I had to leave and did not complete my reply to this message.

My US state is backward in many ways, but for some reason
women have done very well in the arts. It is true that most of
these women have come from other states, however, the fact is
that women are the dominant sex here in the arts at this time.

I approve of equality and always have. Women or people of
color. However, I will say that women are no better than men
as persons in ways so that we have the same problems now
that we had with the men dominant. Power does corrupt. So
I am sorry to say that I am not impressed that women have a
strong role in the state's arts since there is no real change to
"the system".

I am disturbed, however, that America has not had a woman
VP or Presidential Candidate. I do think that men rule American
politics and I do not like it. We in this state have two women
senators, not of my political party, whom I support. They are
quality persons.

Recently, the NBC news anchor was replaced and a man
is still in that position. I think a woman should have been
chosen. I know an Asian American on CNN who would
make a marvelous anchor - despite the fact that TV news
is so "thin" as news reporting. What will happen with CBS?

There are many prejudices that need changing, but I would
caution from my life experience that we should not think we
are going to have a better "system" when we have outright
equality. Human beings are human beings, women, African-American,
Caucasian, etc., so we will continue to have problems. This
is reality.

I think the superiority is in the individual no matter the sex, race,
religion, etc.

Tom

On Tuesday, January 4, 2005, at 11:40 PM, mairead byrne wrote:

> Thanks Peter, I appreciate it and will send poems.
>
> I appreciate your response; you don't have to justify yourself at all;
> I know you're doing careful work. I'm a woman; when I see a list of
> readers/table of contents/authors etc etc, I notice if few or none or
> female; I notice if many are female. Probably most men don't but I
> do, because I'm a woman and involved in this business called poetry
> which though not profitable has its own economy. I get into trouble
> (with thugs) sometimes for saying: Jeepers, would you ever include a
> woman in your conflagration of readers for God's sake. Other people
> (usually men) say: Hey it's not about gender, it's about quality.
> Still others (usually men) say "Let's transcend gender issues; this is
> about poetry." I never say either of the latter two things. I say:
> "Hey how come you don't have any women writers there???" I appreciate
> patient answers like yours, Peter. I think my stance may be an
> Emperor's New Clothes one: though I understand that what may seem
> glaringly obvious & remarkable to me may not seem at all remarkable to
> others. But I'm the one that I live with and speak for. It's sort of
> amazing to me how invisible imbalance is to those in the majority, but
> isn't that the way with everything?
>
> I'm a teacher too and know the benefits of careful composition in
> terms of syllabi.
> A bit of resistance -- even in terms of asking myself: How come no
> women? How come only one Black poet? How come no-one who's not
> American? -- makes for a stronger syllabus. These questions help me
> think through the limits of my own education, prejudices, and
> imagination and direct me toward my audience: a fairly racially
> diverse group of students the majority of whom are female. I think
> audience/readership is a good reason to maintain an awareness of what
> a community can be. Editing is maybe not like teaching in that an
> editor makes a readership, and that readership, in poetry anyway,
> tends to be very similar if not identical to the contributors. One
> argument for including women contributors is that you gain women
> readers. If you want "Colleen" and "Anne Amanda" to read your
> publication then publish people called "Colleen" and "Anne Amanda";
> Isn't that the way it works with "Anthony Amadeus" and "Colin"?
>
> Now that I have an invitation to submit work I'm going PRONTO to your
> site!
> I haven't gone there yet but I'm on my way; I respect and applaud what
> you're doing in publishing other people; I haven't done that for a
> long time and am under no illusion that I could do it well.
>
> I think gender issues are tremendously important on the internet,
> especially on listservs. At the beginning, in 1995 or 6, I thought:
> Hey: here we all are with bodies invisible, it's an ungendered space.
> That was naive. The way we speak to each other on lists is absolutely
> gendered, I think. I think too our concepts of authority,
> conversation, community, argument, are gendered. Poetry listservs can
> have gender! Some can be friendly spaces for men/women; some
> definitely not.
>
> Mairead
>
> On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 22:00:16 +0000, Peter Philpott
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Mairead
>>
>>> My God Peter get Donna some female company there quick! What time is
>>> it??? Is it 2005 already???? Tell me AA & C are gals!!!
>>> Mairead
>>
>> You know, I hadn't actually done such a check - it was just names and
>> poems - 9 texts submitted "out of the blue"; 2 negotiated with people
>> I
>> was already in contact with; 6 as a result of requests to people I
>> heard
>> read (I had asked a wider range, including female poets). I fit the
>> website into the life left by a full time job - I would like to edit
>> more proactively, but really, as indicated above, much either comes to
>> me or I engage with opportunistically.
>>
>> Question: Should I have checked? Is there a need for positive
>> discrimination? I have in the past selected and composed more
>> carefully,
>> and tried to ensure more representation of female writers - I felt, I
>> know, more rushed this time, so didn't think to. Should I actually
>> have
>> made a deliberate decision to ensure some Quota of female writers? And
>> other under-represented groups?
>>
>> Out of 72 writers on the site, 10 I think are female. Now, how do you
>> unambiguously sex an email correspondent? How do you do so with
>> someone
>> signing her/himself A A Person? How relevant are such issues of gender
>> when the text is as relatively disembodied as it is on the Internet?
>> Are
>> there differences between the texts of Anne Amanda Walker & Anthony
>> Amadeus Walker, or Colleen Nelson & Colin Nelson? Should I think more
>> positively about presenting one set of writers than another (even
>> though
>> the language they present to me is verbally identical)?
>>
>> Have I been discriminating against female writers? Have female writers
>> been discriminating against my website - its very name redolent
>> perhaps, though I'd hoped ironically, of patriarchal values?
>>
>> It is 2005 already - back at bloody work today. When I started
>> teaching,
>> way back in the 1970s, we were very worried about female students who
>> were not realising their potential due to family, social and cultural
>> expectations (and took action to support these students). Now, we are
>> thinking of ways of supporting underperforming male students who seem
>> incapable of getting their acts together to realise their potential.
>>
>> To sum up: yes, I feel embarrassed;
>>
>> but there are questions raised by your reaction;
>>
>> and please send me poems. A simple and easy way to get some female
>> company in there now! (actually probably a month or so) presents
>> itself
>> to you, Mairead, and all other female BritPo members (or at least
>> those
>> with unambiguously feminine names - no initials please!).
>>
>> --
>> best wishes
>>
>> Peter Philpott
>>
>