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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 12, 1988)
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■I— npi Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, August 12,1988 Opinion C- Vs/ejez-J Mail Call Where have the real men gone? My initial impression upon reading Mr. Ritzenbaum’s article “Get that Com mie filth out of here” was that he was surely joking. Could it be that he was really a liberal in disguise trying to make the conservative point of view seem ridiculous? Three paragraphs in and I began to get the strong sense that his article was definitely not intended to understand and represent “real men.” First, this male does not include himself among Ritzenbaum’s idea of “most men in America.” Of course, it will be easy to chalk me off as a limp- wristed liberal, since I admit to having spent some time working with the campus NOW chapter. Incidentally, in all of my experiences with this group, I did not hear even the vaguest reference to Marx; communism may have come from a quote by Karl Marx that runs something like, “the advancement of a society may be measured by the overall treatment of the women of that society.” I believe this to be a fine observation. As for the members of NOW being merely ideological puppets of the Soviet Union, it is noteworthy that almost every woman I talked with in that organization had at least once been the victim of male violence. The feminists that I met forged their most basic principles not from communist propaganda, but from direct attacks against their physical selves. I’d be willing to bet that the males who assaulted these women were not of the limp-wristed variety described by Ritzenbaum — this latter, wimpy type of male would surely rather spend his time down at the local gay bar chatting about unions, Karl Marx and women’s rights. The NOW member’s more abstract arguments over minor issues like equal pay for equal work or legal protection from sexual harassment on the job came from everyday affronts that I suppose we should just keep our mealy, liberal mouths shut about. Secondly, on the issue of Ms. Webb’s supposed opinion “that males are evil,” it might be helpful for Mr. Ritzenbaum to go back and reread a few of Webb’s articles. My interpretation held that she perceives the typical Ameri can male as largely a product of his socialization, and that she believes that same socialization to be flawed. The United States is among the top five na tions of the world in the category of violence against women. Let’s face it: a country in which one of every two wives will be assaulted by her husband, in which one of every three females will be the victim of an attempted rape and in which one out of every four will be raped, must be doing something wrong in the education of its males. I think that Jill Webb also has a point about male violence and prejudice against women being a product of our socialization processes; for instance, in societies which worship female deities, rape is al most nonexistent. For me, this points out that the internal values of males have a great deal to do with their outward behavior; this does not imply, how ever, that men are intrinsically evil. Call me limp-wristed if you like — Mr. Ritzenbaum would even suggest that I am confounding the will of the Al mighty — but my son is being raised to respect women as he respects himself. And lastly, though it is disturbing to actually read Ritzenbaum’s brand of politics in published print, it is gratifying to know that yahoos such as himself still have free access to public exposure of their ideas. Once those ideas are out in the open, you and I still have the right to reject and even ridicule the same — God, John Wayne or whoever willing. Bill Sparks ’88 Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make every effort to maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must include the classification, address and telephone number of the writer. The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Richard Williams, Editor Sue Krenek, Managing Editor Mark Nair, Opinion Page Editor Curtis Culberson, City Editor Becky Weisenfels, Cindy Milton, News Editors Anthony Wilson, Sports Editor Jay Janner, Art Director Interstate fun with the family state fun with the family During the course of our brief but well earned break between se- mesters I am going to embark on a legendary Jones family vaca tion. Now every one at one time or another has found themselves on one of these family af- B fairs and as a result Barbara Jones may have mixed feelings about whether or not their san ity could survive another encounter with such family closeness. I myself am blessed to belong to a family in which everyone truly likes each other and we all enjoy the limited amount of time we get to spend to gether. Yet even the closest of families when placed together within the con fines of a car for say 13-15 hours will in evitably grind on each others nerves. I think the most memorable of car trips occurred during my youth. Because of my father’s job my family moved a lot; just about every 3-4 years we would pack up all the family’s be longings and adventure off into another part of the country. All this means that my family spent a lot of time in the car, either moving or visiting friends or rela tives who live in other parts of the coun try. When my sister, brother and I were young my parents had two cars: an Audi Fox and the Vommit Comet. Since the Vommit Comet could go no further then the city limit, the Audi was our sole means of transportaion for car trips. Picture if you will a family of five — in cluding three rather obnoxious children all below the age of seven, all their lug gage, toys, pillows, blankets, and all items of neccessity: games, diapers, dra- mamine, and candy all crammed into a very small car for 13 hours. When on a car trip there are three ba sic dilemmas involved: 1) Getting gas. 2) Eating and 3) Urination. Now in my family you had better hope that #3 takes place at the same time as # 1 be cause my father hates stopping. It has been only in the last few years that my father has stopped pulling over on the side of the road and forcing us to en dure the humiliation of relieving our selves right out there with Mother Na ture. Meanwhile the rest of the family would snicker, honk the horn, Hash the car lights on you or anything to futher mortify you at this very vulnerable of moments. We, like all children because of our underdeveloped minds, would fight like cats and dogs when placed in that close of company. It would start with some thing innocent like “Sherrie keeps touching me!” or “Robby has his gum out of his mouth!” or “Barbie just called me a bad word!”