Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 20:07:26 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: Re: "education," feminism, and bargaining (was Re: M-FEM:


Redflag wrote:
>==>	I never meant to imply that that the resposibility for educating men
>	about their insensibility lay exclusively with women.
>	Nor did I wish to convey the idea that men are somehow excused
>	from having to invest significant effort in their own enlightment.
>	This discussion, i hope, is a good example of men and women trying
>	to arrive at a common understanding of reality with a view to
>	effective revolutionary activity.
>	It is my opinion that socialists have a solemn duty to approach
>their
>	proletarian fellows with a version of reality in tune with
>	working class interests. Under the influence of capitalism, workers
>	are generally unable to perceive things from their legitimate class
>	interests. It's not their fault; that's the only way they've learned
>	to think. Socialists (workers lucky enough to have have matured
>	politically and socially) possess the necessary understanding to
>	make sense of all things social and economic. Who's responsibility is
>	it to make that knowledge available to workers?
>	This also applies to women who have a clearer understanding of reality
>	regarding the nature of gender oppression. It is primarily *their*
>	responsibility to insist on enlightening men whose social conditioning
>	prevents them from asking the right questions and pursuing the
>	answers as far as logic will take them.

All right. No arrogant laziness implied on your part. Got it.

But as an issue of general application, we still need to consider *how*
this education gets done. I think one of the reasons why this list has had
a tough time just getting started is we do not know what, in concrete
terms, this process of education might look (or better yet, feel) like.

Yoshie