Abnormal attrition

[Diana York Blaine]

On Tue, 4 Mar 1997 Dkipen at aol.com wrote:

> hey diana--
> 
> don't go away mad! don't go away at all! who's gonna laugh at my puns now? at
> this rate, m&d'll come out, and i'll have only the other lurkers to cogitate
> about it with, silently. rick moody'll review it in the atlantic and call us
> all a bunch a soreheads. can't we all make like little dogies and git along?
> 
> best,
> david
> 
Thanks to David and others who are e-mailing me in private not to leave
the list.  Fortunately for you I cannot figure out how to get off of this
thing yet as the majordomo results keep telling me I'm not on it. (Quite
Pynchonian).  Frankly it's not the attacks from men that bother me--those
I expect.  But it's just so heart-wrenching to have women attack me for
daring to question male privilege even in the minor ways I do and on this
silly list that's mostly for fun that I just can't stand it.  It took me a
long time to become a feminist because the pervasive cultural messages are
so cruel to any woman who wants to reject the status quo, and of 
course everything that's held up as valuable culturally is associated with
masculinity. So I hated having to *become* a feminist and fought it like
hell. Really. There was a time in my life when you guys would've thought I
was the coolest chick you'd ever met.  But in light of the overwhelming
evidence of misogyny that I encounter every day, I simply am unwilling to
trade approval for what I know now to be true:  we're not equal even
thought I was brainwashed into thinking we were for a very long time.  So
if these women want to enjoy the p-list without a feminist daring to
question what is said here, I'll go, because in some way I know where they
are coming from.  But it's a damn shame.  Ah Pynchon, Ah humanity.

Diana