Academic attainment and feminism?

[suwoo]

I have wanted to start this thread all day but have been scared that it is stupid or I will be flamed. I want to ask if people feel there is a correlation between academic attainment and feminist principles. Is that a valid question?
I had no idea that I was a feminist. I knew I had these thoughts and principles but didn't know what they were or the significance of them until we did feminist literary theory this semester- it was like an epiphany and my whole world made sense

Had I not gone to uni at the grand old age of 35, maybe I would never had these revelations.

What do you think? Those of you that identify as a feminist, what level of education do you have?

I did not take you to task for arguing postmodernism is anti-feminist.

I took you to task for (wrongly) assuming I was a post-modernist and for (wrongly) believing that 'narrative' is a post-modern term in literary theory, when it in fact has several different literary theoretical applications.

And I have not disagreed with this, yet you have still not apologized for wrongly attributing postmodernist and sexist views to me, which I did not express and explicitly rejected when they were attributed to me.

This is why I think you are more interested in the words on the page than in real women - or indeed, real discussion.

Ah perhaps.

I didn't get on very well with Eng Lit. As I said on another thread, I got sick of studying books by men from a male perspective.

Spent most of my time reading Millett, Dworkin Simone de Beauvoir, etc and trying to figure out ways to sneak them into my essays .

Well, I don't think you disagreed with me, I think you created a straw man and disagreed with that, while attributing the views to me. This might explain why you keep insisting to me that you've demonstrated how post-modernism is anti-feminist, instead of replying to anything I've actually said.

Oh; I read the books, and books by women, and also got involved in women's activism . (Although, obviously, that was before I Rolled.)

I always used to fervently deny being a feminist. Brought up to believe it was a negative word by my mysoginistic father!

Married straight out of school into a violent relationship and happy to be submissive and bullied. It was all I knew.

I left him after 3 years, remarried and did it all over again! Left number 2 (!!) then got myself an education. Studied biomedical science and was plunged into a male dominated career.

What I learned was....it's ok to ask for equality. It's ok to be a strong woman. Feminism is not about man-hating but more about being pro-women! I stopped thinking about the gender issues and more about people issues. I'm now happily settled with a man who has the same views, respects my past, the strengths gained from it and most of all my intelligence!

Although I went to uni at 25 (am 34 now but had lived quite a lifetime by 25!!) I know exactly how your eyes have just been opened! Good innit?!

Don't worry about all the words, what categories people fall into....just play to YOUR strengths and do what you need to do to be happy. Don't accept negativity from men OR women. Relax

dittany, your clairvoyance is astonishing. Now you know about my political past and you can also pinpoint my faculty, just through the power of your intuition. Because it would never do to ask nicely about those things, would it? Not when you can make assumptions. This, then, is what we can learn from Daly and Dworkin. Don't do any research because you already know the answer.

Separately, for Beachcomber: I think Millett might be the strongest of those Frequently Cited here. But she can't do lit crit and some of her readings are astonishingly simplistic. I find it exhausting to pump her in and then siphon her out.

What did you mean by 'a male perspective'? What is that?

It will be interesting, I think, dittany, to see how my students respond to the juxtaposition of theorists and writers such as SdB, MacKinnon, and Dworkin, who address real women's issues directly, such as marriage, rape and violence; and those theorists and writers who philosophise "woman" or "women's ontological experience", and frequently address the aforementioned issues indirectly, such as Cixous or Irigaray. I disagree with you that the latter are not feminists, or worse, anti-feminists, but acknowledge that the effect of their writing is radically different, and that is worth thinking and talking about.

Indeed, it is precisely the fact that - as you point out - Dworkin and others provoke howls of outrage, while others - such as Cixous - who arguably (I know you do not agree, but please accept that I do!) make any number of accusations against men, yet couched in a particular style/language - are more "acceptable" (I think this is largely an impression of their more "academic/intellectual" [however specious those terms are] qualities, if you see what I mean), that needs examination. (Ugh - ungainly sentence... Hope you follow me).

And it should be pointed out that your picture of the academy is not quite as accurate as it may seem. Plenty of (predominantly male) academics utterly reject Cixous' and Irigaray's thought. They haven't "won" any particular war; a few battles, maybe. However, I do agree that in comparison to the fate of radical feminism in the academy, these thinkers are virtually canonised.

