SUMMER 1987

Hypatia
FA
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Hypatia
A JOURNAL OF
Fe m it
Ptil o by
Sum m e r 1987
Vol um e
2,
Num be r 2
Hypatia(Hy-pay-sh a)
was an
Egyptian
wom an
ph il osoph e r,
m ath e m atician,
and astronom e r wh o l ive d in Al e xandria
from h e r birth in about370 A.D. until h e r de ath in 415.
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Sum m e r,
1987
Vol um e
2,
Num be r 2
Maria
Lugone s
Mary
B. Mah owal d
Judith M. Hil l
VictoriaDavion
Susan We nde l l
Andre a
Nye
Jul ie n S.
Murph y
H. E. Babe r
LuisaMuraro
Mary
Libe rtin
Harry
Brod
Candace Watson
Editorial
Pl ayful ne ss,
" Worl d
" -Trave l l ing,
and
Loving Pe rce ption
Se x-Rol e
Ste re otype s
in Me dicine
Pornograph y
and
De gradation
Do Good Fe m inists
Com pe te ?
A
(Qual ifie d) De fe nse
Of
Libe ral ism
Th e
Unityof Language
Th e Look in Sartre and Rich
How Bad is
Rape ?
COMMENT/REPLY
On
Confl icts
and
Diffe re nce s
Am ong
Wom e n
Th e Pol itics
of
Wom e n's Studie s
and Me n's Studie s
Doe s
Manning
Me n 's Studie s
Em ascul ate Wom e n's Studie s?
THE FORUM
Ce l ibacy
and Its
Im pl ications
For
Autonom y
Note s On Contributors
Announce m e nts
Subm ission Guide l ine s
conte nts
1
3
21
39
55
65
95
113
125
139
143
153
157
159
161
165
editorial
Readying
this issue for the
printer and,
at the same
time, preparing
our
display
for the National Women's Studies Association conference
in
Atlanta,
whose theme this
year
is
"Weaving
Women's Colors: A
Decade of
Empowerment,"
has
highlighted
for me the
centrality
of
the feminist
struggle
around
differences,
both in the NWSA and in
feminist
philosophy.
Maria
Lugones' paper,
which is "about cross-
cultural and cross-racial
loving," beautifully expresses
this theme. She
describes the
"weaving together"
of two
aspects
of her
life,
as a
daughter
and as a
woman-of-color,
a
weaving
that reveals "the
possibility
and
complexity
of a
pluralistic
feminism."
Difference is a theme
running throughout
this issue of
Hypatia.
Andrea
Nye analyzes
the "refusal to hear others" that underlies the
traditional search
by
male
philosophers
for the
unity
of
language.
Her
critique
of the search for
unity
as authoritarian echoes
Lugones,
whose
concept
of
"world-travelling"
offers an
epistemological
alternative.
Julien
Murphy,
like
Lugones,
draws on
Marilyn Frye's concept
of "ar-
rogant perception,"
in "The Look in Sartre and
Rich,"
where she
develops
an existential
theory
of
oppression
and liberation.
Several authors in this issue take controversial stances within
feminism. Victoria Davion
argues, against
the "view
widely
held
among
feminists that
nurturing
and
competition
are
incompatible,"
that cer-
tain kinds of
competition
can
help
women
recognize
their differences
while
maintaining
a sense of connection.
Mary
Mahowald
develops
an
egalitarian
model
(parentalism)
for the
physician-other relationship
to
argue
for the
compatibility
between feminist and medicine. H.E.
Baber,
in her
paper,
"How Bad is
Rape?,"
makes the
argument
that "the work
that most women
employed
outside the home are
compelled
to do is
more
seriously
harmful" than
rape.
Susan
Wendell,
in "A
(Qualified)
Defense of Liberal
Feminism," challenges
the characterizations
by
feminist
philosophers
of feminism liberalism. Judith Hill
proposes
an
alternative
philosophical
basis for a feminist attack on victim
pornography.
In the
spirit
of feminist
controversy, Hypatia
devotes
space
in each
general
issue to comments on
previously published articles,
with
replies
invited from authors. As the current issue
illustrates,
this section of
the
journal
is alive and well. This issue also contains the first
publica-
tion of The
Forum,
a
section,
edited
by
Maria
Lugones,
that is
designed
to
encourage philosophical dialogue
on a
single topic.
To further that
dialogue,
The Forum editor will announce a new
topic
for The Forum
for each
general issue,
and continue to invite contributions on
topics
on which we have
already published
short
papers.
The next
topic
will
1
hypatia
be Women and
Poverty.
Additional
papers
on the current
topic
of
Celibacy
are invited.
Papers
are also invited for the
Special
Issue on
the
History
of Women in
Philosophy,
edited
by
Linda
Lopez
McAlister.
The
Special
Issue on Feminist
Perspectives
on
Science,
edited
by Nancy
Tuana,
has been
expanded
to two
issues,
and will
appear
as the Fall
1987,
and
Spring
1988 issues. For details on
contributing papers
for
The
Forum,
for the
Special
Issue on the
History
of Women in
Philosophy,
or for
general submission, please
consult the Submission
Guidelines.
We wish to thank all those readers who have subscribed to
Hypatia
in 1987. We also wish to
acknowledge
those readers who included a
contribution with their
subscription
check. The
expenses
in
beginning
autonomous
publication
last
year
were considerable.
They
continue to
grow
as we
begin publishing
three issues this
year.
We
urge
those readers
who have not
yet
subscribed for 1987 to do so as soon as
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for
Hypatia.
M.A.S.
2
maria
lugones
Playfulness, "World"-Travelling,
and
Loving Perception
A
paper
about cross-cultural and cross-racial
loving
that
emphasizes
the need to understand and affirm the
plurality
in and
among
women
as central to feminist
ontology
and
epistemology.
Love is seen not as
fusion and erasure of difference but as
incompatible
with them. Love
reveals
plurality. Unity-not
to be confused with
solidarity-is
under-
stood as
conceptually
tied to domination.
This paper
weaves two
aspects
of life
together. My coming
to
consciousness as a
daughter
and
my coming
to consciousness as a
woman of color have made this
weaving possible.
This
weaving
reveals
the
possibility
and
complexity
of a
pluralistic feminism,
a feminism that
affirms the
plurality
in each of us and
among
us as richness and as
central to feminist
ontology
and
epistemology.
The
paper
describes the
experience
of 'outsiders' to the mainstream
of,
for
example, White/Anglo organization
of life in the U.S. and
stresses a
particular
feature of the outsider's existence: the outsider has
necessarily acquired flexibility
in
shifting
from the mainstream construc-
tion of life where she is constructed as an outsider to other construc-
tions of life where she is more or less 'at home.' This
flexibility
is
necessary
for the outsider but it can also be
willfully
exercised
by
the
outsider or
by
those who are at ease in the mainstream. I recommend
this willful exercise which I call
"world"-travelling
and I also recom-
mend that the willful exercise be animated
by
an attitude that I describe
as
playful.
As outsiders to the
mainstream,
women of color in the U.S.
practice
"world"-travelling, mostly
out of
necessity.
I affirm this
practice
as
a
skillful, creative, rich, enriching and, given
certain
circumstances,
as
a
loving way
of
being
and
living.
I
recognize
that much of our travell-
ing
is done
unwillfully
to hostile
White/Anglo
"worlds." The
hostility
of these "worlds" and the
compulsory
nature of the
"travelling"
have
obscured for us the enormous value of this
aspect
of our
living
and
its connection to
loving.
Racism has a vested interest in
obscuring
and
devaluing
the
complex
skills involved in it. I recommend that we af-
firm this
travelling
across "worlds" as
partly
constitutive of cross-
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1987).

By
Maria
Lugones.
3
hypatla
cultural and cross-racial
loving.
Thus I recommend to women of color
in the U.S. that we learn to love each other
by learning
to travel to
each other's "worlds."
On the other
hand,
the
paper
makes a connection between what
Marilyn Frye
has named
"arrogant perception"
and the failure to iden-
tify
with
persons
that one views
arrogantly
or has come to see as the
products
of
arrogant perception.
A further connection is made between
this failure of identification and a failure of
love,
and thus between
loving
and
identifying
with another
person.
The sense of love is not
the one
Frye
has identified as both consistent with
arrogant perception
and as
promoting
unconditional servitude. "We can be taken in
by
this
equation
of servitude with
love," Frye (1983, 73) says,
"because we
make two mistakes at once: we
think,
of both servitude and love that
they
are selfless or unselfish."
Rather,
the identification of which I
speak
is constituted
by
what I come to characterize as
playful
"world"-
travelling.
To the extent that we learn to
perceive
others
arrogantly
or
come to see them
only
as
products
of
arrogant perception
and continue
to
perceive
them that
way,
we fail to
identify
with them-fail to love
them-in this
particularly deep way.
Identification and Love
As a
child,
I was
taught
to
perceive arrogantly.
I have also been the
object
of
arrogant perception. Though
I am not a
White/Anglo woman,
it is clear to me that I can understand both
my
childhood
training
as
an
arrogant perceiver
and
my having
been the
object
of
arrogant percep-
tion without
any
reference to
White/Anglo men,
which is some indica-
tion that the
concept
of
arrogant perception
can be used
cross-culturally
and that
White/Anglo
men are not the
only arrogant perceivers.
I was
brought up
in
Argentina watching
men and women of moderate and
of considerable means
graft
the substance' of their servants to
themselves. I also learned to
graft my
mother's substance to
my
own.
