Subject: Re: women`s/men`s channe
From: [email-masked] (Evan Leibovitch)
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 22:15:57 GMT
Newsgroups: ont.general

In article <[email-masked]>, karl mamer <[email-masked]> wrote:

>As I pointed out, if a men's channel was truly devoted to men's health,
>parenting, coping with stress, etc. I doubt there would be much protest at
>all.

Sounds like you've described the Life Channel far more tha WTN.

Information on health, parenting, coping with stress, etc. are valuable
to *both* genders. Why is a parenting program *necessarily* more
relevant because it's done by/for women. Is this not the height of
sexism?

The truly universal elements of WTN will survive the network's
inevitable demise. What will die with the network is the self-serving,
"aren't women wonderful" mass-therapy experiment that seems to imbed
itself into any programming *I've* ever seen while channel flipping.
My wife can't stand it either. Judging from my own experience to date,
WTN certainly doesn't speak for/to men (fine, it was never designed to
do that) but neither does it speak to/for many women either. Its days
are numbered; the only questions remaining are:

1) How soon will it die?

2) How many times will it beg for our tax dollars or cable company
   ransom before it goes? How much will it collect/waste in the process?

What's ironic is that the medium of television, through WTN, is creating
the same problem that the print media came to grips with years ago. What
was once called the "women's" section of the newspaper because the
"lifestyle" (or some such euphamism) section when the papers realized
that recipes, parenting and leisure articles were as much of value to
men as women, and that many valuable works may get ignore by cubbyholing
them into the women's corner.

What many of the more extreme feminists so often seem to ignore is that
most so-called "women's issues" are issues for *all* of humanity to deal
with, not just women. Believing that such issues achieve greater
importance merely because certain political groups call the issue
'theirs' does little service to anyone.

>I doubt, as well, that there would be many viewers. Still, I don't know
>too many PC types that scream about GQ magazine, a magazine so blatantly
>aimed at men that it's even named after them,.. Your own words devour you.

Wrong example. There is plenty of PC screaming indeed, about that other
magazine which calls itself "Entertainment for Men" on the cover of every
issue. It wasn't that long ago that two women tried to sue a convenience
store owner for selling Playboy.

GQ offends nobody since it deals with the male side of the fashion
industry. Playboy does, as has Esquire in its day. Yet I find little
in Playboy that is as degrading to women as the average issue of Cosmo.

-- 
 Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd., located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
       Novell Unix Master Reseller / [email-masked] / (905) 452-0504
                A happy traveller on the information sidewalk

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From: [email-masked] (Evan Leibovitch)
Subject: Re: women`s/men`s channe
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
Organization: Sound Software Ltd., Brampton, Ontario
References: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 17:11:18 GMT
Lines: 134

In article <[email-masked]>, karl mamer <[email-masked]> wrote:

>	<** On 01-22-95, [email-masked] said to ALL: **>
>ee>Information on health, parenting, coping with stress, etc. are valuable
>ee>to *both* genders. Why is a parenting program *necessarily* more
>ee>relevant because it's done by/for women. Is this not the height of
>ee>sexism?

>Is a woman's magazine the height of sexism? Is a men's magazine the height
>of sexism? Is YTV age-ist? Is Vision TV anti-atheist or anti-SubGenius?
>Answer, not necessarily. Content. Look at the content.

You misread.

What I considered "the height of sexism" is not the very existence of a
women's {magazine|network}, but that it considers "parenting" a topic
that's better done by a women-only network than by a general purpose one.

In the world of magazines (as in the world of expending sattelite
broadcasting) it's possible to be very specialized. (In fact, these days
it's a *must* -- once-famous general purpose magazines like Look,
Star Weekly and Canadian have not been able to survive; others like Life
and the Saturday Evening Post are barely getting by).

Model railroaders, hunters, soap opera fans and others have their own
specialized media. By their nature they discriminate against items that
normally go against their specialty. In broadcasting, anyone with a
dish can receive stations devoted to comedy, home repair, game shows,
adult education, history, old movies or others.

What I protest is not the creation of a women's media, but that it has
developed much programming that is not at all specialized. By calling
"parenting" an issue worthy of a women's only network, it denegrates
both the subject and womens' role in it.

