It seems many are experiencing slips of the keys in the past few exchanges.
So I'll just say "oops" to the Daly/Blackstone pratfall.
This issue touches a nerve with me because I really feel there is a
self-interested, non-self critical hypocrisy to the defense of Daly. I
have all too often found that women will raise a variety of the modern
variants of the "male chauvinism" shibolleth to deal with situations that
have nothing to do with the objective oppression or exploitation of women
but certainly do threaten the individual interests and positions of the
women encountering the difficult situation. It reaches a point of
intolerability when this issue is compared to those who fell to McCarthy's
persecution of "unamericans" or the struggles for voting rights in the Deep
South or any similar liberation struggles.
The legislation that is being called into play against her is roundly
defended when women go to Virginia Military Academy and other precincts of
male power. Admitting that there is a relative difference, since men
predominantly occupy the power positions in contemporary society, one still
must ask, "Who is going to say which laws are to be bent and when?" "Who is
going to decide the relative trade-offs when the rights of oppressed groups
come into conflict?" Can these questions even be answered from the
framework provided by feminist theory? These are hard questions and to me
it cheapens the universal goal of liberation when simple answers; e.g., give
Daly back her tenure, are provided, especially by people who occupy
positions that supposedly attest to their intelligence. But in fact the
trade off between self-interest and intellectual honesty doesn't always play
out in favor of the latter. Things tend to get cloudy.
"Mysterious, anonymous people"? I've actually provided specific names and
addresses to the references I've made with one exception, and am furthermore
not the only one who has invoked the "studies have shown" argument here,
although I didn't claim that there were hundreds (thus intimidating any who
would ask for references) but I would be glad to provide you with the
reference to any of the mysterious, anonymous persons I mentioned who you
seem to be unaware of. If you missed the play of puns from Urizen to Dogen,
don't worry since that was all in play, which I assume Judy understood since
she initiated it with "pronounce slowly".
What is of interest to me is that my critics have simply relativized my
position as one among many. The federal courts, who would determine whether
Boston College students can receive federal financial aid, aren't going to
listen to post-modern rhetoric about multiple threads of discourses. Or are
there any out there who really believe that there is some young Thurgood
Marshall who will argue the equivalent of Brown v. Little Rock in this case?
Is post-modernist theory strong enough to make the case that separate can be
equal after all??
Even from a simple utilitarian position one can see that Daly's continued
segregated teaching would directly hurt far more women than it would help
I think the contradiction in the objective situation would lead people to
look for a new way to formulate the underlying problem; one that, unlike the
post-modern rhetoric that has been raised here, could actually be turned
into a political position in what is clearly a political problem.
Please, pass me a tooth pick.
Paul H. Dillon
-----Original Message-----
From: Katherine Brown <kbrown who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, August 06, 1999 6:35 PM
Subject: Re: ad hominum/womanum
>Jeez, Paul, you've sure bitten off way more than you can chew.
>You've messed up Mary's (Bryson for Daly,,,,) You'vd e invoked
>mysterious anonymous people who share your views and an unnamed
>study about women and their choice of academic fields.
>Why are you so hopping mad that it has made you dump all of these
>topics out in this fashion?
>Surelty there has got to be a better way to make your points....
>Easy, there...
>Katherine Brown
>