It was clear to me that both men and women were the victims of ar-
rogant perception
and that
arrogant perception
was
systematically
organized
to break the
spirit
of all women and of most men. I valued
my
rural
'gaucho' ancestry
because its ethos has
always
been one of
independence
in
poverty through
enormous
loneliness, courage
and self-
reliance. I found
inspiration
in this ethos and committed
myself
never
to be broken
by arrogant perception.
I can
say
all of this in this
way
only
because I have learned from
Frye's
"In and Out of Harm's
Way:
Arrogance
and Love." She has
given
me a
way
of
understanding
and
articulating something important
in
my
own life.
Frye
is not
particularly
concerned with women as
arrogant perceivers
4
maria
lugones
but as the
objects
of
arrogant perception.
Her concern
is,
in
part,
to
enhance our
understanding
of women "untouched
by phallocratic
machinations"
(Frye 1983, 53), by understanding
the harm done to
women
through
such machinations. In this case she
proposes
that we
could understand women untouched
by arrogant perception through
an
understanding
of what
arrogant perception
does to women. She also
proposes
an
understanding
of what it is to love women that is
inspired
by
a vision of women unharmed
by arrogant perception.
To love women
is,
at least in
part,
to
perceive
them with
loving eyes.
"The
loving eye
is a
contrary
of the
arrogant eye" (Frye 1983, 75).
I am concerned with women as
arrogant perceivers
because I want
to
explore
further what it is to love women. I want to
explore
two
failures of love:
my
failure to love
my
mother and
White/Anglo
women's failure to love women across racial and cultural boundaries
in the U.S. As a
consequence
of
exploring
these failures I will offer
a
loving
solution to them.
My
solution modifies
Frye's
account of lov-
ing perception by adding
what I call
playful
"world"-travel.
It is clear to me that at least in the U.S. and
Argentina
women are
taught
to
perceive many
other women
arrogantly. Being taught
to
perceive arrogantly
is
part
of
being taught
to be a woman of a certain
class in both the U.S. and
Argentina,
it is
part
of
being taught
to be
a
White/Anglo
woman in the U.S. and it is
part
of
being taught
to
be a woman in both
places:
to be both the
agent
and the
object
of ar-
rogant perception. My
love for
my
mother seemed to me
thoroughly
imperfect
as I was
growing up
because I was
unwilling
to become what
I had been
taught
to see
my
mother as
being.
I
thought
that to love
her was consistent with
my abusing
her
(using, taking
for
granted,
and
demanding
her services in a far
reaching way that,
since four other
peo-
ple engaged
in the same
grafting
of her substance onto
themselves,
left
her little of herself to
herself)
and was to be in
part
constituted
by my
identifying
with
her, my seeing myself
in her: to love her was
supposed
to be of a
piece
with both
my abusing
her and with
my being open
to
being
abused. It is clear to me that I was not
supposed
to love servants:
I could abuse them without
identifying
with
them,
without
seeing myself
in them. When I came to the U.S. I learned that
part
of racism is the
internalization of the
propriety
of abuse without identification: I learned
that I could be seen as a
being
to be used
by White/Anglo
men and
women without the
possibility
of
identification,
i.e. without their act
of
attempting
to
graft my
substance onto
theirs, rubbing
off on them
at all.
They
could remain
untouched,
without
any
sense of loss.
So,
women who are
perceived arrogantly
can
perceive
other women
arrogantly
in their turn. To what extent those women are
responsible
for their
arrogant perceptions
of other women is
certainly open
to
ques-
5
hypatia
tion,
but I do not have
any
doubt that
many
women have been
taught
to abuse women in this
particular way.
I am not interested in
assigning
responsibility.
I am interested in
understanding
the
phenomenon
so as
to understand a
loving way
out of it.
There is
something obviously wrong
with the love that I was
taught
and
something right
with
my
failure to love
my
mother in this
way.
But I do not think that what is
wrong
is
my profound
desire to
identify
with
her,
to see
myself
in her; what is
wrong
is that I was
taught
to
identify
with a victim of enslavement. What is
wrong
is that I was
taught
to
practice
enslavement of
my
mother and to learn to become a slave
through
this
practice.
There is
something obviously wrong
with
my
hav-
ing
been
taught
that love is consistent with
abuse,
consistent with ar-
rogant perception.
Notice that the love I was
taught
is the love that
Frye (1983, 73) speaks
of when she
says
"We can be taken in
by
this
equation
of servitude with love." Even
though
I could both abuse and
love
my mother,
I was not
supposed
to love servants. This is because
in the case of servants one is and is
supposed
to be clear about their
servitude and the
"equation
of servitude with love" is never to be
thought clearly
in those terms.
So,
I was not
supposed
to love and could
not love servants. But I could love
my
mother because
deception
(in
particular, self-deception)
is
part
of this
"loving."
Servitude is called
abnegation
and
abnegation
is not
analyzed any
further.
Abnegation
is not instilled in us
through
an
analysis
of its nature but rather
through
a
heralding
of it as beautiful and noble. We are
coaxed,
seduced into
abnegation
not
through analysis
but
through
emotive
persuasion. Frye
makes the connection between
deception
and this sense of
"loving"
clear. When I
say
that there is
something obviously wrong
with the lov-
ing
that I was
taught,
I do not mean to
say
that the connection bet-
ween this
loving
and abuse is obvious. Rather I mean that once the
connection between this
loving
and abuse has been
unveiled,
there is
something obviously wrong
with the
loving given
that it is obvious that
it is
wrong
to abuse others.
I am
glad
that I did not learn
my
lessons
well,
but it is clear that
part
of the mechanism that
permitted my
not
learning
well involved
a
separation
from
my
mother: I saw us as
beings
of
quite
a different
sort. It involved an
abandoning
of
my
mother while I
longed
not to
abandon her. I wanted to love
my mother, though, given
what I was
taught,
"love" could not be the
right
word for what I
longed
for.
I was disturbed
by my
not
wanting
to be what she was. I had a sense
of not
being
quite integrated, my
self was
missing
because I could not
identify
with
her,
I could not see
myself
in
her,
I could not welcome
her world. I saw
myself
as
separate
from
her,
a different sort of
being,
not
quite
of the same
species.
This
separation,
this lack of
love,
I
saw,
6
maria
lugones
and I think that I saw
correctly
as a lack in
myself (not
a
fault,
but
a
lack).
I also see that if this was a lack of
love,
love cannot be what
I was
taught.
Love has to be
rethought,
made anew.
There is
something
in common between the relation between
myself
and
my
mother as someone I did not use to be able to love and the
relation between
myself
or other women of color in the U.S. and
White/Anglo
women: there is a failure of love. I want to
suggest
here
that
Frye
has
helped
me understand one of the
aspects
of this
failure,
the
directly
abusive
aspect.
But I also think that there is a
complex
failure of love in the failure to
identify
with another
woman,
the failure
to see oneself in other women who are
quite
different from oneself.
I want to
begin
to
analyze
this
complex
failure.
Notice that
Frye's emphasis
on
independence
in her
analysis
of
loving
perception
is not
particularly helpful
in
explaining
this failure. She
says
that in
loving perception,
"the
object
of the
seeing
is another
being
whose existence and character are
logically independent
of the seer and
who
may
be
practically
or
empirically independent
in
any particular
respect
at
any particular
time"
(Frye 1983, 77).
But this is not
helpful
in
allowing
me to understand how
my
failure of love toward
my
mother
(when
I ceased to be her
parasite)
left me not
quite
whole. It is not
helpful
since I saw her as
logically independent
from me. It also does
not
help
me to understand
why
the racist or ethnocentric failure of love
of
White/Anglo
women-in
particular
of those
White/Anglo
women
who are not
pained by
their failure-should leave me not
quite
substan-
tive
among
them. Here I am not
particularly
interested in cases of White
women's
parasitism
onto women of color but more
pointedly
in cases
where the failure of identification is the manifestation of the "rela-
tion." I am
particularly
interested here in those
many
cases in which
White/Anglo
women do one or more of the
following
to women of
color:
they ignore us,
ostracize
us,
render us
invisible, stereotype us,
leave us
completely alone, interpret
us as
crazy.
All of this while we
are in their midst. The more
independent
I
am,
the more
independent
I am left to be. Their world and their
integrity
do not
require
me at
all. There is no sense of self-loss in them for
my
own lack of
solidity.
But
they
rob me of
my solidity through indifference,
an indifference
they
can afford and which seems sometimes studied.
(All
of this
points
of course toward
separatism
in communities where our substance is seen
and
celebrated,
where we become substantive
through
this celebration.
But
many
of us have to work
among White/Anglo
folk and our best
shot at
recognition
has seemed to be
among White/Anglo
women be-
cause
many
of them have
expressed
a
general
sense of
being pained
at their failure of
love.)
Many
times
White/Anglo
women want us out of their field of vision.
7
hypatia
Their lack of concern is a harmful failure of love that leaves me in-
dependent
from them in a
way
similar to the
way
in
which,
once I ceased
to be
my
mother's
parasite,
she
became, though
not
independent
from
all
others, certainly independent
from me. But of
course,
because
my
mother and I wanted to love each other
well,
we were not whole in
this
independence. White/Anglo
women are
independent
from
me,
I
am
independent
from
them,
I am
independent
from
my mother,
she
is
independent
from
me,
and none of us loves each other in this
independence.
I am
incomplete
and unreal without other women. I am
profoundly
dependent
on others without
having
to be their
subordinate,
their
slave,
their servant.
