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The Trouble with Modern Feminist Spitfires

  
  

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Cherry Bomb
08:56 / 04.09.02
I never said that rational debate was a boy's game. I've never said that emotion is a woman's domain. What I said was, I find it really annoying when people use "overemotional" or "emotional" period as a put-down. The first thing is subjective, by definition, and even if the second has the potential to be an objective statement, it implies that being emotional is somehow a "bad" thing, (and by that same token, being logical is a "better" thing). The best part is, the person who usually makes this claim doesn't realize what an emotional reaction they themselves are having when they make this claim.

Women are as capable as logical rational thought as men are capable of being nurturing emotional beings, and I'd never make a claim otherwise.

Now then, onward ho!
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:31 / 04.09.02
I would like to send an idea forward - Dworkin is mad. She has a hatred of everything, certainly including herself, her emotional life is based entirely around the negative. Look at her poetry that screams 'help me, I'm insane, I'm so insane I don't even know it and I'm deluded enough to think I can speak for every rape victim everywhere'.
 
 
Justin Brief
14:34 / 04.09.02
"Look at her poetry that screams 'help me, I'm insane, I'm so insane I don't even know it and I'm deluded enough to think I can speak for every rape victim everywhere'."

With some apprehension, I'll second that motion. But only after urging a study of her unsubstantiated rape claim.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:42 / 04.09.02
If Dworkin is in fact insane, then presumably that is something that marks her out from the other "feminist spitfires" cited above, and she should probably be considered as sui generis? Unless our contention is that *all* of these feminist spitfires are insane. In which case, is this a condition of being a feminist spitfire, or a terrible accident of heredity and environment? If Dworkin is insane and the other feminist spitifires above are not, in what way shoudl their views be compared? Is it indeed fair to tar these feminists with the ravings of a madwoman, when the same rigour does not seem to be applied to, say, evolutionary biology?
 
 
Cherry Bomb
14:50 / 04.09.02
...and if we decide Dworkin is insane, what do we think of Valerie Solanas?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:27 / 04.09.02
This has the unpleasant side effect of problematising the debate and making all criticism of Dworkin's or any similar position prove, before it need be taken seriously, that it is not merely a prejudiced assault. A gentle nudge in the direction of McCarthyism in a thread which has so far been remarkably free of such mudslinging.

Hang on... since when did asking criticism of a position to demonstrate that it is not merely a prejudiced assault become "McCarthyism", or indeed anything other than a perfectly reasonable way to conduct a debate?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:01 / 04.09.02
Hysteria is from the Ancient Greek hustera, meaning womb. It described a set of conditions resulting from a wandering womb amongst the womenfolk of the 19th century. To describe a woman as hysterical was to say that her outbursts were the result of a physical/mental pathology, and not therefore to be taken seriously.

Janina and Justin have suggested that Dworkin is insane, and thus, presumably, that we should be treating her utterances as the ramblings of a crazy person rather than taking them seriously as the statements of a feminist thinker, whether or not we agree with that thought (much as notable nutbar Friedrich Nietzsche has been forgotten by Western philosophy). She should be silent, because allowing her to continue to believe that she is a feminist and not a lunatic is doing her no good and the cause of feminism no good.

The question, then, becomes whether this is a condition that might be apttributed equally to the other feminist spitfires mentioned above and elsewhere, or someone like Valerie Solanas. Because if we are in fact interested in discussing one feminist spitfire, who turns out not in fact to be a feminist spitfire but just some mad old woman barking at the moon, then we should probably retitle the thread.

There may perhaps therefore be texts be underlying the idea that Dworkin is mad (that it seems easier to have an opinion on Dworkin than, say, on Faludi, that the assumption that she is mad seems to contain the implication that she is also wrong, and for that matter that the hysterical defence, much like the over-emotional or the irrational defences, are useful ways in which non-normative behaviour and statements can be pathologised for being delivered in the wrong way, and therefore dismissed).
 
