Shortly after Mary Daly died, I speculated that the notion of “idolatry” might be useful for secular feminists, but I didn’t develop the idea much further. In Beyond God the Father, Daly suggests that in the past, feminists positioned suffrage as a kind of secular idol, and she warns against the “new wave” of feminism (e.g., the second wave) doing the same. For Daly, idolatry isn’t the worship of a false deity. It’s not making sacrifices to a golden calf. It’s setting up an idea or goal as “ultimate” when it’s actually transitory, like the achievement of suffrage. I’d argue that “choice” has had a similar status in second-wave feminism.
Unfortunately, she fell into precisely this trap by setting up “women” as a kind of idol in her later work, beginning with Gyn/Ecology, with the result being an “ethics” that demonized both transsexuals and men.
The shift in Daly’s thinking between Beyond God the Father (1973) and Gyn/Ecology (1978) is massive. She moves from examining social constructions and stereotypes to making universal pronouncements about the essence of men and women. Consider this passage from Beyond God the Father:
The roles and structures of patriarchy have been developed and sustained in accordance with an artificial polarization of human qualities into the traditional sexual stereotypes. The image of the person in authority and the accepted rationale of “his” role has corresponded to the eternal masculine stereotype, which implies hyper-rationality (in reality, frequently reducible to pseudo-rationality), “objectivity,” aggressivity, the possession of dominating and manipulative attitudes toward persons and the environment, and the tendency to construct boundaries between the self (and those identified with the self) and “the Other.” The caricature of human being which is represented by this stereotype depends for its existence upon the opposite caricature – the eternal feminine. This implies hyper-emotionalism, passivity, self-abnegation, etc.
(From Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation
, 15)
Daly goes on to say that both women and men have begun (as of the early 1970s) to free themselves from these stereotypes. I’d quibble with the idea that those stereotypes have been eternal. Historians have shown them to be just a couple of hundred years old and limited to white women and men in the West. However, in light of her later work, it’s remarkable how much distance Daly places here between these “caricature[s] of human being” and actual men and women.
Compare this to how she view men, women, and stereotypes five years later:
Thus women continue to be intimidated by the label anti-male. Some feel a false need to draw distinctions, for example: “I am anti-patriarchal but not anti-male.” The courage to be logical – the courage to name – would require that we admit to ourselves that males and males only are the originators, planners, controllers, and legitimators of patriarchy. Patriarchy is the homeland of males; it is Father Land; and men are its agents. …
Despite all the evidence that women are attacked as projections of The Enemy, the accusers ask sardonically: “Do you really think that men are the enemy?” This deception/reversal is so deep that women – even feminists – are intimidated into Self-deception, becoming the only Self-described oppressed who are unable to name their oppressor, referring instead to vague “forces,” “roles,” “stereotypes,” “constraints,” “attitudes,” “influences.” This list could go on. The point is that no agent is named – only abstractions. …
As a creative crystallization of the movement beyond the State of Patriarchal Paralysis, this book is an act of Dis-possession; and hence, in a sense beyond the limitations of the label anti-male, it is absolutely Anti-androcrat, A-mazingly Anti-male, Furiously and Finally Female.
(Gyn/Ecology, 28-9)
No longer does Daly see a chance for men to liberate themselves. Instead, humanity is divided into two opposing camps, men and women, and all men are tainted by their sex. In her concluding chapter, Daly describes an exorcism through which Hags and Crones purge their gathering of the male (or male-identified) Demons that have “infiltrated” them. She literally “Demon-izes” men.
Daly’s idolization of women forms the basis for a friend/enemy distinction that suggests women need to destroy their enemies as a matter of self-defense. As I’ve already discussed here, Daly accused MTF transsexuals of being the necrophilic pawns of patriarchy who sought the destruction of women. She postulated that they were the agents of a “Final Solution” that would violate women’s boundaries and render them “‘living’ dead women.” By appropriating the language of genocide, Daly implies (though never says explicitly) that MTF transsexuals have no right to live. She never says bluntly that they should be “exterminated.” Instead, she says they should be “eliminated.” However, I don’t think one can read “elimination” in a post-Holocaust world without understanding it as a potential euphemism for “extermination.”
Daly’s friend/enemy distinction is similarly virulent when it comes to men. In a 1999 interview with What Is Enlightenment? magazine, Daly made concrete the fantasy of purging men that she outlined in the closing chapter of Gyn/Ecology.
WIE: In Quintessence, your idyllic continent is inhabited by women only, but the rest of the world is inhabited by women and men.
MD: I didn’t say how many men were there.
WIE: Which brings us to another question I wanted to ask you. Sally Miller Gearhart, in her article “The Future—If There Is One—Is Female” writes: “At least three further requirements supplement the strategies of environmentalists if we were to create and preserve a less violent world. 1) Every culture must begin to affirm the female future. 2) Species responsibility must be returned to women in every culture. 3) The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately ten percent of the human race.” What do you think about this statement?
MD: I think it’s not a bad idea at all. If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males. People are afraid to say that kind of stuff anymore.
WIE: Yes. I find myself now thinking that’s a bit shocking.
MD: Well, it’s shocking that it would be shocking.
A bit shocking? The language of “decontamination,” too, harks back to the Holocaust. She reduces men to un-persons, mere objects to be destroyed due to their toxicity, a contaminant that threatens womankind. This is the sort of objectification that any feminist – indeed, any decent person – should denounce as hateful and dangerous.
