Clinton St. Quarterly, Vol. 4 No. 4 | Winter 1984 (Seattle) /// Issue 2 of 24 /// Master# 50 of 73

have high status or high salaries, scientists do. Therefore, in Russia, the attributes of the physician, nurturing, healing, and so forth, are considered feminine. Women can do it and they are paid very poorly for it. I guess from my point of view, economics is a major detriment in the inscription of many things to either male or female. We no longer live in a culture in which men need to be big or stronger or more aggressive to hunt and to defend their homes and to ward off sabre tooth tigers. No more are infants totally dependent on their mother’s milk. I think as a society we need to .relax stereotypes and work together. Katherine Dunn Myself, I was brought up on Kipling . . . “The Female of the Species is more Deadly than the Male.” ... and my mother’s stern command that, regardless of provocation, I must never kick my brothers in their nut-sacks. Konner’s gushy little montage reminded me of a recent study of adopted children aimed at discriminating between inherited and environmentally developed traits. The central findings were that (A) verbal ability is Inherited, and (B) attitudes toward authority are linked directly to verbal ability in inverse relation. Thus, the higher the measurable verbal ability, the more negative (and resistant) the attitude toward authority. If, as “She and He” states, “There is good evidence for superiority in girls and women in verbal ability ...” we may then speculate that females as a whole have less respect for authority than males. How many moms would take their favorite child to the top of a mountain and slit its throat just because God told them to? A few, certainly, but we don’t consider them heroic figures like Abraham with Isaac. We consider them totally batso. Job was definitely not a female. I have a hunch that, on specific levels, women are every bit as fierce as men. Men are abstractly and generally fierce just as they are abstractly and generally honorable. Ideas (insert Authorities) govern males to a remarkable degree. Certainly their aggressiveness'is a trait necessary to the survival of the whole species if also dangerous to the whole species. Women on the other hand, are ruthless, dirty fighters, unaffected by rules of sportsmanship. But, women’s violence is triggered by a more limited set of stimuli, the “Family Unit” is their turf. As long as my children, my mate, my home, my own flesh are safe, then all the rest can go up in smoke. This nurturing stuff is bursting with potential for violence. If we don’t use it much it may be because we’ve arranged for males to handle most of our defense for us. When they turn on us it’s like a missile exploding in its own silo. There are South American villages in which boxing is the primary sport as well as cheap substitute for small claims court and civil suits. The women box from infancy as do the men. Both sexes rely on this violent institution to settle their differences. But — and I approve of this segregation on psychological grounds — women box only with other women and men with men. As a boxing fan, it is with some chagrin that I must admit to having seen only one female bout. For undesignated reasons, there are only about a hundred female boxers in all weight classes in the U.S.A. They must have a hard time finding bouts, or even sparring partners. So that leaves me plenty of room for fantasy. My female champ would be radareyed, disruptive and flexible in her rhythms, and so slippery that she’d never get hit squarely. My concept of the ideal boxing style for a female is modeled on guileful, evasive, counter punching techniques. So it was with great embarrassment that I learned the general opinion of America’s lady fighters. My friend Dorothy Mi, an excellent cook and jolly drinker who happens to have been a fight manager for years, sneers at the ladies. “They cry and whine when they get hit. Oh, they’ll go out and move around nice, and pose. They look good until they catch one and then the blubbering starts. They fold up. It’s pathetic.” This came as a shock because in the past three years alone I’ve seen half a dozen cat fights on dance floors, a case of attempted mutual murder under the grandstands at the Sidewinders motorcycle track, a slim, satin-garbed lovely who cold-cocked a bar maid with a full bottle of Heineken Light, and a middle-aged heavyweight heedlessly snagging her suphose outside the White Eagle as she dragged her featherweight opponent across a rain black sidewalk for greater convenience in banging her head against the curb. While I'll grant that they all lacked sadly in skill and experience I insist that there was no dearth of fighting spirit in any of these females. “Yeah,” says Dorothy M., “But I bet they were all fighting over men.” “Naturally,” says I, “What of it?” “Meh will fight over a beer or a peanut or because a bell rings,” says Dorothy M. But somehow I doubt that we’ve heard the last word on these sex difference studies. Before we women get too smug about our angelic gentleness and too sanctimonious about the violent and aggressive nature of males; before the fellas beg us compassionate, nurturing females to take over the entire control of the planet’s military matters for the good of the race (as they’re certain to do, the darlings), we might as well go on poking and probing for a while. ■ RECLAIM THE LOST WORLD OF ENERGY WITHIN YOU. 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