Frye (1983, 75)
also
says
that the
loving eye
is "the
eye
of one who
knows that to know the
seen,
one must consult
something
other than
one's own will and interests and fears and
imagination."
This is much
more
helpful
to me so
long
as I do not understand
Frye
to mean that
I should not consult
my
own interests nor that I should exclude the
possibility
that
my
self and the self of the one I love
may
be
important-
ly
tied to each other in
many complicated ways.
Since I am
emphasizing
here that the failure of love lies in
part
in the failure to
identify
and
since I
agree
with
Frye
that one "must consult
something
other than
one's own will and interests and fears and
imagination,"
I will
pro-
ceed to
try
to
explain
what I think needs to be consulted. To love
my
mother was not
possible
for me while I retained a sense that it was fine
for me and others to see her
arrogantly. Loving my
mother also re-
quired
that I see with her
eyes,
that I
go
into
my
mother's
world,
that
I see both of us as we are constructed in her
world,
that I witness her
own sense of herself from within her world.
Only through
this
travelling
to her "world" could I
identify
with her because
only
then could I cease
to
ignore
her and to be excluded and
separate
from her.
Only
then could
I see her as a
subject
even if one
subjected
and
only
then could I see
at all how
meaning
could arise
fully
between us. We are
fully depen-
dent on each other for the
possibility
of
being
understood and without
this
understanding
we are not
intelligible,
we do not make
sense,
we
are not
solid, visible, integrated;
we are
lacking.
So
travelling
to each
other's "worlds" would enable us to be
through loving
each other.
Hopefully
the sense of identification I have in mind is
becoming
clear.
But if it is to become
clearer,
I need to
explain
what I mean
by
a
"world" and
by "travelling"
to another "world."
In
explaining
what I mean
by
a "world" I will not
appeal
to travell-
ing
to other women's worlds. Rather I will lead
you
to see what I mean
by
a "world" the
way
I came to
propose
the
concept
to
myself: through
the kind of
ontological
confusion about
myself
that
we,
women of
color,
8
maria
lugones
refer to
half-jokingly
as
"schizophrenia" (we
feel
schizophrenic
in our
goings
back and forth between different
"communities")
and
through
my
effort to make some sense of this
ontological
confusion.
"Worlds" and "world"
travelling
Some time
ago
I came to be in a state of
profound
confusion as I
experienced myself
as both
having
and not
having
a
particular
attribute.
I was sure I had the attribute in
question and,
on the other
hand,
I
was sure that I did not have it. I remain convinced that I both have
and do not have this attribute. The attribute is
playfulness.
I am sure
that I am a
playful person.
On the other
hand,
I can
say, painfully,
that I am not a
playful person.
I am not a
playful person
in certain
worlds. One of the
things
I did as I became confused was to call
my
friends,
far
away people
who knew me
well,
to see whether or not I
was
playful. Maybe they
could
help
me out of
my
confusion.
They
said
to
me,
"Of course
you
are
playful"
and
they
said it with the same con-
viction that I had about it. Of course I am
playful.
Those
people
who
were around me said to
me, "No, you
are not
playful.
You are a serious
woman. You
just
take
everything seriously." They
were
just
as sure
about what
they
said to me and could offer me
every
bit of evidence
that one could need to conclude that
they
were
right.
So I said to
myself:
"Okay, maybe
what's
happening
here is that there is an attribute that
I do have but there are certain worlds in which I am not at ease and
it is because I'm not at ease in those worlds that I don't have that at-
tribute in those worlds. But what does that mean?" I was worried both
about what I meant
by
"worlds" when I said "in some worlds I do
not have the attribute" and what I meant
by saying
that lack of ease
was what led me not to be
playful
in those worlds. Because
you see,
if it was
just
a matter of lack of
ease,
I could work on it.
I can
explain
some of what I mean
by
a "world." I do not want the
fixity
of a definition at this
point,
because I think the term is
suggestive
and I do not want to close the
suggestiveness
of it too soon. I can offer
some characteristics that serve to
distinguish
between a
"world,"
a
utopia,
a
possible
world in the
philosophical sense,
and a world view.
By
a "world" I do not mean a
utopia
at all. A
utopia
does not count
as a world in
my
sense. The "worlds" that I am
talking
about are
possi-
ble. But a
possible
world is not what I mean
by
a "world" and I do
not mean a
world-view, though something
like a world-view is involved
here.
For
something
to be a "world" in
my
sense it has to be inhabited
at
present by
some flesh and blood
people.
That is
why
it cannot be
a
utopia.
It
may
also be inhabited
by
some
imaginary people.
It
may
9
hypatla
be inhabited
by people
who are dead or
people
that the inhabitants of
this "world" met in some other "world" and now have in this "world"
in
imagination.
A "world" in
my
sense
may
be an actual
society given
its dominant
culture's
description
and construction of
life, including
a construction
of the
relationships
of
production,
of
gender, race,
etc. But a "world"
can also be such a
society given
a non-dominant
construction,
or it can
be such a
society
or a
society given
an
idiosyncratic
construction. As
we will see it is
problematic
to
say
that these are all constructions of
the same
society.
But
they
are different "worlds."
A "world" need not be a construction of a whole
society.
It
may
be a construction of a
tiny portion
of a
particular society.
It
may
be
inhabited
by just
a few
people.
Some "worlds" are
bigger
than others.
A "world"
may
be
incomplete
in that
things
in it
may
not be
altogether
constructed or some
things may
be constructed
negatively
(they
are not what
'they'
are in some other
"world.")
Or the "world"
may
be
incomplete
because it
may
have references to
things
that do
not
quite
exist in
it,
references to
things
like
Brazil,
where Brazil is not
quite part
of that "world." Given lesbian
feminism,
the construction
of 'lesbian' is
purposefully
and
healthily
still
up
in the
air,
in the
pro-
cess of
becoming.
What it is to be a
Hispanic
in this
country is,
in a
dominant
Anglo
construction
purposefully incomplete.
Thus one can-
not
really
answer
questions
of the sort "What is a
Hispanic?",
"Who
counts as a
Hispanic?",
"Are
Latinos, Chicanos, Hispanos,
black
dominicans,
white
cubans, korean-colombians, italian-argentinians
hispanic?"
What it is to be a
'hispanic'
in the varied so-called
hispanic
communities in the U.S. is also
yet up
in the air. We have not
yet
decided
whether there is
something
like a
'hispanic'
in our varied "worlds."
So,
a "world"
may
be an
incomplete visionary non-utopian
construc-
tion of life or it
may
be a traditional construction of life. A traditional
Hispano
construction of Northern New Mexican life is a "world." Such
a traditional
construction,
in the face of a
racist, ethnocentrist, money-
centered
anglo
construction of Northern New Mexican life is
highly
unstable because
Anglos
have the means for
imperialist
destruction of
traditional
Hispano
"worlds."
In a "world" some of the inhabitants
may
not understand or hold
the
particular
construction of them that constructs them in that
"world."
So,
there
may
be "worlds" that construct me in
ways
that
I do not even understand. Or it
may
be that I understand the construc-
tion,
but do not hold it of
myself.
I
may
not
accept
it as an account
of
myself,
a construction of
myself.
And
yet,
I
may
be
animating
such
a construction.
One can "travel" between these "worlds" and one can inhabit more
10
maria
lugones
than one of these "worlds" at the
very
same time. I think that most
of us who are outside the mainstream
of,
for
example,
the U.S. domi-
nant construction or
organization
of life are "world travellers" as a
matter of
necessity
and of survival. It seems to me that
inhabiting
more
than one "world" at the same time and
"travelling"
between "worlds"
is
part
and
parcel
of our
experience
and our situation. One can be at
the same time in a "world" that constructs one as
stereotypically latin,
for
example,
and in a "world" that constructs one as latin.
Being
stereo-
typically
latin and
being simply
latin are different simultaneous con-
structions of
persons
that are
part
of different "worlds." One animates
one or the other or both at the same time without
necessarily
confus-
ing them, though
simultaneous enactment can be
confusing
if one is
not on one's
guard.
In
describing my
sense of a
"world,"
I mean to be
offering
a
descrip-
tion of
experience, something
that is true to
experience
even if it is on-
tologically problematic. Though
I would think that
any
account of iden-
tity
that could not be true to this
experience
of outsiders to the
mainstream would be
faulty
even if
ontologically unproblematic.
Its
ease would
constrain, erase,
or deem aberrant
experience
that has within
it
significant insights
into
non-imperialistic understanding
between
people.
Those of us who are "world"-travellers have the distinct
experience
of
being
different in different "worlds" and of
having
the
capacity
to
remember other "worlds" and ourselves in them. We can
say
"That
is me
there,
and I am
happy
in that "world."
So,
the
experience
is of
being
a different
person
in different "worlds" and
yet
of
having
memory
of oneself as different without
quite having
the sense of there
being any underlying
"I." So I can
say
"that is me there and I am so
playful
in that "world." I
say
"That is me in that "world" not because
I
recognize myself
in that
person,
rather the first
person
statement is
non-inferential. I
may
well
recognize
that that
person
has abilities that
I do not have and
yet
the
having
or not
having
of the abilities is
always
an "I have ..." and "I do not have . ..
",
i.e. it is
always experienc-
ed in the first
person.