How, exactly, is the population of men to be “reduced and maintained”? Note the euphemism, again – it’s not Daly’s, but she accepts it enthusiastically. What would be done with the present generations of men? Would they be allowed to die a natural death, or would she want to hasten the process along? As for future generations, would she favor prenatal selection, which would require universal usage of IVF – surely a “technophallic” solution, in her own terms? Selective abortion? Male infanticide? Who would decide which men were allowed to live? Daly sidesteps these questions by suggesting an “evolutionary process” will do the trick, but that’s scientifically untenable and patently absurd.
Reverse all the genders in the above, and you’ve got a dystopia to rival Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. And we shouldn’t be shocked, just because the vision entails the elimination of men instead of women?
Of course, Daly’s us/them thinking went even further. As Daisy Deadhead points out, Daly excluded many women from the category of “women”! – or at least the women who count:
As a Catholic, I believe she did irreparable harm to Catholic women who sought to reform the Church; she advised radical women to withdraw from it, leaving the liberal women who preferred to stay, twisting slowly, slowly in the wind. (I notice she didn’t advise them to withdraw from other patriarchal structures such as, um, academia.) In her later books like Pure Lust, she was positively hateful to any feminists who did not follow her out of the Church, but instead chose to stay and fight. Her way or the highway.
Daisy also mentions a point that my previous posts didn’t address (on the assumption that most feminists already knew about this): Daly never gave an adequate public response to Audre Lorde’s contention that Gyn/Ecology was racist and colonialist. If this is news to you after all, you can read Lorde’s “An Open Letter to Mary Daly” here.
This is the problem with idolizing one category of people. The resultant us/them thinking draws the circle ever more tightly around “us.”
None of this would matter if Daly’s most venomous ideas had died with her, but they didn’t. At Questioning Transphobia, Queen Emily has laid out the legacy of excluding trans people from feminism, which has been deadly in some instances. The consequences for men have been less dire simply because they’re not a marginalized group like transgender people.
However, Daly’s idolatry lives on among a subset of self-identified feminists who embrace her defense of male-hating. (See also here, and don’t miss the comment thread.) They are relatively few in number, but it’s incumbent on the rest of us feminists who love men, who love humans, to categorically reject a feminism that leaves any space for eliminationist thinking. It’s up to us to reject what Daly originally called “a caricature of human being.” In fact, that’s the best way I can imagine to honor Daly’s better legacy.
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
Good post, Kittywampus.
Although, in thinking about it, maybe that whole “10 women for every man” thing isn’t such a bad idea … I seem to recall hearing it somewhere else …
Oh, this is precious. In the Strangelovian universe, you’ve gotta count on Dick Cheney being one of the men who goes underground. He’s got practice, after all.
Of course, historically we’ve called this situation “polygamy” and it certainly wasn’t compatible with post-patriarchy at all! It was part and parcel of *creating* patriarchy. (I realize Daly would prefer the term “meta-patriarchy” but I haven’t gotten *that* immersed in her thinking. Yet.)
[...] she had actually started a post about Daly’s misandry but hasn’t finished it which she has now posted. She did, however, point me to an excellent post by figleaf on the [...]
With all due respect, I really don’t know how any feminist (or “self-identified feminist” as you put it) could use the term “misandry” without qualification. To me, it’s a term that allies you with a legion of vocal MRAs. I don’t really think you understood my post (which nowhere advocates what you call “eliminationist thinking”) and I don’t understand why liberal feminists and transactivists are so invested in discrediting the ideas of a figure who, for better or worse, was a marginal figure in mainstream feminism.
In my post I argue that woman-hating and man-hating are not equivalent terms and stress men’s agency as instigators and beneficiaries of patriarchy. No other oppressed group is required to love it’s oppressors in the same way women are required to love, nurture and seek the approval of men. My post doesn’t attribute any particular characterists to men or women or prescribe any particular action (let alone one which might be called “eliminationist”). It argues that men’s hatred of women has been naturalized in such a way as to become almost invisible while women’s (often justifiable) hatred of men as a political class or their decision to politically, emotionally or sexually separate from men is seen as totally inadmissable. A “caricature of a human being” is precisely what patriarchy turns women and men into- however the results is largely advantageous to men while universally oppressing women. Most feminists are social constructionists and, as such, believe that men can collectively stop being men (that is, stop oppressing women). But this will never come about until both women and men recognize men’s agency in creating, adhering to and benefitting from the dictates of patriarchal society.It’s not about idolizing women. Like Monique Wittig, I am uninterested in ” the myth as woman” (as inherently peaceful or anything else) and totally focused on “woman” as class, the product of a social relationship. (See Wittig’s “One is Not Born a Woman”).
Just want to clarify that by using the word “marginal” I didn’t mean to downplay the significance of Daly’s work. What I was referring to was the extent to which she made an impact on and was legitimised by malestream culture. Hence the vast majority of commentators on Daly’s life and work, to the extent that they are familiar with it at all (beyond a cursory reading of her Wikipedia page), know her only as Jan Raymond’s supervisor.
I actually understood what you meant by “marginal.” I think one reason for the uncritical eulogizing of Daly (e.g., the post at Shakesville that initially didn’t acknowledge any of her problematic aspects) is that most feminists my age and younger probably have never read her.
Yes, I know you’re a social constructionist, and I can see why you might want to draw on Daly’s early work, which I too find interesting and useful. In the linked post, though, you appropriate her “anti-male” material, which is essentialist to its core, and yes, misandrist. When you and Nine Deuce each write a series of posts that embrace “man-hating,” I see no substantive difference between that and misandry, which the dictionary defines as “hatred of men.” Whether you hate men individually, as a political class, or both has very little practical import that I can discern.
