Ghandi, Aung San Su Kiy and other arseholes

[solidgoldbrass]

Isn't it just the case that it's nearly impossible to achieve huge memorable changes in the world without being a bit of an arsehole? You've got to have a massive ego to think you can take on such a challenge, and so it's really not that surprising that pretty much everyone who achieved massive changes for the good turns out to have been a bit of a sod round the house and have various other unattractive traits.

Circa 1823, the Anti-Slavery Society ? Joseph Sturge, Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, Henry Brougham, Thomas Fowell Buxton, Elizabeth Heyrick, Mary Lloyd, Jane Smeal, Elizabeth Pease and Anne Knight.

Might they collectively offer an example of white people with an heroic and admirable cause, working towards emancipation ?

I think the Hitler example is intersesting. If one is to define someone by weighting their behaviour directly to ones political or world view, then it'd be a bit of a conflict for militant vegitarians...

( I don't think I'll read PARP again without a little naughty smile :) )

You are being silly now suggesting that feminists put Hitler above Gandhi. Fgs thats pretty offensive. Hitler hasn't been up for discussion cos he's an all round tosser and were discussing people we otherwise admire.

Can you stop taking a pop at feminists and just discuss the issue at hand. The antagonism is unnecessary and no one can post on FWR without expecting to run into some.

My guess, I said guess, is that white men, due to their privileged position have been great scientists, explorers, etc, because they've had the education/money whilst the great movements have been led by people of the non dominant group.

As I type one man comes to mind: Karl Marx. As I've been accused of marxist tendencies myself (!!) on another thread obviously I must identify with his politics (he even addressed women's issues) but i wouldn't have wanted to be his wife or any of his numerous mistresses.

Now purlease can we make this thread into a peaceful happy one cos I'm feeling a bit emotional after Murray's loss?

If you're having. A pop at me, I'm making a valid point. I'm not trying to derail the thread.

There have been lots of different sorts of interesting points on this thread. Kritiq's contribution was interesting and productive. I don't really think the thread was racist in mentioning three people of colour: the original discussion of Gandhi framed the discussion in terms of people who have lead movements against racist and imperialist oppression and so white examples were less likely to come up. But I really enjoyed Kritiq's broadening of the discussion.

Of course there are huge numbers of white men who have been brilliant contributors in other fields but who were culpable in their attitude to and treatment of women, and it is constantly heartbreaking as a feminist to admire people (in whatever field constitutes your own endeavour in life) who you know would harbour negative and diminishing attitudes to you as a woman. We all have intersecting identities -- woman and black; women and a scientist; woman and a lover of great literature/cinema/music and, historically, there are very few men indeed that we can admire unambivalently. Still, people are complex and are assessments of the have also to be complex.

One of the Dead White Males I feel fondest of is John Stuart Mill, genuinely a feminist (though I'm sure not perfect as a feminist, but who is?). He ploughed a lonely furrow amongst men of his time and amongst liberals. I feel kind of grateful towards him just for throwing into the arena of male discussion that minimum of respect which women deserve.

Me too Oaty. I am also v fond of JSM. He was one of the first to identify the personal as the political. He used his privilege for good and that is super admirable.

Wat Tyler.
Am not sure where he stood on the radfem/ liberal debate though...

What about Marie Curies husband Pierre Curie?

He must have been a closet feminist by default?

I certainly don't think that acknowledging someone's achievements in, say, bringing about Indian independence even if they were neutral or negative in their contribution to women's liberation, is a case of "Women - back of the queue." That would only be the case if women were nothing but women if they didn't also have an ethnic identity or a class identity or whatever else. The only grounds for giving unique salience to women's gender identity in these sorts of contexts would be if gender was the fundamental and single explanatory category on the basis of which history and society could be understood so that class and racial oppression, and all of our cultural achievements, were cabable of being explained reductively in terms of gender.

Traditional Marxism makes that kind of one-term explanation of history and society in terms of property relations: everything is to be understood in terms of ownership/non-ownership of the means of production. Vast explanatory edifices were built to refine that claim. I suppose you would need something similarly elaborate to even try to substantiate a similar claim about gender.

Trust the teachings, not the teacher.

That is, if you believe in the teachings!

Unhinged, racist, Hitler supporting, egotistical, petty, small-minded, obsessive, opinionated, etc.

Goodness me, that's quite a litany for women who just wanted to have a discussion on MN about something.

