Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 16:03:43 -0800
From: Kay Dietze <kdietze-AT-ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: "un"natural academic et al


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------B8AE6E299549D9D37440BA22
 boundary="------------0CC1082DC30B4517137A3A9A"



The early feminists were dispossessed, or they would not have needed to fight to
possess a better place.  Maybe those at the top of the food chain (financially,
intellectually, resourceful etc.) in any dispossessed group become the leaders,
but to say that just because there were other women that were "less than" in
status or "more dispossessed" suggests that  they (the original feminists) were
not dispossessed is faulty reasoning. I do agree that they had a better situation
to do something, more access to power.  They had influential cultural capital.
But they were still "dominated" and didn't have the same habitus as the men in
power.  It was a struggle to learn the man's tongue.  Which kind of brings us
back to the earlier thread about the woman in the business meeting....but maybe
we don't want to go there.  ciao, Kay

Ania Lian wrote:

> 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

HTML VERSION:

Ania Lian wrote:

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