From: "jurriaan bendien" <Jbendien-AT-globalxs.nl> Subject: Re: M-TH: Men and Feminism (was All Work...) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 00:31:18 +0100 Yoshie wrote: > Hmmm. I find it strange for a marxist, male or female, to be so strictly > empiricist. I often heard marxists (sometimes rightly) criticize identity > politics for privileging personal experience over theory. Theory and > experience should illuminate each other, don't you think? Was Marx an empiricist when he said that all social life is essential practical, and that all ways of thinking which leads theory to mysticism find their resolution in practice, and in the comprehension of this practice ? Was Engels an empiricist when he said that "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" ? Was Gramsci an empiricist when he said that Marxism is a wisdom of practice ? Did not Mao say that if you want to know a pear, you have to taste a pear ? When you are an academician it is easy to fetishize theory, and to prattle about the relationship of theory and practice. Much more difficult is to make practice the only truth criterion. Naturally I am well aware of debates within the philosophy of science, which show that progress comes through competition between rival theories with the data, and so forth. I have also read Imre Lakatos on Popperian "crucial experiments". But I have also read sufficiently in the psychology of percepction and neurology to know that a person processes far more experience than he or she is consciously aware of at any time. Deeds speak louder than words, this is why the criterion of practice is decisive. Yoshie: So why not leave > aside polemics and address conflicts and divergences among feminists > squarely? > Why should I ? Feminists do that already and good luck to them. Yoshie: You mean male profession of feminism, even socialist feminism, is the same as the lack of manhood? (And what constitutes "male adequacy" in your opinion?) Would you also say that anti-racist whites suffer from their "personal inadequacy" as whites? I say a man who calls himself a feminist is either a whimp or hasn't thought it through, or both at the same time. Male adequacy is when you are happy to be a man and can function adequately in that role. "Anti-racism" as such is a fad, a fashion, it's hip to be anti-racist. But it doesn't necessarily mean anything as far as I am concerned. Probably many anti-racist leftists do suffer from personal feelings of inadequacy, judging by the drivel they put out. I do not call whipping up hysteria about a motley bunch of fascist social failures a genuine stand against racism for instance. In my experience the real anti-racists were the ones who fought against racism when it wasn't popular to do so. Yoshie: > I just so happen to be female, but even if I were a heterosexual male, I > would still be a feminist and marxist, other things being constant. In > fact, I think that when properly understood and put into practice, feminism > and marxism together will liberate men as well as women. Well good on you. I believe feminism and marxism are not reconcilable if "properly understood". A man who says he is a feminist is a whimp in my opinion. While alliances are possible between them something like Marxist-Feminism is a halfway house. Some people like to live permanently in that halfway house, that's up to them. Yoshie: > Gender roles for men, it seems to me, are also constricting and oppressive, > even though many men, having internalized those roles early on and also > having some privileges that are denied women, may experience their gender > as "normal" and find their lives as men "fulfilling." So what's new - hasn't this been known and ably articulated by a plethora of writers for centuries ? I realise it may be hip to make this sort of comments in a radical salon, but politically it is neither here nor there. Yoshie: (The same can be said for how class is lived by many workers; that's why we don't have socialism yet.) I don't believe this is the case. Why we don't have socialism yet is because (1) the technical infrastructure and human development for socialism has been lacking, (2) the working class lost many fights, and some very badly (Stalinism etc.) (3) capitalism proved far more capable than most Marxists thought of integrating people in capitalist society, (4) Marxism has been frequently insufficiently flexible in taking account of new conditions, rather, there has been a clinging to old traditions without really knowing why. Yoshie: But once you closely examine what it means to be a man under > patriarchal capitalism, being male, I believe, turns out to be as > alienating as being female. I have no way of telling whether this it true or measuring it, but I see no reason to deny it. > Yoshie: However, is capitalism alone responsible for gendered divisions of labor? No. Gender divisions of labour precede even class society, although in pre-class society and even some proto-class societies there does not seem to be so much social status difference attaching to it usually. Capitalism has done more than any other mode of production to revolutionise gender divisions of labour and that is why it is a revolutionary mode of production in this sense. Capitalist relations for the first time make possible full social equality between men and women. But this is not achieved, far from it, because, in fact, specific gender divisions allow a high extraction of surplus value then would be the case if social equality prevailed (and you can find some pretty extreme cases of that in the so-called "Third World" - I don't really like that term because it suggests their world is a "different world" from our world and that we are the "First World" is historically inaccurate). > >I would say that a Marxist who doesn't recognise the interests of women as > >women is simply a fool who hasn't grown up. However the "emancipatory > >theory" Justin talks about is usually just waffle or only alluded to, never > >stated beyond declarations of "the need for it", > > Then why not go beyond allusions and actually discuss it here? I saw Rob's > post to that effect, and I believe we'll have enough participants. The onus is on those who propose the need for it to discuss it and ask for comment. > Ha ha. Don't be defensive, Jurriaan. Nobody is questioning your "manhood" > or sexual aptitude. What makes you think I am defensive ? I am a sexually disappointed man, but not a sexually insecure man. I have had times of sexual insecurity in th past, when I didn't know what to do, but now I am just sexually disappointed. And, by the way, I wasn't trying to skite when I mentioned "bedtime pursuits". I was referring to the empirical fact that I went to bed with, and had relationships with, a lot of feminists including socialist and green feminists. --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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