I believe you when you say you’re not supportive of eliminationist thinking. But it’s problematic, to say the least, to embrace Daly’s writings that lead her to that point without explicitly rejecting the conclusions she draws.
Sungold: supposedly, there’s a fiction book by Sheri S Tepper called Six Moon Dance that plays with this idea by means of a women-controlled society with far less women than men. Never read it, though.
redmegaera: Oh dear. I am entirely unsurprised to discover you’re also both transphobic and a supporter of Sheila Jeffreys’ anti-prostitution campaign.
(For those not familiar with the Shelia Jeffreys mess: she’s an Australian academic who campaigned for anti-prostitution laws that actual sex workers thought would be harmful, and had enough pull with the government as an adviser that she stood a good chance of getting them.
When the sex workers spoke out, she dismissed their views because – you might want to be sitting down for this – they were privileged since they could actually speak on the issue, and therefore should be ignored. Yes, really. The outrage produced by this was surprisingly confined, and she had a lot of support.)
This all gets so predictable after a while. Need I even ask your views on BDSM?
With all due respect, I really don’t know how any feminist (or “self-identified feminist” as you put it) could use the term “misandry” without qualification.
Thank you for the demonstration of why this isn’t as minor an issue as it appears. Sure, very few feminists are really man-hating – but how much criticism of the ones that are is there by their fellow feminists, and how much are they allowed to make?
In my post I argue that woman-hating and man-hating are not equivalent terms and stress men’s agency as instigators and beneficiaries of patriarchy.
Which, of course, nicely excuses you from having to consider the consequences of your own actions and attitudes. This may be all well and good so long as no women have power over men – but the man-hating and tolerance thereof is not going to magically go away once they do. (This is also related to Sheila Jeffreys and sex work: since she’s a member of the de-facto oppressed class, she doesn’t have to worry about oppressing others even when she is.)
Most feminists are social constructionists and, as such, believe that men can collectively stop being men (that is, stop oppressing women). But this will never come about until both women and men recognize men’s agency in creating, adhering to and benefitting from the dictates of patriarchal society.
So, instead of claiming all men are inherantly evil, you’re merely claiming all men are evil but can be reformed. Plus, generally what’s meant by “stop being men” in this context is that they should take a social role entirely dictated by women. Not just by any women, either, but by white cis middle-class women who follow the right type of feminism. Since all men and some women benefit from patriarchy, the argument goes, only these feminist women can see how fundamental it is and what needs to be done to end it.
A “caricature of a human being” is precisely what patriarchy turns women and men into- however the results is largely advantageous to men while universally oppressing women.
This relates to a similar issue. Under the social constructivist worldview only women can know both men’s and women’s experiences (as society is male-default), so women can understand male and female oppression whereas men can understand neither. It’s begging the question – determining that men benefit from the patriarchal caricature of masculinity, based on an understanding of men derived from said caricature rather than men’s actual experiences.
I think Sungold sums it up nicely… most younger feminists have not read Mary Daly’s work, and if you haven’t read it well… it’s kind of pointless for you to be talking about Daly.
Read the original source material.
Thanks Redmegaera for your reasoned arguments. I guess men in India have a perfect right to want their oppressors the British out of India, and other male ethnic groups want their own country. But when women say they want a land of our own, and freedom from male domination, this just isn’t cool.
Women are the only oppressed people who actually are forced in many places (economcially, culturally etc.) to live with their oppressors, rapists and dominators. That is what makes Mary Daly’s work so powerful, because she names this so clearly.
Even women are in such denial about this, and that’s why it is so hard for women to get freedom. Think of forced marriages, or the killing and marginalizing of lesbian culture.
Somehow, it always is about the menz, as if Mary Daly ever killed one man. But I sure as heck know thousands of men who have killed women. They call them veterans of foreign wars, and in the past, the army was all male all the time.
Daly’s feminism is scary, because if half the world decided it really wanted freedom, men would really be in a sorry mess. It’s why when women name the oppressors, killers, rapists, and discriminators, well, it’s just too uncomfortable even for a lot of women to read this.
Women are the only oppressed people who actually are forced in many places (economcially, culturally etc.) to live with their oppressors, rapists and dominators.
No, that’s just not true. Another group immediately springs to my mind. The exact same thing can be said of children. I’m certain if I tried I could come up with examples of other groups as well. There are enough unique facets to the oppression of women that it is detracts from them to posit ones that aren’t. It also means we can’t perceive and analyse similarities in oppression let alone find potential alliances if we say “Only women suffer .”.
Not to mention men who are abused by their wives.
Bell hooks draws a lot of attention to violence within the home, especially toward children, which can come from either parent. I agree that it’s too easy for women to claim that they are the only one who must live with their oppressors. It’s too facile to claim that victrim role.
And yet, I do have some sympathy with SheilaG’s point. One reason why women often don’t see how they are oppressed by any reasonable standard? They are highly attached to men in their lives, and this insulates them (and their men) against critiques of the gender system. Simone de Beauvoir made this argument already in The Second Sex.
However, oppression – in my view – refers to broad structural pressures. One-on-one relationships occur within those pressures and may contribute to them. But that’s only a small part of the story. We may respond toxically to those pressures in our individual lives. But if we reduce the structure of patriarchy to individual wife/husband dynamics, we vastly oversimplify how oppression works in the real world.
