I am quite prepared to believe that some categories of humans
have from time immemorial oppressed other categories (and still
do), and will continue to do so until either stopped by some
sort of force, or until the general evolution of a society
will have (not inevitably, but 'by chance') changed the interests
of dominants groups so as to make the oppression no longer
profitable, or counterproductive. And that may be just temporary
(as with wartime needs for women's labor in male occupations).
But I do share Francoise' disquiet with the consequences of
histories that construct an authorial voice which is both
gendered and innocent, both single-gendered and _only_ accusatory
or condemnatory in tone. Surely there are other modes of
historical analysis and narrative, which are not silenced on
the nature and forms of oppression, but which construct readers
and their own authors as of all genders, with a correspondingly
more complex and subtle stance toward oppressions in history.
It is, after all, not only women who have been oppressed in
history, and some women have also been oppressors (of children,
of younger women, of older women, of non-European people, of
slaves, etc., etc.) A focus on oppression as such blurs the
unity of the category of 'woman' in important ways.
I would see the feminist-accustory histories as an effective
transitional stage in moving towards more gender-balanced
historical discourses. I look forward to the time when women
will need to see them superseded, and when men will be as
able as women to focus, when necessary, on oppressions where
they have been oppressors as well as oppressed. How after all
can a community make a history of and for all its members
until, having done the political struggle of seeing-just-as-
women/gays/people of color/ ..., as perhaps dominant males
have long done without the need to struggle, we can all
contribute to a history which requires each of us to be able
to see as not-just-... . These struggles however are not
yet done. Our community is not yet a place where we can
easily be the writers of such future histories. Or so it
seems to me from where I sit. JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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