[LMB] a funny thing happened, was Gender roles

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Azalais Aranxta" <tiamat at tsoft.com>


> On Sun, 3 Jun 2007, Tzivia Adler wrote:
>
>> > As for how people lived in the past, I'm a strong believer in
>> > "Everyone did what they had to, and made the most of it." The
>> > theory that all men were swine and/or all women, sheep has
>> > never appealed to me. That most of them were fish unaware of
>> > the water which was their social system, I will grant you.
>> > And, BTW, slaves and peasants were in an analogous position
>> > vis-a-vis their masters.
>> >
>> > "That was then, This is now." If you can keep it.
>>
>> slaves and peasants were manipulative to get power? do tell.
>> how else could they get it?
>
> Part of the pernicious nature of hierarchies, once they're
> allowed to become entrenched and are legally enforced, is that
> there's more than one kind of power.

The past is not necessarily what people think it was--at least one 
archaeological dig of a [Jewish] synagogue in Asia Minor, discovered 
engraving on a seat at the -front- of the room that people prayed in, with 
the information that that seat's owner was -female-0 and that it was 
where -she- was during religious services.  This contrasts hugely with 
contemporary Orthodox Jewish practice of stcking women in the back of the 
area or up in a balcony or off behind a curtain....

There are all sorts of people who've gone through "historical records" 
purging or "redacting" to make what was available afterward, agree with 
their views of what was appropriate information to have available.

> In fact there are many kinds.
>
> In a system where men have legal and physical power over women,
> men are still human and so are women.  Men want love, which
> cannot be compelled, even though outwardly loving behaviours can

There's love, and there's the appearance of love.

Yesterday I saw Pan's Labyrinth... the Capitain was a Nasty Piece of Work, 
and yet... it was clear that he was obsessed and had been molded into 
something vile, that there was someone in there hurting, repressed and 
suppressed and unable to express much in the way of tender emotion... that 
he had been raised in a way that had warped him and turned him into a 
murderous monster, locked off from himself, and able to express himself only 
through rote directed behavior, through killing, through abruptness, and 
through tinkering with things and pouring himself into things mechanical, 
and focusing on his wife's pregnancy and putting all his attention into 
that, and into trying to ensure that the pregnancy produced a healthy male 
child.  His concern for his wife, he evinced as concern for his presumed 
son.

There are those who value appearance over content, or can't separate 
content, from pointers to it...

> be.  Women want power or at least self determination, and if they
> cannot legally have it they will find a way to get it.

There's legal, there's legitimate, and there's perception--that, too, is in 
that film, where the Capitain doesn't see that women are really people and 
able to act on their own and have any relevance/reality of their own.

> Sexually abused children sometimes behave like sexually powerful
> adults.  The reason for this is that the behaviour works in
> allowing them to get what they want and/or need in homes where
> simply being a child hasn't worked the way it should.
>
> The classic femmes fatales?  Women who have learnt to use men's
> drives to manipulate men into giving them what they want.  A lot
> of it seems ludicrous nowadays, but it worked, and for women who

"Fascinating Womanhood" by Mirabelle Morgan....

> were unable to tolerate the lives of the Good Woman in their era,
> or who were disqualified because they were no longer pure, not
> always of their own choice, it was often the best option.
>
> Slaves frequently preyed upon the immense sense of incompetence
> some privileged people had when they realised they had no idea
> how a lot of the things that needed to happen in their daily

Slaves in Rome could own their own property, and some of them became 
extremely wealthy....

> lives actually worked.  They became "indispensible."  Slaves also
> sometimes used sexual manipulation, as their bodies were not
> their own and the only way to combat sexual abuse was sometimes
> to manipulate it.  Slaves and masters sometimes fell in love, but
> the relationship was always slightly tainted by the knowledge of
> what the master could do to the slave and the slave's knowledge
> of how other slaves might feel about the situation.
>
> People will find ways to manipulate the most horrible systems
> imaginable and sometimes thrive there.

Different people have different needs and orientations.  The ideal life for 
Person A, can be intolerable hell for Person B, and vice versa.  The 
cardinal offense is when people refuse to acknowledge that "what I 
want/need, and what [someone else] wants/needs, are disjunct and not related 
to one another at all.  That it, someone who's an artist who needs to 
paint/write/draw/make music, can't comprehend someone else who's got no 
interest/talent in art and wants/enjoys/NEEDS what the artist sees as the 
completely stultifying mind-destroying clerical day job... while the person 
who loves working retail sales, can't understand how someone could 
want/need/stand life as a freelance artist without a regular paycheck to pay 
the bill and a retirement fund, etc.

Ethan of Athos has never come into contact with women before leaving Athos, 
and they are Alien to him.  Elli Quin's never met someone from Athos and the 
idea of an all-male planet, while not something she regards with horror as 
does the health person, is still not in her set of experience.   I was 
really really really happy with how the book turned out--Ethan did NOT turn 
into a heterosexual, the book had -integrity-.

> In addition to this, some people, regardless of the position in
> life to which they are born, are just plain charismatic, and some
> are profoundly wise, and in both cases people may unconsciously
> defer to them regardless of their station.  Many charismatic
> leaders for good or ill come from fairly humble origins.  The
> early Christian era, before the Nicene suppression of
> non-imperially-approved Christian cults, was an era in which many
> women held tremendous social and spiritual power due to their
> involvement with the new religion.  Religion--particularly
> alternative religions, which get little to no support from
> patriarchy and therefore have no reason to reinforce it--are
> often an arena in which unhappy, intelligent, driven women can
> get heard and obtain a measure of social satisfaction.
>
> I disagree with Thad about none of that.  What I disagree with
> him over is that the fact some people could thrive and others
> survive under an unfair social system makes that system okay.
>
>> but - this made me think of the phrase, 'a funny thing happened on the 
>> way
>> to the forum.'
>>
>> which is either a book or a movie (or a broadway play?) that i have never
>> seen, but have heard referenced so many times in this context taht it 
>> sprang
>> immediately to mind.  which is ridiculous.
>
> It's a play, and I think it's also a movie.  I've seen it. :)