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've been following this thread with interest and the recent posts from dittany, saf and sakura, all of which mentioned Dworkin's remarkable focus on real women, real lives got me thinking: is this perhaps where EngLit and radical feminism part company? Because literature is not real women, or real lives. And the bedrock of English Studies depends on critics not treating them as real women, real lives. And, powerful as it is, that's not literary analysis. I'm not talking about authors here, but characters.

Equally though, author's aren't 'real' women, not in the context of EngLIt; no authors, male or female, are. Apologies if I'm patronising anyone here, but Roland Barthe's 'Death of the Author' insists that the birth of the reader can only come about with the Death of the Author. Basically, once a text is written, the author has no claim on it any longer - all the meaning comes from the reader. This is immensely liberating - it puts an end to anyone being able to say 'actually, Shakespeare/Keats/Amis doesn't mean THAT. He means THIS'. All readings are valid as long as it's in the text itself. It puts power in the hands of the reader. It means that we can read patriarchy into texts. (It's also why Sexual Politics can sometimes seem dated: from an 'analysis' point of view, not as an 'important political document' one). But it also means that examining a text as an extension of its author is also eliminated.

Hmmm, I'm not sure this works. Because Dworkin identifies repressive structures, and Daly character types.

As an aside, I checked our standard intro to theory, which all students have to purchase, and Millett is in there.

Swallowedafly

• well I was suggesting that the idea that 'science has done nothing for women' (and presumably we don't need to understand it, would be better off without it, and everything it had enabled...?) which has gone without a peep of disagreement on this thread is just wrong. I don't think it's a very controversial point, I am just bemused by the polite silence around Sakura's assertion that science has no value for women.

As for objective and apolitical, no institution or individual is, but the scientific method is the best we have for getting closer towards a reliable view of the world around us.

LOL @ Himalaya. This thread has managed to dismiss both science and education as useful for women

Bonsoir that is nonsense. Nobody has said that education is not useful for women. I imagine you are referring to what I said upthread.

I said that a highly educated women is not necessarily better equipped to detect and deal with sexism or avoid sexual violence, as a result of her high level of education, and that feminism is a domain that all women can and should be able to access regardless of education level.

I also made the point that some highly educated women who claim to be feminists write texts that a) contain sexism, b) are so academic (in every sense of the word) that they are irrelevant to feminism as a grass roots political movement that belongs to all women.

Why the need to twist what has been said? Why not actually engage with the point?

I agree that Sakura's point on science is controversial. I also think it is interesting and could make for a great thread. Feminism requires one to open one's mind and think. I think many areas of science have done a great deal of harm to women and that there is a thought provoking discussion to be had on the subject.

How can science "harm" women?

Actually, reading back, I shouldn't have placed the emphasis on the reader - Barthes places the emphasis on the text (I shouldn't post when sleepy).

saf, though I think we may have gained more than we've lost by 'killing' the author but yes, it does mean authorial figures don't take centre stage in analysis (though they are almost always discussed in seminars - students love biographical details).

But I do think the authorial figure makes a return in postgrad and academic work.

Himalaya, I did indeed bat my eyelids rather at the assertion that 'science has done nothing for women.' But really for me, if someone actually thinks that, I'm not sure it's worth engaging in any sort of debate, our views of the world are so massively different.

My view is that if it weren't for science none of us would be sitting here discussing these things, the feminist movement would not have got going, we'd have all been too busy having endless babies, spending days a week on laundry and cooking, before dying young of TB or similar. Even now, if it weren't for modern science, my sister would probably have died in childbirth, my nephew would almost certainly have died of croup last winter.

Off the top of my head - in the domain of medical science, in the USA it is extremely common for a woman to receive an unwarranted episiotomy during routine childbirth. This practice causes harm to women in terms of physical and emotional trauma and often leaves her feeling violated.

I suspect from the wording of your post that you are trying to engage me in a 'how can science harm women - science is a branch of study and observation and the pursuit of knowledge - it is not an actual physical body capable of causing harm' game of semantics.

Just to be clear I am using 'science' as shorthand for 'the application of scientific knowledge, at its current stage of progress, by human beings, within society'. I thought that would be pretty obvious, because it is what people usually mean when they talk about 'science' in these sorts of discussions. I thought I would point it out though in order to avoid another (wilful?) misunderstanding on what is being posted.

True, but in Africa women routinely due or suffer awful fistula during childbirth, having had an episiotomy I know which alternative I prefer. That the application of science has been used oppressive, is not same 'science has done nothing for women'.

Due =die...sorry

Oppressive = oppressively....

VG - I think death of the author gets misunderstood sometimes, though. It doesn't, imo, excuse ignoring the historical context, which some people sometimes think it does. I wouldn't take a text and teach it as the author's unmediated words or, 'real meaning' but I'm not remotely likely to tell students the author 'isn't real', either. I suppose this says a lot about my bit of the discipline, where we do get excited when we know actual historical facts like authors' names, but it's also a matter of respect/historical sensitivity, without which I think you end up with poor readings.

I think especially with someone like Dworkin, who is known so much as a personality, it's hard to separate author from text.

Scientific advances cannot be viewed in black and white terms like that, Beachcomber. Human progress is not a series of simple steps.

Fennel - yes what you said on laundry, health etc... I get your point about not engaging, but the same time I think if someone says something completely silly and everyone rolls their eyes and doesn't say anything it looks like that viewpoint is unchallenged, and maybe it is, who knows? I don't want to waste my time debating fine points with racists for example, but I wouldn't want to just let it lie either

Beachcomber - I don't think Sakura's point that 'science has done nothing for women' is controversial even if you take science at its everyday meaning of technology as currently applied.

Oh please it isn't difficult to work out that an unwarranted mutilation of a women's body is harmful surely? I am quite clearly not talking about episiotomies that are medically indicated. I was simply answering a question about areas of science which can cause harm to women.

I agree that this subject has enough to be said about it for it to warrant a thread of its own.

Well, if we are going to have a debate on whether science has done anything for women, we had better not have it on the internet. We can have it round a campfire, sitting in the mud, breastfeeding our many many children, those of us that have survived the having of them, while grinding wheat on a stone and weaving some clothes. The irony of having it online is too much for me.

I have studied philosophy and sociology of science and (as a pernicious postmoderninst) I do critique many aspects of the positivist assumptions underlying Objective Scientific Knowledge. But still...