From: mkagalen@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (michael kagalenko)
Subject: Re: heterosexuality and feminism
Organization: Northeastern University, Boston, MA. 02115, USA
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 05:05:24 GMT

In article <1992Nov15.202629.13847@midway.uchicago.edu> mec6@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>
>Recently (this summer) Naomi Wolf wrote an article in Ms. entitled
>"Radical Heterosexuality... or How To Love a Man and Save Your 
>Feminist Soul."
>
>It didn't strike me as particularly... oh... earth shaking or
>anything, but when I got the most recent issue, it was filled with
>letters about the article.  
>
>So, for those of you who don't get Ms., let me take some excerpts.
>
>From the article:
>
>
>"All over the country, millions of feminists have a secret indulgence. 
>By day they fight gender injustice; by night, they sleep with men.  Is
>this a dual life?  A core contradiction?  Is sleeping with a man
>'sleeping with the enemy'?  And is razor burn from kissing inherently
>oppressive?
>
>"It's time to say you *can* hate sexism and love men.  ....
>
>"- Rules of The Relationship ....
>
>"The radical heterosexual man must yield the automatic benefits
>conferred by gender....
>
>"Radical heterosexual women too must give up gender benefits...
>I have watched myself stand complacently by while my partner 
>wrestles with a stuck window, an intractable computer printer, 
>maps or locks.  Sisters, I am not proud of this, and I'm
>working on it....
>
>"Radical heterosexuals must try to stay conscious -- at all times, I'm
>afriad -- of their gender imporinting, and how it plays out in their
>erotic melodramas... the antifemnist erotic template is *in* us.  We
>would not be citizens of this culture is swooning damsels and
>abandoned vixens had to been beamed at us from our first solid food to
>our first vote.  We can't fight it until we admit to it....
>
>"- In The Bedroom
>
>"Those are the conditions for the radical heterosexual couple.  What
>might this new creation look like in bed?  It will look like something
>we have no words or images for -- the eroticization of consent, the
>equal primacy of female and male desire.  ....
>
>"- The Men We Love
>
>"Men We Love understand that, no matter how similar our backgrounds, we
>are engaged in a cross-cultural relationship.  ....
>
>"Men We Love must make a leap of imagination to believe in the female
>experience.  They do not call women nags or paranoid when we embark on
>the arduous, often boring, nonnegotiable daily chore of drawing
>attention to sexism....
>
>"- A Place for Them
>
>"When I was 16, my boyfriend came with me to hear Andrea Dworkin speak.
>While hearing great feminist oratory in a sea of furious women changed
>my life, it nearly ended my boyfriend's: he barely escaped being drawn
>and quartered.  ....
>
>"It's time to direct our anger more autely at the Men We Hate -- like
>George Bush -- and give the Men We Love something useful to do.  ....
>
>"Finally, the place to make room for radical feminist heterosexuality
>is within our heads. ....  Is it the chromosomes of your lovers that 
>establish you as a feminist?  Or is it the life you make out of the 
>love you make."
>
>========
>
>Letters to the Editor:
>
>"I hope it is not news when a feminist finds a great man to share her
>life with.  If it is, I am extremely lucky and smart to be with an
>equalitst husband."
>
>"Right on, Sister! ... I have been living with an uneasy fear of not
>being a 'Good Feminist'.  How can I be a Good Feminist if I cook my
>partner's dinner or ask him to kill the ant on the kitchen counter?"
>
>"From my own personal experience, I have learned that men will not be
>sympathetic towards women's issues *until* they are enlightened by the
>women they care about.  I believe that nearly ideal heterosexual
>relationships can be created, but not simply found."
>
>"Namoi Wolf attempts to sabotage the women's movement by advocating a
>return to heterosexuality... This reactionary view comes at a time
>when women are just beginning to uderstand the connection between
>heterosexuality and our enslavement."
>
>"We were appalled at Naomi Wolf's article.  It is clear that her
>'radical' is at best conservative and at worst destructive. ... Her
>analysis provides such a superficial solution to female/male
>relationships: all men have to do is cuddle babies and all women have
>to do is get out of bed and fix the TV aerial.  It is as depressing as
>it is astonishing that someone apparaently familiar with the reality
>of misogyny would prescribe such simplistic solutions."
>
>
>rini

Feminists discovered, that 2+2=4 ! Congratulations !!
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