Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero-c!nadel From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Radical (and Other Types of) Feminism Summary: Not so fast ... Message-ID: <18947@cs.utexas.edu> Date: 4 Apr 91 15:42:19 GMT References: <66039@brunix.UUCP> <71292@microsoft.UUCP> <27F26F4E.6963@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> <9104030712.11574@mydog.UUCP> Sender: news@aero.org Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas Lines: 32 Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org Status: R Originator: nadel@aerospace.aero.org ------ In article <9104030712.11574@mydog.UUCP> gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes: > ... individualism, at least as it's usually enunciated on the net, > seems to me to be greatly at odds with any movement or body of > thought that focuses on the special problems and qualities of a > category of persons, e.g. feminism or the black liberation > movement. The whole point of individualism is to discount the > validity, if not the effect, of that sort of categorization and > the relations that may go along with it. Implicit in the above criticism is the idea that such categorization is part of the goal, not just part of the problem. It is precisely here that there is considerable divergence between different feminist groups. Is the goal of feminism to break down old gender categories? Or to also reinstate new ones? Is the goal a society where male/female is not an important category in determining how one is treated in pursuing an education, a career, etc? Or is the goal a society where this category is still important, though in a different way than before? Someone who espouses an individualist philosophy does not necessarily dismiss the validity of such categories in analyzing problems, especially if the problems stem from inappropriate social reification of the categories, ie, the society imposes rules that *because* one is female one *must* A and one *cannot* B. But they are more likely to see solutions in breaking down these categories, rather than maintaining them and merely changing the rules. Noting that A and B are unfair, and so replacing them with C and D, will not change the fact that the rule is still 'because one is female, one must and one cannot '. Russell