>i'll remind you that in your haste to follow the US gov's "the enemy of my
>enemy is my friend" you've forgotten that todd's and rob's critique of a
>materialist feminist (structuralist) analysis was about 1. imputing
>rational motivations to men conscious of their desires to oppress women and
>2. failing to account for individual subjective differences. neither, of
>course, went on in mina's or my posts.
Nor in mine, but what does that matter, eh?
(1) 'Materialist feminist' need not equal 'structuralist' (I could indeed argue structuralism is never materialist, but I really can't be bothered), (2) I did not say anything about structuralism positing a conscious desire to oppress, and (3) I thought I was in fact arguing that, whilst meaning is socially constituted (a structuralist premise, but not exclusive to structuralism by any means), it can not adequately be accounted for whilst we implicitly frame said constitutive society as some neat static system. The essence of *process* is what structuralism (and that Foucauldian postie nonsense about autonomous historical blocs) is lousy at.
Marx, on the other hand, seems particularly helpful on this point.
And, say what you like, I reckon Anglo-Saxon structuralism is not only typically lousy on history (usually because in the thrall of uncritical anthropological idealism) but, for all its grand declamations on meaning and social constitution, also forgets to factor in its own society's lingering erotophobias - and the complicity of such in the production of its cold dark pronouncements and occasional indignant shrieks.
Cheers, Rob.