women?feminism?

[Steve Perry]

So the question, at least as formulated by Charles, comes
down to why the satanic ritual abuse crowd deserves 
dismissal and the militia crowd does not. well, one fairly
basic answer suggests itself: The basic premise of the
ritual abuse hysteria--"recovered memory" and the alleged
mechanism of "repression" that underwrites it--appears to
be wholly groundless, while the basic premise of the 
militia mentality--that american government as a whole
is anti-democratic and serves priorities that run counter
to their interests--is not. also, as a practical matter,
i believe (and i think alex cockburn believes) that many
of the people attracted to this basic premise of the
militias are poorly educated, not evil, and are worthy
of the attention and wooing of the left. regarding the
satanic ritual abuse question, there is much that may
be usefully unpacked, as katha, maureen and others have
suggested--but i think everyone agrees that that is a
more complicated matter and that no one's interests would
have been served by genuflecting to the groundless legal
prosecutions that stemmed from it.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
[mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Katha Pollitt
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 10:15 AM
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Subject: Re: women?feminism?

In line with the daycare satanic abuse and feminism thread, I recommend
Jona Acocella's new book 'Creating hysteria:women and Multiple
Personality Disorder.' Some of you might have read the section that
appeared in the new Yorker, about how "sybil," whose case history
started the fad for MPD diagnosis, wasn't really a multiple. I think
Acocella does a brilliant job of unpacking the many meanings of the MPD
craze -- like Satanic ritual abuse it has feminist aspects, Christian
fundamentalist aspects, nutty-psychiatry aspects, class aspects--also
medical insurance aspects (MPDs were hospitalized in special units and
used to generate huge insurance claims -- when the insurance dried up,
they were released).. She sees MPD as a misogynist diagnosis (not that
women can't be misogynous, it's a fact that the top shrinks in the field
are all men) that once again told women that their problems lay deep in
the inner self, not in their actual circumstances (invariably grim for
this kind of patient --  working class women with tons of problems,
including mental and emotional ones).

   It's a really good book. And Acocella is a feminist.  maybe Alex will
write a column accusing her of not having written her book twelve years
ago!

   Katha Pollitt