isn't sexist and/or over-simplifying (certainly
doesn't sound like it in this case), if men take these things in an
overly-simplistic way it is their own sexist and/or over-simplifying
fault. So, in an open environment, I say go for it. If anyone takes
it the "wrong way," deal with it and them then. In my opinion, they will
need to learn to deal with complexity with openness and resilience
anyway. In fact, I think that that is probably a better lesson to learn
than almost any other.
-- Joel VanLaven
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