P.S. Very good point kittywampus about “choice” being such a fixation of second wave feminism. Mary Daly was far closer to our suffragist foremothers than she was to the 60s generation of feminists. A woman born in 1928 is very different from a woman born in 1947. So if you really want to understand the radical nature of Mary Daly, think of how she got her education, how she had to deal with completely male dominated classrooms, and how the Catholic church has treated women for eons.
Those women who want to remain in the church of course are threatened by Daly. Because, whether they believe this or not, they are just collaborators. All women are collaborators to an extent within male domination, and Mary Daly was trying to wake women up, and she herself delved into the original source material of the “fathers of the church.”
I suggest all the women who want to intelligently comment on Daly, read all her books. She is a giant of the 20th century, her life story is amazing, and you’ll be missing out on a lot if you actually believe all the readers and detractors. Read read read… Her work is complex, nuanced and difficult. In this age of wikipedia and sound bites, it takes a lot of academic effort to read Mary Daly.
Go talk to the women who worked with her and knew her personally. Go find out the truth.
P.S.S. If I read one other post where the writer says, “I never read her books but….” I’m going to scream STUDY, do your homework, contribute to the discussion. Daly had many things to say about people who read the words “about” an author rather than “by” the author.
I didn’t read her books, can’t afford her books (unemployed) and probably can’t understand her language (the passages I read are FAAAR out there, I could understand them on LSD maybe, or while deeply drunk, or in trance or something).
Sorry for not being a middle-class academic who has enough time to invent Klingon language (as a comparative). Or for refusing to read or applaud someone condemning half the human race to be forever tainted and stepping on already-marginalized groups (trans men and women) by saying they are going to ‘destroy’ a concept (as if that was doable) like womanhood.
Not gonna read her, and will continue to see male humans as people worthy of respect, not of spit on their face or genocide – at least not inherently (some sure earn it, see Bush Sr and Jr).
I will also continue to defend trans people from scorn and being accused of wanting to invade, destroy, taint or what-not womanhood, as well as being discriminated against on this basis by the likes of Sheila Jeffreys in accessing women-only space. I applaud people like Kimberly Nixon and Lynn Conway who help the current change, even if little by little.
Sorry I can’t be bothered to converse with people who can’t read the works of the woman being discussed. And all her works are in the library and can be checked out for free. I am not an academic either, just a well read feminist.
[...] – which she saw in first-wave feminists’ singleminded focus on suffrage – can be applied to modern-day feminism as well. Today, on the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I’d like to dwell on how “choice” [...]
Thanks for the link, Sungold… I have long believed the brand of strict lesbian feminism Mary Daly propagated was a lot like a lesbian-feminist RELIGIOUS ORDER, complete with charter and vows. Just like the famous founders of religious orders in the past (St Francis, St Ignatius, St Teresa of Avila), she had diehard groupies who ruthlessly enforced the rules: her way or the highway.
Really, the similarities are just so striking.
Schala (waves at Schala!): the passages I read are FAAAR out there, I could understand them on LSD maybe, or while deeply drunk, or in trance or something
All joking aside, this was the 70s and a certain futuristic sci-fi visionary writing-style was in vogue: part self-help and part Alvin/Heidi Toffler. So, there IS a reason for that!
redmegaera, I fully understand that man-hating is not analogous to woman-hating, but I wanted feminism to be different than what men do, which is, you know, HATING: war, death, hate, murder, genocide, racism, etc but unfortunately, that is exactly how it sounds when any educated and influential author like Daly starts holding forth indiscriminately on limiting certain populations without ANY regard to how that sounds in light of historical campaigns to LIMIT certain people.
I don’t want to play their way or utilize their tired/destructive strategies and/or ideals, which is why I became a feminist in the first place. (Speaking of Lorde, master’s tools, master’s house, etc.)
[...] than I am. (I wonder if Ily had this same problem – Ily? Little help?) Coincidentally, at a comment left on one of SunGold’s recent posts, redmagaera explicitly said that, “Most feminists [...]
Man hating is no where close to woman hating. When men hate women, they rape, dismember and torture women. When men hate women, they produce violate gonzo porn.
When men hate women, they do everything in their power to prevent women from getting jobs in fields men think they own. Go see the movie “North Country” if you want to see real hatred of women.
What did Mary Daly actually do to men? She simply stood her ground, and said women had a right to study feminist philosophy without rapists present in the class. She said women were brilliant, she would not tolerate male dominated religions, and she would not go to churches where men refused to ordain women.
The hatred of women leads to rape, murder and massive female displacement in war. Male hatred of women leads to rape as a tool of war.
Any woman who thinks this is ok, doesn’t know what it took for Mary Daly to have the courage she had to stand her ground. All the commentators who say she hated men, don’t really know what true hatred is. Did Mary Daly ever rape a child the way thousands of male catholic priests did? Did Mary Daly ever drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima? Did Mary Daly ever kill a man or cut his pay, or cause him to starve to death, the way men do to women all the time? Honestly, I really wonder at how cowardly most people are when it comes to liberation, and the uncompromised liberation of women. I’m talking no tolerance of patriarchy, that is what Daly stood for.
Most people, surprisingly who comment here, have never read all her books, and many men who comment are probably rapists and porn viewers. Women who attack Daly still attend catholic church, and still accept male priests.
In war time, we call people who side with the enemy collaborators. Mary Daly never did anything bad to the fembots and male identified women. She spoke to the women who wanted liberation, who want intellectual greatness, and who wanted a life free to be their greatest uncolonized self. For those women, Mary stood her ground.
For the fembots, church attenders and homophobes, well, they were collaborators, that’s all. Sad that women will not stick up for the liberation of women, and will side with the patriarches, but nobody said women’s freedom was going to be a cake walk.
