>Chip:
>. . .
>So when women on this list argue that there should be a modest baseline of
>knowledge about feminist ideas before a man posts some argument that was
>axed into kindling 20 years ago--that seems quite reasonable to me. . . .
>
>
>Really? That's quite a burden, isn't it? To
>partake of a conversation, one must know the
>intellectual history of feminism, including
>ideas and their refutations of 20 years ago?
Max, no one's asking you to be a scholar of feminism, but it seems to me that some familiarity with the basic ideas and debates are part of being politically literate. It's not like they're secret - the literature, specialized and popular, is huge, and they've even seeped into everyday conversation. Why do you make it sound like such an arcane branch of knowledge?
Doug