From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Why I Am a Feminist
Date: 14 Oct 92 12:36:17 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

garry@rice.edu (Garry C. King) writes:
| > | Why not call yourself a classical liberal then ?
| > | Parochialism is seldom a virtue.

gf: 
| > Classical liberalism doesn't go far enough.... -- we're 
| > all classical liberals; modern liberalism and modern 
| > conservatism both descend from it and accept most of its 
| > ideas.  

gk:
| Does this mean that feminism's attraction to you is that it marks you out
| as somehow "different", or "special" ?

I don't quite see how what I said could mean much more than
that I found classical liberalism incomplete or otherwise
unsatisfactory in some way.  The question you ask, however, 
is interesting.  Do people adopt political philosophies in 
order to mark themselves out as special?  Do you?

... [ stuff covered in other postings ] ...

gk:
| > | Whatever the "feminine" is (let me guess: the nice things ?).

gf:
| > Yeah, the nice things.  You don't like the nice things?

gk:
| I just don't define the "nice" things as "feminine".

gf: > Nobody else likes the nice things.

gk:
| Untrue, and self-indulgent.

Sorry, I should have put up an Irony Alert.  I thought
your suggestion silly, perhaps ironically so.  That's two
levels of irony, I admit, but I figured you were going for
broke.

gf: 
> The idea of synthesis doesn't occur to you....

gk:
| Sure, but it usually originates in contention.

No, we're talking about the outcome of contention.  I
was saying that you (or somebody) was stuck in a win-
lose view of things. 

gk:
| > |             ....  I particularly like the reference to barricades.  You'll
| > | have to forgive me, but I'd have thought that you were one of the prima
| > | barricadistas.

gf:
| > I'm not referring to having an opinion; I'm referring to
| > treating every social interaction as a conflict in which
| > there's a winner and a loser -- a zero-sum game. ...

gk:
| There is a prevalent (and correct) view that a good deal of current
| feminist action involves improving the lot of women *at the expense of*
| men.  You can argue that the zero-sum game is invalid, but that's the way
| it's being played. Now.

I think it depends what you mean by "at the expense of" men.
If competent managers and engineers are denied work because
they're women, I think it hurts men more than it helps them,
even though a few men may get jobs they might not have gotten 
otherwise.  It hurts them because less wealth is
created, if for no other reason.

gk:
| MacKinnon is frequently brought-up to highlight a dangerous, retrograde
| aspect of current feminism, but this is easily countered by feminists
| responding "Yep.  MacKinnon is a wacko" as some have done in this very
| group.  Answering "Well, she once said something semi-rational" is not an
| honest answer to non-feminists' concerns about the strength of the
| man-hating faction.

I find the concern over man-hating fairly weird.  I
don't think it's been honestly handled.  For one thing,
the people who are so concerned with it don't seem to be
stating what they're really afraid of; maybe they don't
know.  When as virulent an enemy of civil liberties as
George Bush is president of the United States, it seems
absurd for non-feminists to worry about MacKinnon.

Feminists find that they have to say "Yep, MacKinnon is
a wacko" about once every ten minutes if they say it
once at all.  Don't they?  Look around you.  So they _do_
have something to worry about.  But it's not something
that can be intelligently discussed with opponents whose
only concern is to discredit their beliefs and projects.

gf:
| > To provoke a demonstration of this, 
| > all I needed to do was point out that the quotations from 
| > MacKinnon seemed fairly rational.  Immediately, I became a 
| > "supporter of censorship" because I did not ritually 
| > denounce MacKinnon as totally evil -- I wasn't on the 
| > team.  

gk:
| But Gordon, you have already defined yourself as being not "on the team". 
| (See above).  You can't be surprised that men would go after you.  In fact,
| you did it deliberately, no ?

Yes.  I wasn't surprised or complaining.  I'm just pointing
out the success of my method.

| gf:
| > Q.E.D.  So strong was the smell of team spirit that 
| > some of those who tried to portray me as a "supporter of 
| > censorship" were almost certainly well aware that I had 
| > posted several articles promoting the idea that social 
| > repression of sexual material was not only undesirable 
| > but impossible.

gk:
| Yeah well, feminists don't have a monopoly on sophistry.  You post enough
| to make your points clear if they're misunderstood.  

It depends whether people _want_ to understand.  If not,
then one can post a thousand articles to no avail.

gk:
|  ...   Your problem is that MacKinnon and The D Thing are perceived to be
| "on your side" (don't tell me you don't have a side: to repeat, you
| wouldn't call yourself something as literally exclusive as a "feminist" if
| you didn't), and you have to work out what to say about them.  
| To be fair, I'll ask directly: what are your considered views on 
| MacKinnon?

Mainly that I don't know what she wants or represents.
At the moment -- having read only the quotations in this
newsgroup, and an article in the _New_York_Times_Magazine_
-- it seems to me that MacKinnon may have some reasonable 
ideas, but goes wrong in trying to invoke the power of the 
state in attempting to bring about what she sees as 
desirable goals.  But I'm working with very little
evidence -- not that that's unusual around here.
-- 
 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
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