<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV> <DIV>Lou said:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>>For the record, Rob, your attitude is quite reprehensible, although probably<BR>>nothing can be done about it until some more intense time in the struggle<BR>>when you are happily leering at female subordinates and then suddently find<BR>>yourself completely surprised when the Women's Committee bursts in, drags<BR>>you out into the street, ties you to a lamppost, strips you naked, smears<BR>>you with dog dung, and threatens to cut your balls off.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Y'know, Lou, this is the second time in I think as many days when you've set up a straw man and savaged it (the first being your "ladder").  May your argumentation skills improve as you practice them here.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Rob didn't say, nor did he seem to intimate, that he was an out-and-out sexist pig, leering at women to demonstrate his superiority as a male member of the species.  He looked a little thick, granted,  but what can seem like stupidity can be simple uncertainty.  And he had a valid critique vs. Kelley's structuralist frame of reference.  Granted he could be lying his ass off to save face, but no-one should just brand him with a mark without some better proof.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>>Some men just<BR>>require that kind of individualized intervention to make them pay attention.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>(also said later, in the same vein:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>>One of the "good things" of the early days of the Chinese revolution was<BR>>precisely the institution of women's committees who would go to the house of<BR>>the patriarch who beat his wife, and beat him.  What's wrong with that, pray<BR>>tell?<BR></DIV> <DIV>Quite true; some people need that kick in the ass.  But that's ALL it should be, a kick, not a beating to "teach him/her a lesson" or "make some justice".</DIV> <DIV><BR>><BR>>(At this point Rob replies "Ooh!  Stripped naked by women!  I hope they're<BR>>lookers!  Let me know in advance so I can put on some nice scent!" )</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>More straw men.</DIV> <DIV><BR>><BR>>If anyone has thought of a less extreme way to alter men's attitudes on the<BR>>sexual harassment question, preferably some argument that works in e-mails,<BR>>I would love to know about it.  This is a real<BR>>being-determines-consciousness issue.  Until the being gets a kick in the<BR>>arse, the consciousness does not improve :-(<BR><BR>I doubt you'll find anything better than Kelley's description of her own travails; it might not work for all men, though.  A collective flaming followed by a "now, do you get it, Shit-fer-brains?" lecture might be apropos.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You also said later, responding to Dennis' taunt:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>>If a male Leninist never gets tagged as a Dworkinite, he hasn't said or done<BR>>enough on the sexual harassment issue.<BR></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>More straw men.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Mina said:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>>Do you not understand that sexual harassment, just like the<BR>>harassment of people of color, exists to regulate the work force?  It's a<BR>>mechanism of social control.<BR></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The way you make that statement sounds very "mechanistic" (can't think of a more precise way to express it); do you really think that sexual harrasment is used in the instrumental sense, consciously, by some person or group, to control the proletariat?  Social control can just as easily come from unspoken/unwritten assumptions which become "knitted into" a person's consciousness because of the environment which surrounds them.  If you live in an environment wherein women are portrayed in a certain manner, chances are that's how the inhabitants of that environment will see them; it will all be normal, and questioning that "normality" will seem abnormal and will single the questioner out for "social control".</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Todd</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href='http://go.msn.com/bql/hmtag_itl_EN.asp'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></html>