In SRQ On Wed, 05 May 2004 15:36:02 -0500, It was written

>Timothy Travis writes of

The fact that those who are stewards of  Quaker Women's Theological
Conference have thus far been unable to bring themselves to cease
discriminating against men by denying them access to its proceedings.

>
>>  tt: from what condition does that spring?
>
>From the sinfulness of humanity, which includes the domination of
>women by men.  

and includes both sexes doing harm to one another while animated by
stereotypes and misconceptions about themselves and the other.

>It was to halt such domination that Fox encouraged
>separate men's and women's business meetings in the first place.

I am not of the opinion that is entirely accurate.  It seems to me
that the separation of Men's and Women's Meetings  "divided labor" to
a great extent, limiting the business of women's meetings to certain
things and men's meetings to certain other things.  It shut both men
and women out of certain business of meeting and assigned to women
certain duties that are consistent with our western sexist notions of
what are "natural" and appropriate roles for women.

According to a more or less contemporaneous letter (1674) written by
"the Women Friends in London,"  an excerpt of which is to be found in
the Faith and Practice of the YM of Great Britain at 19.55, women's
meetings were very much about "women's place" and not about providing
a haven where women could bloom protected from interference by men:
visiting the sick, relieving the poor, elder women exhorting younger
to sobriety, modesty in apparel and subjection to truth...stemming
gossip among women...admonishing women as to the dangers of marrying
unbelievers or being married by priests..." But chiefly our work is,
to help the helpless in all cases, according to our abilities."

As Braithwaite writes in his second volume (p 273),

"It has been sometimes thought, by hasty students of Quaker history,
that the separate Women's Meetings were designed to give women some
share in Church government but not an equal share with men.  *That was
indeed the effect of their institution,* but it is clear from this (a
passage from Fox quoted above in the text) and many other passages in
the epistles of Fox that the question whether women should be given
less or more authority was not in his mind.  What he was concerned
with was to give them *their* place, their *right* place, and to stir
them up to take it."  (all emphases are of course, mine).

Braithwaite goes on to write about Fox "...giving woman her true place
of equal partnership with man" but the fact is that it was not equal
except in the sense of "separate but equal."  It was the place that
men assigned to women and that they, caught in the mores of their
time, believed was theirs. (future generations of Quaker women would
not be so limited...as, in fact, even some Quaker women of that time
were not so limited).

Perhaps you have a reference for this assertion that they were created
to protect women from men that I have overlooked or to which I have
not yet been exposed.  

Why would men so driven to dominate them allow women to separate if it
made them stronger and more able to resist this domination?  I don't
get it.  Didn't separate women's and men's business meetings keep
women out of "men's" business and relegate women to "women's"
business, as the sources I cite, above, indicate?  Do we believe,
today, that there is business, as early Friends seem to have believed,
in a meeting that is "men's" and other that is "women's?"

Braithwaite quotes Fox in his first Volume (p 341) as saying that he
called 60 some women together and "I declared unto them, concerning
their having a meeting once a week, every second-day that they might
see and inquire into the necessity of all Friends who was sick and
weak and who was in wants, or widows and fatherless in the city and
the suburbs."

Women's meetings were not, in any reference I have found, created to
protect women from overbearing men.  In fact, considering that they
were created by men, who apparently defined their boundaries, they may
well have (as Briathwaite says above) turned out, whatever the
intention for their founding, to have been tools of male dominance
over women or for at least relegating women to the place that their
(both men's and women's)  western sexist notions taught them was
appropriate for the "distaff side."  (one cannot, as I think it was
Engels who wrote, necessarily blame people for an inability to escape
the limitations of their age).

It was left to later generations of women (and men) to break down
these barriers, within meetings and without.  Without careful
scholarship on my part (or any, for that matter) I speculate it was
the eventual breaking down of these barriers within meetings (and
outside of them) that caused Women's Meetings to be laid down at
around the turn of the twentieth century.  I don't know about that.
Perhaps you do and can teach me about that.

Perhaps, given certain famous occurrences in early Quaker history,
women were separated from men to prevent them from putting men on
horses and leading them into Bristol ... or Boston...

;=]

> And
>yet, as any reasonably clear-eyed observer will tell you,
> such
>domination still goes on in a very serious way today, even in many
>Quaker meetings for business.

