to really bring this home, the awesome Carol Hanisch has a new introduction to her essay, 'The Personal is Political'. I have been pounding on this one over and over: the personal is political did not mean that your politics could just be about what you wore and how you acted. Instead, it was about started from consciousness-raising groups to find that a lot of things that people tell us are just our "personal problems" are not at all
Too many people these days think it just means that that we can attack eash other over what kind of cars we drive.
Anyway, Hanisch's new intro is great and I hope everyone reads it. She points out that she think theory must be tested in practice or in debate for it to be valuable. Thus, she shows in the new intro how it was debates among people pushing them to clarify their position that actually brought about a memo - today's equivalent of email discussions and blog posts -- that turned into one of the more famous documents in the Women's Liberation Movement.
http://blog.pulpculture.org/2006/05/01/hanisch-new-intro-personal-political/
Also, Jo Freeman has a memoir up that discusses how she got involved in lefty movements and then helped forge the early Women's Liberation Movement. She was a friend of one of my mentors, which is how I found this. Freeman cites some of my mentor's work.
http://blog.pulpculture.org/2006/05/01/jo-freeman-valley-girl-sorta/
k
At 09:02 PM 5/1/2006, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Are you familiar with the old G.I. label for such: pissing contests?
>
>Carrol
>_________________________
Actually, my goal in this series of posts, which hadn't been conscious of at first, is to bring to the masses (heh) your argument that what we've forgotten is that knowledge emerges from political practice. Thus, the first arm in this sustained discussion must be that, more than simply a mistake, these pissing matches are built into the premises of the major strands of feminist theory (and leftist theory more generally). Instead, of using an ad hominem insult and calling what's been going on "pissing matches" I kept it at the level of theory, to dissect why the theories to which people are wedded, inevitably yield this debate.
So, no: pissing match isn't what it is if what you are saying is: this is unimportant. It can't be since this is all anyone every talks about. We are having the very same war over some feminists rejections of transmen and transwomen as not really men and women and, thus, as a threat to feminism and people we must kept out of women only spaces and that kind of stuff. it will crop up again next month on another issue, no doubt. It crops up in the Radical Women of Color community when trying to talk about genderqueer identity or black/latina relations.
Also, innumerable people have said what you've said in these debates. it doesn't stop the debate since the criticism is ad hominem and doesn't get us anywhere.
Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org