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FEMINISM FAILS AS A PHILOSOPHY
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- FEMINISM IGNORES LEGITIMATE DIFFERENCES AMONG WOMEN
- FEMINISM FAILS AS A POLITICAL APPROACH
- PATRIARCHY INADEQUATELY EXPLAINS INEQUALITY IN SOCIETY
FEMINISM FAILS AS A PHILOSOPHY1. FEMINISM DESTROYS CRITICAL THINKING AND UNDERMINES EDUCATION Ellen R. Klein, philosopher at University of North Florida, FEMINISM UNDER FIRE, 1996, p. 222. In a democratic society--one in which our students end up voting for policies via our representatives--educators have a duty to empower our students with the most useful tools for making the best decisions they can. Until the feminists critics of reason have won the day, critical thinking remains education’s central task. 2. REJECTING REASON AS “MALE” MAKES PHILOSOPHY IMPOSSIBLE Ellen R. Klein, philosopher at University of North Florida, FEMINISM UNDER FIRE, 1996, p. 232. For philosophy to consistently live up to its own ideals, everything (though not everything at once) must be criticizable, even the method of critical analysis itself. Unfortunately, radical feminist claims like those offered above suffer the same syndrome as fundamentalist religious claims: they cannot countenance rational challenge. How can one philosophically criticize claims or offer reasons why a position is incorrect if the commitment to reason itself is viewed as “male” and, therefore, illegitimate? When criticism is intolerable, philosophy, in principle, becomes impossible. 3. FEMINISM’S PRIVILEGING OF THE OPPRESSED IS WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION Ellen R. Klein, philosopher at University of North Florida, FEMINISM UNDER FIRE, 1996, p. 222. Critical thinking, which is synonymous with a commitment to rationality, ought to maintain its place as the educational ideal because it has at its heart the development of self-sufficient, responsible members of society who have respect for themselves and everyone else in their community. Is this commitment consistent with teaching feministly? No, not if from a feminist perspective there are only two ways to resolve opposition of beliefs: (I) by claiming that each person has her own perspective and all opinions are equally valid, or (2) by giving preference to the opinion of the person who is most oppressed. FEMINISM IGNORES LEGITIMATE DIFFERENCES AMONG WOMEN1. FEMINISM UNIVERSALIZES “WOMAN” AND IGNORES THE VARIABLES AMONG WOMEN Kathy E. Ferguson, philosopher at University of Hawaii, THE MAN QUESTION, 1993, p. 82. To constitute a coherent category, some phenomenon, say, women, is pulled out of its infinitely complex context and made to stand on its own. Some connections of that phenomenon to others (for example, women to children) are featured, while other connections (say, of women to violence) are silenced. 2. FEMINISM IS ESSENTIALIST Kathy E. Ferguson, philosopher at University of Hawaii, THE MAN QUESTION, 1993, pp. 82-3. There are ways to assert one’s categories that contain periodic reminders of their partiality, and ways that do not, but the need to operate with some set of unified categories is unavoidable. Feminists who deplore this as essentialist or universalist are overlooking their own necessary participation in this linguistic practice. 3. FEMINISM IGNORES CLASS DIVISIONS AMONG WOMEN Katie Roiphe, author of “The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism.’, THE TAMPA TRIBUNE, January 7th, 1996, p. 4. One’s experience of being female depends on one~s social class and background. She dramatizes a simple but often overlooked point: that the concerns of the professional career women who figure most prominently in mainstream feminist theory are not the same as the concerns of factory workers or innercity mothers.
