It was a partly sunny Friday, February 21, 1992, when

_ Lopened my copy of the X-PRESS and found Dawn

_ Ambler’s letter regarding the Backiash, wherein she

repeatedly claims to be telling **the plain and simple

_ truth’’. Instead, Ms. Ambler who has in the past

; _ gained my approval for her mature, reasoned letters in

_ the past has now provoked my disgust with this

_ emotional, bombastic, and contradiction-laden epistle.

- To begin with, the comments! deemto be misrepre- —

_ sentations: Ms. Ambler claims that, ‘‘plain and sim-

_ple’’, the X-Press is promoting ‘‘homophobia and racism’’ and “‘the systematic bashing of womyn’’ by

_ printing The Backlash. The reference to homophobia and racism is completely unfounded, as these issues

_ have never entered the debate here. | will the author

_ the benefit of the doubt, and assume she was planning

_acommentary on some other issue at the same time,

_ parts of which found their way into her published

_ letter. The woman-bashing accusation, however, has

_reared its ugly head in many other letters to the edi-

tor, and I feel it’s about time that it was put to rest.

Criticism is not bashing, and pointing out thatsome

_ programmes run the risk of being implemented with-

out thorough consideration because of the protective

umbrella of the women’s movement is neither unfair

_orchauvinistic. The women’s movement holds many

honourable and sensible ideas and it has done a great

deal of good in society, but that doesn’t mean that

every issue that is labelled a women’s issue necessar-

‘ily has a sensible basis. To the same effect, we all

want to help the environment, but we also know

enough not to believe that ‘‘green’’ battery acid is an

environmentally friendly product. Some people would

he that women should be able to freely implement programmes in their interest now that they have

noved out of the secondary place in society they once

inhabited, and that widespread debate will only lead to

en saying ‘Okay, that’s a good girl, you’ve had

‘your little say, now sit down and be quiet’’; in other

ords, trying to subjugate women again. But however

‘much we may deplore the position in society which

Women were held in previous generations, the redress

of this cannot be the main impetus behind modern

Policy-making. To put itin another light: however

nuch we deplore the tragic events of the Nazi Holo-

aust and regret the injustices the Jewish peoples have

uffered over the centuries, does that really mean we

I ould then condone the Israeli action of entering a

[ ighbouring country and strafing refugee camps asa

ecessary exercise of sovereignty? I think not! The

pe ant of allof this commentary is to illustrate that

s€ a programme or principle is being touted

ret X-P RESS

March 5, 1992

In favour of women or minority groups does not

necessarily mean that it is right. The label ‘‘minor-.

‘ity’’ isno more a guarantee of righteousness than is

the label ‘‘green’’. Remember, the white supremacists also consider themselves a minority group!

Ms. Amblersays ‘‘If youcan’tsay something nice, © then don’t say anything at all.’’ Well, I’msorry, Ms. Ambler, but debate is not where we should be ‘‘nice.”’ It is important that common civility be maintained to prevent an exchange of opinions from degenerating into achildish name-calling match, but being ‘‘nice’’ means not differing from established opinion, in order to avoid hurting feelings. I would hope that the audi- ence to which this debate is directed is mature enough to analyze the facts and opinions being presented without running home to their mothers if someone opposes their stance on an issue.

Ms. Ambler also states that Messrs. Hanus and Murphy are hitting ‘‘where hitting is not part of the rules.’’ I would most fervently hope that this com- ment was not intended to mean that the editors should not be speaking out on these issues. Are these ‘*rules’’ part of the ‘‘nice’’ little game of maintaining the new status quo? Dear me! Howvery much that would sound like the arguments directed against the early suffragettes-Don’t rock the boat! Be nice! Be ladylike! It might be rather complicated to ask Joe and Peter to stop writing these articles and go quietly back home and have babies instead, but maybe they should forgo their right to a university education (yes, it really isn’t proper for unchaperoned young men to be out filling their heads with all this higher educa- tion nonsense) and go home and earn a nice, polite

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