Academic attainment and feminism?

(I am also wanting to have a discussion about Sara Maitland's and Angela Carter's recuperations of fairy tales, because I find that profoundly interesting, but suspect that here is not the place not least because Carter is very interested in de Sade.)

I'm not missing the point, actually, I am adding an Irrelevant Footnote. And as I understand it, Sieglinde is pointing up some significant areas in which Dworkin didn't got the historical stuff wrong. Saying 'ah but that doesn't matter' is missing her point.

(That's from Lady Susan. Not a completely accurate quote, though, I've not read it for years.)

(But Jane Austen's juvenlia is pretty terrific! 'I have no plans to marry, especially as I am not in want of money at the moment...' fab stuff.)

I'm not defending her 'erasure'. I'm saying that she's not a helpful foremother because as you agree, her work on historical topics was vitiated by what we might now agree to call lack of training or experience. If I point out a mistake in a predecessor's work, I'm not trampling on it. Am I supposed to say she was right when she wasn't? And actually she made those topics very difficult for women to approach for some time.

Dittany, Butler is saying that there is no essence of woman, not that woman does not exist as an unstable social construction. similar to Luce Irigaray in France; it's postmodern, which doesn't mean it's a deadly enemy to feminism.

You yourself note that Dworkin has not been much celebrated in the groves of academe. On witchcraft and on fairytales, she just hasn't done the basic groundwork; it's all cobbled up from secondary materials. She ludicrously exaggerates the number of deaths in the witchtrials to numbers int he millions when the true figure is around 30,000, and she also assumes that all witch persecutions are aimed at women, despite the massive predominance of male witches among the accused in some countries. Like most radical feminists she hugely overstates the impact of the Malleus Maleficarum. On fairytales, she ignores the role of the original female tellers of these tales and seems not to know the brilliant early versions of many tales, such as the earliest Red Riding Hood, where Red says she has to go outside for a piss, thus escaping the wolf.

NB: I too like Gail Dinen's work.

Thanks to Proles too.

Echoes of Sparta there, saf. Shocking.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Very much appreciated. I will try to work them in. Just so much to talk about and so little time...

Sybil - yes to Friedan!

dittany - Thanks for that reference.

Doris re: myth - We will be covering this somewhat with Cixous and The Laugh of the Medusa. But I will see about the Carter/Warner, etc.

VG - mostly theory, I think - though I tend to wonder what's theoretical about feminist theory... Seems more like a theorem, I'd say...

Again, thanks all.

LRD - re: how it works out... Just hope it doesn't begin like my colleague's Feminism classes (admittedly some time ago). She had wreckers on her course...

That's awful swallowed. Poor little boys.

yes, those men were MADE, but it's the chicken and the egg isn't it. Who were the first abusers?

But yes, in a post-patriarchal world, I know men will be able to behave themselves.

thanks saF. Men are fucked up.
Is there any hope?

toh, so please excuse lack of punctuation...

penthe would be good to see a week on feminism and mythology... marina warner's beast to the blonde is excellent or elinor gadon the once and future goddess. might be worth looking at literary interpretations of this: angela carter, margaret atwood for example.

swallowedafly tis strange about the shared school uniform rebellions.

i was at secondary in the early 90s. i wonder if the time has anything to do with it, or if it's more to do with social awareness and body awareness. will ponder as i bf!

Sounds bloody good, Penthesileia. Are you planning to add literary texts to it, or leave it as a pure 'theory' course? How I dream of teaching a course like that - let's hope it spreads!

Is women's status better in that Papa new guinea culture SaF? Women are seen as polluting in the west as well too, of course (Christianity!) It just strikes me that if women live together they'd be more powerful; no men to clean up after for one thing. And the men in turn are forced to do their own chores.
Very about the kidnapping of boys (but they get to keep their girls, I suppose. In our culture we lose our girls at a very early age to patriarchal influences)

That makes sense about keeping it 20th century - as I say, bee in my bonnet. It sounds great, will you post about how it goes? I'd love to pick up tips.