DUALISM MUST BE STOPPED TO LIBERATE WOMEN

DUALISM MUST BE STOPPED TO LIBERATE WOMEN

1. POLITICAL GAINS NOT ENOUGH TO LIBERATE WOMEN: MUST STOP DUALISM

Emma Goldman, anarchist philosopher, RED EMMA SPEAKS: SELECTED WRITINGS AND SPEECHES BY EMMA GOLDMAN, edited by Alix Kates Shulman, 1972, page 142. Salvation lies in an energetic march onward towards a brighter and clearer future. We are in need of

unhampered growth out of old traditions and habits. The movement for woman’s emancipation has so far made but the first step in that direction. It is to be hoped that it will gather strength to make another. The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in the courts. It begins in woman’s soul. History tells us that every oppressed class gained true liberation from its masters through its own efforts. It is necessary that woman learn that lesson, that she realize that her freedom will reach as far as her power to achieve that freedom reaches. It is, therefore, far more important for her to begin with her inner prejudices, traditions, and customs. The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right to love and be loved. Indeed, if partial emancipation is to become a complete and true emancipation of woman, it will have to do away with the ridiculous notion that to be loved, to be sweetheart and mother, is synonymous with being slave or subordinate. It that man and woman represent two antagonistic worlds.

Emma Goldman, anarchist philosopher, RED EMMA SPEAKS: SELECTED WRITINGS AND SPEECHES BY EMMA GOLDMAN, edited by Alix Kates Shulman, 1972, page 142. Pettiness separates; breadth unites. Let us be broad and big. Let us not overlook vital things because of the bulk of trifles confronting us. A true conception of the relation of the sexes will not admit of conqueror and conquered; it knows of but one great thing: to give of one’s self richer, deeper, better. That alone can fill the emptiness, and transform the tragedy of women’s emancipation into joy, limitless joy.

Bonnie Halland, Professor of Sociology at Kwantien College, EMMA GOLDMAN: SEXUALITY AND THE IMPURITY OF THE STATE, 1993, page 53-4.

Rejecting the dichotomy of reproduction and production, Goldman makes, given their historical context, next-to-revolutionary claims. These claims are that women’s freedom is closely allied with men’s freedom and that children need to be nurtured by both men and women. Goldman’s vision of gender relations, in which sexual relations, in which sexual dualism is rejected, represents a radical and revolutionary potential for future generations. Both men and women, according to her vision, would be responsible for the care and nurturance of children. Goldman states: “But woman’s freedom is closely allied with man’s freedom, and many of my so-called emancipated sisters seem to overlook the fact that a child born in freedom needs the love and devotion of each human being about [her or] him, man as well as woman. Unfortunately, it is this narrow conception of gender relations [dualism of the sexes] that has brought about a great tragedy in the lives of modern man and woman.”
4. SHOULD SHIFT OUT OF PRIVATE VS. PUBLIC DUALISM AND UNIFY GENDER ROLES Bonnie Halland, Professor of Sociology at Kwantien College, EMMA GOLDMAN: SEXUALITY AND THE IMPURITY OF THE STATE, 1993, page 54.

Goldman envisioned a society in which men would be freed from the mind-numbing, soul-destroying conditions found in the public sphere and be free to assume responsibility as care-givers alongside women. Women, in turn, would not be burdened with sole responsibility to care for the children; nor would they be compelled to “compete” with men in the “public” realm. Thus, men and women would jointly inhabit the realm which had previously been assigned exclusively to women. With this view, Goldman seems to have anticipated the views of recent feminists, such as Gayle Rubin who has suggested that if children were raised by parents of both sexes, human social relationships would be richer and the Oedipus complex would disappear.

Paul Goodman

“A free society cannot be the substitution of a new order for the old order, it is the extension of spheres of free action until they make up the most of social life.”

--Paul Goodman (9/9/1911-8/2/1972)
“Activism, for Goodman, was a way of life, not for saints or heroes but for ordinary people. To be effective as an activist, one must work through one's alienation toward society, one must join it, care for it, and take people seriously (that is, listen to them closely). Politics takes place in the real world, the world of experience, not ideology and abstraction.” (Jezer 1994) For Goodman, his activism was filtered through his writing. He wrote five novels, over one hundred short stories, more than a dozen plays, and numerous poems. He was a social critic, poet, novelist and playwright, utopian city planner, educator, psychotherapist and psychological theorist.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PAUL GOODMAN

Paul Goodman was the youngest of four and born in New York City to Barnett and Augusta of German-Jewish and middle class origins. Barnett abandoned his family soon after Paul’s birth. He attended City College of New York and received a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Chicago in 1954. He married Virginia Miller, and they had the child named Susan. In the 1940’s, he was remarried to Susan and had Mathew and Daisy. In 1951, along with Fritz Perls, Goodman founded the Gestalt Therapy Institute, which blended existentialism with psychoanalysis. In addition to teaching at Black Mountain College, Sarah Lawrence, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Urban Affairs), San Francisco Sate, and the University of Hawaii, he toured and lectured on many college campuses on social activism in the 1960’s. However, he was fired from every teaching job he ever had, because he insisted on his right to fall in love with his students and he was open with his bisexuality. In 1967, Goodman’s son Mathew died in a mountain climbing accident. Soon thereafter, Goodman’s health deteriorated and he died of a heart attack at age 61. Paul Goodman's work has primarily been kept alive by Taylor Stoehr, his friend and literary executor, a Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

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