I agree that male violence is a big problem, and that misogyny has been far, far more fatal than misandry. But can we characterize all violence as male violence – even in war? The general in charge of Abu Ghraib was Janis Karpinski, and two of the guards involved in the violence were female.
You know very well that no one here has said Mary Daly has engaged in killing. However, as Daisy said already, I too want feminism to reject hate and genocide.
What’s more, I don’t see how calling a subgroup of women “fembots” is going to advance the liberation of anyone!
It is a very interesting idea that you can only decide that you disagree with the ideas of someone else if you undertake to experience all of their work first. While it might appear to have merit, it is unrealistic and unnecessary. No one has that kind of time. More to the point, I do not need to read everything by an MRA to decide that they are wrong and oppose feminism. I do not need to read everything by an evolutionary psychologist to determine that they are promoting misogyny as science. I don’t need to watch every hour of the 700 Club to determine that Pat Robertson is a grab bag of nastiness. You get the point.
I also don’t see how accepting the terms of patriarchy, that men are superior to women, and then inverting them, as Mary Daly and others have, does anyone any favours. What does advocating the superiority of (some) women accomplish? I do see how it is empowering to women in that women are told the exact opposite in the patriarchal system. I do see how it provides an outlet for the rage women feel at patriarchal violence, hate, and oppression. I see how it makes the women who accept it feel special and superior to the women who don’t. But at what cost? At capitulating to patriarchy such that women can only have a better life in an utopia. At accepting that men are incapable of being redeemed. At accepting the all-too-patriarchal concept of war as the way of viewing the world. There’s more, but those are the biggies.
It’s an exclusive view, where only some women will have salvation before utopia, where women who do not accept its gospel are damned as being “fembots”, “traitors”, “collaborators”, and so on and will be condemned by their rejection in utopia. It establishes a hierarchy of the damned and the saved. Does any of this sound familiar? Like, say, a patriarchal religion that was rejected by Mary Daly?
I firmly reject the idea that it is radical, that it’s even an improvement, to invert patriarchy. Staying within the bounds of patriarchal thinking is not liberation, is not freedom. Women’s liberation that does not liberate all women, that doesn’t result in freedom for all women, is neither liberation nor freedom.
Female displacements in war is usually accompanied with massive male killings. Any able-bodied male 15-65 is killed on the spot. And the vast majority are not combatants, they’re only “potential combatants” in that they have a penis apparently.
International orgs that try to save people from places in wars don’t save those men either.
“She simply stood her ground, and said women had a right to study feminist philosophy without rapists present in the class.”
So all men are rapists and no women are? That’s news to some lesbian and bisexual victims of female on female rape.
“Women who attack Daly still attend catholic church, and still accept male priests.”
I rejected the Christian churches long ago, for ideological reasons, mainly their unacceptance of the doctrine of reincarnation. So I don’t go there, and don’t care one bit about priests there, since I’m not under their power in any form.
“In war time, we call people who side with the enemy collaborators.”
“You are with us or against us. -George W. Bush”
Not a good example imo. He’s largely responsible for the hatred of the US by progressive countries (Europe and Canada).
———
And to your overall point. Hatred, even if not put into acts, leads to more hatred. People who listen to her can and might be full of hatred and act upon it, whereas they might not have otherwise. She is a catalyst for hatred of others. This is like being the KKK and saying “but we don’t hurt blacks, we only hate them ideologically” just as others might justify their racial hatred and act on it by the KKK’s discourse.
I think Mary Daly made the famous comment that a woman trying to reform the catholic church would be as futile as a black trying to reform the kkk. And no women can be 100% sure whether men are rapists or not. Many women want to study without men present for a variety of reasons.
I went to a yoga class recently, and the teacher said something to the affect that the class could be open to men. All the women violently objected. They wanted to practice yoga without male bodies and male distraction in the room, and these were all straight women.
I see more straight women not wanting to have meetings with men, and straight women truly wanting safe space. They are more weary of male intrusion, abuse, and rape energy than ever before. They are very aware that almost 100% of young men in colleges now view internet porn.
So I believe women have every right NOT to want to be around men. Why don’t the men reform or chastise other men for creating such hostile public environments? That’s what I would like to know.
Mary Daly just discovered the obvious, women’s educational status declines because men aggressively take up all conversational space in a room. The women sit silent while the men dominate yet again. She wanted women to have the greatest intellectual experience possible, and in patriarchy, you can’t really have an advanced feminist discussion with men in classrooms ever. I never hear men ever able to respect women when we say NO. NO NO NO, we don’t want to study with potential rapists and dominators. If men continue to intimidate women and insist that we don’t have a right to exclude them for our presence, this is domination in another form.
So men, go off and reform yourselves, and leave women alone if women want serious conversation and study with each other. I don’t see what’s so hard about that, unless, our course you are dominators.
“If men continue to intimidate women and insist that we don’t have a right to exclude them for our presence, this is domination in another form.”
That makes little sense. It’s like saying feminism is domination because it sought to enter the “world of men” in other words careers. I don’t think feminism is domination, and I don’t think men or women wanting to participate in mixt space are trying to dominate each other.
Also, past 20-25ish, men have much less tendencies to oggle or be hung up on sex. After that age they usually grow some maturity, want to settle down, get a career (instead of a job), and they focus way less on sex and more on relationships. Looking up women’s bodies might still be a habit of some, but it certainly isn’t that of the majority at some point.
I don’t know what age group your yoga class is, but if it’s anywhere above 30, I only see the refusal to have men as blatant discrimination.