In the Quaker world *I* inhabit--the only one about which I will
presume to testify, in this thread, and the one in which the dispute
that is the subject of this thread is taking place, women clerk most
monthly and quarterly meetings, and the steering committee of the
yearly meeting--as well as serving on and clerking more than half of
the ministry committees, oversight committees and nominating
committees.  

I would say that women are more influential in the Quaker governance
around me than men are.  That's not because they are any more fit than
men are--it's just that there are more of them and for various reasons
more of them serve.

I doubt that these women would say that they dominated by men or that
they are mere fronts for male domination, institutionally.  

>
>>  tt: and to which of the testimonies does this desire to keep
>>    : this "good thing" to themselves and deprive it to other
>>    : Friends witness?
>


> Giving women the freedom to grow
>in an atmosphere where they don't have to struggle with domineering
>men, does not merely benefit women; it benefits men as well.

Even if this were the purpose of separate women's meetings, a
proposition to which I remain open but of which, at present, I remain
unconvinced, I think I disagree with this, in principle.  

I don't think that putting people we perceive (or even those who
perceive themselves) as needing protection into separate spheres does
anything but  limit and weaken them.  It also  obscures the view of
those we think need protection and those from whom they think they
need protecton--both about one another and about themselves.   I think
whether one is talking about racism or sexism the way to deal with the
situation lies in a different direction than separation--it lies in
creating healthy integrated institutions.

But I am not speaking in principle in regard to the situation from
which this thread comes, nor am I talking about a time and place about
which I have no personal experience, where I do not know the
individuals involved or  have some experience with their conditions.

>>  tt: simplicity?
>>    :
>>    : community?
>>    :
>>    : harmony?
>>    :
>>    : integrity?
>>    :
>>    : equality?
>
>Let me point out that there is no standard list of Friends
>testimonies; what you've listed here are merely the five particular
>testimonies that one Quaker author -- Howard Brinton -- decided to
>focus on in his best-known book.

but it's a pretty good list, no?  It's a pretty good frame of
reference with which to evaluate things, isn't it?  At least, as a
start?

Wilmer Cooper also lists four of them (nodding with some approval
toward Brinton's fifth, community) as the "central Quaker testimonies
of our day."  (Wilmer A. Cooper, A Living Faith p110).

They are the particular testimonies listed by two fairly weighty
Friends of the 20th Century--as well as by such as Lloyd Lee Wilson, a
registered Conservative Minister from North Carolina YM, whose work
you know I much admire.

Is your pointing this out meant to somehow question the legitimacy of
this characterization of the testimonies, or the usefulness of these
as a framework of analysis?

you and I have had discussion before about testimonies and I thought
we were clear that there are several ways in which that word can be
used, several things it can be used to describe and that my use of it
in this sense is as legitimate, in its sense, as any.  Am I incorrect
in this regard?


>     Certainly, however, the practice of separate women's meetings
>greatly benefits the women involved, and benefits the men who share a
>community with them.  

Not certain that the historical analysis above supports this
conclusion...there may be historical factors of which my analysis has
not taken account.  Please help me if there is.

Other than combatting this "domineering" by men of which you write
(the implication being that women--and other men-- cannot prevent it
from doing damage to women by any means other than separation?), which
is not an accurate description of what is going on in the context of
the actual dispute that is the subject of this thread (and, as I
suggest above, may not even be an accurate description of the
motivation from which separate meetings for men and women originally
arose), I don't accept your assertion that there is "certainly" a
great benefit, or any benefit, for that matter, in separating the
sexes.

Perhaps you can elaborate upon your point to make it clearer to me
with some evidence, as opposed to assertion, that the separate
meetings had great benefits (that we would recognized as such) for men
and women.

I believe that the insularity created by separating the sexes actually
reenforces distorted beliefs men and women have about themselves and
about one another and makes seeing our true condition(s) more
difficult.  I think we have a history, as a culture, that bears that
out.  The results of these misconceptions about ourselves and others
lay around us as a testimony to darkness in which we have been reared,
and with which we struggle, in this regard.  

I think that our social conditioning has put us, as a culture,  into a
condition from which it is a real struggle for many of us to
accurately perceive who we are as men or as women or who the opposite
sex really is, either.  We are given a set of characteristics by our
culture (very much including our religious traditions) and we struggle
trying to live as though they were true of us and the others who we
meet.  It's not working out real well for us as we try to live out and
expect others to live out those patterns.