In the meantime, WTN fails to broadcast some items that may be of
interest to women because they're not politically correct. Programs on
the fashion industry have brought in good ratings to both CITY and
Newsworld, yet are absent on a channel that supposedly responds to
its audience. In its desparate quest to drum up as many women
role models as possible, WTN has drummed up a fair number of profiles of
women athletes -- yet how many women's college basketball games has it
broadcast or even announced an intention of showing?

WTN is an abomination, not because of its stated goals, but because
of its execution of those goals. The network is more of a political
statement than a broadcast medium. It exists more because its proponents
have something to say than because anyone wants to hear it.

>>What's ironic is that the medium of television, through WTN, is creating
>>the same problem that the print media came to grips with years ago. What
>>was once called the "women's" section of the newspaper because the
>>"lifestyle" (or some such euphamism) section when the papers realized
>>that recipes, parenting and leisure articles were as much of value to
>>men as women, and that many valuable works may get ignore by cubbyholing
>>them into the women's corner.

>A good observation, but as we see, there still are magazine and television
>programs devoted in name and content to a group identified by sex, age, or
>race. That, in of itself, is not sexist.

Sure it is! Let's not get cute with words. It *is* sexist, but we accept
that level of sexism, just as we accept the racism inherant in "Jet" or
BET, the ageism in Chickadee and seniors' magazines, and the religious
bigotry evident in the United Church Observer. They all discriminate to
an extent, we live with that because these specialized media help to
manitain individuality. We *don't* all want to be cut from the same mold,
and expressing one's uniqueness sometimes involves a level of discrimination.
I recognize it for what it is, but don't see anything wrong with it.

>>What many of the more extreme feminists so often seem to ignore is that
>>most so-called "women's issues" are issues for *all* of humanity to deal
>>with, not just women. Believing that such issues achieve greater
>>importance merely because certain political groups call the issue
>>'theirs' does little service to anyone.

>Granted, yet people fight for what is near and dear to their heart. Because
>a Jew fights against revisionist historians and anti-semetic hate groups and
>doesn't devote any time to the cause of other groups targeted by racists
>doesn't mean he or she is calling the anti-racist fight his or hers only.

Bad example. There are basic Jewish values which assert that combatting
only one form of bigotry to the exclusion of all others is a wasted effort.
That's why, for instance, the B'nai Brith League on Human Rights was one of
the first to demand action on the airborne regiment tapes, though it
involved no anti-semitism. It's why the NACCP is essentially a coalition of
Blacks and Jews. The nature of much Jewish Holocaust remembrance effort
is to *first* stress the inhumanity mankind is capable of (and must be
sought out in *all* its forms), and only then note that the majority of
victims were Jewish.

>>>I doubt, as well, that there would be many viewers. Still, I don't know
>>>too many PC types that scream about GQ magazine,

>>Wrong example. There is plenty of PC screaming indeed, about that other
>>magazine which calls itself "Entertainment for Men" on the cover of every
>>issue. It wasn't that long ago that two women tried to sue a convenience
>>store owner for selling Playboy.
>>GQ offends nobody since it deals with the male side of the fashion
>>industry. Playboy does, as has Esquire in its day. Yet I find little
>>in Playboy that is as degrading to women as the average issue of Cosmo.

>I think you are using the wrong example. I used GQ as an example of a
>magazine that concentrates on men's issues without, for the most part,
>appealing to T&A, eh.

I don't get the difference. Why is a magazine that appeals to "T&A" less
applicable than one which doesn't? It's only a matter of degree.

Is Cosmo less sexist than Playgirl? Is "Ms."? Not IMO.

Does it matter? No.

You picked the example of an inoffensive men's mag, I used an example of
one many people find offensive. The point is, there has been far more "PC
screaming" regarding mens' magazines than womens', GQ notwithstanding.
That the readership of Playboy likes nude pictures should not be the
concern of those who are not its target audience.

>The issue was is something devoted to one sex, and
>even maybe excludes another sex entirely, inherently sexist? GQ, I would
>make the argument, is an example of something that is purely male oriented
>yet not sexist in content. Let's not introduce a red herring.

But GQ is sexist too, just not as extreme as Playboy. So what?

Somewhere in the middle was Esquire, a men's mag of a few decades ago
which had no nudity, but sometimes had *articles* that feminists wanted
banned.

-- 
 Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd., located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
       Novell Unix Master Reseller / [email-masked] / (905) 452-0504
                A happy traveller on the information sidewalk