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From: pcl@hlexa.UUCP (Paul C. Lustgarten)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Re: Conspiracy Theories
Message-ID: <1624@hlexa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Mar-84 01:13:19 EST
Article-I.D.: hlexa.1624
Posted: Tue Mar 20 01:13:19 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Mar-84 06:28:08 EST
References: <1997@mcnc.UUCP> <511@pyuxn.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Short Hills, NJ
Lines: 61

I have one comment on Rich Rosen's question about conspiracy theories. 
In my mind, it's important to distinguish the presence of an *explicit
intent* from some *functional effect*.  I think that it's just the
explicit intent version that is really a 'conspiracy theory', but that
it's very easy to confuse the two.

In fact, I think it is just such a confusion that causes some of the
problems with Brownmiller's book "Against Our Will" that's been
discussed in net.women recently.  In the discussion, there's been a lot
of talk about what I gather is one of the books assertions, that men
(categorically) oppress women (categorically) by rape.  This seems
confusing, given that only *some* men and *some* women are ever directly
involved in rape, and that most men are clearly opposed to it.  From the
quotes that people have given from the book, it sounds like Brownmiller
uses language suggesting it is some kind of conspiracy among men that
they keep women in fear, etc. by the existence of rape - i.e. that it is
a conscious, intentional, and collective arrangement on the part of men
to maintain this state of affairs. 

While this may actually be what Brownmiller means, I think it is very
confusing to lose track of the distinction between such an intentional
situation and one of 'mere' functional effect.  In particular, I think
it is patently absurd to suggest that there is some explicit
coordination among men to maintain some kind of class oppression of
women through rape -- just as such an explicit conspiracy is pretty
unlikely in the other cases that Rich mentions.  (Like he says, what
large groups are *that* organized?)

However, I think it is *quite* true that there is the functional effect
of class oppression, as a result of the prevalence of rape in our
society.  (I happen to think the causality really goes both ways here,
and that rape is also a *manifestation* of the class (power)
distinctions between men and women.)  It is this functional effect that
is reflected in the observations from other commentators about women (in
general) developing a wariness, if not downright fear, of men.

Further, one can charge that the general situation (remember, the
functional effect, now) is maintained by the actions of men, in their
status as the socially more powerful group - e.g, when women are
systematically excluded from being co-workers with men in many jobs, or
when any of the other zillions of things are done that reinforce the
divisions between the sexes.  This is *NOT* the same as a charge that
the men are 'conspiring' to create a situation that fosters rape, just
that the things that they are (were?) doing - and doing more or less
independently of one another - had a systematic effect of creating that
situation.  (In this case, an effect of creating a grossly unbalanced
power & status relationship between the two groups, which I suspect is
one of the things that fosters rape.)

Soooo, what I'm saying is that while the "intentional" (conspiracy)
situation and the "functional effect" situation may be quite similar in
their effects, and thus easy to confuse, they are *quite* different in
what they say about the intentions, etc. of the 'conspiring'
(or oppressing, or ruling) class.  They are also quite different in what
they say about how one might go about changing the situation.  I think
it is important to avoid confusing the two situations for both of these
reasons.

	Paul Lustgarten
	AT&T Bell Laboratories, Short Hills, NJ
	ihnp4!hlexa!pcl