 
Tryphena Absent
23:56 / 04.09.02
In my first year at university I took English as one of my classes, my tutor asked the class if anyone would care to call themself a feminist and no one in the class said yes. It is the insane ranting of Dworkin and others like her about subjects such as rape that recreate feminism as a taboo. It is insane for the very reason that the little argument between Nick and Haus is insane because it's over-emotional and rather charged and at times insensitive.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
05:27 / 05.09.02
I haven't exactly gone out of my way to read Dworkin, so my judgement of her is based largely on extracts and articles from her work, and on the commentary of others. I have to say I find many of the positions she takes to be untenable, and feel that the continual assumption that all men are essentially rapists and all women are essentially helpless victims is distorted, untrue, and horribly disempowering. I've never read anything by her that didn't put me in a perfectly foul mood for days afterward.

However.

I can't help feel bewildered by the degree of (dare I say it) hysteria that she inspires in her detractors. It seems out of all proportion to her actual influence. It's not as if her books are very widely read, or as if those who do read them are going to take on board every single word in a completely credulous and uncritical way: "Gosh! All men are rapists, you say? I must immediately get a posse of my grrls together and equip them with rusty sheep-shears!" I don't think I've come across a single review or commentary in the mainstream media that didn't slag her off royally.

So I've got to wonder: what's the beef? Why do non-feminists keep waving Dworkin in our faces? It surely can't be that lacking any real arguments against feminism, they have to resort to creating a bogeyman?

Nahhh....
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:00 / 05.09.02
Well, it is certainly interesting that Dworkin has very quickly become the centre of attention on this thread, despite the many other names proposed as possible "feminsit spitfires" by Sneezes, Cherry and others....

As I mentioned above, I think it's very easy to have an opinion on Dworkin, possibly independently of having very much experience of her work, because she has been held up as a totemic "mad Millie Tant feminist" for so long by so many different interest groups. If somebody were to so "describe, using only good words, what comes into your head when I mention Helene Cixous", I suspect it would be much harder for the same number of views to be collected so quickly.

It also means you get interesting cause-effect combos like:

In my first year at university I took English as one of my classes, my tutor asked the class if anyone would care to call themself a feminist and no one in the class said yes. It is the insane ranting of Dworkin and others like her about subjects such as rape that recreate feminism as a taboo.

Had these people been studying Dworkin? Was there evidence that they had read much Dworkin? Or is it simply a comfortable assumption that, because Dworkin exists, feminisim is being recreated as a taboo. In which case we are going to have to censor not her words but her existence, which on the bright side will probably not take nearly as long.
 
 
The Apple-Picker
13:06 / 05.09.02
Yeah, I was curious about that statement, too. It is the insane ranting of Dworkin and others like her about subjects such as rape that recreate feminism as a taboo. In high school, I didn't know anyone who read any feminist literature; by all appearances, I didn't know anyone who knew much at all, if anything, about feminism. That didn't stop a guy with whom I was, ahem, friends from asking me (after some pro-woman statement I'd made), "What, you're not a feminist are you?" with all the derision my dad would sneer the word "liberal." It's not coo' to be a feminist. At least, it wasn't among any of the people I knew then, and still isn't among most of the people I know now. But, I was intimidated by the question and said, "Noooooooo." At which point my male friends promptly went back to using me as a piece of furniture, draping a forearm over my shoulder as if I were the back of a chair, leaning their tremendous weight on me.

I guess I mean to say that refusing to identify oneself as a feminist isn't necessarily because of the taint insane ranters have had on the movement. For me, it was because the men with whom I was, ahem, friends implied the threat of social alienation. The reasons I can think of as to why they would do that are that they found feminism threatening and it's just not coo' to be political.
 
 
some guy
13:37 / 05.09.02
The reason more people have an opinion on Dworkin than, say, Helene Cixous is that Dworkin is usually one of the first feminists studied in low-level women's studies/literature courses. As most of us presumably do not have our degree in that concentration and are "feminists in spirit" rather than "feminists in reading credentials," it seems obvious that, for better or worse, most of us are more familiar with her than others. Hell, any minute now we'll dive into such bleeding edge works as The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper...
 
