"although right now, with this membership, they don't particularly seem to"

that's my point. people aren't bringing up whatever interests them! are there other topics people are flocking to, and it's just my personal wound that people aren't more responsive to my posts about biology. nope.

also it just so happens that *most* feminists are "not presently interested" in biology. why? because biology has been used against feminism more than for, i think. i spent almost 20 years as a devout social constructionist myself. but we leave out an enormous piece of the picture when we do so, and we end up looking like we're in denial of any biological differences among people construable along sex lines. and frankly deconstructing culture is easier than having to learn all that science and math and shit, at least for me!

or might it be part of the rather systematic marginalization and disinterest of women in science?

Right on Ray. I think we're barking up the same tree. I think what you're saying is "action rather than words"?

Personally I burned a decade talking about why we earn less for the same job, and why women are battered, and then realised NOTHING was gonna change because I had some theories. I'm a feminist and hey, guess what, the men still get paid more than me.

So, I realised I'd better take action where I could and then save my energy otherwise. I certainly can't be arsed teaching men about women's issues. My response is go and read the same books I read. Then do something.

Actually I think men have a huge role, not in helping me or other women directly, but in teaching boys. Boys have no effing clue about how to treat women and girls. One of the most moving thigns I ever listened to was two older men telling a violent young teen about how disgusted they were at the way he treated women, especially his mother. If men focused on cleaning up the male act, then women would be a lot better off. In fact, I'm gonna post this as a separate thread.

i guess i rarely post here because i dont wear the "feminist" lable very well and fear that my perspective will be considered "off topic"
as a woman, i certainly appreciate the feminist movement and the social changes that have come of women giving voice to reality!
i benefit and further this tradition that values people having voice, critiquing the power structure, working for social change and equity. and i appreciate that feminism has moved (alas only) parts of our culture into a post modern awareness of contextuality and furthered the capacity for critical reasoning. the place i get bogged down is in devisive mentalities and the literalistic approach to gender.

there are lots of men who are raped, beaten, and the victums of domestic violence. the "oppressor" is just as oppressed by the oppressive system, so in this instance, gender identifies men as "other" and "we" talk about "them" needing to change, but what about all those little boys molested by their mothers? what about the many men i have known who are beaten by the women in their lives? they never talk about it. the oppression dictates that it will make them less of a man-shame silences. this too seems that it should be part of the feminist battle, that as long as any of us are oppressed, all of us are oppressed, as long as the wounded masculine is not allowed healthy outlets to voice in this culture, all suffer. I agree that it is not "woman's" responsibility to heal men per se, that is just too narrow. but it is all of our responsibilities to nurture healthy culture. men are as wonded as women and there is so much less voice around it, less social education, less outreach.... i dont know how we address it, or whose job it is, or if this opinion places me out side of "feminism." I just know that wounded people, male and female, gay and straight, of all colors, ethnicities, races, wound other people. the dynamic goes beyond gender, but the feminist movement has benefited the culture by giving us all tools to think and talk about these things, so for me in particular, feminism must go beyond rigidified ideas of gender to manifest the value of its full potential, its insights must address gender, race, class, all the evil isms, and that is how i use it. the value of feminism, like marxism and liberation theology, is that we can talk about dynamics of power, be sensative to the multiplicity of woundedness, and in doing so minimize the need to deny the woundedness that hides behind power differentials. maybe thats too optimistic. maybe im in the wrong tribe. certainly some one will let me know. either way, take good care.