Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway From: jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Individualist Feminism Message-ID: Date: 23 Apr 91 17:18:44 GMT References: <27F26F4E.6963@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> <9104030712.11574@mydog.UUCP> <27FE2636.10564@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> <9104060657.14302@mydog.UUCP> Organization: Berserkeley Lines: 64 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu brad> For more of the history of individualist feminism, I brad> strongly recommend the introductory essay of the book, "The brad> Roots of Individualist Feminism in 19th-Century America." ___ __ Deja-vu . . . libertarians also find their roots in past _ American movements and ideologies. Does the introductory essay tell us whether or not "individualist feminism" is a branch of libertarianism? brad> You might also investigate the writings of the 18th and 19th brad> Century feminists Mary Wollstonecraft ("Vindication of the brad> Rights of Woman"), Voltairine de Cleyre, Sarah Grimke, or brad> Lillian Harman. ___ __ Liberal feminists one and all, and as such, they are the _ forebears of every variety of feminism not descended from Marx. gcf> In order to reinvent feminism, feminists had to recognize not gcf> their individualities -- existing society was all too ready gcf> to do that -- but their commonalities. ___ __ I can't see how existing society recognized women's individ- _ ualities when it treated them more as property than people. (And laws to that effect are *still* on the books in places.) gcf> That's why consciousness-raising groups were formed and gcf> slogans like "Sisterhood is Powerful!" emerged. Once gcf> successful to any degree, the movement fragmented . . . ___ __ I tend to view CR groups as a dynamic, experimental thing when _ they started out. Commonalities were found (though some were the result of the groups consisting of a people form a narrow socioeconomic spectrum), but the idea was exploration. Of course, some later CR groups turned into indoctrination sessions. ___ __ There was always fragmentation, but mostly along radical vs. _ Marxist lines at first, followed by navel-gazing vs. political action lines. me> If you *really* want to contradict those expectations, check me> out Alice Echol's [sic] _Daring_to_Be_Bad_ (radical feminism) me> and Emma Goldman's stuff (anarcho-feminism). gcf> But Echol [sic] and Goldman will write radically, and not gcf> very individualistically, which I expect! ___ __ Echols (sorry 'bout my typo) actually writes in a straight- _ forward historical/scholar style. The people she writes about are indeed radicals, but she doesn't shrink from presenting the contradictions, factionalism, personality clashes, etc. ___ __ Goldman is in fact *very* individualistic. She pissed off _ a lot of her contemporaries (who saw individualism as some kind of bourgeois luxury). gcf> But we cannot proceed further in our critique without a text. gcf> We are like lions in the zoo, pacing about, waiting for the gcf> meat to be thrown. ___ __ But can't we grrrr a bit in the meantime, just to keep the _ audiences happy? :-) <_Jym_>