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From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley, Univ. of Waterloo)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Feminism and a double standard(?) - (nf)
Message-ID: <7028@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Feb-84 19:32:16 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.7028
Posted: Mon Feb 27 19:32:16 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 28-Feb-84 07:55:46 EST
References: <943@inmet.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 79

I'd like to add a dissenting (to everything that has been said so far) voice
to this conversation by asking the following question: when during the
"business" meeting of these two people did you actually catch them doing this?
The reason for this question is the following:  being a feminist, I try to
keep sex out of my work (being a student, that's pretty easy, but I have worked
on and off) or "serious" activities as much as I can.  I have noticed, though,
that some men will not take me seriously because I am a woman and are more
interested in dealing with me as a potential sexual partner than as a work
partner.  Now if I can avoid these people, I usually do, but there are times
when I can't avoid them.  Most of the time, it is possible to move oneself
out of such situation by commenting about it to the other person "now, let's
get serious" or something like that, but there are men who no matter what, DO
NOT want to take a woman seriously as a working partner and who will not deal
with her as such.  If the woman needs the man badly, then the last thing to
do is to play along with his game and get what you want out of him.  Not doing
so would put the woman at a disadvantage by comparison to her male collegues
who can manage to have a working relationship as equal with this person and
thus get out of him what she cannot get unless she uses her "feminine" guiles.

It is deplorable to have to do this, but sometimes you have to. "This" by the
way is called prostitution.  Granted, it is a very minor form of prostitution,
but it nevertheless is.  However prostitution can be defined (although it is
not usually defined as such) as doing something which is against your principles
and desires in order to obtain something you want.  With a loose definition like
this, most of us are prostituting ourselves daily when we pretend to like our
bosses whom we hate, and so on.  "This" can also be called "compromising".
It all depends on how badly we need what we need, how much we are willing to
give up for it and how hard it is to get it other ways.

It is one thing to have an all-encompassing philosophy of life and another to be
able to apply it to every situation at hand, feminism is no different from other
philosophies for this;  there are times where it is simply foolish to stick to
your philosophy if it means you will end up being completely screwed as a result
I know that I am a feminism, but when I am trying to get something (I will not
mention what here) for which the form says "self ... wife children" and when
I end up talking to the man who gave me that form and he ends up being really
nasty to me even though he has no reason to, but he does it simply because he
has power over me because he can give me something that I need REALLY bad,
well, I will not tell him "you male chauvinist pig, give me this or I'll get
my lawyer to get you" because I can't afford a lawyer, what I will do instead
is cry and he will tell me "oh, you poor thing, there, there, I'll fix it up
for you".  It makes more sense;  People like that will never become feminists
no matter what, so the best thing to do is to get what you can from them and
then avoid them.

Coming back to the original article.  From what I can remember, the submitter
caught only part of the conversation between Ms X and her customer.  Who
knows what happened before?  maybe she realised that there was no other way
she could get her customer to sign whatever it was that she wanted him to
sign since he was only interested in dealing with her in a flirtacious way,
but didn't want to take her seriously as a businesswoman.  If she is known
for doing this, it could also be that most of the men she is dealing with are
that way too.  She then might realise that if she doesn't play along with their
foolish games, then she will not get as many customers as her male collegues
will even though she could be as good a saleswoman as they are (salesmen).
It could also be on the other hand that she is not that good a saleswoman, but
that she has noticed that she will still manage to get her customers this way,
or that she is a good saleswoman, but gets even more customers when she adds
a sexual element in her pitch.  All of these are certainly unfeminist ways of
behaving, and she is not doing women who want to be saleswomen a world of
good by acting this way, but I think it reflects more an opportunistic spirit
from her part rather than anything else.  After all, her customers do not
have to play along.  Of course none of this is really nice for her male
collegues since she is using something they cannot use, but who knows what
they are using that she cannot use, their own wife, or they could bring their
customers to strip-joints or men-only places or provide them with "escort"
services.  Using sex for business purposes has been done much before women
started being businesswomen; it is not something new, what they might be adding
is a different flavour to the kind of sex.

I guess there is not really any bottom line to this and I cannot really pass
any judgement on Ms X without knowing her (and even then, I do not think I
could, or on anybody else for that matter), but it does seem to me that matters
are not black and white in this case and that we should be careful not to
judge too quickly.

			Sophie Quigley
			watmath!saquigley