Been away from my machine since Thursday a.m. Just deleted 400 messages. A bit much to read. Did I miss anything good?
I'm sorry I don't have much to contribute to all this sex stuff. Except to say I've never lactated and have no plans to do so. But enough about my nipples. Tell me about yours. No Doug, I didn't mean you.
As for the five-gender model, I'm not against it, as long as I get first pick.
I would also like to indicate my firm opposition to being turned 'outside in.' Not even metaphorically.
I appreciate the need for the feminist-ignorant such as myself to bone up. I'm still trying to read The Psychic Life of Power. It's hard to stay focused -- too much like work.
It is telling to me that the only place I have heard anything remotely like the talk on this list is . . . nowhere, actually. And I don't spend all my time in bowling alleys. There is palaver all the time about the economy, the budget, division of work responsibilities in the family, relationships, etc. But nothing like what I hear on this list. Seems to be much more of an academic thing here (sex, that is) than most stuff that comes up.
Here's a old principle that I just made up. We all devote as much energy as we have to self-improvement in the mental department, since that's what our self-conceptions and/or professions demand. We read what we are able to, what we can best understand, or what we find most entertaining. I read reports from the Congressional Budget Office and econ textbooks (most of what you need is in there), so I can laugh at what economists, pundits, politicians, and Nathan say about fiscal policy.
In a diverse list, there is not much point in demanding that someone read YOUR stuff, nor in excessive references to it as a resort to argument. If the handful who have read, say, Lacan, want to have a specialists' argument, they don't need the list. In fact, for that the list is an impediment.
While I often understand little that goes on, it does appear that the arguments are not among specialists who share a discipline. They are cross-cultural (culture in the mundane sense of a span of interests, disciplines, and related reading). If you're on the list, that's what you're into. No point in gnashing teeth because someone hasn't/won't read the source for some idea that you would like to impress upon them.
If it's good enough to read, it's good enough to paraphrase and simplify. If promulgating the idea is for the greater good, then defending it to the unwashed is your mission. (Did Carrol say that? Another startling unity of views.) If you can't convey it to an LBO-talker, how could you hope to do so to a general audience? And if you don't aim for such an audience, what's your trip?
If I'm trying to explain something about the Federal budget, I'm not going to tell you to go read Ott, Ott and Yoo and come back next month.
cheers, mbs