Domination is learned and innate behavior (personality is responsible for a lot of it, upbringing helps or detracts from it). Few men can dominate with any kind of success, and few women as well. Men pose as dominators because women want dominators as mates (or not necessarily, but domination gets seen as confidence, which is one of the most sought-after trait in men by heterosexual women).
If women stopped rewarding confidence and over-confidence by choosing them over other guys, attitudes would change. The same in reverse is true, if lookism stopped being as important for men, choosing ‘pretty’ girls (usually by society standards) less or not over other girls, attitudes would change.
You want to change society, change the basis for heterosexual relationships. Stop rewarding stereotypical maleness and stop rewarding stereotypical femaleness and what you get is diversity without hierarchy over who is most ___ or most ____ or better ____.
All that would count would be personality and non-societally influenced preferences. Probably impossible in practice, looks perfect in theory, and seems to be in line with what feminism wants to ultimately achieve.
I’d love to be proven wrong about the impossibility of this though.
“So men, go off and reform yourselves, and leave women alone if women want serious conversation and study with each other. I don’t see what’s so hard about that, unless, our course you are dominators.”
You set off a catch-22, someone genuinely interested in the course would be considered a dominator the same way one of your potential rapist (who only exist in your world apparently, as I don’t see ALL men as potential rapists…only those who are giving away signs of being stupid/jerks).
“She wanted women to have the greatest intellectual experience possible, and in patriarchy, you can’t really have an advanced feminist discussion with men in classrooms ever.”
Yeah, I agree. In Patriarchy, by which I define as Middle-East countries, you can’t have women discussing without being shut out by men. Canada and the US are FAR from being patriarchies. Some men dominate in some places more than women dominate in others. But to call it a patriarchy whereas all men dominate all women is to equate New York (US) and Kaboul (Afghanistan).
Dominators are dominators, and I see men in female intellectual spaces as dominators. That’s how I as a woman see what men do in public spaces all the time.
They just can’t shut up and let women talk for hours on end.
It’s why it is a complete and utter waste of time to talk about Mary Daly with men, and she knew this.
Now if men had really been interested in radical feminism, they could have had a private tutorial, but few men took her up on this offer.
I don’t think most men have any idea of what they are like through women’s eyes in public, what it’s like for women when men control work conferences, and continue to say sexist and belittling things about women and get away with it.
So, no, you can’t have the dominator class in the same room with the women who want to overthrow patriarchy and don’t want to deal with it at all.
And, you still don’t know who a rapist is, but I do know this, all men pose a potential danger to all women, and men are the rapists. They get away with this all the time, and so if you don’t have men in a room, you are actually free of their porn energy, their rape thoughts, and that is what I as a woman who sees men as a real threat believe, and I have every right to have spaces where I feel safe and secure. If men can’t get this well too bad, but I will continue to live in feminist and women’s worlds, and continue the study of radical feminism. Remember it is all about the women, and what we have to say to each other, and that is our intellectual discourse. IT’s not for all women, naturally, but for those of us who want a room free of men, I believe we are entitled to set the rules of our own ideological discourse. Men have plenty of other places to go. They have no positive intent within a radical feminist discourse. When we say get out and stay out, we do mean it. Men, go out and start protesting rape, go protest in front of frat houses that commit rape and get girls drunk. Go do something on your own and confront other men.
SheilaG,
You have repeatedly asserted, here and elsewhere that men are rapists and women are victims which is true except that you assert it as though this is the only form of rape and that women’s spaces are free of rapists when they keep men out. But that’s magical thinking, and it erases women who have been raped by women, further silencing and shaming them. You’re not alone in this, of course. Mary Daly and Janice Raymond, among others, made similar assertions. But, the problem is that it leads to furthering the harm of survivors while creating a false sense of security that all one needs to do to not be raped is to not be around men, to only have women around oneself. Which, much as I wish it were true, isn’t true. If you want to believe that’s true, I can’t stop you, but you do not serve rape survivors, either past of present, to be presenting this as true.
Dr Lori Girshick, an expert on lesbian battering and sexual assault, wrote a paper in 2001, No More Denying: Facing Woman to Woman Sexual Violence that deals with how this subject is invisibilised and denied by both mainstream societies and lesbian communities. Yet, the studies she documents (including one conducted at Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival), have documented rates from 5% to 57% with most finding a rate of over 30% for attempted or completed sexual assault/rape by women on other women. You are contributing to survivors saying things like this, as quoted by Girshick in the paper: I have a hard time acknowledging that women can be violent and that a woman can rape another woman. and Obviously I was in some denial myself, but I think that their analysis of battering not only didn’t include lesbian battering but made lesbian battering pretty much impossible..
Please stop saying that women’s space is somehow safe and secure from rape and battering. It isn’t and saying so is not helping anyone but ideologues who place their ideas over the lives of women. It is, in fact, causing harm by, albeit unwittingly, enabling rapists and silencing survivors. No one who claims to be concerned about rape wants to perpetuate rape, so I expect you’ll stop saying these things. Thank you.
However, as Girshick says:
A lengthy bibliography by Dr Girshick on lesbian violence and sexual assault can be found at her site.
Additionally, if you are a woman who has been battered or sexually assaulted by another woman, “Our Bodies, Ourselves” has an online article entitled “Woman-Woman Rape” which includes suggestions as to what to do and references to resources for support.
In my above comment (currentlystill in moderation because it’s link-heavy), somehow the last bit got cut off. It’s important so I’ve rewritten it again just below.
