chapter 19

16_chap10.html

@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ part of it. Form and meaning are causally intertwined in such a way that to unde
 <p>She believes that the reasons men and women drink are also entirely different. "Men drink for a sense of power," she says, "while women drink out of frustration, helplessness and dependency."<a href="#fn10">[10]</a></p>
 <p>In Women for Sobriety groups, women introduce themselves by affirming their dignity and self-respect: "My name is Jean and I'm a competent woman." Instead of repeating the lord's prayer, they conclude their meetings by joining hands and affirming: "We are capable and confident, caring and compassionate, always willing to help another, bonded together in overcoming our disease of alcoholism."</p>
 <p>Another difference is that this group, in a more holistic, womanly sort of way, is interested in improving and maintaining each woman's health in every way, not merely in keeping her alcoholism at coping level. Part of the program emphasis, for instance, is "the use of meditation, taking vitamins, avoiding candy, drinking little or no coffee, and cutting down on smoking" - i.e., loving oneself, including her body, and taking her body and health seriously.<a href="#fn11">[11]</a></p>
-<p>But predictably enough, Women for Sobriety gets little recognition and less prestige, primarily because it does not include men, and almost none of us is able to take womenonly groups as seriously as we do those that include men. Neither is it based in men's value system. It is unacceptable and even fear provoking because it comes out of women's mind, is based on women's experience, and is directed toward women.</p>
+<p>But predictably enough, Women for Sobriety gets little recognition and less prestige, primarily because it does not include men, and almost none of us is able to take women-only groups as seriously as we do those that include men. Neither is it based in men's value system. It is unacceptable and even fear provoking because it comes out of women's mind, is based on women's experience, and is directed toward women.</p>
 <p>Because it does not have the masters' imprimatur, because it is positive and affirming and therefore does not sound familiarly and comfortably like patriarchy, many doubt its efficacy. AA goes beyond this and actively persecutes individual members as well as the organization itself.<a href="#fn12">[12]</a> It is very hard for women to believe that women understand us better, know better what we need, and can provide it better than men - evidence of our internalized oppression, our self-hatred, our slave mind.</p>
 <p>Why has men's 12-step program - negative, other-directed, conventionally blaming the victim, mortifying and abasing, god-oriented - been perceived by some women as lifechanging? Perhaps it feels comfortable and right to women precisely because it is the same old extemalization of power, the same old powerlessness, the same old negativity, the same old moralistic, abject, lack of self-love (any feminist who sits through the lord's prayer several times a week - even once a <i>year</i> - does not honor herself much in my opinion), and when we are in pain we find solace in the known, in the echoes from our childhood.</p>
 <p>But more likely women find strength in any 12-step program simply because it <i>is</i> a program. When we feel as if our lives are out of our control, when we are in emotional chaos, finding such a solid, rigid structure must feel like coming upon a life raft in a shipwreck. Perhaps it didn't need to be the 12 steps of AA for those people to feel so welcome and safe; perhaps the relief would have been the same if <i>any</i> process had appeared, any dependable program in which there was group support and acceptance. As I say, thousands of people join the Mormon church yearly for this exact reason.</p>