From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: Dworkin (was Re: Liberty)
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 10:53:24 GMT


In article <1hrfotINNehf@mizar.usc.edu>
adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (Arne Adolphson) writes:

>In article <1992Dec30.002532.28638@macc.wisc.edu> 
>anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:

>>In article <1hqcccINN8e8@mizar.usc.edu>
>>adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (Arne Adolphson) writes:

>>>In any case, if any man were to write about women -- all
>>>women, regardless of their political affiliations,
>>>ethnicities, or sexualities -- using rhetoric even slightly
>>>like that employed by Andrea Dworkin in her screeds against
>>>men, he would be dismissed by *everyone* as a crank or
>>>worse.

>>Your contention is somewhat shakey, I think.  Very
>>considerable numbers of woman-hating remarks do get
>>published, 

>Oh, of course there are are woman-hating things that get
>published.  What I'm talking about goes far beyond the kind
>of "women should be kept barefoot and pregnant" remarks I
>think you're attempting to focus my attention on.

You say you're not into the numbers game, but you're indeed
into something similar.  Dworkin's sins are egregious in the
extreme, you say, so much so that we should excoriate her
"far beyond" the misogynistic remarks and attitudes that are
(you admit) ubiquitous in the society.  Not very many people
are saying "keep women barefoot and pregnant," so the
example is trivializing.  But many people are fostering and
protecting unequal status for women, in hundreds of ways.
Dworkin has no real power; Pat Robertson does.

I'm attempting to focus attention on matters of scale, in
this case a matter of scale far beyond Dworkin, whether
anyone agrees she's raving or not.  Your hypothetical
construct (any man doing that would be denounced by
everyone) is at issue, for it elides (and I think undercuts)
massive, pervasive oppression of women, which I feel is an
entirely supportable point that Dworkin seems to support
too.  So, any remarks you consider loony to one side, she's
not loony on that point, whereas the men you're brushing
aside from our consideration have no comparable saving
grace.

>>and it seems to me the writers are quite often
>>*not* roundly denounced as idiots and fools by the general
>>population.

>Hmmmmm.  Compare the very different receptions accorded
>Andrea Dworkin's *non-fiction* book _Intercourse_ and Bret
>Easton Ellis' slasher-novel _American Psycho_.  And yes, I
>think Dworkin's work is fully as reprehensible and inhuman
>as Ellis'.

Comparing the unlike is perhaps not too productive in such a
case.

>>While this too is not very demonstrable, there
>>clearly is a much smaller tendency to hold over-zealous
>>woman-haters accountable (their numbers are massive)

>Oh really?  Do you actually know people who claim that all
>women are evil, vicious, and not merely murderous but
>genocidal in intent *because* they're women?

This evades the point.

>>than to hold over-zealous man-haters (their numbers are much
>>smaller) accountable.

>I'm not particularly interested in the numbers game.  Yes,
>our culture is misogynist (and racist, and homophobic, and
>classist, and...) to the core.  That does not excuse the
>kind of hate-filled trash that flows from the pens of the
>Dworkins and Farrakhans of the world.

No one has excused anything, so in the context, that's a
canard.  No one here has excused man-hating, woman-hating,
racism, anti-Semitism, or other social evils.  All along in
this discussion, the point has been not that Dworkin is
redeemed by the ubiquity of women's oppression, but rather
that the virulence of the reaction she provokes (something
similar happens with Farrakhan, since you mention him)
glosses over and drains attention from a far more serious
question: Dworkin arises from woman-hating, Farrakhan from
racism.  If but a fraction of the outrage visited upon these
people (hardly a defense of them) were directed to
alleviating the underlying conditions animating them, I
think the world would be a better place.

You say you're not into the numbers, Arne.  In that case,
why repeat all this outrage about one person?  Not one
person has defended her or her admittedly extreme views.  As
foes go, Dworkin seems a not very difficult one.  The real
foe, after all, is misogyny, and superior numbers have done
very little indeed to free women of the daily, unremitting
debilitating effects of women-hating.  Several women have
mentioned these effects; none seemed to be forgiving or
excusing Dworkin in the process.  Now if someone wanted to
get hot about something, these effects seem to merit our
attention far beyond anything Dworkin has said.

I think I've just about had my say on this one.

<> I think that the really excellent homophobes should be
<> preserved in Lucite so that succeeding generations can
<> wonder at them, too.
<> -- Vincent Manis (manis@cs.ubc.ca)
<> Funny that you should say that -- when I was in Houston
<> last Christmas I had the chance to see an art exhibit at
<> the Museum of Fine Arts, something from the 50s.  It was
<> exactly what you describe: ordinary, everyday garbage
<> encased in lucite. -- Nelson Minar (nelson@reed.edu)
-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
[Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson]
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