If you are a survivor of rape by another woman you might find the “Our Bodies, Ourselves” online article “Woman-Woman Rape” helpful as it suggests what to do about it and includes information on support. It is by no means the definitive site on the issue, but I think it’s a good starting point.
It’s awfully naive and unnuanced to set women up as the dominated, and men as the dominators. As Lucy noted above, Daly’s own theory set up a hierarchy of women.
I somehow manage to teach introductory classes in women’s and gender studies – and even upper-division and grad-level classes – with the” dominator class” right there in the room! In the intro, I get 35-40% men. That’s enough to change the dynamics so that men aren’t timid about speaking up (as they typically were when they number 5-10%). However, they do not dominate. Partly, that’s because I try to facilitate discussion in such a way that no one is intimidated or shut out. Partly, it’s because many young men are less likely to try to dominate in a class that specifically foregrounds women. The one area where men tend to preponderate is in discussing international issues. I don’t see them changing their behavior, however, as much as I see women holding back. It’s my job to point this out and ask why, in an effort to restore a balanced discussion.
I do think there separate spaces can sometimes be tactically useful – an exercise class limited to women might feel safer for women who are insecure about their bodies. Discussions of sexual violence can sometimes be more productive – or rather, productive in different ways – in same-sex settings. Even then, however, I’d argue such spaces should be more inclusive, rather than less, when it comes to people who don’t neatly fit into a sex/gender binary.
Of course, we live in a society that guarantees freedom of assembly, which means that the “we” in SheilaG’s comments is free to be as exclusive as it likes. The rest of us, however, are just as free to criticize attempts at insularity. You can retreat to a rural lesbian commune, if you like, and that’s perfectly fine if it promotes your personal happiness – just don’t expect me to say such tactics are essential to undermining sexism.
@Lucy:
Similar disbelief occurs about female-on-male sexual assault. The reasons are not all the same, but they certainly overlap, especially the notion that women are safe or wouldn’t/couldn’t do it (either physically or morally couldn’t get down to do it). Added on top is the notion that any sex is good sex for a man (he got lucky attitude), even violent unwanted sex.
I hope for the day resources for sexual assault and battering are not so one-sided and where the analysis becomes more personal when dealing with victims. As in not implying that since something happens less it’s insignificant and that being in the wrong group can dispense you of having any support.
Transsexual men and women are especially touched by this, since they’re rarely considered women by the system, shelters and some feminist organizations, they’re not considered worthy of receiving support.
In other words, the power-over model needs to become individualized, not based on a notion that, on average your group receives x amount of privilege, and therefore it causes this to happen to you personally. We can’t apply statistics to individuals, they’re only good for governments to design tools and manage the population. We can’t say male privilege causes all DV and sexual assault, because women also batter and assault (including assaulting men, its not only ‘horizontal’ violence), without having it.
I think rare exceptions in the face of massive rules of engagement are kind of a denial or derailment or a justification for the millions of women raped, beated, tortured and killed by men every single day. To point to the rare man beaten by a woman, I think begs the question of why men are such monsters on a global scale, and what makes them think that female bodies are there to be raped, pornified and tortured for the amusement of men.
Yes women batter and hit, but you don’t see men running by the hundreds of thousands from rape as a national policy in many lands. You don’t see men setting up hundreds of rape crisis centers or domestic violence shelters because women are terrorizing them. In fact, you don’t see men in their homes at night fearful of attacks by over 90,000 gang members in a large urban city.
This constant derailment, and bringing out the exceptions to the rule of terror, that is male led, male supported, and male aggrandizing is offensive, and weird. Just what does this mean in the face of what men do to women worldwide? Just what does this say about over 100,000 women raped and tortured in Eastern Europe? Just what does this say about men?
I noticed you say nothing about woman on woman battering and rape. Are you simply ignoring this or does this mean you accept that it exists? Because it seems more the former than the latter if you only talk about men. Which, of course, is the continuing problem whereby feminists privilege some survivors over others, where we like to only talk about women attacked by men because this fits better into ideological positions. I suppose this is where I start considering that feminists willfully fail women, where patriarchy exposes itself as just as present in feminists as anyone else, because feminists buy into the idea that some women count more than others. Perhaps feminism, which seems dominated by feminists who talk more about men than women, is not for me after all.
Patriarchy says women are prone to be victims. Certain feminist arguments will only reiterate this as gospel. “Male violence against women” is one such argument.
Patriarchy says men are prone to be aggressors. Rather than recognize that most are not and working towards ending the cycle, the argument goes that they have to be blamed.
Ignored in the us vs them arguments pushed by certain:
-Male victims exist, yet have few services, because patriarchy says men cannot be vulnerable or victims (hence it will not support something it thinks does not exist).
-Female perpetrators exist. Yet most/all services designed to prevent aggressors from beating or assaulting again are designed with men in mind as aggressors. And society turns a blind-eye to risks of perpetration in the first place, because patriarchy agrees with this (that women cannot be evil or bad).
Case in point is court cases of murder or similar grave cases, where a man would be assumed to be in full possession of his mental capacity while a woman will be assumed to have had temporary crazyness inherently before anything is investigated, because no sane woman can be violent or murder (unless very convincing evidence is found of the contrary).
Self-defense, insanity. Those motives are brought to the front and more readily accepted by patriarchal courts when the convict is female than male. They are assumed apriori.
-Females can be victimized by other females. Another point easily forgotten, because patriarchy thinks it cannot happen.
-Male victims of other males. Treated as normal, let them kill each other says patriarchy. See prison rape, where the focus for activism and help is somehow more publicized in women’s prison even if male prisoners are 9 times more numerous and the rate of rape in male prisons is said to be incredibly high.
