From: adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Dworkin as social-constructionist (was Re: what is a man-hater? (was Dworkin...)
Date: 31 Dec 1992 02:10:22 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mizar.usc.edu

In article <0fEeru200WB8I6Ms17@andrew.cmu.edu> 
lord+@andrew.cmu.edu (Tom Lord) writes:

> > Interestingly, males who are recognized
> > as not being defenders of the sex are often denied the name `man', 
>
> Example, please?
>
> Oh sure, that was poorly put.  I meant that some people use the name
> `men' without distinguishing between its biological and social
> meanings. 

If by "some people" you mean "the overwhelming majority of people 
who speak English", then I agree.

> And yet, without _meaning_ to speak as constructionists,
> some of these same people will, for example, call those males they
> would dominate `boy', or will say of males who aren't rude enough or
> who don't persue the right kind of women in the right way that they
> aren't real men -- so their usage comes closer than you might expect
> to agreeing with social-constructionists about who's a man and who
> isn't.

Oh heavens, you can't be serious.  First of all, absolutely no one
who isn't a social-constructionist would even care that he or she
might, in ordinary conversation, sound like (most emphatically *not*
"speak as") one.  And second of all, I don't see what this has to
do with Andrea Dworkin.  Now I admit to being at something of a
disadvantage in that I'm housesitting for a friend and therefore 
don't have ready access to my books.  But I don't ever recall that
she informs her readers that her use of words such as "man", "male", 
"masculine", and "penis" is in any way out of the ordinary.

> Why don't you meet her arguments, instead of her conclusions?  I don't
> find your indignation very persuasive.

I'm only interested in her conclusions, that's why.  As I've
admitted before: she does begin by asking herself important
questions.  But so what?  Lots of people have asked those 
questions, and they've been asking those questions for the past 
two centuries.  Then she starts in on her argument.  I have to 
tell you, though, that I have a hard time taking seriously 
someone who thinks that thought, desire, fantasy, speech, writing, 
two-dimensional representation, and physical action are all the 
same thing.  (How else are we to make sense of Dworkin's belief
that pornography somehow represents -- and endorses -- violence 
against women while at the same time it actually *is* the violence
it represents?)  In any case, any argument that would lead to
her conclusions isn't worth paying attention to.

>	"Terror issues from the male, illuminates his essential
>	 nature and his basic purpose."
>	        -- Andrea Dworkin, _Pornography_, p. 16
>
>	I don't know.  It strikes me that Dworkin argues from
>	an essentialist stance just as much as she does from
>	an s-c stance.
>
> Are you trying to project my use of `male' (vs. `man') on dworkin's
> writings?

No.  Dworkin uses the two words interchangeably anyway.

> I wouldn't expect that to work but i don't see any other
> reason why you would conclude that the quote is necessarily
> essentialist.

I don't see how you can argue that she's anti-essentialist.
I don't really think either label applies to her.  

Arne
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