The fact is that human traits and characteristics (such as domineering
or nurturing) are not the exclusive province of one sex and great harm
is done to individual development when people buy into the idea that
they are--both about others and about themselves-- the "way it's
'sposed to be."

Put another way (you know I can usually find five or six ways to say
the same thing), I find that we are so indoctrinated and conditioned
to accept the sexual stereotypes and the social customs that support
them that often people have a hard time relating to one another.  The
result of buying into the misconceptions (or, perhaps, rather, being
sold into them) is a condition that prevents them from understanding
their own nature and the nature of those around them.  No wonder we
have so many failed relationships--not only between men and women, but
even between women and women, men and men.  With heads full of
expectations about ourselves and others that are not borne out by our
experience how can we expect to get along?

>Thus it helps to uphold harmony and community,

I do not believe that separation upholds harmony--any more than
turning bass and treble clef lines into two songs creates harmony.
(putting one of my bickering children in one room and the other in
another may create a peace, of sorts, but it doesn't create harmony).

 And to say that separation builds community can only be true in the
most abstract way.

>not to mention love which is a valid testimony too.  By discouraging
>male domineering,

I believe that separating the sexes based on this illusion that "men
are domineering and women can't handle it" only encourages men and
women to believe that the illusion is real.  The only way to actually
discourage domineering behavior that is not constructive, whether it
comes from men, women or from children, is for men and women and
children to confront it, together,  in a loving and tender way within
the frame work of a healthy community process.

>it also helps to build equality, not to mention
>justice, mutual support and mutual empowerment, all of which are valid
>testimonies too.


Is male domination such a problem where you worship?  In your
extensive travels do  you find the world of Quakerism dominated by men
such that women, for their own protection and edification, must be
separated?

My view is that "separate but equal" and "separate for their own good"
do not support institutions that foster truth about the way we are and
the way "other" is.  Rather they foster destructive institutions,
institutions that mislead us about who "we" are and who "they"
are--institutions that make people weaker than they could be in
healthy mixed sex institutions.

And that is really my point:  if there are problems the solution is to
make the institutions we all share healthy, rather than separating.


>>  tt: the point is access to this conference--which is denied to
>>    : me on the basis of my gender.  I'm a boy so I can't come
>>    : to conference.  what is it about boys that makes us
>>    : unworthy of this fellowship?
>
>The very fact that you are trying to push your way into it after
>you've been told that you're not welcome is the old domineering
>instinct coming to the fore.

perhaps.  

but there are some women who, I understand, have stopped participating
in the actual conference we are discussing, here, because it excludes
men, and the matter of the sexual exclusivity of this institution is
discussed on an on going basis among the women who participate in it.

Some of them have found and others are moving toward a light that,
based on their actual knowledge of the actual situation,  here, is
different than that which you bring to this discussion.

There is more going on, in this situation about which you know very
little, than just me trying to "push my way into" it.

> Examine your behavior carefully, and see
>if you can honestly deny that it is so.  

the domineering "instinct," as you call it, comes forward, from women
as well as men,  in many situations and we should all constantly
examine our behavior carefully to see that we can honestly deny that
this instinct animates us when we contradict others and disagree with
them.  

Might there not be some of this drive to dominate, here,  in your
applying abstract ideological  principles based on sexual stereotypes
and arguably unsound history  to make judgements about me and my
motives in a real situation about which you have very little
knowledge?   

Might not this drive unconsciously motivate others, besides just me?


>And that's *exactly* what it
>is about boys that makes them unworthy.  Why *can't* you wait till
>you're invited?  
>Or go to a mixed-sex theological conference at
>Earlham or George Fox; heaven knows there are enough of them.  
>You're
>not being deprived of the right to go to Quaker theological
>conferences, or to hear and be heard by female Quaker theologians;
>you're just being asked not to deprive women Quakers of the freedom to
>talk things out in private.  Rationally, now:  Why should you object
>to that?

When I was very much younger than I am today I heard a speech that
sounded very much like this.  It was given by a man named Orlando
Holllis, who was the dean of the University of Oregon Law School.  He
was explaining why women should not be admitted to institution of
which he was the steward.  

