enough is enough!

[Vaska]

Dear Charles:

>I want to issue an unqualified apology if my choice of words offended 
>you, and by extension any other woman on this list. 

OK.  If you were any older, you'd have known that the use of certain words
and expessions would inevitably [and justly] brand you as an unreconstructed
misogynist, and I doubt that's what you'd love to have sitting on your chest
for years to come.

>My argument rests on the following assumption:
>women don't need to be coddled.

Neither do men: the longer I know them, the more I understand that, for all
the testosterone induced cockiness they're often driven to, men also
appreciate not coddling [arrrghhhh] but a bit of things "mu."  Some even go
so far as to write novel after novel about how little of that "milk of human
kindness" seems to be left in this [the only one we have] world of ours.  

For the rest, Charles: I don't often bare my soul in public, so when I
wrote, for the list, about my own experience and those of the women who are
still silent for some reason [perhaps they're on holday now and don't know
what's going on], it's not a bad idea to acknowledge the reality of them.  

>Domestic violence is not a symptom of male domination, 
>it is a common part of the relationship dynamics of ANY two 
>personality types, REGARDLESS OF GENDER. 

Women mistreat and beat their children in numbers that are horrifyng to
observe. It's violence and aggression, all right, and it has to do with
power.  The fact is that men are, on the whole, bigger and stronger than
women, and that a very large number of them exploit *that* physical
difference in ways appalling to behold.  Let alone experience.  

>But the bottom line is that harmony between two exceptional resources 
>like Vaska and Dinn is far more important than Chuckie's debating 
>points. 

Well, and for the list as a whole: Andrew and I have exchanged some more
words in private and all's well between Scotland and Canada.  He thinks it
was foolish of me to make our correspondence fully public, I think it was
loony.  Ground enough for agreement and the resumption of friendly relations.  

One last thing on this topic of gender and possible P-list moderation: as I
made clear in my original post on this matter, my own feeling is that the
entire thing has nothing to do with sexism per se.  Some other list-members
did notice this and have since brought attention to my real position once
again.  It may be that I am either a little naive or an incurable optimist
in these matters, but I sometimes think that the extreme sensitivity which
flares up around any mention of gender [not just here, not only on this
list] also reflects, albeit in a negative and aggressively defensive manner,
many men's genuine desire to be the essentially fair and decent human beings
all of us wish ourselves to be.  

Vaska