Holly Ares Snyder from Smith
September 23, 2004
Holly Ares Snyder from Smith College wrote:
Obviously, you are the kind of man who cant stand to be around powerful, self confidant women. your misogyny and bigotry is disgustingly obvious in everything you write. and by the way, a lower birth rate is a good thing. the world is overpopulated. i dont know how a closed minded, inconsiderate person like you manages to get a phd. And, i would assume that you have not had sex in many years, because what woman would subject herself to such atrocious insensitivity to the needs of a woman. and, i assume that you are not a homosexual, since yoyu rbigoted attitudes seem to disparage them equally. have a nice life.
Holly
Holly,
Get a grip on yourself. You are attending one of the main feminist brainwashing centres, Betty Friedan's alma mater. You have been indoctrinated. I am happily married.
Step back and look at what I am saying obectively before you find yourself an old maid. Your years of fertility are short. Don't squander them learning to hate men.
Henry
Henry--I liked what you had to say, with one notable exception:
Women are different from men. They are instruments, vehicles. They need to be cared for and used for a higher purpose or they will rot on the vine or explode with frustration.
I agree that women are different from men, but I don't think women like to think of themselves as either instruments or vehicles, and we don't want to be used, for higher or lower purposes. We are human beings, the same as men, different not in terms of a use value, but rather in the way that we organize our world and work, and your use of the web as a metaphor to describe that was right on.
I would also like to take issue with your article stating that frigid women are usually feminist....while a portion of frigid women might be feminist, there is also a considerable group of frigid women who are that way as a result of male abuse, and I think it is remiss of you not to acknowledge that very real role that men continue to play in the expression of frigidity in women. A lack of tenderness on the part of the male can also produce frigidity, and there is a male responsibility that should be addressed as well. Further, the following statement completely misunderstands and/or negates the woman in Proverbs 31:
I argue that woman wants love and man wants power. A woman who seeks power will not receive love from a man. She cannot love. He cannot love her. This is the dilemma of feminists today.
I think you may have some viable ideas, but your language is harsh and too simplistic to reach the people who really need to hear what you are trying to say.
Darlene
Henry,
I believe that we spend our 30's unlearning what we learned when we were co-opted in our teens and 20's. It's a waste of time. I'm almost 50, and I've only resolved my conflicts between what's natural and what's garbage within the last few years.
I think you identified the key factor at the root of feminism. (my own words here) It's the post traumatic reaction of a fraction of women who did not have nurturing or correct relationships with their father.
And as these women were indeed victims of abberant, dysfunctional males, they tend to project their perception of the dysfunctional male to all males. Therefore, feminism is itself not a 'movement' or a philosphy, or a politic, but a post traumatic personality disorder, abberant itself.
I think you're right to make the connection that another group of abberant minds---the pathologically sociopathic coterie who found that the key to controlling people is to destroy their mental health and separate them from God and nature---see this faction as a group to support, validate, and organize in a 'movement'. Feminism has been a very effective way at tracking down and traumatizing the women who did have good relationships with their fathers and mothers.
But Henry, I've found that many women come to reject feminism. The problem seems to be, that in the interim of 15--mid 20's when they are being indoctrinated, they get off track. The same thing happens to young men in our culture. It happened to me.
I was married for nine years, and got a lot of the revelations and true masculine growth that comes from making a monogamous commitment, yet underneath, part of me was indoctrinated to go on thinking of losing the empty life of the 'Playboy Philosophy'.
Such inner instilled visions of 'lost choices' dilute a person's being. My wife suffered conflict over being in a marriage, and the indoctrinatied feeling that she was missing out on the life of female 'independence'.
It is this instilled illusion of 'independence', that has created a society where so many late 20's, early 30's, 40's and 50's people in fact sit alone in apartments every night, wondering why they feel powerless and miserable.
Big Sky
