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Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 21:57:48 -0400 (EDT)
To: Andrew Reeves <andrew.reeves &AElig wayne.edu>
cc: improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Daniel Reeves <dreeves &AElig umich.edu>
Subject: Re: NYtimes article: Many women at elite colleges set career path  to   Motherhood
Status: O

I nominate Michelle for a fuller response.

I'll just say for the nonce that of course I've read brave new world.  In
my feminist utopia the *only* differences between the sexes will be
biological.  The biological vs socially constructed line is pretty bright
and I don't think your slippery slope argument with government-enforced
sterility, test-tube babies, and a drugged working class is very on the
mark.  But I'm eager to argue this more...

-- Danny's Grandpa Andrew's Grandson


--- \/   FROM Andrew Reeves AT 05.10.06 21:07 (Today)   \/ ---

>    Finally I read through the comments of Dave Morris, Robert Felty,
> Vishal Soni, and of course of Bethany and Danny to Louise Story's piece
> in the NY Times. What finally set me to enter the fray is Danny's view
> of the article as furthering an anti-feminist agenda because that's not
> the way I see it at all.
>    Actually, I do not have a satisfactory definition of "feminism". If
> it means removing all historic obstacles to the legal equality of the
> feminine gender in all aspects of public life, I'm of course for it. If
> it means promoting a new concept of human society in which traditional
> "gender roles" are abolished or suppressed, I am against it.
>    For the foreseeable future, I don't have to worry about reversing
> human biology to the point of males getting pregnant and bear babies,
> although that, or perhaps some mechanism by which females could be
> freed from that also and yet the human race to go forward, seems to be
> the unstated ultimate aim of the second type of feminism. Until that
> distant goal is achieved, this kind of feminism just struggles against
> the secondary consequences that spring from the presently existing
> biological differentiation between the sexes. That of course is also
> an uphill struggle and yields numerous contradictions which are easy
> to see and not at all easy to circumvent. This kind of society has
> been foreseen in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel, "Brave New World", a best
> seller of its time which seemingly none of you in the "improvetheworld"
> crowd, or at least those who share Danny's view on the matter, have
> read. I would urge you to do so; if you did, you will see the problems
> and unintended consequences that would result from that kind of societal
> restructuring even assuming that it could be successfully done.
>    Actually, some early versions of Communism including the Israeli
> kibbutz system experimented with that kind of idea and it cannot be said
> that it turned out to be a resounding success. The basis of our present
> societal structure, which our beloved President would no doubt call
> "the nucular family" does have some historic roots going back a few
> hundred thousand years, and I am not totally convinced that its origins
> were entirely dependent on our brutish and club-wielding male ancestors
> ramming it down the throats of their unwilling mates. The fact that
> females get pregnant, give birth to babies and nurse them, while males
> are more muscular, more aggressive, can go out and bring home the bacon
> more successfully, does have some character-forming consequences which
> did get built into the human genome over the millennia. I must admit
> that I have a great deal of sympathy with the female type which Louise
> Story depicts in her piece and which Danny has chastised as "anti-
> feminist". In fact, my idea of anti-feminism would be almost precisely
> the opposite.
>    It is possible that in the 21st century we are crossing a milestone
> of human evolution although I must say that I would be dreading the
> prospect. In such a system, females would be REQUIRED to enter the work
> force on totally interchangeable conditions with males, pregnancies
> would be pharmacologically prevented except for individually approved
> cases, and child rearing institutionalized. As I am sure you know,
> certain insects such as ants and bees already live in that kind of
> societal structure where the "workers" are actually degenerate females
> whose sexual development was nutritionally suppressed during infancy.
> I would not regard anything resembling that as a desirable future for
> Humankind and if that is your kind of "feminism" then I am afraid that
> we have irreconcilable differences.
>    Danny's Grandpa Andrew
>

-- 
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  google://"Daniel Reeves"

I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in
twenty minutes.  It's about Russia.
                -- Woody Allen