Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 08:53:51 +1000 (EST)
From: Ania Lian <ania-AT-lingua.arts.uq.edu.au>
Subject: Re: "un"natural academic et al


On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, Ziggy Rivkin-Fish wrote:

> I am not buying 
> the argument about the privileged standpoint of the dominated. But 
> revolutions are rarely led by the dispossessed; rather they are led by 
> those who have privilege and access to power.

Maybe the concept of disposession also needs a bit of complexification.
Those who need and lead a change may be in possession of some capital but
may or feel disposessed of another. The same goes about the
revolutionaries: I do not think that revolutions of any kind have just one
agenda.

> The feminist revolution was 
> not led by impoverished black women in the rural south, but by upper middle 
> class women of power and privilege (whether first or second wave).

Maybe they saw better their dispossession rather than fought against the
dispossession of others? Maybe their leadership was not solely a function
of their ability to be heard better than say illiterate women would have?
Since feminism as yet accomplished a bit but overall quite little, maybe
to succeed, revolutions need (as in eastern/central Europe) more a break
in the system rather than a revolutionary force from outside the system?
Thus maybe the accomplishments of feminism would be even smaller had it
not been for the external conditions like wars and a need for female
labour that gave a practical output to these ideas? Coming from the former
communist country, I must admit that the need for labour (even if in the
end it was a useless labour) by everyone created such conditions that
gender-issues never seemed to be a problem. But I do not think that
Stalin himself cared much about the status of women as a social issue.

Ania Lian

**********************************************************************
Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu