CounterPunch wrote:
>>>if daly's so damn worried about how's she's been (being) treated, go teach
>>>somewhere else. perhaps, the university of kabul? it would make bc look
>>>downright liberated by comparison.
you have basically said "if you don't like it, MD, then hit the pavement and look for employment elsewhere." the discipline of the market will keep the rabble in line if they start complaining about employment conditions. you have also said, "at least bc is better than the uni of kabul, so like it or lump it." if you don't like it here then go somewhere where conditions are worse & bc will 'look downright liberated by comparison.' i don't think i misinterpreted in the least. maybe i should have given you a break? tried to understand a little more? maybe considered the social-historical context within and through which your digits are motivated to type what you typed? fair enough. let's see where these might drive us.
apparently your real problem is that she's reformist. well, so is simone debeauvoir and a slew of other feminists that are included in the 'canon' of feminist thought. and there is much in judith butler that can be read as reformist. and btw, both daly and firestone are typified as being radical feminists who attribute women's oppression to their capacity to bear and nurture children. they both essentialized women, iow.
i could not care less about the content/form of her work as a basis for judging whether she has a right to bar men from that class. nor was this the reason why i object to your justifications for not caring much about it and/or silently supporting her plight. she's being screwed over plain and simple: because she's a feminist, b/c she's a feminist who criticizes a powerful institution, and b/c she's up against the backlash of reverse discrimination claims. or mebbe they just don't like her, find her writing turgid, etc. frankly, i don't care for the content of MD's work [what writing style has to do with anything is beyond me]. indeed, i was going to respond to margaret explaining that daly doesn't do much for a socialist/marxist feminism and this is a good reason for objecting to her work. that is not, however, a valid reason for her uni`s arbitrary treatment of her.
this *is* an attack on tenure and it is specifically an attack on women's hard won gains in academia, and that isn't saying much. moreover, it's an attack that, if successful will strengthen the claims of those insisting that there is such a thing as reverse discrimination.
furthermore, there is some commitment among many feminists to try to enact an "engaged fallibilistic pluralism" such that we try awfully hard to critically engage one another, even while being committed to our principles regarding how we explain and understand women's oppression, as well as how we pursue political practices toward ending that oppression. i think MD's work is inadequate wrt both theory and political practice. however, she's an important figure in the evolution of second wave feminist thought. her work is an important first step for some on the path to feminism because women are diverse and their feminist imaginations are captured by different kinds feminist scholarship. i, for example, wasn't moved much by white middle class feminism and not her work in the least. none of them spoke to my experience. fortunately, someone introduced me to women of color and here i am, right in your face, making Zora Neale Hurston proud.
feminists also tend to have a commitment to preserving the history or memory of feminist struggles, both theoretically and politically. why? because it's important to teach emerging feminists that people like MD are around, that White middle class feminism once imagined that it could speak for and theorize women's oppression qua women. it was a dominant perspective for two decades. in other words, it's important to know that feminists are fallible and their history is one of silencing other voices. is this not important to know? i think it is extremely important because there's a lesson to be learned: the importance of crticial social/self reflection within theory and practice. so, regardless of what i think of her work, i don't think she ought to be treated this way because her uni has decided that they'd like to dump her for whatever reason. so she's a reformist, this is not an adequate basis upon which to dismiss concerns about what is happening to her.
an attack on tenure, based on your reasoning [because you don't agree theoretically/politically] is the same reason why we have the institution of tenure in the first place: it emerged in response to the red scare right after WWI when profs were being fired for their marxist sympathies in the classroom and in their scholarship. i find that a highly troubling position to take with regard to scholarship.
no, i'm not a relativist or some sort of flabby pluralist. i think that's rather obvious from what i've written above. i think that the struggle for an adequate socialist/marxist feminism can only be fought by engaging with those we find problematic and re-appropriating what is progressive in that thought.
kelley
>Uhh, yeah, that makes a helluva lot of sense. Now I see why Mao always had
>at least two translators in the room, three when Kissinger was doing the
>talking. The point, distilled, is this: Judged by her writing, Daly is a
>"reformist" and an insipid one at that. Reform the Church? Rilly. Why not
>just put it out of its misery entirely? Women aren't the only ones it
>oppresses--although these days in matters of war and peace, the death
>penalty, global economic misery, the Pope is beginning to sound like one of
>the few rational world leaders. But maybe I'm just getting old. Frankly, I
>wouldn't have the slightest interest in attending one of Daly's secret
>lectures. Now, if it were S. Firestone or Judith Butler who had locked the
>doors, I might scale barricades to have their scorching invective heaped
>upon me. But then in matters of academics, I've always been a devotée of
>the Divine Marquis.
>
Q: Are you an academic? Q: Who says? Q: And that's enough for you, is it?