 
Cherry Bomb
09:25 / 08.09.02
Was thinking about this yesterday: - if you write off Dworkin, Solanas et al on the basis of what some of what they say being simply too ridiculous to be anything but "insane," what do you say about someone like Aristotle? After all, he said that women were essentially deformed men, and incapable of thought. Isn't that just as ridiculous as anything Solanas and Dworkin have said? And shouldn't we, by the same token we're using against those two, write off Aristotle then?
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
19:30 / 08.09.02
Sounds fair to me, seeing as when we think of Aristotle all we think about is what he said about women and nothing else... oh wait, no, it's coming, I'll remember it in a minute...
 
 
Tryphena Absent
23:53 / 08.09.02
In my A level classes we studied women's poetry: Dworkin, Plath... we bought an anthology, read it, studied it. The poetry creates the lame image of feminism because who actually wants to hear people over-emotionalize and over-generalise circumstances? Rape isn't a lame subject in the slightest but it's brought to the point of abuse by the 'spitfires'.

The lame image of feminism leads to a generalization about the poetry, then the movement, in the media. People believe the media and suddenly can't admit in front of a class full of other English students that they believe feminism can be OK. I'm not going to say this is true of everyone, there are people who would shun it anyway but extreme writing leads to extreme reaction and that can be in favour or against.

For that extremity of emotion to exist in someone's writing there has to be some insanity behind it. Maybe insane is too strong a word... I'm having trouble finding a lighter one though. You shouldn't write people off because they're insane (did I say you should? My first idea on this subject was actually meant to be poking fun at Dworkin anyway) but you should probably recall the idea when taking in their work.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:44 / 09.09.02
Hang on, I've lost the thread again...are we talking about people's ideologies or people's poetry? Because presumably Plath is not being counted here as a modern feminist spitfire, since she died some decades ago.

And if we're going to say "Plath gives feminism a bad name because her poetry suggests she was insane"....well, yes. Her poetry has a definite streak of madness to it, but I'm not sure how relevant that is, since she was not presenting her poetry as a work of feminist ideology. So, perhaps by not giving more attention to how mad all that stuff about Nazis and bees was, she was in fact presenting a lame image of *women*...

As it is, however, as far as I can see you are arguing that Dworkin's poetry, reported through the media, is making people uncomfortable about identifying as feminists. I woudl suggest that Dworkin's ideologies are more generally represented in the media - I have certainly never come across her poetry in a popular newspaper; it is possible that she is being misrepresented as being insane, it is possible also that she is genuinely insane, although Ganesh would probably tut at the indiscriminate use of the term. Which brings us back to the question of whether it is our duty, as feminists, to silence Andrea Dworkin and her fellow cadre of so-fallen-by-the-wayside-at-this-point feminist spitfires, lest they give feminism a bad name by advancing either the wrong ideologies or advancing them in the wrong way.
 
 
Cherry Bomb
10:12 / 09.09.02
Sounds fair to me, seeing as when we think of Aristotle all we think about is what he said about women and nothing else... oh wait, no, it's coming, I'll remember it in a minute...

I'm just trying to make a point, mon ami. I know this is hardly the first thing we think of when we think of Aristotle. I'm just thinking that, if you've read any Dworkin or Solanas (and admittedly I haven't read much of the former), they make a few good points in there - so I'm just saying can we write off everything they've said due to some of what they've said, and if we do, why don't we do the same for other folks?
 
 
some guy
13:44 / 09.09.02
Surely the term "feminist spitfire" is helping to muddy the waters? It's obviously a loaded term presented with an implied agenda. Perhaps we ought to shift gears a bit and ponder how the medium affects the message (or the speaker affects the speech).

