Re: de-tenuring of Mary Daly (fwd)

[Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2 Aug 1999 xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>andy, i have no basic disagreement with what you say. but, we are talking
>about a course here. it is highly a sceptical position to argue that women
>will not be safe just because a man is taking a course. daly's
>position reminds me brownmiller's manifesto of "rape is inescapable". what
>about if that man is really interested in women's issues?

There are plenty of ways a man can learn about women's issues. He doesn't
need to create a situation such as has been played out here to learn about
feminism. Moreover, the effect of his actions potentially harms women and
the women's movement. How is this learning about the women's movement? So
we have an upstart, put up to his deviousness by right wingers, who,
because he could not disrupt a class devoted to studying women's issues,
found a way to eliminate the class and the professor altogether. And we
are blaming Daly for this? That doesn't make any sense.

> what if a man wants to share women's problems with women?

Then he should respect the safe space created by Daly. How does this man
share in women's problems by creating more problems for women? This man is
a personification of the problems women face everyday! Do you believe a
man has the right to intrude on a seminar for women about women? By
forcing himself on the women he is engaging in precisely what they wish to
avoid! Hell, if he can't have them, well then nobody can.

>what if a man wants to become a feminist?

It seems to me that step one to becoming a feminist is to respect the
seminars that are conducted for women only.

>or put differently, what if a _black man_ would want to take
>the course?

Black men oppress women, too. Being from an oppressed minority does not
give you a free ticket into any safe space.

>wouldn't daly's policy be racist and anti-affirmative action?

Not at all.

>are we gonna say "go away because all men are evil by nature", like most
>of the radical feminists  would say.... there is no apriori logic that men
>can and should not change just because they are men...

This is irrelevant.

>example, black radical congress, which i always support (thanks to charles
>brown) is open to everbody unless you are commited to principles of
>anti-racism, anti-capitalism and anti-sexism.

So open that they regularly publish Libertarian Party propaganda. That
really cements the name "radical" in Radical Black Congress.

>i won't change my argument that mary daly is a bourgeois feminist.

You don't have to. But that doesn't mean you have to support forcing open
women-only seminars to men. Men have forced themselves on women enough!

Andy