The shift from
being
one
person
to
being
a different
person
is what
I call "travel." This shift
may
not be willful or even
conscious,
and
one
may
be
completely
unaware of
being
different than one is in a dif-
ferent
"world,"
and
may
not
recognize
that one is in a different
"world." Even
though
the shift can be done
willfully,
it is not a matter
of
acting.
One does not
pose
as someone
else,
one does not
pretend
to
be,
for
example,
someone of a different
personality
or character or
someone who uses
space
or
language differently
than the other
per-
son. Rather one is someone who has that
personality
or character or
11
hypatia
uses
space
and
language
in that
particular way.
The "one" here does
not refer to some
underlying
"I." One does not
experience any underly-
ing
"I."
Being
at ease in a "world"
In
investigating
what I mean
by "being
at ease in a "world"," I will
describe different
ways
of
being
at ease. One
may
be at ease in one
or in all of these
ways.
There is a maximal
way
of
being
at
ease,
viz.
being
at ease in all of these
ways.
I take this maximal
way
of
being
at ease to be somewhat
dangerous
because it tends to
produce people
who have no inclination to travel across "worlds" or have no
experience
of "world"
travelling.
The first
way
of
being
at ease in a
particular
"world" is
by being
a fluent
speaker
in that "world." I know all the norms that there are
to be
followed,
I know all the words that there are to be
spoken.
I know
all the moves. I am confident.
Another
way
of
being
at ease is
by being normatively happy.
I
agree
with all the
norms,
I could not love
any
norms better. I am asked to
do
just
what I want to do or what I think I should do. At ease.
Another
way
of
being
at ease in a "world" is
by being humanly
bond-
ed. I am with those I love and
they
love me too. It should be noticed
that I
may
be with those I love and be at ease because of them in a
"world" that is otherwise as hostile to me as "worlds"
get.
Finally
one
may
be at ease because one has a
history
with others that
is
shared, especially daily history,
the kind of shared
history
that one
sees
exemplified by
the
response
to the "Do
you
remember
poodle
skirts?"
question.
There
you are,
with
people you
do not know at all.
The
question
is
posed
and then
they
all
begin talking
about their
poodle
skirt stories. I have been in such situations without
knowing
what
poo-
dle
skirts,
for
example,
were and I felt so ill at ease because it was not
my history.
The other
people
did not
particularly
know each other. It
is not that
they
were
humanly
bonded.
Probably they
did not have much
politically
in common either. But
poodle
skirts were in their shared
history.
One
may
be at ease in one of these
ways
or in all of them. Notice
that when one
says meaningfully
"This is
my world,"
one
may
not be
at ease in it. Or one
may
be at ease in it
only
in some of these
respects
and not in others. To
say
of some "world" that it is
"my
world" is
to make an evaluation. One
may privilege
one or more "worlds" in
this
way
for a
variety
of reasons: for
example
because one
experiences
oneself as an
agent
in a fuller sense than one
experiences
"oneself"
in other "worlds." One
may
disown a "world" because one has first
12
maria
lugones
person
memories of a
person
who is so
thoroughly
dominated that she
has no sense of
exercising
her own will or has a sense of
having
serious
difficulties in
performing
actions that are willed
by
herself and no dif-
ficulty
in
performing
actions willed
by
others. One
may say
of a
"world" that it is
"my
world" because one is at ease in
it,
i.e.
being
at ease in a "world"
may
be the basis for the evaluation.
Given the clarification of what I mean
by
a
"world," "world"-travel,
and
being
at ease in a
"world,"
we are in a
position
to return to
my
problematic attribute, playfulness.
It
may
be that in this "world" in
which I am so
unplayful,
I am a different
person
than in the "world"
in which I am
playful.
Or it
may
be that the "world" in which I am
unplayful
is constructed in such a
way
that I could be
playful
in it.
I could
practice,
even
though
that "world" is constructed in such a
way
that
my being playful
in it is kind of hard. In
describing
what I
take a "world" to
be,
I
emphasized
the first
possibility
as both the one
that is truest to the
experience
of "outsiders" to the mainstream and
as
ontologically problematic
because the "I" is identified in some sense
as one and in some sense as a
plurality.
I
identify myself
as
myself
through memory
and I retain
myself
as different in
memory.
When
I travel from one "world" to
another,
I have this
image,
this
memory
of
myself
as
playful
in this other "world." I can then be in a
particular
"world" and have a double
image
of
myself as,
for
example, playful
and as not
playful.
But this is a
very
familiar and
recognizable
phenomenon
to the outsider to the mainstream in some central cases:
when in one "world" I
animate,
for
example,
that "world's" caricature
of the
person
I am in the other "world." I can have both
images
of
myself
and to the extent that I can materialize or animate both
images
at the same time I become an
ambiguous being.
This is
very
much a
part
of
trickery
and
foolery.
It is worth
remembering
that the trickster
and the fool are
significant
characters in
many
non-dominant or out-
sider cultures. One then sees
any particular
"world" with these double
edges
and sees
absurdity
in them and so inhabits oneself
differently.
Given that latins are constructed in
Anglo
"worlds" as
stereotypically
intense-intensity being
a central characteristic of at least one of the
anglo stereotypes
of latins-and
given
that
many latins, myself
includ-
ed,
are
genuinely intense,
I can
say
to
myself
"I am intense" and take
a hold of the double
meaning.
And
furthermore,
I can be
stereotypically
intense or be the real
thing and,
if
you
are
Anglo, you
do not know
when I am which because I am Latin-American. As Latin-American
I am an
ambiguous being,
a
two-imaged
self: I can see that
gringos
see me as
stereotypically
intense because I
am,
as a
Latin-American,
constructed that
way
but I
may
or
may
not
intentionally
animate the
stereotype
or the real
thing knowing
that
you may
not see it in
anything
13
hypatia
other than in the
stereotypical
construction. This
ambiguity
is
funny
and is not
just funny,
it is survival-rich. We can also make the
picture
of those who dominate us
funny precisely
because we can see the dou-
ble
edge,
we can see them
doubly constructed,
we can see the
plurality
in them. So we know truths that
only
the fool can
speak
and
only
the
trickster can
play
out without harm. We inhabit "worlds" and travel
across them and
keep
all the memories.
Sometimes the "world"-traveller has a double
image
of herself and
each self includes as
important ingredients
of itself one or more at-
tributes that are
incompatible
with one or more of the attributes of the
other self: for
example being playful
and
being unplayful.
To the ex-
tent that the attribute is an
important ingredient
of the self she is in
that
"world," i.e.,
to the extent that there is a
particularly good
fit
between that "world" and her
having
that attribute in it and to the
extent that the attribute is
personality
or character
central,
that "world"
would have to be
changed
if she is to be
playful
in it. It is not the case
that if she could come to be at ease in
it,
she would be her own
playful
self. Because the attribute is
personality
or character central and there
is such a
good
fit between that "world" and her
being
constructed with
that attribute as
central,
she cannot become
playful,
she is
unplayful.
To become
playful
would be for her to become a
contradictory being.
So I am
suggesting
that the lack of ease solution cannot be a solution
to
my problematic
case.
My problem
is not one of lack of ease. I am
suggesting
that I can understand
my
confusion about whether I am or
am not
playful by saying
that I am both and that I am different
per-
sons in different "worlds" and can remember
myself
in both as I am
in the other. I am a
plurality
of selves. This is to understand
my
confu-
sion because it is to come to see it as a
piece
with much of the rest of
my experience
as an outsider in some of the "worlds" that I inhabit
and of a
piece
with
significant aspects
of the
experience
of non-dominant
people
in the "worlds" of their dominators.
So, though
I
may
not be at ease in the "worlds" in which I am not
constructed
playful,
it is not that I am not
playful
because I am not
at ease. The two are
compatible.
But lack of
playfulness
is not caused
by
lack of ease. Lack of
playfulness
is not
symptomatic
of lack of ease
but of lack of health. I am not a
healthy being
in the "worlds" that
construct me
unplayful.
Playfulness
I had a
very personal
stake in
investigating
this
topic. Playfulness
is not
only
the attribute that was the source of
my
confusion and the
attitude that I recommend as the
loving
attitude in
travelling
across
14
maria
lugones
"worlds,"
I am also scared of
ending up
a serious human
being,
some-
one with no
multi-dimensionality,
with no fun in
life,
someone who
is
just
someone who has had the fun constructed out of her. I am
seriously
scared of
getting
stuck in a "world" that constructs me that
way.
A world that I have no
escape
from and in which I cannot be
playful.
I
thought
about what it is to be
playful
and what it is to
play
and
I did this
thinking
in a "world" in which I
only
remember
myself
as
playful
and in which all of those who know me as
playful
are
imaginary
beings.
A "world" in which I am scared of
losing my
memories of
myself
as
playful
or have them erased from me. Because I live in such
a
"world,"
after I formulated
my
own sense of what it is to be
playful
and to
play
I decided that I needed to
"go
to the literature." I read
two classics on the
subject:
Johan
Huizinga's
Homo Ludens and Hans-
Georg
Gadamer's
chapter
on the
concept
of
play
in his Truth and
Method. I
discovered,
to
my amazement,
that what I
thought
about
play
and
playfulness,
if
they
were
right,
was
absolutely wrong. Though
I will not
provide
the
arguments
for this
interpretation
of Gadamer
and
Huizinga here,
I understood that both of them have an
agonistic
sense of
'play.' Play
and
playfulness have, ultimately,
to do with con-
test,
with
winning, losing, battling.
The sense of
playfulness
that I have
in mind has
nothing
to do with those
things. So,
I tried to elucidate
both senses of
play
and
playfulness by contrasting
them to each other.