1. FEMINISTS INTEND TO CHANGE LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, THE DENVER POST, January 14, 1996, p. E-5. Comipting thought is what radical feminism is all about. Feminists fully understand their mission. “The political implications of language have made linguistic study imperative for feminists,” intones the “Women’s Study Encyclopedia” in an essay on “Feminism and Semiological Theoiy.” For those uninitiated in contemporary academic jargon, semiotics is a theory of language that asserts that words are symbols representing not only the things they describe but, more importantly, the values of the dominant class within a culture. If you want to change the values of a culture, you must change its language. And feminists have been trying to change ours for a generation.
p. E-5. Unfortunately, the gender feminists have the upper hand in universities across the country, and their influence spills over int6 the broader culture day by day. The attempt to neuter language, or to put certain words off-limits because they ostensibly represent masculine traits, is an exercise in thought control. Totalitarianism didn’t disappear with the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s alive and well on many American college campuses today.
The variety in their conceptions of the good society makes it difficult for radical feminists to agree on a single strategy for women’s liberation. It is hard to decide on a route when one is uncertain about one’s destination. An additional difficulty is that, although radical feminists share certain basic assumptions about the political structure of social reality, there are some respects in which they differ considerably. PATRIARCHY INADEQUATELY EXPLAINS INEQUALITY IN SOCIETY1. PATRIARCHY IS NOT THE REAL CAUSE OF INEQUALITY Joanne Naiman, professor of sociology at Ryerson Polytechnic University, MONTHLY REVIEW, June 1996, P. 12. Marxism enables us to explain how culture and forms of social organization are not simply mysterious unexplainable creations, but are linked to particular relations of power. The “return to class” must therefore begin with a structural analysis of power, including power determined by gender, within capitalist systems. The question of power is crucial in social science, because its distribution affects all aspects of our personal and social lives. However, the concept of power is poorly analyzed and understood. In standard introductory sociology textbooks it is often ignored altogether. In analyses of gender inequality, concepts such as “male dominance,” “male power,” and “patriarchy” are seldom worked through or properly explicated. 2. PATRIARCHY IS THE RESULT OF SOCIAL FORCES IGNORED BY FEMINISM Joanne Naiman, professor of sociology at Ryerson Polytechnic University, MONTHLY REVIEW, June 1996, p. 12. The status differential between men and women, of course, is rife with contradictions for males in our society. First, the main socializing agents of childhood, the mother and the teacher, are almost all female. Moreover, while we spend an entire childhood teaching boys not to be feminine, we simultaneously instruct them that at maturity they should love, mate, and spend a lifetime with these inferior creatures! Is it any wonder that most men enter into gender relationships with a totally confused set of expectations? That they can love and beat their women at the same time? That they are at times unable to distinguish domination from eroticism? 3. MOST MEN DO NOT HAVE MORE POWER THAN WOMEN Joanne Naiman, professor of sociology at Ryerson Polytechnic University, MONTHLY REVIEW, June 1996, p. 12. It is valid to assert that men as a category do wield a certain degree of power within capitalist systems: however, there is a major disjuncture between the supposed reality for men and the actual reality for most men. The reality is that most men hold very little societal power. In most of their daily lives, in their world of work, in their control over their world, most men are quite powerless. The only power most men have, which traditionally has been legally sanctioned, is the power over women as individuals; even here, however, there has been a major erosion over the last fifty years as a result of the decline in patriarchal authority in the family. It is little wonder, then, that many men will attempt to assert their dominance in the one sphere where it has been tolerated, and at times even encouraged. 4. INEQUALITY IS THE RESULT OF CLASS, NOT GENDER DIFFERENCES Joanne Naiman, professor of sociology at Ryerson Polytechnic University, MONTHLY REVIEW, June 1996, p. 12. It is commonly argued that men control the economic, political, and ideological spheres. However, it is more precise to argue that men as a group have greater access to the positions of power than do women. This is partially a result of their higher status. Very few working people will ever achieve ownership of the means of production; more may achieve occupational statuses that give greater amounts of power and influence. In capitalist societies, access to these positions of power has been almost totally closed to women until recently. Put differently, we might say that the “access gates” to positions of power within capitalism have been more open to men than to women, while the reality for most men is that, like most women, they will never have access to such structured positions of power.
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