Re: the many errors of feminism

["La Sainte" <pleau@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: <nancybrumback@xxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 9:03 PM
Subject: the many errors of feminism


> Doesn't this list have anything better to do than research and list all
the errors of feminists that it can find? Work prevents me from answering
all the responses i've had to my last emails until next week. But in the
meantime, get a life, why don't you?
>
> nancy

I'm afraid some of us misunderstood the nature of the topic you raised some
days ago.  I thought we were discussing the role and strength of feminism
within the overall struggle against oppression and its relationship to the
class struggle in particular. To respond to your objections, I don't think
we are merely list-making. It's just not easy sorting this all out, so
please be patient with us.

One of the problems with the entire concept of feminism is that women who
call themselves feminists nowadays each have a different view of it, which,
since the '60s, has evolved and branched (and twigged) out into myriad and
often conflicting ideologies, all called feminist. To take it to one
extreme, there are even feminists who do not support a woman's right to
abortion.  It's scary but true.

There are well-to-do feminists whose idea of relating to their oppressed
sisters is to "pay our [their] maids at least minimum wage." I am not making
this up. This recommendation came out of a workshop of the National
Organization for Women (NOW) during the October 1971 convention in New
Orleans. I was there. I still have the scars on my derriere sustained by a
dozen or so splinters from the deteriorating wooden folding chair I fell out
of when I heard the good news.

Many of the most vocal feminists at the university where I work are newly
promoted administrators who are so sympathetic to the plight of their
oppressed sisteren, the secretaries and clerks, they have all but duct taped
us to our desks to keep us under their control. For you see, we engage in
rebellious activities such as going to the bathroom without their
permission. Meanwhile, they take their long lunches and revel in their
feminist consciousness. Sisterhood is powerful, comrades!

And those feminists who chose to follow the Mary Daly feminist philosophy
invaded the lesbian community about an eon ago and told us how to be
lesbians. All my life I had naively thought I was a lesbian because I am
erotically attracted to other women. Not so, the political (feminist)
lesbians informed us. They unfurled their scrolls and read from it, running
down the rules for gayness for all of us dumb dykes who foolishly thought we
were already gay.  It was the feminist way of telling us we were doing it
all wrong. (The erotic factor was barely mentioned, btw.) To my dismay, I
found I had been violating several of these rules, such as wearing the
incorrect hair length (long), wearing the wrong attire, and speaking the
wrong language.

We were told which party to vote for (Democratic). (They didn't quite know
what to do with me as I've voted Socialist all my voting life.) Any real
discussion or debate, whether based on political, social or even personal
issues, was discouraged, quashed, actually. They let us know in no uncertain
terms that we couldn't be the real article (lesbians) unless we followed
their rules, that is, of feminists who decided to take a vacation from men.
Incidentally, political lesbians I ran into years after they claimed
squatters rights in the lesbian community had all returned to a straight
lifestyle, which is okay, I guess, but what I found a trifle disconcerting
was that they reinvented themselves in such a way so that they couldn't
recall ever having been involved in political lesbianism. Or perhaps they
were all merely suffering from a form of retrograde amnesia, but I can't be
sure.

Well, I'll end my rant, for the moment anyway. I'm not saying I hadn't had
any positive and politically worthwhile experiences in the feminist
movement.  I did feel a strong sense of sisterhood fighting for issues that
affected not only women in general but in particular working women. And,
ultimately, those issues of free abortion on demand, free 24-hour childcare
centers and equal pay for equal work are in reality as important to the
interests of working men as they are to women. This gets to the crux of this
discussion of the relationship between feminism and marxism. These three
issues so vital to women's interests transcend gender, becoming class
issues. Something to think about, but that's for another post. Right now, I
have to get my beauty sleep.

Take care, Nancy.

Comradely,

Cherie Pleau

Cherie Pleau









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