The contrast
helped
me see the attitude that I have in mind as the lov-
ing
attitude in
travelling
across "worlds" more
clearly.
An
agonistic
sense of
playfulness
is one in which
competence
is
supreme.
You better know the rules of the
game.
In
agonistic play
there
is
risk,
there is
uncertainty,
but the
uncertainty
is about who is
going
to win and who is
going
to lose. There are rules that
inspire hostility.
The attitude of
playfulness
is conceived as
secondary
to or derivative
from play.
Since
play
is
agon,
then the
only
conceivable
playful
attitude
is an
agonistic
one
(the
attitude does not turn an
activity
into
play,
but
rather
presupposes
an
activity
that is
play).
One of the
paradigmatic
ways
of
playing
for both Gadamer and
Huizinga
is
role-playing.
In role-
playing,
the
person
who is a
participant
in the
game
has a
fixed
con-
ception of
him or
herself.
I also think that the
players
are imbued with
self-importance
in
agonistic play
since
they
are so keen on
winning given
their own
merits,
their
very
own
competence.
When
considering
the value of
"world"-travelling
and whether
playfulness
is the
loving
attitude to have while
travelling,
I
recognized
the
agonistic
attitude as inimical to
travelling
across "worlds." The
agonistic
traveller is a
conqueror,
an
imperialist. Huizinga,
in his classsic
book on
play, interprets
Western civilization as
play.
That is an in-
15
hypatia
teresting thing
for Third World
people
to think about. Western civiliza-
tion has been
interpreted by
a white western man as
play
in the
agonistic
sense of
play. Huizinga
reviews western
law, art,
and
many
other
aspects
of western culture and sees
agon
in all of them.
Agonistic playfulness
leads those who
attempt
to travel to another "world" with this attitude
to failure.
Agonistic
travellers fail
consistently
in their
attempt
to travel
because what
they
do is to
try
to
conquer
the other "world." The at-
tempt
is not an
attempt
to
try
to erase the other "world." That is what
assimilation is all about. Assimilation is the destruction of other
peo-
ple's
"worlds."
So,
the
agonistic attitude,
the
playful
attitude
given
western man's construction of
playfulness,
is not a
healthy, loving
at-
titude to have in
travelling
across "worlds." Notice that
given
the
agonistic
attitude one cannot travel across
"worlds," though
one can
kill other "worlds" with it. So for
people
who are interested in cross-
ing
racial and ethnic
boundaries,
an
arrogant
western man's construc-
tion of
playfulness
is
deadly.
One cannot cross the boundaries with it.
One needs to
give up
such an attitude if one wants to travel.
So
then,
what is the
loving playfulness
that I have in mind? Let me
begin
with one
example:
We are
by
the river bank. The river is
very,
very
low. Almost
dry.
Bits of water here and there. Little
pools
with
a few trout
hiding
under the rocks. But
mostly
is wet
stones, grey
on
the outside. We walk on the stones for awhile. You
pick up
a stone
and crash it onto the others. As it
breaks,
it is
quite
wet inside and
it is
very colorful, very pretty.
I
pick up
a stone and break it and run
toward the
pieces
to see the colors.
They
are beautiful. I
laugh
and
bring
the
pieces
back to
you
and
you
are
doing
the same with
your pieces.
We
keep
on
crashing
stones for
hours,
anxious to see the beautiful new
colors. We are
playing.
The
playfulness
of our
activity
does not
presup-
pose
that there is
something
like
"crashing
stones" that is a
particular
form of
play
with its own rules. Rather the attitude that carries us
through
the
activity,
a
playful
attitude,
turns the
activity
into
play.
Our
activity
has no
rules, though
it is
certainly
intentional
activity
and we
both understand what we are
doing.
The
playfulness
that
gives
mean-
ing
to our
activity
includes
uncertainty,
but in this case the
uncertainty
is an
openness
to
surprise.
This is a
particular metaphysical
attitude
that does not
expect
the world to be
neatly packaged, ruly.
Rules
may
fail to
explain
what we are
doing.
We are not
self-important,
we are
not fixed in
particular
constructions of
ourselves,
which is
part
of
say-
ing
that we are
open
to
self-construction.
We
may
not have
rules,
and
when we do have
rules,
there are no rules that are to us sacred. We
are not worried about
competence.
We are not wedded to a
particular
way
of
doing things.
While
playful
we have not abandoned ourselves
to,
nor are we stuck
in, any particular
"world." We are there
creatively.
16
maria
lugones
We are not
passive.
Playfulness is,
in
part,
an
openness
to
being
a
fool,
which is a com-
bination of not
worrying
about
competence,
not
being self-important,
not
taking
norms as sacred and
finding ambiguity
and double
edges
a source of wisdom and
delight.
So, positively,
the
playful
attitude involves
openness
to
surprise,
openness
to
being
a
fool, openness
to self-construction or reconstruc-
tion and to construction or reconstruction of the "worlds" we inhabit
playfully. Negatively, playfulness
is characterized
by uncertainty,
lack
of
self-importance,
absence of rules or a not
taking
rules as
sacred,
a not
worrying
about
competence
and a lack of abandonment to a
par-
ticular construction of
oneself,
others and one's relation to them. In
attempting
to take a hold of oneself and of one's relation to others
in a
particular "world,"
one
may study,
examine and come to under-
stand oneself. One
may
then see what the
possibilities
for
play
are for
the
being
one is in that "world." One
may
even decide to inhabit that
self
fully
in order to understand it better and find its creative
possibilities.
All of this is
just
self-reflection and it is
quite
different
from
resigning
or
abandoning
oneself to the
particular
construction of
oneself that one is
attempting
to take a hold of.
Conclusion
There are "worlds" we enter at our own
risk,
"worlds" that have
agon, conquest,
and
arrogance
as the main
ingredients
in their ethos.
These are "worlds" that we enter out of
necessity
and which would
be foolish to enter
playfully
in either the
agonistic
sense or in
my
sense.
In such "worlds" we are not
playful.
But there are "worlds" that we can travel to
lovingly
and
travelling
to them is
part
of
loving
at least some of their inhabitants. The reason
why
I think that
travelling
to someone's "world" is a
way
of
identify-
ing
with them is because
by travelling
to their "world" we can under-
stand what it is to be them and what it is to be ourselves in their
eyes.
Only
when we have travelled to each other's "worlds" are we
fully
sub-
jects
to each other
(I agree
with
Hegel
that
self-recognition requires
other
subjects,
but I
disagree
with his claim that it
requires
tension or
hostility).
Knowing
other women's "worlds" is
part
of
knowing
them and
knowing
them is
part
of
loving
them. Notice that the
knowing
can be
done in
greater
or lesser
depth,
as can the
loving.
Also notice that travell-
ing
to another's "world" is not the same as
becoming
intimate with
them.
Intimacy
is constituted in
part by
a
very deep knowledge
of the
other self and "world"
travelling
is
only part
of
having
this
knowledge.
17
hypatia
Also notice that some
people,
in
particular
those who are outsiders to
the
mainstream,
can be known
only
to the extent that
they
are known
in several "worlds" and as "world"-travellers.
Without
knowing
the other's
"world,"
one does not know the
other,
and without
knowing
the other one is
really
alone in the other's
presence
because the other is
only dimly present
to one.
Through travelling
to other
people's
"worlds" we discover that there
are "worlds" in which those who are the victims of
arrogant percep-
tion are
really subjects, lively beings, resistors,
constructors of visions
even
though
in the mainstream construction
they
are animated
only
by
the
arrogant perceiver
and are
pliable, foldable, file-awayable,
classifiable. I
always imagine
the Aristotelian slave as
pliable
and
foldable at
night
or after he or she cannot work
anymore (when
he or
she dies as a
tool).
Aristotle tells us
nothing
about the slave
apart from
the master. We know the slave
only through
the master. The slave is
a tool of the master. After
working
hours he or she is folded and
placed
in a drawer till the next
morning. My
mother was
apparent
to me
mostly
as a victim of
arrogant perception.
I was
loyal
to the
arrogant perceiver's
construction of her and thus
disloyal
to her in
assuming
that she was
exhausted
by
that construction. I was
unwilling
to be like her and
thought
that
identifying
with
her, seeing myself
in her necessitated that
I become like her. I was
wrong
both in
assuming
that she was exhausted
by
the
arrogant perceiver's
construction of her and in
my
understand-
ing
of
identification, though
I was not
wrong
in
thinking
that iden-
tification was
part
of
loving
and that it involved in
part my seeing myself
in her. I came to realize
through travelling
to her "world" that she
is not foldable and
pliable,
that she is not exhausted
by
the mainstream
argentinian patriarchal
construction of her. I came to realize that there
are "worlds" in which she shines as a creative
being. Seeing myself
in her
through travelling
to her "world" has meant
seeing
how dif-
ferent from her I am in her "world."
So,
in
recommending "world"-travelling
and identification
through
"world"-travelling
as
part
of
loving
other
women,
I am
suggesting
disloyalty
to
arrogant perceivers, including
the
arrogant perceiver
in
ourselves,
and to their constructions of women. In
revealing agonistic
playfulness
as
incompatible
with
"world"-travelling,
I am
revealing
both its
affinity
with
imperialism
and
arrogant perception
and its in-
compatibility
with
loving
and
loving perception.
18
maria
lugones
notes
1.
Grafting
the substance of another to oneself is
partly
constitutive of
arrogant
perception.
See M.
