Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502240040
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGIE FISHER EDITORIAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The petition was signed by just about every woman who worked in the newsroom - a few of whom work there yet (and wear jeans, shorts and about anything else they please) - as well as by women in advertising and other departments. And our request was endorsed by several brave male colleagues and bosses, including Woody Middleton, then-managing editor of the morning paper, and John Eure, managing editor of the afternoon World-News.
Moved by my petition's cheery but polite prose and faultless reasoning, Bill Armistead's response was an unequivocal ``NO!''
Said he in a memo to me: ``I fear, if your petition were granted, some of the gals might get too big for their britches. [But] so that there will be no question of discrimination against the more interesting sex, neither will the men be allowed to wear dresses to the office, including the two Pro-Lib managing editors.''
Now, if you're guessing this will be a ``we've come a long way, baby'' column, wrong! It's not, and in many respects I fear we've not.
To the best of my recollection, the reaction of the women staffers to our publisher's put-down was simply amusement. (We had also been amused when miniskirts prompted Times-World's business manager to order metal ``modesty'' panels welded to the front of all the women's desks in the newsroom.) It was a challenge to be overcome, but nothing to make a federal case of, and overcome we soon did.
Just as none of the women had considered bringing charges of sexual harassment against any of the male staffers who might have looked at their legs, or even commented on them, none considered herself the ``victim'' of institutional and patriarchal oppression because Bill Armistead was so set in his ways. We pretty much recognized, I think, that the role of women in the work place, the home and elsewhere was in an important transitional phase, and that a lot of men would need some time to understand it.
Granted, 30 years later, many men still don't get it. But in part, it seems to me, that's the doing of some of feminism's new gurus - theorists trying to convince women that they are all helpless victims of oppression, whether they feel it or not, because men are all oppressors.
Thus we get in the work place young women who confuse a flirty nerd with a sexual harasser; and women on college campuses pitifully identifying themselves as ``survivors of potential rape.'' All men are beasts, intent on harassment and rape! Indeed, according to new guru Catherine MacKinnon, all heterosexual sex is rape because all heterosexual relationships are based on men's oppressive power over helpless women. And never mind those men who are putty in the hands of their mothers, wives, daughters, girlfriends; who have the stunned gaze of a deer caught in a spotlight and a rifle's sights when informed of the theory and indicted on all charges.
Thank goodness, there are a few brave feminist souls providing a healthy antidote for such poison - which is not only fatal to loving and trusting relationships between men and women, but also sets the original purpose of the feminist movement on its ear.
As Karen Lehrman wrote in The New Democrat in November 1993, equality and self-sovereignty for women don't square with oppression theories that they are ``helpless, passive victims of the patriarchy, of a societal war against women, that they need special care, benefits, and protections from the government.''
Feminist theory and policy, says Lehrman, must recognize women as ``strong, independent, autonomous individuals with their own opinions, values, and, most important, sense of personal responsibility - just as many women have begun to view themselves.'' And ``government cannot become the new Mr. Right.''
Among the anti-oppressionists, one of my favorites is Camille Paglia, whose wit is wickedly delightful even if some of her themes are enough to shock the pantsuits right off some '60s-era feminists.
Paglia, talk-show provocateuse and author of three books, the latest being ``Vamps and Tramps,'' is out to create a new ``tough-cookie'' feminist order that emphasizes women's sexual power and champions ``the erotic, appetitive mind in free movement.''
In the process, she uses (her description) ``guerrilla word-fare'' to tear into such things as liberals' fetish for political correctness and codes of anti-sexual-harassment conduct because, she argues, they suppress freedom of speech and actions. (``I believe that the more offensive the speech, the more it's in the best interest of a democracy,'' Paglia says. Paglia, on MacKinnon's hopes to outlaw pornography: ``MacKinnon aligns herself with the authoritarian Soviet commissars. She would lobotomize the village in order to save it.'')
If my admiration for Paglia seems politically incorrect, try to understand: My first heroine of feminist thought was incorrigible satirist, columnist and author (``Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady,'' ``Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye,'' etc.) Florence King, also known as the ``Queen of Spleen.''
When it comes to tough cookies, Paglia is to King as Kathleen Turner in ``Serial Mom'' is to Linda Fiorentino in ``The Last Seduction.'' Now there's a pair of modern-day feminists who definitely are unoppressed!
by CNB