Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    One reason is probably that women just show more tolerance towards
    male homosexuals than men show towards lesbians.
    pony
    

    Generally I prefer the company of Lesbians and women.  It's a
    consciousness-of-kind setting where I can explore my feelings 
    and ideas without having to qualify/quantify/pacify all of my 
    responses.  I've censored so much of my behavior in order to fit
    in our patriarchial society, being with like-minded folks feels
    so affirming.
    
    Nancy 

Well, there was a topic in the gay notesfile where several gay men said they
preferred to be around other gay men, for some of the same reasons.
	Mez

    < Note 186.3 by HOYDEN::BURKHOLDER "You gotta let it out, Captain!" >
                      -< Is there a difference?  YES!!! >-

>    Generally I prefer the company of Lesbians and women.  It's a

    I'll clear up the misunderstanding now.  I find support among Lesbians
    and straite women.
    
    Nancy

    
    It seems like this is a tough question to answer because
    the vast majority of gay men and lesbians are invisible - both to
    straights and to each other!  The women who openly identify themselves
    as lesbians, for example, are much more likely to be politically
    active and may spend a lot of time speculating about the demise
    of the patriarchy.  The invisible lesbians are more likely to be
    either separatists (none of whom we see in corporate life) or
    rather conformist; they blend in and tell almost no one about their
    orientation.  Because the author of the base note is a woman, it
    stands to reason that the only gay men she knows are ones who
    don't mind talking to women.  So you can see how the sample is somewhat
    skewed.  The lesbians the basenoter knows from this file tend to
    be rather political; the gay men she knows are at least open enough
    to having women in their lives to be her friend.
                                                    
    Justine

>>        	What's the purpose behind spelling 'straight' as 'straite',
>>    besides identifying the writer as gay?

    None, from my point of view.
        
>>    	Should 'straite' people use the word 'gaye'?

    "Should" implies that there's a right or wrong answer.  Replace
    "Should" with "Can", then you have a choice.
    
    Nancy

    And in the immortal words of Robin Tyler (caution, this may be feminist
    lesbian humor)....
    
    Robin would say...
    
    "I hate to use names, but if you're straight, then I'm crooked,
     but if I'm gay then you're morose."
    
    Can also be spelled straite or gaye....let's here it for personal
    preference.   
    

    
    Glad you put that quotation from Robin Tyler in, Laura.  I think
    the reason for the alternate spelling of the word straight as straite
    is to simply call our attention to the possibly loaded meaning of
    the word.  If one group is straight, is the other group crooked?
    For similar reasons, I try to avoid the term "pro-life" because
    as an advocate for women's right to choose, I do not consider myself
    to be "anti-life!"
    
    Justine
    
    ps  at first i hated the reagan administration's use of the term
    "freedom fighter" to describe the contras and other right-wing
    groups, but now I smile when I hear it because I think it really
    means  Fighters OF Freedom   NOT Fighters For Freedom.

    Actually, Mike, I think it did. Back when these "new" words were
    coming into vogue.
    
    "Straight" also means "off drugs", which *does* imply "on the
    straight and narrow" - doing a "right" thing, rather than a
    "wrong" thing.
    
    I think the sense of that has been lost in recent years as the
    terms have come into general usage.
    
    --DE
    

    Mike,
    
    It appears to me that all three replies following yours have given
    partial answers to your questions. Is there something else you wanted
    to ask?
    
    Liz

I, for one, love to be in an all-female environment.  There seems to be
a wonderful energy involved in it.  However, we socialize with many 
straight couples (which obviously includes men) as well as single straight
men, single straight women, Lesbians both single and coupled, and occasional
gay men.  We also spend lots of time with our infant son, who is single
and of unknown sexual orientation.

             Carol

re: .3 et al:

>    and ideas without having to qualify/quantify/pacify all of my 
>    responses.  I've censored so much of my behavior in order to fit
>    in our patriarchial society, being with like-minded folks feels
>    so affirming.

I see a lot of this type of comment here and I am really curious: Am
I just lucky to know lots of men with whom I can be myself, express my
ideas and have them affirmed? 

I must have led a very sheltered existence, because I can't find these
lousy blatantly sexist, negative men around. The vast majority of men I know
(and all of my mail friends) are as free as I am of the sexist attitudes
and patronizing behavior I hear tell of. 

I am wondering if this has something to do with my age. I get the feeling
that many of the people in this conference are quite a bit older than me.
I am 23. Could it be (dare I hope?) that men of my generation are more
open to women as people with valid ideas worth listening to? 

Here's hoping...

Roberta

    
    Roberta,
    
    In part, you have been lucky.  In part, things are getting better.
    In part, you may not yet have "run into" some of the kinds of issues
    that leave those of us 'over 30' grinding our teeth at the injustices
    we encounter from time to time.
    
    I didn't really start to feel 'oppressed' until it dawned on me
    that all the *guilt* over finding child-care for my grade-schooler,
    not being there for his school plays, trips, etc. was MINE ALONE,
    and all the responsibility for taking care of it was MINE ALONE.
    It was a very interesting dynamic to watch in myself, and was the
    start of my awareness of the problems that *do* still exist.
    
    Society is also improving.  There is no longer an assumption that
    a parent can make it to a school conference during the day (at least
    in my school system.)  My son cannot imagine some of what I had
    to go through in gym classes in high school - and what we were and
    were not allowed to try for sports.  His attitude towards the girls
    he does things with are much healthier than mine were towards the
    boys I did things with.  
    
    			Alison
    

>Am
>I just lucky to know lots of men with whom I can be myself, express my
>ideas and have them affirmed? 

Yes. And I'd bet mostly because you're elite (I'm assuming you, like I, are a
college-educated person with a profession). Sexism is more subtle in more
educated people (they know it's bad manners).

>Could it be (dare I hope?) that men of my generation are more
>open to women as people with valid ideas worth listening to? 

Well they should be, but it's not cured yet.

It took a radical restructuring of my family's myths for me to find out my
father thinks women are indeed evil. Up to that date I thought that since I was
his only heir, an intelligent, truthful, intense, caring person, that he really
saw me as a person. The truth is, only sometimes, and never around anything
having to do with sex (which has to do with the womb, and women's power).

	Mez

    When "The Women's Room" first came out, some of my friends and I
    read it.  Some of the younger women (early 20's) felt it presented
    an unfair picture of men and that the men they knew and were married
    to, were egalitarian.  
    
    The deciding factor among the 7 or 8 of us who read it and met to 
    discuss it, was whether or not the couples had children!  It 
    somehow seemed much easier to relate as two equal adults b.c. 
    (before children).  Somehow those new little people make _all_ 
    the difference in the world, no matter how much the parents 
    don't want them to...... The only kind of mother/father we _really_
    know how to be is the kind we had...
    
    What do you think -- is that still the "dividing line" today?

    
        Thanks, Steve. It's hard to gauge how successful a joke is when
    you can't hear people laugh (or groan). 
    
    Mez, that is an interesting point about sexism being bad manners
    among the more educated. However, a lot of my friends are musicians,
    conservatory educated (not the same thing, BELIEVE me), and they
    still know better. I have noticed, though, that older musicians
    sometimes reveal more sexism; not to mention the AGENTS! ("hey,
    honey, can ya sing a little? Do ya dance at all? I need a chick
    keyboard player who can dance") 
    
    Roberta_who_thought_she'd_seen_it_all_until_she_read_this_file