From: Katharine Thayer (kthayer@pacifier.com)
Date: 08/29/02-03:55:19 AM Z
ARTHURWG@aol.com wrote:
>
> Just a thought, but isn't it possible that the power relationships between
> men and women are dictated by the "natural order of things"?
Short answer: No, it's not.
Longer answer:
"O come and be my mate!" said the Eagle to the Hen;
I love to soar, but then
I want my mate to rest forever in the nest!"
Said the Hen, "I cannot fly,
I have no wish to try
But I joy to see my mate careering through the sky!"
They wed, and cried, "Ah, this is Love, my own!"
The Hen sat, the Eagle soared, alone.
"O come and be my mate!" said the Lion to the Sheep;
"My love for you is deep;
I slay, a Lion should,
But you are mild and good!"
Said the Sheep, "I do no ill,
Could not, had I the will--
But I joy to see my mate pursue, devour and kill."
They wed and cried, "Ah, this is Love, my own!"
And the Sheep browsed, the Lion prowled, alone.
"O come and be my mate!" said the Salmon to the Clam
You are not wise, but I am.
I know sea and stream as well;
You know nothing but your shell."
Said the Clam, "I am slow of motion
But my love is all devotion
And I joy to have my mate traverse lake and stream and ocean!"
They wed, and cried, "Ah, this is Love, my own!"
And the Clam sucked, the Salmon swam, alone.
---Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1899.
I suppose for the literal-minded and historically uneducated I should
add that Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a famous feminist of her time,
and that the poem was meant to be ironic.
By the way, what year IS this, anyway? When we've got people arguing
that the "natural order of things" dictates a power inequality between
men and women, and other people defending Freud, who not only was
debunked but was debunked DECADES ago, I have to wonder if I somehow
woke up in the wrong century this morning. Freud hasn't been mentioned
in psychology graduate programs, except as a cautionary tale of theory
unsupported by data, since the 50s. The only people who still take Freud
seriously are lit crit and art crit types, except for small holdout
enclaves of psychoanalysts that have no importance or influence in the
larger world. In addition, evaluations of therapeutic interventions have
found no appreciable improvement for people undergoing psychoanalysis,
even after years upon years of psychoanalytic treatment, (how much has
all his years of psychoanalysis helped Woody Allen, for example?) so in
my opinion it doesn't make any sense to give credence to Freud and his
notions. At worst they've done great harm (for example when women who
were being brutally assaulted by their husbands sought law enforcement
help but instead of the husband being brought up on charges the women
were sent to psychiatrists who told them that they were "castrating"
their husbands by defying the husbands' rightful authority over them and
going to the police, and that they should go back home and stop being
masculine and castrating and upsetting the rightful balance of power);
at best they've created a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Katharine Thayer
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