. Most of these little in fringements were completely ignored by my father and were dealt with by idle threats from my mother, which were largely ignored. It was only when the squabble got out-of- hand or my father would accidently, and I stress acci dently, get kicked in the back of the head during the course of one of our little fights that he (the enforcer) would get involved. My father dealt with us usually with threats. We could be 500 hundred miles from home and he would declare,“If I hear one more peep out of the three of you I am going to turn this car around and we are going home.” It was only a couple of years ago I stopped believing he would actually do it. The biggest fear of all however was in the event that my father would pull off on the side of the road. Because of my father’s loathing for stopping, if we got so out-of-control that he had to pull over, there was going to be a beating. If our fighting was quickly approaching the unbearable stage all my father had to do was dip the wheels of the car off the shoulder of the road for one second and all fighting would cease. Perhaps the most annoying of all our little stints during the course of car trips was the eternal question, “How much longer Dad?” or “When are we stop- answer to these annoying questions,H reply to all these questions regardless whether we had another 3 hours, hours, or 15 minutes was “1 how Eventually after hearing the same hour” to every question we would asb would go back to fighting or whate« we were doing. I Because of the small confines oftli Audi and the car-sickness my moths would suffer from having to tun around backwards to beat uswhenot fighting got out-of-control, my parem would play “car games” withustooi cupy our devilish little minds duni: what had to have seemed endless how of traveling. One of our favorite gams was “My father owns a grocerystort In this game you would think oforl item found in a grocery store, tell even one else the first letter of this item,the everyone woidd try to guess whatiha My brother was really too youngtopli but would insist on being includedd'n fortunately he only could think ofh: things, pizza and watermelon. Hewoul say “My father owns a grocery storean in it he sells something that starts with] P.” We would spend the next 15 mil utes guessing everything from pickiest pimmentos, then he would sqwealm with glee “pwatermelon!” delightei with himself that once again he ha fooled us. ping?”. My father being the very logical man that he is came up with the cure-all For those of you who find yourseltt accompanying your family on vacation have a couple of suggestions: Firstal ways bring a gocfd book and a walkm in case the family “closeness” begins!, lose its charm after the first 300 And lastly when your father says‘‘D« anyone need to ‘go’ before we leave: save yourself the humiliation andp while you can. Barbara Jones is a senior joumak major and a columnist for The Battt ion. Hyde, wake up and smell the Ovaltine Friday evening an old friend called me long dis tance from Col lege Station and let me know about the column writ ten by Joe Hyde Marco Roberts Guest Columnist that appeared on Thursday in The Bat talion. Mr. Hyde apparently made de precatory and misleading references to the gay rights movement and to me. dressed and refuted in countless public forums and editorial pages at A&M and even in our courts of law up to the Su preme Court. Even I could come up with better arguments against gay rights. For this reason I won’t address them. In any case there should be enough students at A&M capable of re sponding to the easy target Mr. Hyde provides. considering the poor reasoning, an high emotive tone in Mr. Hyde’scoluni 1 indicating he didn’t learn much A&M). What 1 think is really bothenci Mr. Hyde is that, by his own admissioi he sat on his rear while I and othersdij me not. All of the sudden Mr. Hyde himself uncomfortably facing dial ol are fundamentalist axiom: God helps thus who help themselves. For example, Mr. Hyde brought up the association between gays and AIDS, as if one led to the other, a tactic fre quently used used by certain “Chris tians.” Of course, most reasonable and well-informed people know that homo sexuality does not cause AIDS, that AIDS is spread through sexual contact of any kind, that in the countries to which AIDS has been traced the vast majority of those affected are hetero sexual, and that the association of AIDS with gays is incidental to the fact that it was a homosexual male who brought the disease with him to the U.S. If it had been a heterosexual male who brought it to the U.S., the composition today of the population affected might have been somewhat different. Please note that gay women are less affected by AIDS than are heterosexuals in general. The problem is promiscuous males, not homosexuality per se. However, I know I can count on people like Joe Hyde to continue to ignore all the counter argu ments. However, I will take issue with his characterization of me as a “professio nal” student. First, he complains that I was here when he got her in 1982 and I was still here when he left in 1986. As it turns out I graduated in 1986 also. I am mystified at how he knew of me in 1982 since my name did not appear in print until I became active with Gay Student Services (CSS) in 1984. I do recall a group of fundamentalists who conve niently forgot a commandment (“Thou shall not bear false witness”) and went from door to door in several campus dorms in the fall of ’84 and informed people that I was a “professional” stu dent, that I had been at A&M eight years, and that I was 30 years old. I was in fact 22, and no, I didn’t start school at A&M when I was 14. He should also keep in mind CSS’ battle for recognition lasted ft nine years in the courts, and I onlylc g a CSS through the last year of thatbatlk There were other gay women and me who laid the groundwork for what only led to conclusion. With or withot me the victory would eventually hai taken place The bulk of Mr. Hyde’s poor argu ments against gay rights are the same old tired arguments like the one above. They have been repeated over and over again and have long since been ad- Further, Mr. Hyde said that I could afford to drop out of school at my con venience. The fact is that in order to comply with A&M’s regulations cover ing student organizations, I had to be in school full-time with at least a 2.0 in all my courses. I attended school anywhere from 12 to 18 hours a semester when I led CSS and maintained a part-time job which was my sole source of support. My education was certainly as important to me and my future as it was to Mr. Hyde and his future (probably more so When I was at A&M I battled times not only with the likes of! Hyde but also with radical leftists froi within the gay movement, who, belie' it or not, thought I was too conservati't There are legitimate concerns ab« what the gay movement’s agenda meal to our society, some of which evenlai former gay activist feel the movemeni a whole has not addressed adequate! But it is difficult to address these wk people like Mr. Hyde obscure the bate with rhetoric heavy on the adje< lives but low on facts. I am grateful for Mr. Hyde’s coluffl 1 for one reason. The friend who called! let me know about the column pened to be ah old schoolmate whom had not seen since I moved awayfrK Mexico City 11 years ago. Had it been for the column, we might 1 never seen each other again. Thel works in mysterious ways. Marco A. Roberts graduated M A&M in 1986. BLOOM COUNTY by BerKe Breathe: Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspa per operated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Station. 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