Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 18:56:07 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: M-TH: More on Self-Emancipation


In an exchange with Justin, I wrote:
>>> So I repeat (not necessarily to you
>>> but to the entire list): stop carping about the 'NSMs,' 'identity
>>> politics,' 'pomo,' etc. and try to get rid of ressentiment against women,
>>> queers, people of color, etc.
>>
>>I will not stop carping about bad politics and bad theory. It's not
>>resentment in French or English of any groups or sorts of persons that
>>makes me loathe identity politics and pomo. I am in favor of women, etc. I
>>just wish they wouldn't pretend that bring women, queers, etc. gave them
>>an "identity" that might be the basis of a politics of liberation.
>
>It is not a sole basis, obviously. But my being a bisexual woman creates a
>*direct (as opposed to indirect + solidarity-based) stake* in pressing for
>queer liberation, free abortion on demand, etc., to take just one example.
>This matter of having a *direct stake* is at the root of the question of
>*self-emancipation*.

To add to the above comments of mine, I would like to quote from Mark
Jones' posts from a while ago:

<<The only thing abundantly clear is that it is A Woman's Right To Choose,
and why? Because women from Wollstonecraft on fought for that right and why
is it so fundamental? Because in fact it is the only thing which guarantees
the general observance of all her...other rights. Reaction growing in
western society means, and we all feel this and no doubt act on it, and
those who try to defend this simple 'right' do so at some personal peril.>>

<<I meant we have to support the Right to Choose 'because women since
Wollstonecraft have fought for it'. I didn't give any other reason. I'm
saying that we support a demand raised by women. If they didn't raise it,
we men, being honourable, conscientious, simple souls, might do so anyway,
as some kind of didactic exercise, but no form of oppression has historical
meaning until the oppressed oppose it (except as a form of ruling class
triumphalism).

The right to abortion on demand is a Rubicon issue for socialists.>>

For us to say we are "anti-sexist," for instance, without equal
participation of women both at the levels of theory and praxis in marxist
political projects, especially in leadership positions (and not merely as
foot soldiers), I think, is nothing but the sort of didactic exercise that
Mark wrote of. And it is not even a useful sort of didactic exercise
either, because we end up displaying hypocrisy (that is, theory/praxis
inconsistency) as a marxist political example for all to see.

This post, I believe, also serves as a beginning of my answer to Doug's
question to me as to why I think of the alleged particulars as crucibles
for the new universal, new humanity. When women come to our consciousness
as women and feminist, our consciousness is often said to be "particular"
compared to the "universalism" of class politics. However, our coming into
consciousness and developing of theoretical and practical capacity to
understand gender oppressions and fight to abolish them transform the
previously existing meanings of humanity, expanding as well as changing it.
Through our struggles through and beyond particulars, we create the new
universal, and I think this is one of the meanings of dialectics. For such
struggles to emerge and develop, women must become *subjects and agents* of
our own history--theoretically and practically--not merely objects of
theorizing by sympathetic feminist/marxist men.

Humanity is still incomplete, and in this sense, humanism is an unfinished
project. But when we succeed in abolishing particular and general
oppressions through our struggles, we will have also done away with the
concept of humanity and the ideology of humanism. Why? Because they will
have served their purposes.

Yoshie Furuhashi





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