Dear Rosan, et. Al.
Perhaps this discussion continues because all of us suffer from a desire for
authenticity internally and externally in a time when it is almost never
visible, in leaders, in media, and sometimes in our personal relationships.
Trust is something we build over time and it can so easily be undone through an
act of casual disregard for others or ourselves.
No one knows how Rosan feels except Rosan. No one knows how others feel except
themselves. I was busy during the Ken/Cindy event but I am mostly here now and
I see how distraught people are over this. How a person might feel as a woman
is not something a non woman can feel. They might be able to suss out an
inkling of a shift in attitude toward them if they pretend to something they
are not. But feeling, knowing and understanding what it is like to be a woman
is not something that can happen when a man chooses to pretend to a female
personal as a lark. Being a woman, like being a man is only something that can
be experienced in this position. Even then it is individual.
If I were to pass myself off as a man and then proceed to assert that "the
experiment" was interesting and I understood what it feels like to be a "man",
and I can now think like a "man" I might not be taken seriously in the male
community. There might not be a majority of men out there who would agree with
my assertion. Further some of them might be pissed off by my assertion. They
might also believe that I could never fully be "male."
So Ken, I as you, and I ask the people on this list to think more about where
we can go than where we have been. Ken I will not agree that it was a good
trick, I will agree that it revealed a problem. Ken in general I respect your
participation on the list but not this. I notice many people speaking for or
against Ken's actions and I will say again that only Ken knows how he feels and
only he can speak to that. I don't believe however he knows how Cindy, if she
were a woman, with a woman's history and a woman's life would feel. Nor does he
know how any other person feels unless they tell him and like all of us that
telling will still be filtered though an interpretation. Only Ken knows how he
felt when he pretended to be Cindy. And I think that knowing is still about Ken
not a Cindy/woman. I as all of us to be as authentic as we are able. I appeal
to you to speak only for yourselves and not for others.
Jan
Jan Coker
C3-10 Underdale
University of South Australia
+61 8 8302 6919
fax +61 8 8302 6239
Relativity teaches us the connection between the different descriptions of one
and the same reality
Albert Einstein
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