Re: NOW and Marxism

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Peter Frase wrote:

> I understand that some men on this list may feel a bit bewildered by
> all these uppity feminists, and perhaps some patient explanation could
> help improve the mood around here. But I think a certain amount of
> outrage is to be expected--Tony is right, the level of feminist
> consciousness on this list is atrocious, and unconscionable for
> Marxists. It is not the responsibility of the women on this list to
> explain what's wrong with the attitude of some of the men here--it is
> our (men's) responsibility to be as self-critical as we would be about
> class or race.

Unfortunately you cannot assume anything about anything. Two years ago
Art McGhee had an identical reaction to Jared Israel and the late Sol
Dollinger's denunciation of black nationalism. His anger, righteous as
it was, failed to make the points that had to be made. To explain why
feminism or black nationalism, etc. is consistent with revolutionary
socialism requires theory, not fulmination as Max Elbaum's book makes
clear. Most of those New Communist Groups spent countless hours
examining the record of the Marxist movement on women's oppression,
racism, etc. and tried to develop a better approach than that had
existed historically. Our burden is the same here.

> You have said before that the purpose of this list is not for the
> politically confused to be taught the basics of class analysis--it is
> for serious discussion between people with a certain political common
> ground between them. It would be nice to see you treat feminism this
> seriously. Do you honestly think reactionary patriarchal positions
> like "children need both parents" are within the bounds of what this
> list is supposed to be for? I can quite understand why a lesbian would
> regard this as a personal attack. Shall we argue over the merits of
> "The Bell Curve" next?

Give me a break. Doug Henwood's list has had lengthy debates over
whether a woman has a right to an abortion and Yoshie Furuhashi
patiently explained why men have no right to control women's bodies.
Some of the participants were progressive on most every other question
but had a blind spot here. I have also seen lots of people with blind
spots on indigenous questions, like Nancy Brumback who dismissed Vine
DeLoria's arguments out-of-hand because there was a citation from some
Buddhist text. We have to be patient with each other and not explode in
rage. If Nancy had continued in that vein about Vine DeLoria, I would
have explained the error of her ways, not found reasons to exclude her
from the list for anti-Indian bias.

> I'm not going to unsubscribe (or threaten to), because I find a lot to
> learn from on this list, and I don't believe these kinds of political
> battles are won over the Internet. I merely wanted to add another male
> voice to the fray--far too often, men think that this sort of dispute
> is best left to the women, and thus it comes to seem that there are no
> feminist men.

We don't need "feminist men". We need intelligent arguments to support
your point of view. Within Marxism there are many different
perspectives. Julio Huato defended NAFTA here. Chris Burford defended
NATO intervention in Yugoslavia. I removed him from the list not because
he had such a position but because he disregarded my instructions to
move on to another thread.


--

Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org




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