It is right and good that women, for a long time now but certainly all
of my adult life, have refused to accept this rationale for being
locked out of male only institutions, the existence of which harmed
them by denying them access to the opportunities open to men--and
harmed the men by reenforcing the stereotypes they had of women.  (and
also harmed society by depriving it of women's talents in so many
areas where their benefit is manifest today).

Rationally, now:  using your argument, as Orlando Hollis did to
support his goal to deprive women of entry into medical and law
schools, why would I *not* object to that?  

Especially when, as here, we are talking about an body of believers in
which women are not dominated by men to their detriment but are fully
in spiritual and governing partnership with them?  Where men are not
able, as early Quaker men apparently largely were, to relegate women
to certain roles, at least within the institution of Church
government.


>>  tt: There is a very real danger in single sex gatherings-
>>    : especially those endorsed as such by the body of Friends.
>
>Friends had single-sex business meetings for more than two hundred
>years.  In your estimation, what damage did they do?  Can you offer
>any evidence of damage?

damage from separation of the sexes?

within Quakerism only that which I site above.  As a buttress to
sexual stereotypes of their day (and of ours), which are being
eradicated today, they did damage by contributing to a condition for
women (and men) that began to be changed at about the same time,
historically, that the women's meetings were laid down in Great
Britain.  Do you believe that Quaker women and men were not damaged
when their world view was shaped by the sexual stereotypes described
by Braithwaite, above?

Outside of Quakerism I offer as evidence an entire culture in which
sexual stereotypes continue limit our abilities to have fruitful and
genuine connection to one another because we are trying to live
according to untrue stereotypes about ourselves and about one another.
Separating the sexes in an intentional way is based on and justified
by those very stereotypes  and honors them even though they are
demonstrably not true in the world at large (as they are not true in
the actual situation under discussion, in this thread.  

The issue is not how to keep men from domineering women, but how to
keep domineering tendencies that all people have from doing damage to
the relationships upon which the strength of the community depends.

Quakers have not been immune to the negative consequences of these
stereotypes, or the separation of the sexes they justify, but have
bought into them and struggle(d) with their consequences, just as the
larger culture has.  I do think, as I speculate above,  that many
strong Quaker women have edified Quakerism such that the separate
meetings have largely disappeared as not being consistent with the
testimony of equality.  

I think that men's retreats and women's retreats are not so much
vestiges of these practices that Quakers have laid down so much as
they are imported from the carnal culture that surrounds and too often
invades our spiritual community.  The idea that there are "men's
issues" or "women's issues" that the other sex cannot understand or
come to terms with or relate to is a part of the "war between the
sexes" mentality that has done and continues to do great damage to
people.


>>  tt: haven't we moved beyond "men's meetings" and "women's
>>    : meetings?"
>
>The question, rather, is whether we've moved beyond the need for them.

well, from my point of view (supported by the sources I have quoted
above)--that Women's Meetings were set up to provide women with their
"rightful" place and keep them in it--I think we long ago moved beyond
the need for them, if ever a need there was.

Your question contains the assumption that there was actually a need
for them at one time, while mine does not--or at least, mine assumes
any "need" was not a legitimate one.  I question whether they were
actually ever necessary--any more that "separate but equal" was a
necessary step toward racial integration.  

But I will concede, arguendo, that there was once such a need.  You
have not shown any need--aside from your statement that men are
domineering (and the implication that women cannot handle that)--for
them.

(sorry if I am seeing an unfair implication in regard to "women cannot
handle" the domineering you cite as the reason for separation.  It
seems to me that for separation to be necessary because of the
domineering then it's because there is no other way, than separation,
to prevent it)

>If we haven't, then if there aren't such separate meetings already we
>should be helping to establish them, to meet the need.

Again, aside from the assertion about "domineering" which I do not
accept as true only of men (or even largely of men), and which is not
true in the situation that we are actually discussing, here, (nor,
apparently, in did such concerns play into the founding of separate
men's and women's meetings) what is/was the need that needs to be met?

It is my understanding that separate meetings for men and for women
have largely been laid down in the world of Quakerism--certainly they
have been entirely laid down where I am.  Given the prominence of the
so-called "female voice" (granting, again arguendo, the possibility
that there might be any such thing as a "female voice") in NPYM if
there was a perceived need for separate meetings they would exist.