I wish that it was not such a zero-sum game; there should be room at the table for all kinds of feminist thinkers. Not in the spirit of forced (feminine) tolerance, but in that of a kind of open-minded arena which admits different species of debate, while not losing sight of the real world, real time, real life goals of political feminism. And it should not be the case that thinkers muscle others out. That is, surely, a patriarchal gesture. But the remedy to that is not then to replace one orthodoxy with another, if you see what I mean, which would arguably simply replicate that previous patriarchal gesture.

Incidentally, in Cixous' case at least, it is not quite fair to claim she has done nothing for women directly, since she founded the centre for Women's Studies at Vincennes, which was (hazy memory, I think) the first of its kind in Europe. That is surely, if only an academic action, a positive one for women.

And Irigaray initially suffered for her opinions, when she was ejected by Lacan from the Ecole Freudienne.

Thank you for responding Sieglinde. I find it a bit strange that someone who teaches feminist theory wouldn't think that Sexual Politics is an important work, and Millett's place an important one in the development of feminist analysis. Same goes for Dworkin and Mackinnon.

I find myself that feminist theory and analysis is actually quite simple most of the time. What is more difficult is laying aside patriarchal influence and the internalization and normalization of patriarchal values and paradigms.

I think the radical feminists mentioned on this thread did so very incisively and that is why they are important and influential.

When you do feminist theory with your students, are you exploring feminism as a political movement, or as an academic subject to be examined?

By 'male perspective' I mean that we studied literature from a predominantly status quo point of view (that of society being organised with men in a position male privilege and women not having privilege). We were encouraged to think highly of authors who, when read from the position of feminist analysis, were sexist/patriarchal if not actually misogynistic.

There was nothing unusual about my course - just standard Uni in the 90s stuff really. I became very disillusioned with it personally because so much of it just didn't speak to me or speak about my existence. I said recently on a thread on MN that feminist lit crit and analysis gave me 'permission' to decide that there were authors I didn't want to read regardless of how great they supposedly were. I find I much prefer to read books written by women.

"Just because it's a woman writing doesn't make her a feminist. Kristeva and Cixous are unknown as feminists in France, nobody recognises them there."

And where did you glean that particular gem from, dittany? The article you linked to?

They are both widely published and recognised thinkers in France.

They are not "unknown as feminists", in particular not Cixous (and she is not "Algerian" as was erroneously stated further down the thread).

LRD didn't, however, mention them even remotely in the context of Cixous's work, thank you.

dittany - I accept that that paragraph is contradictory, although of course it was not meant to be; I meant, simply, to correct any impression this thread might give that French Feminism (of whatever vintage) is wholeheartedly and universally embraced within the academy. It is not. Radical feminism is, of course, embraced even less...

You asked: "What effect do you think their writing has Penthe?"

In the context of what I wrote I meant that (particularly) Dworkin's writing is rooted in activism and the texts reflect this. They communicate in a very particular manner with their readers.

Cixous and Irigaray, in my opinion, do something different, in that their writing is more literary or philosophical and their styles, etc., reflect this. Neither of these thinkers is a writer-thinker-activist in the manner of Dworkin or MacKinnon. Both (as OF COURSE do Dworkin and MacKinnon) can, however, enable their readers to re-imagine the world. In this respect, they are influential.

A spectacularly sexist first line to that article from which you quoted - "In France, Julia Kristeva is best known as the wife of Philippe Sollers, a high profile French novelist." Nice.

I agree that the idea that feminism, ethnic interest groups, etc. should be labelled "totalitarian" is pretty gruesome. In the context of a patriarchal world, it is not helpful to give such ammunition to the enemy.

But it seems clear from the article that one ought to understand her rejection of "the group identity adopted by some feminist, gay and ethnic leaders as a pedestal for their revindications" in the context of a rejection of any collective political identity, so that any ideology is incompatible with individual freedom.

I would say, however, that I have not read any of her more recent work which talks of this totalitarianism; and that that paragraph is largely a paraphrase of the journalist. I would like to read exactly what she had to say on the matter before I pontificate further!

Have you read it or know where I might find it? Where does it appear, other than the in this interview/article?

Bonsoir - I remarked that Cixous was Algerian; perhaps it would have been better to write that she was born in Algeria of German-Jewish-(Sephardic & Ashkenazi)-French/Pied-noir descent, and that to label her simply a "French Feminist" is to miss out a significant element of her literary, philosophical, and political identity.

I was just trying to be succinct.

Thanks for pulling me up on that!

Her Algerian identity is important to her though (think, for instance, of her word-play around Oran-je, etc.).