I conclude that some posters think some men are above criticism from women. And they resort to personal attack in order to shut down the discussion. Shame.

I'm glad at least MrGin is finding it entertaining though.

So well said oatie

Oaty, I agree with your first sentence - acknowledging someone as great even when their contribution to women's liberation doesn't mean women to the back of the queue (although in Gandhi's case I'd argue his contribution was far more positive on the whole than neutral).

I have to say though that I do struggle with western feminist analysis at times, as I'm starting to learn more about it. While women suffer under a patriarchy, at the same time i expect most posters come from a society built on colonialism. That is, they will - indirectly - be benefitting today from the suffering of other races in other countries who served under the British historically. A different sort of 'archy' i guess (someone help me out with the right words). I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this but I suppose it's about recognizing that a person can be both oppressor (indirectly) and oppressed. Another type of intersectionality perhaps.

Now, on the other hand, if you want to talk about white men who fought against their oppressors, how about William Wallace (Braveheart)? Or how about the men of the French Resistance in WW2, who undoubtedly did great things yet (according to the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia) at the same time were pretty silent on the Vichy regime's policy of returning women to the home and largely confined women to subordinate roles in the resistance movement?

Goodness me, that's quite a litany for women who just wanted to have a discussion on MN about something

Ah yes - come up with a very radical proposition, don't take counter arguments kindly, and then accuse everyone of victimising you because they dared to disagree. Then threaten to flounce a few times.

Tut Beachcomber, that's so MN RadFem Old Skool :)

Oh, I'm fine with counter arguments Whatmeworry.

It is personal attack, sniping and veiled insults that I object to.

I don't really see what the point of your last sentence is - but it sounds like stirring and more attack to me.

But I'd say that western feminism does incorporate plenty of analysis that gives full weight to race and/or class and/or other sources of identity and conflict. The strand of feminism that I think gets called "critical race feminism" or "third wave feminism" does that very consciously, and there are also socialist feminisms that have the same sort of plurality of explanations and of self-identities for women. Feminism that makes gender the sole explanatory principle, the sole ultimate source of oppression, is I think a minority view, just part of a family of feminisms all of which share the same aims but come to different analyses. I hope we can keep sight of this rich diversity.

wickety that sounds so much like the situation in Zimbabwe with Robert Mugabe. I suppose one can say that power goes to their heads. They become detached from reality and good council once they reach a certain height.
Mao too started off with good intentions and carried on and on to destroy china.

I think you'd have to add "... and had he not systematically persecuted Jews in a manner whose logical conclusion was attempted extermination ..."

--It's a bit like saying "If a sabre-toothed tiger had feathers and a beak and was small and ate weed instead of flesh it would be a duck."

Sure he pursued full employment and public expenditure to resolve economic catastrophe but so did Roosevelt, without the murder and racial fantasy.

What I mean is, you have to abstract too much from hitler, to the point where you are left with something quite generic, to get to anything of value, and so I don't think there is a plausible alternative history in which, with no war, he would have been viewed positively by history.

oaty I understand what you are trying to say but also see wicketys point that people may have seen hitler differently had he not killed millions of Jews, ethnic minorities, gipsies etc.. He maybe would have been Inconsequential.

Fair enough. I regret posting about Hitler actually, because I do think its a bit of a distraction. It's just plainly not true that feminists would have to regard him positively or neutrally just on the grounds of his not having victimised women. I don't think anyone has said anything that would imply that they would have to feel that way about him. (And anyway, his fantasy image of the role of Aryan woman does make him an anti-feminist.)

I would argue also that it's only in the west we see a greater deal made of 'feminist' causes. Is this because in other cultures, women are looked upon in high regard. So or example, in 'true' Islam, Muhammad recognised the role of women/business women, in Hinduism, both the male and the female deities are revered equally, In African cultures, the matriarch is the one who has more say on how a family is run and day to dealings?
Is it only the recent western history where the Mary Magdalens are wiped from history and women are burned as witches?

The attempt to sideline Mary Magdelen happened a long way back I think. I'm sure you know there is the Gospel of Mary Magdelen, left out of the Bible after the council of Niche (?).

The Gnostics and Cathars held her in v high regard I believe, included her Gospel in their teachings, and had a very different take on Jesus, God and his teachings. Much more egalitarian.

Then the Catholic church wiped them all out as heretics and reduced Magdelen to a prostitute, rather than the woman who whitnessed the resurrection and whom Jesus confided in.

I really am over simplifying and ignoring lots of other things.