gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) (04/09/91)
| gcf> The whole point of individualism is to discount the validity, if | > not the effect, of that sort of categorization and the relations | > that may go along with it. jym@mica.berkeley.edu (Jym Dyer) writes: | __ Except that feminism arose to counter the treatement of women | _ as nonindividuals. I grant that cultural feminism was into | categorization, but it's certainly not true of feminisim | _per_se_. No, no. "Being treated as an individual" is the mythic _reward_ which bourgeois liberalism grants to those of sufficient status to be entirely real persons. The status is the real crux of the matter. Women, the non-white, the young, the old, in short all who were not middle-aged white males had lower status; it is to the affront of lower status that feminism reacts, coming up with a great variety of counter-strategies. But persons of low status _can_ be treated as individuals. For instance, I treat my dogs as individuals, although I regard them as having lower political status than I. I could do the same with slaves or clients. A myth of individuality or peculiarism often serves to keep a subordinate population in line, since it helps keep them from assembling to pursue their interests in common. The whole myth applies to those of high and low status alike; those of higher status simply have a greater opportunity to intensify an individuality which is already their most precious possession. In order to reinvent feminism, feminists had to recognize not their individualities -- existing society was all too ready to do that -- but their commonalities. That's why consciousness- raising groups were formed and slogans like "Sisterhood is Powerful!" emerged. Once successful to any degree, the movement fragmented, because different women sought different goals. The majority wanted to be like men with respect to status; they form the reformist branch of feminism, and indeed pursue the intensification of individuality which bourgeois liberalism promises. Others have pursued other goals, not all of them individualist. | > Therefore -- since the book contradicts expectation -- it seems | > like it might be pretty interesting. | ___ | __ I'll lay even odds that it's just a marriage of libertarianism | _ and feminism, with libertarianism as the dominant partner. If | you *really* want to contradict those expectations, check out | Alice Echol's _Daring_to_Be_Bad_ (radical feminism) and Emma | Goldman's stuff (anarcho-feminism). But Echol and Goldman will write radically, and not very individualistically, which I expect! It is this marriage which seems odd. The libertarian individualist doesn't need (doesn't think she needs) feminism or any other group movement. Saying "feminist libertarian" is like saying "black-liberationist libertarian." The adjectives seems superfluous, if not oxymoronic. But we cannot proceed further in our critique without a text. We are like lions in the zoo, pacing about, waiting for the meat to be thrown.