I am not at all fond of "manhood" myself. I don't think it exhaustively
defines the possibilities of male existence, however. It's a fantasm, an
imaginary ideal structuring social space (this is Lacanian. An English
translation will not be made available any time soon). As such, it's beset
by "symptoms" - defaults, disorders, misprisions - which it pathologises and
excludes. Ask any cissy.

The historical reach of male dominance is an interesting problem, rather as
the historical reach of what Derrida calls "logocentrism" is an interesting
problem. I don't know how to account for it. It's clearly something that is
able to be detached from specific social configurations; possibly something
that invests the idea of the social itself. Patriarchy is very stable,
because it is very stabilising; and what it stabilises is the social bond.
That's what makes radical feminism "radical", tho' - not a belief in the
biological inevitability of oppression, but a demand for a transformation of
the *entire* social and symbolic space. There is more than an element of the
messianic in this, as there is in marxism too. I really don't want to get
into the ramifications of this; I'm not here to defend it against all-comers
as the most perfect idea about human existence ever conceived. I will defend
it against egregious misreadings, though.

"De facto biologism" is one such. There are more "facts" about male
existence than the fantasm of "manhood" can accommodate. Dworkin doesn't
define men by reference to the concept "manhood". The concept "manhood" does
that. It is an elementary mistake to confuse an attack on a normative
category, and the practices of social dominance and exclusion it mandates,
with a de facto attack on the persons that category presumes to classify.
It's a mistake, because it assumes that the category is true - that its
version of the facts accounts for all the facts there are. Dworkin begins
with the assumption that the versions of masculinity (and femininity)
underwritten by male dominance are *false*; that they have a social reality
because they are believed and practised and institutionalised and pretty
much impossible to get away from, but that this social reality can and
should be changed.

> It's a bit like Christians who say 'we don't hate
> gays, we just hate what they do every day with other
> gays and  what lots of their friends do and their
> lifestyle and most of the things they identify with
> and...' I mean, what's left to love? Dworkin defines
> men by reference to the concept 'manhood.'  Hate
> 'manhood', hate men.

I disagree entirely. Rejecting "manhood" might enable one to love the things
about men that "manhood" excludes. For that matter, I would want to oppose
any ideological conception of homosexuality that stigmatised and
pathologised gay men who weren't able to carry off a convincing rendition of
its norms and standards. It seems to me that a certain commercialised
"gayness" currently thriving in the marketplace of identities does just
that, and needs to be deconstructed. I don't *think* this is a homophobic
sentiment.

I'm in a very anomalous position here, because I'm trying to support an
affirmative reading of Dworkin's radical feminism with ideas taken from
theorists like Lacan, Derrida and Judith Butler. I may be on a hiding to
nothing, but it's got to be worth a try.

> It's interesting to note, here, that Dworkin has
> consistently worked alongside extreme right-wing
> bornagain Jesus freaks and crypto-fascists in opposing
> things like pornography. Perhaps this bloc is not as
> odd as it might at first seem?

It is more interesting to note that this is a complete falsehood. Dworkin
opposes pornography for much the same reasons as she opposes fascism; she
sees the former as a vehicle for the latter. There has never been an
"alliance" between anti-pornography feminists and the extreme right. They
aren't even opposing the same thing, when it comes to it: porn qua sexual
fascism is quite a different object of opprobium to porn qua indecency. I
don't want to argue about whether or not pornography is really a vehicle for
fascism (although one could cite Die Sturmer, various KKK materials,
anti-German porn produced for British troops during WWI, etc. - porn
certainly lends itself to the purposes of racial propaganda); again, I just
want it understood that there's a difference. People like Nadine Strossen
have made their name denying this, and getting cheered on for it by men who
like to think that by jacking off over a copy of "Asian Teen Sluts" they're
defying the forces of religious authoritarianism. Contempt is the word.

- Dom



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