Re: Quandry
Francoise Herrmann (fherrmann who-is-at igc.apc.org)
Tue, 14 May 1996 10:30:43 -0700 (PDT)
> Other may reply to Francoise' quandary from other perspectives,
> but I wonder indeed if even overcoming 'simple ignorance' did
not
> take something of a hard-fought political struggle. If there
are
> not 'simple facts', but rather what cultural meaning systems
> choose to pay attention to, to value as reasonable, to declare
> as constituting good evidence, etc., then I see no reason why
> many 'social-facts' should not continue unassailably for as
long
> as dominant social interests are served by those 'facts', or
> their functional equivalents.
>
> 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 will need to see them superseded, and when men will be as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.
>
>
Hi Jay, I think that you see exactly the quandary. Without voicing
the horrors of one kind of oppression, how does one ever know that
it may be that way. I am always grateful to years of feminist
struggle and at the same time I disagree with msot of what I read,
because I cannot and perhaps will not believe that such is the
truth or reality of experience. Perhaps that we need to refuse
once again as a step towards an ideal of equality. When I read
"Traditions empowering women", "The effects of Christianity"
(leading the life of an ascept as a way out! Out of what?)), my
heart is longer feminist, just as I cringe at the idea of having
to choose. I perhaps share the ideal, but it is in saying "no"
that I feel a sense of belonging to the category of human being.
Francoise Francoise Herrman fherrmann who-is-at igc.org PS. I haven't read
"The Chalice and the Blade", but thanks Genevieve for the
reference. My reading list is two pages long as of now.