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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
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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.
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