I have recently read a book that might be of interest to this discussion.
The book is Feminism is for Everybody by Bell Hooks.  The book is brief and
written for a general audience.  The book covers the beginning of the
feminist movement, which was contoured by working class women.  I would
recommend this book for anyone who is too young to remember the history and
also as a text for college classes.  I have bought the book for my nineteen
year old daughter who sees no value in being a feminist.  The publisher is
South End Press, 2000.

Donna



>From: Susan Andree <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Forum for the discussion of gender related to the study and
>        practice of religion <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: "normative" vs "decentered"
>Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 11:21:24 -0800
>
> >What is 'normative'? Who gets to say?
><snip>
> >I'm sick of the erasure of poverty
> > and working class feminists by the critics emphasizing the narrowness of
> > "feminism," as if we have no presence, have said and done and
>contributed
> > nothing, and care nothing about it. The reasons for our lack of
>visibility
> > are complex, but I don't care to see it compounded, or used against
> > feminism itself, in its many forms. So much is defined by the media, and
> > that is in the hands of the most privileged.
>
>hmmm, yes, I do have a tendency to try to say everything at once...a bad
>habit I admit because my language is so condensed it's nearly impossible to
>unpack.  I'll try to curb that tendency in the future.  Your response to my
>rather theoretical approach to identity has left me with some interesting
>thoughts and questions.
>
>First of all, I would like to say that in responding to the issue of 'what
>is feminism,' I was certainly responding to the particular theoretical
>aspect of the construction of what feminism means, and what it doesn't
>mean,
>and who it applies to, and why--within the institution of education.  I
>wholeheartedly agree that for many people engaging in feminist projects
>based upon material concerns, this may be a waste of time, to speak
>lightly.
>Yet you ask, 'who gets to say [what normative is]?'  As a participant in
>the
>institution of academia (academe), theoretical discussion is for me a very
>important site for 'who gets to say.'  Since the projects of feminists in
>academia involve a certain privilege and access to power which generally a
>'common woman' has limited or no access to, I am painfully aware of my
>limitations as a feminist within academia for participating in more direct
>social projects and the privilege I possess by even being able to engage in
>this discussion with you, on my computer, in my leisure time.  I refer to
>the power of publishing and the power to DETERMINE what feminism IS in the
>educational institution.  In other words, I would argue that it is not
>primarily the media (books television, etc.) which defines feminism's scope
>of vision, but it is the educational institution which shapes definitions
>of
>feminism and also functions to exclude or legitimate these definitions and
>projects because of the power invested in credentials and because of
>academia's influence on media.  (I don't know how many people on this list
>are or have been involved in academia, but I would make a guess from
>looking
>at the signatures of those who participate that this list is overwhelmingly
>made up of people somehow connected to an educational institution of some
>sort.  And I would refer to the recent power struggle in defending
>credentials in the mary daly debate to highlight the weight that academic
>credentials have in determining the validity/legitimacy of an argument.)
>In
>this resepct I am emphasizing the role of the institution of education as
>an
>informative role and that its goal is to create cultural capital in the
>form
>of 'truthful' knowlege and information, and in the form of trained
>professors and students who can proselytize this information to those who
>have not had or been denied the privilege of participating in academia and
>in the construction and debate of knowledge.
>
>Given the influence that academia has on societies globally, I can't simply
>ignore theoretical discussion in which topics such as 'normativity' and
>'essentialism' are prevalent in the specific field of academic debate.  I
>would agree with you that when applied to other material contexts, this
>theoretical discussion can be extremely harmful because it has become
>divorced from concrete realities where essentialism still exists as a tool
>to perpetuate injustices of all kinds; and indeed it can in effect silence
>those pressing concerns of applied feminist social projects of which you
>speak because of the power invested in academia's informative role within
>society.  Important resources are being taken away from the concrete
>concerns you make visible here, and I find it ironic that two sites of
>feminist concern which are not entirely separable end up competing for
>resources when instead they could at times inform each other.  I would
>suggest then that rather than indulge me with theoretical debate, that you
>ignore this thread and present those issues which you feel are more
>relevant
>or pressing to discuss on this list.  I for one would welcome it!
> >
> > I think that feminist values are still evolving. This is a very short
>time
> > line we've been on. All too often the critiques of feminism as being
> > predetermined by culturally specific narrownesses are themselves coming
> > from same, that is from the direction of privilege.
>
><snip>
>
>This comment I feel is especially relevant to whoever was mourning the
>passing of feminism.  (Sorry for forgetting who that was!)  To me this was
>a
>warning sign that there is the impression that a 'feminist era' has come
>and
>gone and that there is nothing left to accomplish, which as you clearly
>point out is NOT the case...just because feminist theory can envision a
>just
>society does not mean it has been accomplished!
> >
> > The craze for "de-essentializing" seems to be so lost in the rarified
> > realms of abstract theory that it has lost touch with the concrete
> > realities of women on the ground. The loud protests against essentialism
> > seem to be coming out of academia, as far as I can see -- but feminist
> > movements are burgeoning in the Two Thirds world, with action for change
> > around divorce rights, violence against women, economic rights, a whole
> > range of issues in which the category "woman" has a very real impact on
> > female lives, indeed survival, and self-determination, mobility, speech,
> > all kinds of realities.
>
>(certainly...a point which i have repsonded to and would welcome further
>information and discussion involving these concrete injustices. rarified it
>is not in the context of academic debate, but limited in its application in
>social projects it is.)
> >
> > Common women are dealing with virulent forms of essentialism, and I
