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From: cel@cs.duke.edu (Chris Lane)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Feminism's ill effects on men?
Message-ID: <656279846@romeo.cs.duke.edu>
Date: 23 Oct 90 15:56:04 GMT
References: <11109001:30:33RA04@lehigh.bitnet> <1990Oct18.154041.6433@ora.com>
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: Duke University Computer Science Dept.; Durham, N.C.
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Approved: ambar@ora.com

In article <1990Oct18.154041.6433@ora.com> king@kestrel.edu writes:

>I think that on the whole technology is or should be feminists' best
>friend. 

This is the position Shulamith Firestone takes in The Dialect of Sex.
She's in the school of Engels and, hate to say it, dialectical
materialism.  When technology allows men to bear children and women to
screw around with no worry of getting pregnant, gender will
effectively, materially, be dissolved.  She has a little chart with the
progress of history, through the final victory and the end of history.
She criticizes Engels' for making means of production of goods and
services the "ultimate" dialect (marxism, the politics of class),
rather than the reproduction of labor the ultimate dialect (feminism,
the politics of sex, in her view)

Of course, she didn't address race in a meaningful way, and in fact, race
tends to contradict this rosy view of history.  There is no meaningful
physical distinction between the races, not really, in a biological sense,
meaningful races even.  Nonetheless, there is tremendious racism and
power imbalances along race lines.  

Nowadays, it seems that reasonable people recognize that, since there is no
rigorous understandning of people, whether as individuals or in groups, there
is no good to be gained by making this or that aspect "fundamental."  Racism,
sexism, class bias, homophobia, blindess to "nature", etc., are all
sapping the vitality and joy of living on this planet.  None of them is
acceptable (tho all of them are tolerated by their victims).

Chris
-- 
"Life's a bitch and then you die."      cel@cs.duke.edu
Down with Gender!  
Enjoy today.