info at pulpculture.org wrote:
>
> > Your last criticism is just ignorant of what's going on around you in terms
> of feminist practice and the more popular books on the subject lately --
> e.g., Ariel Levy's _Female Chauvinist Pigs_ and even, good gawd, Marueen
> Dowd's _Are Men Necessary_ (which, tg, doesn't make much of an argument b/c
> Dowd's so confused. The subterranean context, though, is a tendency toward
> a radfem analysis that is more subtle but no less disgusting in its
> racializing analyses.
O.K., I'll have to construe any further posts from Anthony in a richer context.
A wing, often a dominant wing, of the struggle for women's emancipation has always been opportunist either on race, on class, or both, which has terribly weakened that movment in the past, and doubtless is now.
But in such a period as the present, after 35 years of more or less continuous defeat of 'the left' on all fronts, and with no current leftist struggle coming even close to catching the public imagination, it goes without saying that the likes of Levy, Dowd, Summers, and others will continue to flourish. You should probably subscribe to femecon-l and see how the beleagured ranks of women in economics are reacting to present conditions. (I believe Doug occasionally quotes from Barbara Bergman.
In all area of struggle at the present the focus has to be not so much on responding to current enemies (and I would see Dowd as an enemy, not a weak or silly friend) as as adding to our ranks from among passive supporters and raising their level of understanding and involvement. Focusing on the immediate present drives people either to black-bloc theatrics or to begging crumbs from the enemy.
Carrol