Also, is it just me, or did the thread title and abstract mysteriously change a while back? Another agenda?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:48 / 09.09.02
I think it's just you.

But quite. More than the title, I think what is confusing is that the thread started off being about a set number of (named) thinkers and writers grouped under the title "feminist spitfires", then narrowed down essentially to focus purely on Andrea Dworkin, and may now be about to flare out to cover every woman whose hysterical (pax) behaviour is letting the side down...
 
 
some guy
14:46 / 09.09.02
My mistake. I thought the thread was originally titled The Trouble With Modern Feminism.

I think what is confusing is that the thread started off being about a set number of (named) thinkers and writers grouped under the title "feminist spitfires", then narrowed down essentially to focus purely on Andrea Dworkin

Well, as pointed out earlier, most people who aren't heavily into the feminist subculture are probably more familiar with Dworkin than the other examples, because she tends to be among the first feminists taught. This doesn't mean there aren't many feminists on Barbelith, but it may mean that more people tend to believe in equity for the genders than care to read deeply into what specific feminists have to say about it. This makes a certain amount of sense, after all. To view women as the equal of men, and to give a damn about what Susan Faludi thinks about anything are two completely separate things.

and may now be about to flare out to cover every woman whose hysterical (pax) behaviour is letting the side down...

Which is where the speaker/speech dynamic comes into play. Should audiences pay attention to the message rather than the messenger? Yes. Do they? No. And we've known this for a long, long time. Could the feminist movement benefit from some charismatic speakers who know how to preach to the unconverted? Damn straight. Does Dworkin have any appeal outside a small, already converted group? Doesn't seem to. This may be because she's a "spitfire," or perhaps because she has little to share but venom. But questioning whether "spitfires" are in fact backfires for any given movement is probably a worthwhile exercise.

I wonder if the West in general is post-movement. This may explain the sputtering of "official" feminism and why it appears that the more remarkable advances in gay rights occur outside of the "gay movement."
 
 
Cherry Bomb
16:53 / 09.09.02
I think there are charismatic feminists out there. Look at Gloria Steinem. Ok, so she's second wave, but still! She was known as "the cute one" in her day.

And really, Naomi Wolf comes to mind when I think of charismatic feminists. But truth be told I could be confusing cute with charismatic.

but it may mean that more people tend to believe in equity for the genders than care to read deeply into what specific feminists have to say about it. This makes a certain amount of sense, after all. To view women as the equal of men, and to give a damn about what Susan Faludi thinks about anything are two completely separate things.


Maybe, maybe not. Personally, I find that sort of shit fascinating. But that's me.

I'll give you that the decidedly anti-feminist "Independent Woman's Forum" seems to have a never-ending supply of TV-friendly faces ready to give the "woman's point of view" on any news program, ,and I would like to see that level of organization on the feminist camp.

I guess the biggest danger of saying "this feminist turns me off, (and thus is hurting the movement at large)" is, who decides what hurts the movement at large? Why do we give feminism such scrutiny? These are questions that are think are at the heart of the trouble with modern feminist spitfires.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:19 / 12.04.05
Michael Moorcock: After "Right-Wing Women" and "Ice and Fire" you wrote "Intercourse". Another book which helped me clarify confusions about my own sexual relationships. You argue that attitudes to conventional sexual intercourse enshrine and perpetuate sexual inequality. Several reviewers accused you of saying that all intercourse was rape. I haven't found a hint of that anywhere in the book. Is that what you are saying?

Andrea Dworkin: No, I wasn't saying that and I didn't say that, then or ever. There is a long section in Right-Wing Women on intercourse in marriage. My point was that as long as the law allows statutory exemption for a husband from rape charges, no married woman has legal protection from rape. I also argued, based on a reading of our laws, that marriage mandated intercourse--it was compulsory, part of the marriage contract. Under the circumstances, I said, it was impossible to view sexual intercourse in marriage as the free act of a free woman. I said that when we look at sexual liberation and the law, we need to look not only at which sexual acts are forbidden, but which are compelled.

