Reply #77: No, posting a man's perspective AT ALL is the problem

[Eloriel]

I'm not saying you can't ever here (tho that would be preferrable IMO), but WE GET MAN'S PERSPECTIVE ALL THE TIME. Everywhere. Unceasingly. From everywhere we look within the whole culture in which we live, from before we are even born until after we die. WE DON'T NEED MORE. We don't need men getting what they think are great ideas about how we women should do things -- how, in fact, women should run their very own movement (nothing grandiose about that!!) -- coming here thinking they will be greeted with open arms, thanks and praise. N0! No, THANK you. We've got that. What we need is a completely different paradigm, one that isn't totally and utterly and irrevokably male-centric. One that steps aside and makes SURE that women and other under-valued and under-represented voices get PLENTY of room to speak and be heard and matter.

In another post you said something about the necessity for "trying not to hijack" any threads in this forum. No on that too. Forget trying. DON'T hijack any threads -- just don't, period. Don't even come close. But even that's not enough, frankly. You have to realize that your very presence in this forum (or any forum where women are) changes the dynamics, and NOT for the better, no matter how pro-woman you are (or think you are). That's just fact, borne out by sociological studies. Your very presence is a disruption to the energy of women and our issues, which are frankly quite vulnerable. How MUCH of a disruption is up to you and how you conduct yourself eery given moment. Whether you can make the inevitable disruption one which is ultimately seen as positive and creative and productive for the women involved is the challenge -- but it WON'T be by inserting MEN'S perspective every chance you get (or even perhaps EVER). That much I can promise you.

I was very, very much against even having this forum open to men at all for precisely that reason (I don't remember if I posted my opposition or not). But it IS open to men, and when I found one man whose posts simply blew me away with what I considered absolutely superb comprehension of women's issues and perspective (fueled, no doubt in MY mind, by the fact that he is himself a member of a severely oppressed minority, and a very conscious one, rather well-educated in women's issues), I invited him to join us.

I think that was a mistake on my part, and I'll take that up with him privately.