Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 18:54:30 -0500 From: "Eric Beck" <rayrena at mail.accesshub.net>
Kelley snitted:
>and this one from brett to Katha: "I'm not sure what you mean by the
>"structure of sex and gender." But I'm sure you will educate me."
...
>now, why on earth should anyone have to explain any of this to any of you?
If Brett is feeling the same as me, and I suspect he is, his problem with Katha's argument is that it's not very well elucidated. All that I could figure out--and I read her posts a couple times and consider myself a relatively able reader--was that lots of older men have younger girlfriends, and judging by her tone I gathered that this was "bad." Why? Because it's some barometer of the immorality of today's men? Because it indicates some gross hypocrisy in our society? I suspect it has something to do with the latter, but as I've indicated, I haven't been able to read between the lines (if it's something like the former, I will exit the conversation now). And I think this is what Brett was saying: I'm not sure what you are getting at, but I'm willing to listen. For me, I certainly don't need things "explained," in the larger sense, but if I don't understand someone's argument, it doesn't bother me to ask them to clarify it. I would love for both you and Katha to do that. I'm ! kind of slow sometimes.
>[this is #precisely* what butler is talking about so those of you who
>consider yourself marxists adn think katha and i are nutters, then put
>yourself right into the conservative left crowd as far as i'm concerned]
Well, if Butler is right then "we" will also find Katha Pollitt there. But this is Butler's most distastful trick: labelling people who quarrel with you, or even those who fail to comprehend you, with some deragatory term. And what more deragatory term on the left than "conservative." Apparently this makes her authentic.
Eric, whose wife is six years older than he, and whose mother is six years older than his father