>>  tt: what is the testimony given to the world, here, a world in
>>    : which women have struggled for centuries to be given entry
>>    : into the "male bastions."  Is the message that men cannot
>>    : have institutions to which woman cannot have access but
>>    : that women can have institutions to which men cannot have
>>    : access?
>
>It is a testimony of gentleness and supportiveness and respect,

please consider the question that I asked you to consider, Marshall:
Is the message that men cannot have such institutions but women can?

If, as it appears, your answer is "yes" then how can women be saved
from doing the same damage that men did to themselves, to the other
sex and society as a whole with such institutions?  Are women somehow
better equipped to handle sexual exclusivity than men were/are, such
that they will not do evil with it, as men did?

When men were defending the institutions that they established and the
benefits they derived from them, and precluded women from accessing,
was female acceptance of that situation a testimony of gentleness and
supportiveness and respect?

>Timothy; and no male Friend has any need to feel ashamed of holding up
>such a testimony to a savage and barbaric world.

we are talking about the world of Quakerism, here.  I don't see the
world of Quakers as a savage and barbaric world, or Quaker men as
savage and barbaric in their behaviors toward Quaker women,
institutionally.

>
>     There is a well-known saying that when the woman says No that
>means No, and I think it applies in this matter just as much as it
>does in any other.

This is not very persuasive, Marshall.  I think that this well known
saying has very limited application in the matter we are discussing or
in "any other matter" than the one from which it comes.

(applying sayings outside their contexts is risky.  once forced
sterilization of borderline retarded women was justified with such
phrases --quite useful in clothing maintenance--as a "stitch in time
saves nine."  Bad premise, bad reasoning, bad result--very human
premise, mistaking an analogy for a complete congruence--or
coincidence-- but very bad).

When a woman says that her child, for example, will not receive life
saving medical treatment we don't walk away and say "well, she said
no, that means no."   There are many instances in which any man or
woman saying "no" isn't the last word on the matter.

I think that in the circumstance to which you allude, it is true that
no should means no whether it is said by a man or a woman.  (My
mother, supported by my father, taught me that in the situation you
bring up, I should "always take no for answer and never ask why.")

We are not, however, considering that circumstance, here, and my view
is that to apply this saying to the situation under discussion is not
any more helpful or edifying when examining the gender discrimination
log in the female eye than it is in the male eye.  When one is talking
about access to institutions that is denied on the basis of one's sex
then I believe it is appropriate to question "no" and to require that
no  be justified.

For that is what we are talking about, here.  We are talking about
sexual discrimination as manifested by separation of the sexes in a
particular Quaker institution. (the thread is called "sexual
discrimination in the RSOF" not "should women's words be respected
when they are turning down sexual overtures").  

You have justified separation of men and women in Quaker institutions
on the basis of historical assertion which my historical analysis
calls into question.  I would appreciate any history of which I am
aware bearing on this question.  

You have justified it based on stereotypes about men, and about women,
perpetuating it seems to me sex role misconceptions that contribute
more to confusion than clearness about who we are and how we should
relate to one another.

You have justified it as the best solution to a problem that, in so
far as it actually exists in the form you describe it, is a solution
has creates more problems that it solves (and when another
solution--dealing with overbearing people in a constructive manner
within a healthy integrated community--is far better, to my mind).

You have justified it on the basis of conditions that do not exist in
the actual situation under discussion, a situation about which you
know very little.

You have based it on the desire of some, but not all, of those who
benefit from it, to exclude others from that benefit.

I haven't heard any justification, yet, that compels me to accept "no"
in regard to the actual situation that is the basis for the discussion
in this thread.  If you have any, I am open to hear it.  

thanks.

Timothy

"There are girls who grow up strong and bold,
There are boys quiet and kind,
Some race on ahead, some follow behind,
Some grow in their own space and time.
Some women love women,
Some men love men,
Some raise children,
Some never do.
You can dream all the day without reaching the end,
Of everything that's possible for you.
...
And the only measure of your words and your deeds,
will be the love you leave behind, when you're through.
...
"Don't be rattled by names,
by taunts,
by games,
but seek out spirits true.
If you give your friends the best part of yourself,
they will give the same back to you."

                Everything Possible
                      (words and music:  Fred Small)
          280 -- Worship in Song
                   A Quaker Hymnal
     

5:14:06 PM