PALEPINK@CC.UTAH.EDU (11/14/88)
First, I haven't read Lacan, but the two people I know who've read *all* of her say that she doesn't really say that language is inherently masculine... The comment that disturbed me is somebody's contention that French criticism might affect American feminism and their faith in women's abilities. It looks to me that American feminists are doing a pretty good job of damning women by themselves (the ones I've read don't refer specifically to French theory, at least. There may have been strong influences). The articles I read, these last few years, on the progress of women in science, largely agree that women have reached their limit. This is because when Francis Bacon formulated the scientific method three hundred years ago he used phrases like "man can learn to exploit Nature for his benefit; she has much to give", so that the scientific method is inherently anti-woman and women's brains are incapable of creatively working in an anti-woman direction. (My roommate has been re-reading *The Republic*-- Plato--this weekend; we were just laughing about some of Socrates' more miserable pieces of bad logic--at the time, we were saying that nobody could get away with that today. We hoped.) Anyway, one woman (I'm told she tried to be a physicist, failed, and chooses to convince herself that *no* woman is intellectually capable of the job, but that's evil gossip) explains that Marie Curie wasn't a scientist, she was her husband's lab assistant. Women are capable of being lab assistants, of being yes-men (;-)), or of possibly contributing some minor work, but only if, like Emmy Noether, they renounce their femininity and become pseudo-men. Ghastly, no? What really bugs me is that the Physics Department at my college, as part of its genuinely well-intentioned attempt to encourage female students, had a very lengthy review/summary of this woman's book enshrined behind glass on the wall for a couple of years. They honestly thought that they were merely paying tribute to the extra effort women made. I can't tell you how devastating it felt to walk out of the library, half-dead, at two a.m., and discover that I only needed a shot of testosterone to make it all clear. Maybe it's true. Maybe women really *can't* think logically (Corollary: maybe I'm not really a woman, since I can never seem to think otherwise without chemical assistance...). But until somebody thinks up the way for curious folk like me to investigate the world without the constraints of an anti-woman language, dammit, they should shut up. All they're doing now is destructive to women who *do* feel comfortable with "masculine" thought as a discipline. Angry and blithering, Susan.
rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) (11/16/88)
In article <5845@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> PALEPINK@CC.UTAH.EDU writes: >First, I haven't read Lacan, but the two people I know >who've read *all* of her say that she doesn't really >say that language is inherently masculine... Jacques Lacan is (or was? is he still alive?) male, a fact which may or may not be relevant. What IS relevant is the distinction between "prescription" and "description". Most feminist psychoanalysis I've read (I assume this is what "Lacanian feminism" means) considers Freudian/Lacanian psychoanalysis to be *descriptive* -- if Lacan claimed that women are barred from the Symbolic, this is a description of what 'feminine' means, here and now. It is NOT a prescription that things should or must be this way. The goal is to understand what 'femininity' and 'masculinity' have come to mean, not to make claims about the essence of women and men (essentialism being the cardinal sin from this perspective).
sethg@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Seth Gordon) (11/18/88)
palepink@cc.utah.edu in <5845@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>: `The comment that disturbed me is somebody's contention `that French criticism might affect American feminism `and their faith in women's abilities. It looks to me `that American feminists are doing a pretty good job of `damning women by themselves (the ones I've read don't `refer specifically to French theory, at least. There `may have been strong influences). Could you elaborate on this? My Women's Studies professor and I would be most interested in this topic. (Isabelle de Courtivron is my professor; she is the head of the Women's Studies Program here, she's French, and I believe she co-edited a book of French feminist essays.) `The articles I read, these last few years, on the progress `of women in science, largely agree that women have `reached their limit. This is because when Francis `Bacon formulated the scientific method three hundred `years ago he used phrases like "man can learn to exploit `Nature for his benefit; she has much to give", so that `the scientific method is inherently anti-woman and `women's brains are incapable of creatively working `in an anti-woman direction. Are *most scientists* *socialized* to be anti-woman? IMHO, probably so. Is *the scientific method* *inherently* anti-woman? IMHO, almost certainly not. It's true that among many people, even scientists, there is an image of science as inherently "masculine"; exploitation of women is used as a metaphor for science or technology (as in that Bacon quote); and "objective" scientists let assumptions about gender bias their work. Evelyn Fox Keller, in _Reflections on Gender and Science_ (Yale University Press, 1985), suggests that women have a harder time than men doing "hard" science, and science is perceived as masculine, because both masculinity and science involve sharp seperation between, and domination of, a "subject" (men or the scientist) and an "object" (women or nature). However, she does not see this as due to innate differences between male and female brains; following Nancy Chodorow's feminist psychoanalytic theories, she sees this as rooted in how boys and girls are raised. I don't think "the scientific method is inherently anti-woman." By using the scientific method to find the *truth* about gender differences and their causes, science can be actively *pro*-woman. See, for example, Ann Fausto Sterling's book _Myths of Gender: Biological thoughts About Women and Men_, or Ruth Bleier's essay "Sex Difference Research: Science or Belief" in _Feminist Approaches to Science._ The Biology and Gender Study Group at Swarthmore College (Michael Dukakis's alma mater, incidentally) has written a paper relevant to this discussion: A. Beldecos et al., "The Importance of Feminist Critique for Contemporary Cell Biology," which should be coming out in _Hypatia_ sometime in 1988. (I only have the manuscript, so I don't know which issue.) In the abstract for this paper, the authors write: "Biology is seen not merely as a privileged oppressor of women but as a co-victim of masculinist social assumptions. We see feminist critique as one of the normative controls that any scientist must perform whenever analyzing data, and we seek to demonstrate what has happened when this control has not been utilized...." What do they mean, "feminist critique as... [a] normative control?" "We have come to look at feminist critique as we would any other experimental control. Whenever one performs an experiment, one sets up all the controls one can think of in order to make as certain as possible that the result obtained does not come from any other source. One asks oneself what assumptions one is making. Have I assumed the temperature to be constant? Have I assumed that the pH doesn't change over the time of the reaction? Feminist critique asks if there may be some assumptions that we haven't checked concerning gender bias." The authors, in this paper, give a feminist critique of cell biology, in which, for example researchers and textbook writers throughout the ages have assumed the sperm and egg to fit the stereotypical roles of men and women. -- "Hey, man, you lookin' *good*!" "Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!" -- Gloria Steinem, _If Men Could Menstruate_ : bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!sethg / standard disclaimer : Seth Gordon / MIT Brnch., PO Box 53, Cambridge, MA 02139
brunner@aai7.uucp (Eric Brunner) (11/26/88)
In article <5848@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) writes: >In article <5845@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> PALEPINK@CC.UTAH.EDU writes: >>First, I haven't read Lacan, but the two people I know >>who've read *all* of her say that she doesn't really >>say that language is inherently masculine... > >Jacques Lacan is (or was? is he still alive?) male, a fact which may >or may not be relevant. > One may want to read "Anti-Oedipus," Volumes 1, and perhaps 2, in translation, by Deluze and Gutteria for more on the semiotics debate, as well as to view the French philosophical approach to Freud of Lacan and others... All misspellings are myown. Eric Thomas Eric Brunner Manager, SRI IST Division Computer Facility, EJ309, x3130