Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!PALEPINK@CC.UTAH.EDU
From: PALEPINK@CC.UTAH.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Effects of Lacan, Cisoux, etc., on women's position
Message-ID: <5845@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 14 Nov 88 07:00:00 GMT
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First, I haven't read Lacan, but the two people I know
who've read *all* of her say that she doesn't really
say that language is inherently masculine...

The comment that disturbed me is somebody's contention
that French criticism might affect American feminism
and their faith in women's abilities.  It looks to me
that American feminists are doing a pretty good job of
damning women by themselves (the ones I've read don't
refer specifically to French theory, at least.  There
may have been strong influences).

The articles I read, these last few years, on the progress
of women in science, largely agree that women have
reached their limit.  This is because when Francis 
Bacon formulated the scientific method three hundred
years ago he used phrases like "man can learn to exploit
Nature for his benefit; she has much to give", so that
the scientific method is inherently anti-woman and
women's brains are incapable of creatively working
in an anti-woman direction.  

(My roommate has been re-reading *The Republic*--
Plato--this weekend; we were just laughing about some
of Socrates' more miserable pieces of bad logic--at
the time, we were saying that nobody could get away
with that today.  We hoped.)

Anyway, one woman (I'm told she tried to be a physicist,
failed, and chooses to convince herself that *no* woman
is intellectually capable of the job, but that's evil
gossip) explains that Marie Curie wasn't a scientist,
she was her husband's lab assistant.  Women are capable
of being lab assistants, of being yes-men (;-)), or
of possibly contributing some minor work, but only if,
like Emmy Noether, they renounce their femininity
and become pseudo-men.  Ghastly, no?

What really bugs me is that the Physics Department at
my college, as part of its genuinely well-intentioned
attempt to encourage female students, had a very lengthy
review/summary of this woman's book enshrined behind
glass on the wall for a couple of years.  They honestly
thought that they were merely paying tribute to the
extra effort women made.  I can't tell you how devastating
it felt to walk out of the library, half-dead, at two a.m.,
and discover that I only needed a shot of testosterone
to make it all clear.

Maybe it's true.  Maybe women really *can't* think
logically (Corollary:  maybe I'm not really a woman,
since I can never seem to think otherwise without
chemical assistance...).  But until somebody thinks
up the way for curious folk like me to investigate
the world without the constraints of an anti-woman
language, dammit, they should shut up.  All they're
doing now is destructive to women who *do* feel
comfortable with "masculine" thought as a discipline.

Angry and blithering,

Susan.