The whole issue of intercourse as this culture's penultimate expression of male dominance became more and more interesting to me. In Intercourse I decided to approach the subject as a social practice, material reality. This may be my history, but I think the social explanation of the "all sex is rape" slander is different and probably simple. Most men and a good number of women experience sexual pleasure in inequality. Since the paradigm for sex has been one of conquest, possession, and violation, I think many men believe they need an unfair advantage, which at its extreme would be called rape. I don't think they need it. I think both intercourse and sexual pleasure can and will survive equality.

It's important to say, too, that the pornographers, especially Playboy, have published the "all sex is rape" slander repeatedly over the years, and it's been taken up by others like Time who, when challenged, cannot cite a source in my work.

- Andrea Dworkin (1946-2005), in conversation with Michael Moorcock.

I've not really read enough Dworkin to comment*, but my gut instinct is: her school of feminism is not quite the one I subscribe to, but she was infinitely preferably to most of those who used her as a strawwoman.

(*Would anyone who's read any Dworkin like to recommend something?)
 
 
sdv (non-human)
13:54 / 12.04.05
Personally I'll miss her - in some ways radical feminists seemed to exist to keep us honest..

Try the book Intercourse -

and avoid the novels they are dreadful...
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:58 / 12.04.05
That's really my take on the whole thing as well. I think anyone who believes that the majority of women really make an effort to confront there place in society and face hard truths about it is living in a delusion. In the face of that we need people like Dworkin to throw questions out and drag people into, at least confronting the possibility that she might be absolutely right. I'm sad that she is dead, but I also disliked her novels.
 
 
Ex
15:08 / 13.04.05
I used some of Dworkin's articles for teaching. Not the ones on sex and pornography, which are perhaps better known and cited in relation to public opinion of her (see previous bits of thread).
There is one article in the collection Life and Death that is a very savvy interrogation of the idea of human rights, and whether they protect the vulnerable in America - I used it whenever I taught liberal feminism, to encourage people to think about how 'rights' have historically (rather than ideally) functioned. This article provides a reading of race and sex and their intersection in the US - any suggestion that she misses systems of power other than gender is off the mark.
I don't know if it's defensive to mention that Dworkin could write article, logical and sustained arguments - not that the characterisation of her as emotional is 'wrong' but that if she's writing emotionally, I believe she was aware of it, and doing it for a particular reason.

The way I use this article is also good for debate, as I usually distribute it with one section blanked out (students have the book in the main library, they can look up the whole unedited thing). This is because Dworkin quotes a hideous description of sex from a mainstream novel about Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, and I refuse to take the responsibility of compelling a class of 18 year old women to read this section. I also feel that my doing this is an enormous cop out, and I doubt Dworkin would thank me for effectively vetoing her use of rhetorical strategies. Therefore I always bring this up as an adjunct to the class debate, which is good for a ten minute tussle.
In fact, the main reason why I'm not better versed in Dworkin's writing is that I cannot read some of the descriptions of pornography that appear in her work. I get the point of them, why they're there. But I can't take them into my head. I'd be interested whether anyone who has read it feels that this aspect of her work's helpful, or a hinderance.

There is also in Life or Death an amazing account of what it meant for her to grow up as a New York Jewish girl with Israel held up as the acme of freedom (and gender equality), and then to grow aware of problems with the state, and finally to visit it. It's very moving and again charts intersecting issues - anti-semitism interracting with misogyny, the role of Israeli military activity - even the power differentials between Western and local feminists at the conference she attends. For example, she talks with a young male conscript in the Israeli army (and his mother) and reveals the choices and limitations that express his position of privilege, and also his disempowerment, within that particular state military system.

I think both intercourse and sexual pleasure can and will survive equality.

I like that quote immensely.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:45 / 14.04.05
Good obituary by Susie Bright.
 
  

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