4/CHRONICLESnSmith girls had a busy week, 17-23nNovember 1986: “Central AmericannWomen’s Party for Peace” had a highnold time in the Mulongi CulturalnCenter as Daisy Zamora (winner of thenNicaraguan National Poetry Prize)nread from her works. After the reading,nthe demure young ladies could attendna screening of Bom in Flames, a futuristicnfilm directed by Lizzie Borden, innwhich women “overcame divisions ofnrace, class, and sexual orientation.” Ifnthey still have a few hang-ups, the girlsncan check out the Kwanza celebrationnand hear talks on “urban slang, Afro-nCaribbean music, black capitalism,nand Voodoo.” (At least we know whatnvoodoo economics means, now.)nAfter all this. Smith president MarynMaples Dunn can’t understand why anracial slur was recentiy painted on ancollege building. Instead of cancelingnthe Kwanza festivities, she has—whatnelse?—set up an antiracism campaignnPRIVATIZING THE FAMILYnMoving from the PatriarchalnState to the Liberated FamilynOrder today and receive a FREEncopy of WORKING MOTHERSnAT HOME: The Cultural Politicsnof the Parental Leave Debate.nSend to: Persuasion at Work / 934nN. Main Street / Rockford, IL 61103n• Please rush me “PrivatizingnThe Family”, plus my free copynof “Working Mothers At Home”.n• Enclosed is $2 (includes postagenand handling).nNamenAddress.nCity .State Zip.nPW287nCULTURAL REVOLUTIONSncomplete with workshops and nationalnexperts. In the words of Pete Seeger,n”when will they ever learn?”n”Why can’t a woman be more Uke anman?” Rex Harrison asks in My FairnLady. Our public schools devote quitena bit of elTort to playing down thendifferences between the sexes and tonexplaining the irrelevance of the residualndiscrepancies. This helps to makenideas such as chivalry or the Paulinendoctrine of Male Headship incomprehensible,nbut does it eliminate thendifferences? A recent article publishednin the Journal of Personality and SocialnPsychology by Dolf Zillman and hisncolleagues at the Institute for CommunicationnResearch at Indiana Universitynsuggests that it does not. Even ifnmen are no longer to be chivalrous nornwomen gracious, the need to distinguishnbetween the sexes continues.nWhy do teenagers go on dates to seenhorror movies full of graphic violence,nusually including a lunatic who dismembersnteenagers? We could explain,nif not condone, masses of jealousnmiddle-aged folk flocking to seenFriday the Thirteenth, lusting to seenthe younger and more nubile carvednup in grotesque ways, but, as a rule,nthe older generation does not go tonthese movies. Zillman et al., foundnthat a major function of the moviesnwas the establishment of sexual roles.nThe more a female date showed distressnat violence, the more the malendate tended to like the woman and thenmovie. The fewer the man’s outwardnexpressions of unease—like holdingnhis hands over his eyes and groaning,nthe way I do—the more the womannliked the man and the movie. The lessnappealing the man was initially, thenmore his attractiveness was raised innthe eyes of his date by his lack ofnrepulsion at the gore.nnn”You can chase Nature out with anfork,” said the poet Horace, “but it willncome back again.” Educators can takenaway from young people all the ennoblingnand sophisticated ways of distinguishingnthe roles of the two sexes.nWhat they cannot do is eliminate thenneed to make those distinctions. Antruly liberal education, one that freednhuman beings to be completelynhuman, would help young people discriminate,nnot drive them into seekingnthose distinctions in the gore and anarchicndarkness of a movie theater.n—E. Christian KopffnThe November Perspective took anlook at “Plain People,” both the kindnthat write, sing, perform, and listen toncountry music, and the kind we usuallyncall Evangelicals or Eundamentalists.nAs might be guessed, there arensome plain people who are into bothncountry music and Evangelical/nFundamentalist Christianity.nThis last group—the countrifiednEvangelicals/Fundamentalists, if younwill—was well-represented recentiy innthe Fundamentalist Journal. Its July/nAugust issue carries the lyrics of “CodnBless the U.S.A.,” which was madenpopular some months back by countrynsinger Lee Greenwood. When Mr.nGreenwood learned of this, he contactednthe Journal through a letter tonthe editor (November 1986) to oiiernthanks for the attention. Here, onenmight think, a solitary and plain countrynmusician was passing along a sincerenword of thanks to a magazine thatnis read by many plain people.nUntil, that is, one realizes that Mr.nGreenwood himself did not write tonthe Journal. The writer is Eda Galeno,nwho is identified as “Publicity,” whichnpresumably is short for Public Relations.nThis might lead one to think thatn