Frye (1983, 66).
references
Frye, Marilyn.
1983. The
politics of reality: Essays
in
feminist theory.
Trumansburg,
N.Y.:
Crossing
Press.
Gadamer, Hans-George.
1975. Truth and method. New York:
Seabury
Press.
Huizinga,
Johan. 1968. Homo ludens. Buenos
Aires, Argentina:
Emece
Editores.
19
Hypatia (Hy-pay-sha)
was an
Egyptian
woman
philosopher,
mathematician,
and astronomer who lived in Alexandria
from her birth in about 370 A.D. until her death in 415.
She was the leader of the
Neoplatonic
School in Alexandria
and was famous as an
eloquent
and
inspiring
teacher. The
journal Hypatia
is named in honor of this foresister. Her
name reminds us that
although many
of us are the first
women
philosophers
in our
schools,
we are
not,
after
all,
the first in
history.
Hypatia
has its roots in the
Society
for Women in
Philosophy, many
of whose members have for
years
envi-
sioned a
regular publication
devoted to feminist
philosophy.
Hypatia
is the realization of that
vision;
it is intended to
encourage
and communicate
many
different kinds of feminist
philosophizing.
Hypatia (ISSN 0887-5367)
is
published by Hypatia, Inc.,
a tax
exempt corporation,
which
assumes no
responsibility
for statements
expressed by
authors.
Hypatia
will
publish
two
issues in
1986,
and three issues in each successive
year. Subscription
rates for 1986-87 are:
Institutions, $40/year; Individuals, $20/year. Foreign
orders add
postage: $5/year
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Canada,
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Single copies
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A 40% discount is available on bulk orders
for classroom use or bookstore sales. Life-time
subscriptions
are available to donor
subscribers for $400.
Address all editorial and business
correspondence
to the
Editor, Hypatia,
Southern
Illinois
University
at
Edwardsville, Edwardsville,
IL 62026-1437. Notice of
nonreceipt
of
an issue must be sent within four weeks after
receipt
of
subsequent
issue. Please
notify
us of
any change
of
address;
the Post Office does not forward third class mail.
Copyright
1987
by Hypatia,
Inc. All
rights
reserved.
Hypatia
was first
published
in 1983 as a
Special
Issue of Women's Studies International
Forum, by Pergamon
Press. The first three issues of
Hypatia appeared respectively
as vol.
6,
no.
6;
vol.
7,
no.
5;
and vol.
8,
no. 3 of Women's Studies International Forum.
They
are available as back issues from
Pergamon Press,
Maxwell House, Fairview Park,
Elmsford,
NY 10523.
mary
b. mahowald
Sex-Role
Stereotypes
in Medicine
I
argue
for
compatibility
between feminism and medicine
by develop-
ing
a model of the
physician-other relationship
which is
essentially
egalitarian.
This entails
rejection
of
(a)
a
paternalistic
model which rein-
forces sex-role
stereotypes, (b)
a maternalistic model which
exclusively
emphasizes patient autonomy,
and
(c)
a model which focuses on the
physician's
conscience. The model I
propose (parentalism) captures
the
complexity
and
dynamism
of the
physician-other relationship, by
stress-
ing mutuality
in
respect
for
autonomy
and
regard
for each other's
interests.
Feminism
and medicine are often seen as
incompatible.
On the
one
hand,
feminism is a movement to
promote equality
between women
and
men;
on the
other,
medicine is a
profession
which
epitomizes
an
inegalitarian relationship
between
doctors,
who are still
mainly men,
and
patients,
who are
mainly
women
(Bidese
and Danais
1982, 14, 15).'
By "inegalitarian"
I mean a
relationship
in which one
party
is
regard-
ed
as,
and/or is
superior
to the
other,
who has no similar claim to
superiority.
Such a situation
may
be viewed as
temporary inequality,
as in the
parent-child relationship;
or as
permanent inequality,
as in
racism or sexism. The difference between these is
important.
In tem-
porarily inegalitarian relationships,
the
goal may
be to reduce the
disparity
between the
parties.
The
parent,
for
example, attempts
to
facilitate the child's
progress
towards
independent
adulthood. Perma-
nent
inequality
is based on
unchanging
differences such as sexual iden-
tity
or skin
color,
and therefore the
goal may
be to maintain in-
egalitarian relationships
based on irrelevant differences. On either of
these
views,
the
relationship
of
inequality
is not
merely
one of
dissimilarity
between
(among)
the
parties;
it
essentially
involves a rank-
ing
based on differences.
Lest we infer from the fact that most
patients
are
women,
that this
itself constitutes
grounds
for
averring
their
inferiority
to
men,
we need
to
recognize significant
reasons
why
this is so. More
patients
are women
not because
they
are less
healthy
than
men,
but for reasons which
sug-
gest
the
opposite: (1) they
can do
something
that men cannot
do, i.e.,
bear and nurse
children,
and
(2) they
tend to live
longer
than
men, by
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1987).

By Mary
B. Mahowald.
21
hypatla
an
average
of
eight years (U.S. Department
of Health and Human Ser-
vices
1982,
Table
#10).2
Many
reasons
(valid
and
invalid)
have been cited to
explain why
most
physicians
are
male-e.g.,
women have less
aptitude
for the skills of
mind and hand
required
of the
doctor,
while
they
also have a
naturally
greater aptitude
for skills of the heart such as those
required
of the
nurse
(Aroskar 1980, 20).
Foremost
among
the
reasons, however,
is
one which well illustrates sex-role
expectations
of women in
general-
the
incompatibility
between the
professional
demands of
medicine,
and
the role of wife and mother which most women fulfill
(Heins
et al.
1976,
1961-64; 1977, 2514-17; 1983, 209-10).
No similar
incompatibility
arises
when
stereotypic
sex-role
expectations
are
applied
to men.
A further
explanation
for the
apparent
contradiction between
feminism and medicine is evident in the contrast between feminist
arguments
for
reproductive freedom,
and the control of others' bodies
which medical
practice
entails.
Reproductive
freedom
implies
the
right
of women to control their own bodies. While the
physician
exercises
power
in behalf of the
patient,
such control
may simultaneously
cir-
cumvent the
expressed
wishes of the
patient.
In addition to the
inegalitarian relationship generally
sustained be-
tween
physicians
and
patients,
a similar
inequality prevails
between
physicians
and other health
professionals,
who are
mainly
women
(Handler
1975, 3).3
For
example,
where the role of the nurse is to
care,
that of the doctor is to cure
(Bates 1970, 129; Ashley 1976, 17).
Often
the latter is seen as the more
important
contribution to the
patient,
and
rewarded
accordingly
in terms of income and
prestige (Navarro 1975,
398-402;
Weaver
1978, 677-700).
If the marked increase of women
entering
medicine
continues,
possibly
their influence will reduce the
impact
of sex-role
stereotypes
on the
physician's relationship
to
patients
and to other health
profes-
sionals
(Dimond
1983, 207). Why
this
may
not be the case will be ex-
plained subsequently,
but the
point
is not crucial to this
essay. My plan
here is to examine some of the essential features of
gender
or sex-role
stereotypes
and
compare
these with alternative models of the
physi-
cian/other
relationship.
On the basis of that
comparison,
and different
versions of
feminism,
I will
propose
a model of the
physician/other
relationship
and a version of feminism that are
compatible,
and
preferable
to the alternatives.
My
limited defense of this
position hinges
on the
principle
of
justice
as
applied
to the clinical social situation.
Common
stereotypic
features
During
the
past
five
years
I have had
bimonthly
classes with third
22
mary
b. mahowald
and fourth
year
medical students who are
spending
a two month clinical
rotation in the
obstetric/gynecological
service of a women's
hospital.
The
proportion
of women in these
groups
of students is rather
high,
since our
average
enrollment of female students
approaches
50%.
Typically,
I
begin
a session
by soliciting
from students their sense of
what is
unique
about this
specialty
as
compared
with others. The
features noted are obvious but
significant:
most
patients
are
healthy,
and an additional
healthy patient,
the
newborn,
is the usual result of
obstetric care. Another feature
consistently
mentioned is that all the
patients
are
women,
while most doctors
(still)
are men. Once this feature
of the
specialty
is
introduced,
I ask students to indicate
qualities
which
are
frequently stereotypically
attributed to women or men
distinctively
(allowing
that the attribution is often inaccurate for real individuals
of either
sex).
The traits
suggested
are
predictable:
men are
aggressive,
women are
passive;
men are
strong,
women are
weak;
women are
depen-
dent,
men are
independent;
women are
emotional,
men are rational.
I then ask the students to outline the traits
stereotypically
attributed
to
physicians
and
patients.
Not
surprisingly,
these
correspond
with those
assigned
to men and women.
Advertence to the
stereotypic
traits
proposed by my
medical students
is
preliminary
to their
recognition
that these are
commonly
viewed not
only
as
opposite to,
but also as
excluding,
the
corresponding
trait in
the other
partner
of the
relationship. Thus,
to the extent that a woman
is
(perceived as)
affective or
emotional,
she is
(perceived as) lacking
rationality;
and to the extent that a man is
(perceived) aggressive,
he
is
(perceived as)
not
passive
or
receptive.
