Feminism: No Symmetry between Women an Men (was Re: Giggly Guys)

[W. Kiernan]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> 
> Rob wrote:
>
> > One of the good things feminism has managed over the last few
> > decades is to convince most of us that the best source of
> > information about being female, the best way to find out what
> > women's actual interests might be, and the best way to achieve
> > those ends, is to have a society where women do the talking about
> > themselves, identify their interests among themselves, and are
> > materially free to pursue them as they see fit (albeit much of
> > this may be enshrined only formally - I'm not making a
> > 'post-feminism' case here).  So I reckon all this telling us boys
> > about our anxieties is a bit irritating.  I'm anxious about lotsa
> > stuff, and jokes are a perfectly understandable and, I think,
> > potentially useful way to give 'em expression.
> 
> Feminism is not simply about researching and learning from women
> talking about ourselves (though that is certainly part of our
> project). Feminism is, more importantly, about the abolition of
> oppressions based upon gender (and properly understood, it must be
> allied with Marxism). To understand gender, feminists have had to
> research, among other things, the social construction of masculinity
> much more so than any man has ever done.
> 
> There is _no symmetry_ between women and men. That men do not have
> access to women's knowledge most emphatically does not mean that its
> opposite--women do not have access to men's understanding of
> themselves--is true. (This is a Hegelian insight of the master-slave
> relationship.)

As you postulate that self-critique is impossible, and as I am male, in
the spirit of discussion I will not claim that I understand the thinking
of men in general, nor even my own.  I'll also refrain from disputing
your statement above, that some women do understand the way men think,
despite that I've never read any feminist writing that looks like it
understands the psychic life of males - not that the feminists I've read
appear to be wrong so much as that they just didn't bother with the
subject of the inner male psyche at all.  I have missed the works of
those feminists who have "researched the social construction of
masculinity" so thoroughly; or else, since I tentatively accept, for the
sake of this discussion, your presumption about the impossibility of
self-critique, it would follow that I am blind to myself, so therefore I
wouldn't recognize the truth if I had read it or heard it.

At any rate, my readings in feminism have been sadly deficient.  I'd
appreciate it if you would direct me to some books which your believe
accurately describe not just external male behavior but the inner
workings of the male mentality.  Or do you think it would be a waste of
time for me even to try to read those books?

Now what I want to know is, logically, what's wrong with the blanket
assertion that women are incapable of critiquing themselves, that is, of
understanding women?  You don't buy that idea, and in the real world
(that is, outside this discussion) neither do I.  But how do you
reconcile rejecting that assertion with the notion that self-critique is
impossible per axiom?

Yours WDK - WKiernan at concentric.net

**  Let's ask the first person we see.  Let's wheel it out the door  **
**  and when some freak comes along, we'll ask him.  That way we'll  **
**  get a disheartened viewpoint.                     Charles Freck  **