Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!ginosko!usc!ucla-cs!uci-ics!tittle
From: rutgers!cmcl2!dasys1!mydog!gcf@ncar.UCAR.EDU
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Feminism is a fine word, thank you
Message-ID: <8910071442.AA26475@uunet.uu.net>
Date: 8 Oct 89 02:16:21 GMT
References: <4525@ncar.ucar.edu> <2766@tymix.UUCP> <4537@ncar.ucar.edu> <4014@unix.SRI.COM> <RBERLIN.89Sep29230303@birdland.sun.com> <58903@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <46617@bbn.COM>
Sender: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle)
Reply-To: gcf@althea.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Organization: Beauty in the Beast
Lines: 80
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu

I'm responding here mainly to Richard Shapiro's follow-up (<46617@bbn.COM>
if anyone pays attention to the numbers).  I found his entire article
interesting, but at this point can respond to only a small part of it.

)In article <58903@aerospace.AERO.ORG> gcf@frith.UUCP I wrote:
)>One form of feminism involves fundamental social values, and was
)>the form espoused by the radical feminists of the '60s.  This
)>form involves an analysis of social problems as deriving from
)>"patriarchy", that is, male domination (first, of women and
)>children, and subsequently of other males through hierarchy and
)>slavery. ...           ... [T]he full radical theory provides
)>the opposition with many targets.  One need only read the
)>soc groups for a short while to find quotations from radicals
)>used to embarrass people who would not dream of challenging
)>present structures of domination.

Richard Shapiro <uunet!BBN.COM!rshapiro> writes:
)...
)Why should anyone be embarrased by a highly sophisticated and well
)developed theory like post-structuralist feminism? I don't read the
)other soc groups -- maybe I'm missing something here. Can you
)elaborate? ...

This particular thread started, I believe, as another attack on
feminism in soc.men or soc.women.  In any case, the attacks on
feminism connected with the thread in these groups were as I have
noted: quotations from radicals are used to embarrass reformists.

For example, a quotation from Robin Morgan has been used
repetitiously (in someone's .signature, in fact) to imply that
all feminists are sexists, or something to that effect.  The
quotation involves terrorism and counter-terrorism and uses
the term "thanatos," to refer to a hypothesized collective
death-wish.  Taken out of context and perhaps not too brilliant
to begin with, the quotation must seem to serve a purpose to
those who use it.  And I can imagine, say, Pat Schroeder thinking,
"Bra-burning, unisex restrooms, and now this!"

The reformists are also attacked for not being universal everyone-
else-first egalitarians, but that is a somewhat different issue.

Since I was following the thread from another environment, my
language was imprecise.  "'60s" refers not really to a period
of time but to a spirit and a situation.  The spirit was the
willingness to criticize the social system in a fundamental way,
and to put the results of that criticism into action.  The
situation was the temporary openness of the American system to
change, so that these actions received public attention, even
if they were misunderstood.  The activities of the radicals were
what made the more pragmatic activities of the reformists
thinkable, and therefore possible.

Today, after fifteen or twenty years of vigorous and successful
counterrevolution, it seems a bit much to ask that radical
feminism be successful in the streets.  Yet success in academia
or the therapies of the upper middle class is not going to be
enough.  Last year, the median wage fell about 1/2 of 1 percent
in the U.S.  -- as it has during most years since 1970.  In
spite of its public-relations success, American capitalism is
collapsing.  At a certain point in the future, assuming this
trend is not reversed, the economic roof will fall in, and
like all arrangements, the current ones will disappear.  The
question will then become what will replace them.  If radical
feminist thought has been mostly taken off the board, that is,
sequestered in isolated communities, it won't be able to
speak to that coming situation.

The fact that radical feminist quotations can be used to
embarrass feminism in general is significant, because it means
that certain things are becoming generally unthinkable.  
Radical feminism certainly has not been much in evidence on 
Usenet anywhere, and in terms of the general public, Usenet is 
a rather sophisticated community. (Don't laugh -- it's true!)
I hope that Richard Shapiro and others will continue to try
to bring this point of view into general circulation.  The
demand that reformist feminists be strict egalitarians, for
example, cries out for radical analysis, yet almost all those
who respond to this issue do so on the attacker's terms.

Gordon Fitch  |  ...uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf