This is exciting! I'm fascinated with discussions of gender but find so many of them get bogged down in predictable arguments. Some feminists complain about patriarchy, often in academic, abstract terms. Some guys get defensive ("I didn't do nuthin.") or make the discussion about themselves. People personalize the discussion, immediately generalize their experience to all of society, and feel hurt or find it unfair. Etc. etc.
So here's a chance to try something that dodges these traps. We hope folks join in the spirit of fresh, reality-based insight (not dogma and defensiveness). Otherwise I'll happily delete your comments, if I can figure out how to do so.
Some starting points (biases) that I start with:
1) I think ideology often ruins these discussions, both on the feminist left and "traditional family values" right. If we're going to get anywhere, we have to accept how people act as a starting point, not what we think people SHOULD do.
2) Everybody has a horse in this race. (I guess that's same thing Olga said.) All of us perceive these realities from within our self-perceived gender. We tend to underestimate how different the other gender(s) see things, and overvalue our commonality with people who identify the same way. So humility and respect for the experience of others is a crucial attitude.
3) I'm pretty suspicious of academic work in this field, which (as a very broad generalization) I find starts with ideology and looks for facts to support it. Plus, much of it just doesn't make much sense. If you have to coin 10 terms in a 10 page paper, you are probably mystifying rather than elucidating. But I'd love to be corrected. Please email me pointers to good work.
Probably more later, I have to run. Mark
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