>don't
> > see feminist critiques of this fundamental patriarchal essentialism as
> > partaking of it. Pointing out _patterns_ of privilege and prescribed
> > behaviors is something very different.
>
>Indeed, one of the most invaluable lessons I have learned is to recognize
>my
>own privilege and thus my own responsibility to effect change from that
>position rather than to protest or make unwarranted claims about a position
>I'd like to be in.  I'd rather recognize my privileges and work to subvert
>those than to try to identify on various axes of oppression to escape being
>painted as the perptrator of injustice.
>
> >Change is only going to occur by
> > coming together, and that requires some notion of identification. While
> > some women are busy embracing decentered identities, the enemies of free
> > women retain a very clear agenda (as well as hearty institutional bases
>and
> > structures and resources) of how to keep women in their place, however
>that
> > place is defined regionally.
><snip>
>
>I would like to separate two sites of feminist action from what you just
>said...on the one hand, those feminists who are busy embracing decentered
>identities are responding to a specific material situation (in my case,
>academia, a private liberal arts college in maine, USA) in which
>essentialist theories dominate in discussions which seek to find reasons
>for
>explaining social injustice...within this discussion it is USEFUL to talk
>about de-essentializing and the like because it subverts reasoning such as,
>"Well, women are inherently inferior and so dominating them is justifiable"
>and makes visible the issues of power and privilege which operate through
>constructing ideas about self and other and valuing them.  (In other words,
>'embracing decentered identities' is itself a form of identification based
>upon a strategic choice within a specific material context, not a matter of
>en vogue academic fashions or an absence of identity.)  I feel this is
>especially relevant in religious studies, where dogamtic doctrines inform
>these conceptions and are implemented on a national scale through laws and
>social structures.  (I believe Turkey comes to mind as a more recent
>example
>of how this operates, in the uprising of conservative religious views on
>the
>essential inferiority of women, which had direct implications for the
>safety
>and freedom of women in that society.) Another example is from a
>theological
>conference (in Latvia) last year during which certain women members of the
>local college received threats so as to stop them from engaging in
>discussion of female ordination in the Lutheran Church.  Closer to home I
>would like to use the issue of welfare as an example where debate turned
>from enabling social justice to moral policing of certain types of
>stereotyped women.  (I could list many more examples of situations in which
>ideology informs socially unjust practices and works reflexively to prevent
>change of those practices.)
>
>On the other hand, as you say, there is another site of feminist action
>which focuses on social projects based on concrete situations of injustice
>against women which operate on definite identities, both self-identity and
>imposed identity.  Both I feel are relevant and important, and as I've
>hopefully illustrated they are not as separate as we would think.  They do
>focus on different sites of control, but to brush aside theoretical debate
>and those who are engaging in the construction of 'what feminism is' in
>academia would be in like manner to silencing those who are engaging in
>concrete social projects.  Especially in religious studies, where
>oftentimes
>doctrine informs practice and belief is constructed along rigid lines and
>enforced through social structures, theoretical discourse is indeed a
>relevant aspect for the redress of injustice, an injustice on the
>ideological level which thwarts attempts to change concrete social
>situations.
>
>
> >
> > What I would like to see emphasized in place of all this decentering is
> > attention to injustice, and reaching toward coalitions that support
> > awareness of all these interlocking oppressions.
>
>I agree!  And, as I have said, I would invite discussion of injustice on a
>concrete social level!  There is so much I am not aware of that is
>happening
>around the world, I think this list would be an excellent forum for such
>issues.  I would begin the discussion but I would bet others are more
>experienced than I at introducing these issues.  Although an e-group is
>limited in its ability to form coalitions to effect concrete change, in can
>cetainly operate to inform members of various projects and as such is a
>type
>of coalition in itself.
>
>And, as an aside, in my previous posting I mentioned a decentralizing
>'nomadic subjectivity' which is useful for precisely the type of coalitions
>you refer to; this mode of identification enables mobility along several
>axes of identity (without reducing onesself to one 'primary identity,'i.e.,
>its a decentralized mode of SELF-identity)
>and paves the way for understanding the ways in which oppressions overlap
>and interlock and act reflexively in defining the individual (so that it is
>posible to understand that even if I do not reduce myself to a primary
>identity, structures within society can IMPOSE this essentialized identity
>upon me, such as WOMAN or PAGAN or MARRIED or FEMINIST, for whatever
>purpose, oppression included.  Nomadic subjectivity also helps to
>understand
>the multifaceted identity of any individual we encounter and may perhaps
>explain our own and others' conflict of interests in certain situations.
>Once this is visible, then it is possible to look at WHO imposes
>essentialized identities upon certain groups of peoples, and WHY, and how
>power operates in that situation...in other words, identity is NOT purely
>an
>individual choice, but an interaction between the individual and their
>larger social contexts.  In this sense, self-identity becomes strategy, and
>subversion of imposed identities is sometimes possible IN CERTAIN CONTEXTS,
>of course).  (theory from Rosi Braidotti)  Although this is a theoretical
>approach to identity, I have seen it used within various multicultural
>projects as a way to explain a part of how oppression operates.  I believe
>this would be called applied theory.
>
>
> > Max Dashu <[log in to unmask]>
>
>Many thanks Max!  I appreciate when someone catches me being OBTUSE.  (Such
>a perplexing habit I have...that and being repetitive...sorry about the
>length of my response...)  I hope I have clarified the limits of my purpose
>in engaging in theoretical debate on feminism and identity.  I'm sure
>there's something I've forgotten, but it's 4 in the morning and my fit of
>insomnia has finally worn itself out, so I'll leave this post as is and
>hope
>in the rant that I haven't said anything dreadful!  :)
>
>Susan Andree

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