Yet all of these features
may
be used to describe the same
personality,
man or woman. A
specific
individual
may
be
passive
or vulnerable in certain
respects,
but
strong
and
aggressive
in others. For
example,
I cannot lift 200
pounds,
but
I have been told that I have a
considerably high pain
threshold-which
makes me
strong
while weak. Women
traditionally
have been
imputed
to be more
emotionally dependent
than
men, yet
a number of studies
have disclosed the
opposite-e.g.,
the loss of a
spouse
is much more
devastating
to a man than to a woman
(Jacobs
and Ostfield
1977,
344-357). Clearly
women are
fully capable
of
exercising
intellectual
rigor
concurrently
with their
affectivity. Depending
on their
type
and
degree
of
illness, patients possess
a similar
capability.
In her cross-cultural
study
of sex
roles,
Jean
Humphrey
Bloch
(1973)
describes another difference which
may
be
stereotypically
attributed
to men or women: men are
"agentic,"
and women are "communal."
To be
agentic
is to
promote
one's own
interests, e.g., through
self-
protection, self-assertion,
and
self-expansion;
to be communal is to
pro-
mote the interests of
others,
even at times at the
expense
of one's own.
23
hypatia
The
inadequacy
of this
pair
of
stereotypes
is
fairly obvious,
both in
its
application
to men and
women,
and in an extended
application
to
physicians
and their
patients. Traditionally,
women are
perceived
as
more interested in home and
family
than in themselves as
individuals,
or than in the wider
community
or
society;
men are
perceived
as
acting
in the interests of the
public
or the wider
society.
In both
cases, however,
the orientation
may
be
interpreted
as communal rather than
agentic,
or
possibly
as
agentic
on behalf of the
community.
Insofar as the com-
munal interests of women are
narrowly
defined as embodied in the fami-
ly, they may
be defined as
acting "agentically"
more than men. Similar-
ly,
the traditional
image
of the
physician
is communal in that it
represents
an altruistic commitment to the welfare of others.
Nonetheless,
as Paul Starr
(1982)
has
recently pointed out,
the American
public
has become
increasingly persuaded
that medicine is more self-
serving
than
other-serving.
Patients too
may
be either
agentic
or com-
munal in their orientation. With
good reason, many
are
exclusively
con-
cerned about their own
welfare,
but
many apparently worry
most about
the
impact
of their condition on those
they
love
(Gilligan 1982).
The recent
controversy
over models of moral
reasoning,
drawn from
the
writings
of Lawrence
Kohlberg
and Carol
Gilligan,
is
illuminating
with
regard
to
agentic
or communal traits in individuals.
Kohlberg
(1971)
has
proposed
three levels of moral
reasoning,
each
comprised
of two
stages,
and
proceeding
from
pre-moral
to mature moral reason-
ing.
The mature level is illustrated
by deontological argument, i.e.,
an
appeal
to universal moral rules which
govern
the exercise of individual
rights. Gilligan
has criticized
Kohlberg's
research as based
exclusively
on the
experience
of males.
Through
her research on female
subjects,
Gilligan (1982)
has
developed
a counter model of
responsibility
or rela-
tionship
rather than individual
rights. My
own concern about these
models is that either or both
may
be
stereotypic.
Prior to this
critique,
Kohlberg's categories
had become
standardly
invoked in some
circles,
as
applicable
to all individuals
(Rest
et al.
1974, 491-501). Gilligan
has
already
been
interpreted
somewhat
stereotypically,
and
probably
inac-
curately,
as
maintaining
the
superiority
of the female model
(Saxton
1981, 63-6).
From an ethical
standpoint,
what seems needed is
recogni-
tion that both models
yield
valid
insights
in moral
reasoning,
but neither
model can be as
adequate (or
less
inadequate)
as both.
Models of the
physician/other relationship
On the basis of traits
stereotypically assigned
to
women, men, pa-
tients and
doctors,
certain models of the
relationships emerge.
In assess-
ing
these
models, however,
an
important
difference should be
noted,
24
mary
b. mahowald
namely,
that one is
temporary
while the other is
permanent. Temporary
inequality may
be defended in the health care situation as a means to
promoting permanent equality.
The
goal
of medical
practice may
in
fact be defined as that of
making
itself
unnecessary through improve-
ment of the
patient's
status:
illness,
as the source of
inequality,
is to
be eradicated. A similar
argument
is
obviously inapplicable
to the
woman-man
relationship.
If
being
a woman and
being
a man are
per-
manent
conditions,
an
assumption
of
inequality
between the two
necessarily implies
that one is
permanently
inferior to the other.
Another construal of the woman-man
relationship
which is
applicable
to the
physician-other relationship
is that of
complementarity.
A man
may
be viewed
(or
view
himself)
as
needing
a woman in order to
prove
his
virility;
a doctor
clearly
needs a
patient
in order to be a
doctor,
and vice versa. But the woman or the
patient
is
essentially
a
receptor
of the other's
strength
or
expertise
or sexual drive.
Accordingly,
"com-
plementarity"
describes a
fundamentally inegalitarian relationship:
woman and
patient
are
similarly passive
and vulnerable.
"Paternalism" is a term often used to describe the
relationship
be-
tween
physician
and
patient.
The
meaning
of this term is
commonly
associated with its
etymological
root
(from
the Latin
pater
or
"father"):
a
principle
or
system
of behavior towards others which resembles that
of a father towards his child
(Webster 1984).
The
specific
role of the
father is further defined as that of a
protector,
one who takes
respon-
sibility
for another
(Webster 1984).
While the father
figure
is
indepen-
dent,
the "child"
depends
on him. On such an
account, paternalistic
medical interventions are those which
impute
to the
practitioner
total
responsibility
for what is done or not done to
patients.
Where the
pa-
tient's own wishes are overridden
through
these
interventions,
the
prin-
ciple
that is
usually
invoked to
justify
violation of the
patient's
autonomy
is that of
beneficence,
or at
least,
non-maleficence. Tradi-
tionally,
this
principle
is embodied in the
Hippocratic code,
which
stipulates
that
physicians ought
above all "to
help,
or at
least,
to do
no
harm," (Reiser
et al.
1977, 7).
The serious limitation of beneficence as an ethical
principle
is that
it
may
be invoked to
justify
horrendous intrusions on a
patient's
autonomy.
Where this
occurs,
it
may
reduce the roles
played by physi-
cian and
patient
to the
stereotypic
extremes of
aggressivity
and
passivity.
Appeal
to beneficence under the
guise
of commitment to the
patient's
best interests
may
also reinforce
emphasis
on the
physician's
rationali-
ty
and
expertise
as
opposed
to the
patient's
emotional
vulnerability
and
medical
ignorance;
and the
physician's
role as an
independent agent,
while the
patient
is
essentially
but
dependently
communal. In
short,
the
paternalistic
model of the
physician/other
relation
expresses
all of
25
hypatia
the
inegalitarian aspects
of sex-role
stereotypes regardless
of the sex-
ual
identity
of the
physician
or
patient.
The fact that most doctors are
men and most
patients
women
strengthens
this
paternalistic approach
to the
relationship.
In the
past
several decades the
Hippocratic paternalistic
model of
the
physician/other relationship
has been
increasingly
criticized and re-
jected
in favor of a
patient autonomy
model
(Veatch 1981).
The
key
but controversial
concept
here is of course "informed consent." That
concept clearly
conflicts with sex-role
stereotypic qualities
because it
imputes
to
patients
both
rationality
and
agency. However,
an
emphasis
on informed or
proxy
consent4
may
be so exclusive as to
ignore
the
broader
principle
of
autonomy
which is
applicable
to others involved
in health care
decisions-e.g., physicians
and other
professionals.
Logically,
if one
interprets
informed consent as
indispensable
to medical
interventions
(Ramsey 1970),
this
implies
an instrumental role for the
physician,
which reverses the
assigned
sex-role traits. The
patient
is then
in the
position
of
agent,
and the
physician
is
dependent
on the
patient
in order to
practice
the art of
physicianship.
On such an
account,
the
patient
is viewed as one who knows better than the doctor what should
be done in her or his behalf.
If we wanted to choose a label
comparable
to
paternalism
to describe
the
relationship
between doctor and
patient
where
patient autonomy
is thus
championed,
we
might
call it maternalism.
Admittedly
this term
may
be
applied
to a woman who
practices paternalism
in the sense de-
fined above. It has also been used to describe a feminist
theory
which
points
to
biological
differences between the sexes as the basis for affir-
ming
that women are
equal,
or
superior
to men
(Lerner 1986, 26).
However,
if we use the term in accordance with its
etymological
mean-
ing (from
the Latin mater or
mother),
it means the
opposite
of
pater-
nalism. To mother is to
give birth,
and/or to nurture another individual.
Giving
birth
essentially
entails
letting go
of what has been a
part
of
oneself. Nurturance means
helping
another to be whoever he or she
is, independently
of oneself. To be
maternalistic, therefore, implies
respect
for the other's
(e.g.,
child's or
patient's) autonomy,
even at
the
expense
of the nurturer's
autonomy,
and even at some risk to the
other
(cf.
the newborn who must
immediately
breathe on her
own).
The
very
term
"patient"
seems
inappropriate
for this context: "client"
may
be
better,
or
possibly
"consumer"
(of
health
services).
Difficulties inherent in this model are
probably
as obvious as those
inherent in that of
paternalism,
and criticisms of both have been well-
developed
elsewhere
(Thomasma 1983;
Mahowald
1980; Kleinig 1983;
Childress
1983). Basically,
the
paternalistic
model is criticized for its
neglect
or violation of
patient autonomy.