-Children are not inherently more safe with a female adult than with a male adult. Patriarchy thinks otherwise. It should always be case-by-case, no one should be assumed to be inherently harmless or inherently harmful.
All those notions reinforce patriarchy, stereotypes and make it almost impossible for men to get more involved into childcare, to eliminate the wage gap, to get women taken more seriously in academic/economic/geek (computer, videogames technologies) settings.
It also reinforces the cycle of victimization by not letting male victims get the help they need and instead being branded as defacto aggressor/invaders even when demonstrably harmless by their actions.
Some say men didn’t go and build shelters for DV and rape male victims. Some men in means and with enough ambition to go against the system did, but those are few.
The system wants women to have shelters, because they are considered potential victims by patriarchy. The system doesn’t want men to have shelters, they either shouldn’t be victims in the absolute, or they brought it on themselves, says patriachy. So it won’t finance those shelters. Most men-only DV/rape shelters are privately financed at 100%, and some men and women shelters/groups/organizations get their subventions removed because they help male victims at all. Often by feminist lobbying (the female-only organizations who want more funding), but always backed by those in power who tow the line that patriarchy told them: male victims don’t exist.
Saying men are toxic, men are bad, men are evil, is just retelling the story of Patriarchy that we got from the Victorian era. Feminists who fall into this trap only perpetuate that which they purport to fight against. Those that recognize the ills of patriarchy can also recognize its tactics and will denounce all stereotypes.
Like the Merovingian so succintly said in Matrix Reloaded: Cause and effect.
Remove the ills of men and they will be more healthy. Remove the ills of women and they will be more healthy. Remove the ills of both and you will have more than twice the effect, since each effect on one side affects the other. Ignoring the other side will lead to a dysfunctional society.
An example: Guy is raped at 17 by a woman of whatever age (not necessarily old enough to be statutory rape). Tries to find support, but only gets told he was lucky, should have liked it, should just forget it, can’t be a victim.
What happens to this guy 10 years later when he’s not had any support to get him through the trauma? He lashes out, causing more violence.
If we support this guy, we help fix the problem. This is why helping male victims is also a feminist issue, it affects women, children and other men. It’s up to us to make that effect positive rather than negative.
And I believe women students deserve to be completely free of men in learning situations. I most certainly don’t want to be in classes with them ever again, and I don’t intend to be. Women should be able to have worlds of our own making, philosophy of our own making. I don’t believe men are feminists but if they think they would support women, they can study on their own. They most certainly don’t need to be in a classroom with me to figure it all out.
And unless you keep careful track of who is doing most of the talking in a classroom, you will actually think the discussion is going equally, because again, the male voice is the default voice. It’s why men dominate, and why they won’t be quiet while women talk. When I see men silent while women discuss international affairs for several hours, maybe I’ll be impressed. But how talk is generated still seems pretty male centric to me. It’s why we still need women’s colleges, and we have well documented evidense that women get a better education free of men, than they do with men present. No big change there.
Sheila G I endorse everything you are saying here all your arguments can be backed by public stats and research, all evidence based, not just the whims and whineings of the patriarchies grade A supporters. The detractors here are a shining example of how denial is manufactured and orchestrated by both female and males who are so into Bro-Romancing, who freely admit that the work under discussion has not even been read and understood by them, yet arrogantly they demand to be heard on the subject and advance the notion that Daly was perverse towards trans and males…..the problem is she was NOT perverse enough for we rad fems…but we love and adore her for her courage and her life long commitment to the ideals and project that is womons rights……….something the detractors here will never achieve….
No one here is calling Daly perverse. Many of us are saying she expressed hateful opinions toward trans people and men. I don’t see that as laudable.
Just as a note, I’m reading Daly’s Gyn/Ecology as I’m writing a paper that requires me to do so. I think I understand it all too well. As noted in the OP, Daly envisioned the casting out of trans people and men from women forever, so if the problem is that Daly “was NOT perverse enough for we rad fems” what exactly would be “perverse enough” for you? Imprisonment? Death?
I do have to be amused that you say SheilaG’s arguments can be backed by public stats and research when I’ve been the only one to specifically provide research to back up what I’ve said. And, quite frankly, I would be disturbed to be loved and adored by those who consider the liberation of some women at the expense of others to be a worthy goal. So, I indeed hope that I never achieve that.
Might it occur to you that stats and research can have bias against it?
Why is there no research or very little research on the amount of male victims of DV and rape? You can’t say they don’t exist, but few studies even consider researching them, that’s societal (patriarchal) bias.
Studies that purport to prove stereotypes somehow get a lot more financing than those who are neutral or counter to that stereotype.
A study done by an organization to fight against domestic violence that calls thousands of people’s homes in Canada, asks women if they were battered and how, but asks men only how they battered their partners…is pretty one sided.
Schala, read, womon have been fixing men for years, how long does it take LOL?
yabawife- thanks for your comment. You get it!
Anyone sense the Viche government in exile here?
I’m guessing this is some clever way at saying that people here are collaborating with patriarchy? Because I assume you’re referring to the Vichy government of France (as opposed to the Viche who have never come close to forming a government in their country) which collaborated with the Nazis. Also, congratulations on Godwinning.
Actually, Lucy, I’m not sure anyone gets the distinction of Godwinning, because Mary Daly herself tried to saddle men and transwomen with perpetrating a “Final Solution” against women. So Daly beat SheilaG to it. But maybe there needs to be a consolation prize?