A maternalistic model
(as
26
mary
b. mahowald
I have defined
it)
is criticized for
neglect
or violation of
beneficence,
i.e.,
the traditional medical
obligation
of
doing good
and
avoiding
harm
to the
patient. However,
an exclusive
emphasis
on informed or
proxy
consent fails to
uphold
the
principle
of
autonomy
in its
entirety.
To
treat health
professionals only
as instruments is
surely
to
deny
or at
least
ignore
their
right
and
responsibility
to exercise their own moral
autonomy
in
professional
decisions.
A more recent model of the doctor/other relation has been
propos-
ed
by
David Thomasma
(1983, 243-248)
in an effort to overcome the
problems
inherent in
paternalistic
or maternalistic
(patient autonomy)
models. Thomasma
argues
that the
physician ought
to base decisions
regarding patients
on
prudential judgment, i.e.,
one informed
by
her
or his
(the physician's own)
conscience.
Similarly, although
he does
not elaborate on what it would
entail,
Thomasma
suggests
that the
pa-
tient
ought
to base assent or dissent to decisions made in a medical set-
ting
on her or his
(the patient's own)
conscience. The elements to be
considered in the
physician's
formulation of a conscientious decision
are
complex
and
demanding. Although
the model is
largely
based on
beneficence,
Thomasma also insists on
paying
due
regard
to "the ex-
istential condition" of the
patient, including
her or his
autonomy.
Each
patient,
he
says,
"must be handled
individually,"
with a consensus
developed through participation
of other members of the health care
team. As
many
as
possible
of the different values at stake are to be
preserved, through
adherence to the
following
moral rules:
1. Both doctor and
patient
must be free to make informed decisions.
2.
Physicians
are
morally required
to
pay
increased attention to
pa-
tient
vulnerability.
3.
Physicians
must use their
power responsibly
to care for the
patient.
4.
Physicians
must have
integrity.
5.
Physicians
must have a
healthy regard
for moral
ambiguity.
Actual-
ly,
Thomasma's use of the term "conscience" in
describing
this model
is
misleading
because it
suggests
a
subjectivism
which his fuller elabora-
tion does not
support. Moreover,
since he would allow for a
patient-
conscience model to
complement
this
elaboration,
we cannot
really
have
a
picture
of the doctor/other
relationship
in its
entirety
until we at least
view the matter from that
perspective
also. What
happens
if conscience
judgments
of different
physicians,
and/or of
physician
and
patient
con-
flict? This
question
cannot be answered on the basis of the
physician-
conscience model
only.
My
main
complaint
with Thomasma's
model, then,
is a
point
that
he himself admits: the model reflects
solely
the
perspective
of the con-
cientious
physician.
Since it does not
purport
to reflect the
perspective
of the conscientious
patient,
it can
hardly
be said to describe the
27
hypatla
physician/other relationship, i.e.,
a set of interactions or behaviors
transpiring
between two individuals. Even
though they may
both be
concientious and in fact concur in decisions
regarding
health
care,
the
physician
and
patient inevitably
have different
perspectives.
Their rela-
tionship
is thus not observable from either
standpoint exclusively,
but
it is describable from a more distanced and critical
perspective
that
regards
those differences.
Insofar as Thomasma focuses on
physician
conscience as the source
of
judgment,
he invokes a framework
by
which the
physician may
move
beyond
a
stereotypic
construal of her/his role to view the
physi-
cian/other
relationship
more
critically. Although
"conscience"
suggests
a
purely subjective
basis for
decision-making,
an
enlightened
or inform-
ed conscience is
probably indispensable
to
practical
avoidance of the
sexist or reverse sexist tendencies of
paternalist
or maternalist models.
In the concrete clinical
situation,
after
all,
what counts as
paternalistic
or maternalistic is bound to
vary.
What is called for is a view of the
physician/other relationship
that
represents
both needs and
respon-
sibilities,
defined as
conscientiously
and
objectively
as
possible,
and
applicable simultaneously
to
unique
individuals of either sex. Since such
a model would be free of the
stereotypes
inherent in either
paternalist
or maternalist
models,
an
appropriate
label for it would be
"paren-
talism."
A
parentalist
model
The term
parentalism
has been
proposed
in some
quarters
as a non-
sexist substitute for
paternalism (Benjamin
and Curtis
1981, 48-58).
It
then raises the same ethical
questions
as
paternalism regarding respect
for
autonomy.
Others have
argued
that use of the term
"parenting"
for behaviors
usually
attributed to mothers or fathers fails to overcome
the sexist
implications
of
paternal
and maternal roles. In
fact,
accord-
ing
to Susan Rae Peterson
(1983),
the term
"parenting" dangerously
masks "the motives and
goals
of those
opposed
to feminist
values,"
namely,
to
ignore
the real contributions of women as
women,
ir-
replaceable by
men.
While I share Peterson's
concerns, my proposal
of the term
paren-
talism is
partly
motivated
by
a desire to avoid sexist
assumptions
and
implications
of either "maternalism" or
"paternalism" (I
shall discuss
this
subsequently),
and
partly by
a desire to
critique
the narrow notion
of
"parenting"
and
"family" relationships
that
prevail
in
today's
soci-
ety.
That narrow notion is one which views
parenting
as
maternally
or
paternally accomplished by individuals,
as
taking place merely
dur-
ing
the
period
in which children are
chronologically quite young,
and
28
mary
b. mahowald
as
normally only occurring
in a
relationship
that is
biologically paren-
tal or
legally adoptive.
Real
parenting,
and so
parentalism,
is
practic-
ed
by many
who are not
biological parents,
and in some instances is
not
practiced by
those who are. It is a behavior and an attitude that
entails both nurturance and
protection
across the entire
span
of
life,
promoting
the
autonomy
of the other even
beyond
the
point
where the
nurturer's interventions are needed or desirable.
Parenting
thus construed is both life
begetting
and life
sustaining,
with an
understanding
of life as
unfolding
and
developing
towards
fulfillment of each individual's
unique potential.
On this
account, paren-
talism is a model for all of our human
relationships,
no matter what
our
age,
or
biological
or
legal
tie to one another. Just as
my
mother
parented
me when I was small
by doing
for me what I could not do
for
myself (feeding, clothing, etc.),
she continued to
parent
me
by
en-
couraging my independence
of her
through
most of
my
life. In her ad-
vanced
age
I
parented
her
by doing
for her what she could not do for
herself
(feeding, clothing, etc.),
and also
by respecting
and
encourag-
ing
her
independence
as much as
possible.
Are we not all
similarly
bound
to
protect
others from harms and to do for them what
they
cannot do
for
themselves,
while
respecting
and
encouraging
their
autonomy?
Ob-
viously,
we have different
degrees
of
obligations
to different
individuals,
depending
on our
relationship
and commitment to
them,
their
need,
and our
capacity
to
respond. Moreover,
conflicts
inevitably
arise bet-
ween our
obligations
to different individuals.
Nonetheless,
the
paren-
talist model is useful as a moral ideal or
paradigm
for
addressing
the
changing
needs and
capacities
of
unique
individuals with
unique
rela-
tionships
to one another.
A clear
advantage
of this model for the
physician-other relationship
is its
applicability
to a
variety
of
disparate
medical situations.
Consider,
for
example,
the
types
of disease which
Jonsen, Siegler
and Winslade
have
categorized through
the
acronyms ACURE,
CARE and COPE
(1982, 16-46).
ACURE refers to diseases that are
acute, critical,
unex-
pected, responsive
to
treatment,
and
easily diagnosed; e.g.,
the other-
wise
healthy
individual who contracts bacterial
meningitis.
CARE refers
to diseases that are
critical, active, recalcitrant,
and
eventually fatal;
e.g.,
a
patient
with cancer in its terminal
stages.
And COPE refers to
diseases that are
chronic,
treated on an
outpatient basis,
with
palliative
and efficacious
therapies; e.g.,
a
patient
with diabetes mellitus or
rheumatoid arthritis.
In the ACURE
situation,
there
may scarcely
be
time, possibility
or
need to check on the
patient's
wishes before
acting beneficently
in her
or his
behalf, just
as one would
attempt
to rescue a friend from sud-
den
danger.
Such actions are sometimes considered
justifiably pater-
29
hypatia
nalistic.
(I agree
that
they
are
justifiable,
but not that
they
are
pater-
nalistic,
so
long
as the intervention is assumed to accord with the
pa-
tient's or friend's own
wishes.)
In the CARE
situation,
there is a
per-
suasive case for
respecting
the
patient's
wishes over those of
others,
including
clinicians. To the extent that this overrides what the
physi-
cian considers best for the
patient,
such an intervention
may
be con-
strued as maternalistic. The American
legal system generally supports
this
approach through
its insistence that no
competent patient
shall be
coerced to
undergo
treatment
(except
for the sake of
dependent minors).
In the COPE situation the
challenge
to both
physician
and
patient,
like
that which
parents
and children
typically face,
is to act both
beneficently
and
autonomously
towards one
another,
or in cases of
conflict,
to
violate either
principle
as little as
possible.
A
parentalistic
model of the
physician-other relationship
is
applicable
to all three kinds of situations because it entails
ascertaining
the
degree
of
protective (paternal)
influence that is
necessary,
while also
attemp-
ting
to maximize
expression
of
autonomy
on the
part
of all those con-
cerned. Indeed this model is
applicable
more
broadly
than to the
physician-other relationship,
to
relationships
that occur between
physi-
cians and
nurses, patients
and
nurses, etc.,
and
beyond
the health care
setting
to the full
spectrum
of human interactions.
As
already suggested,
another
advantage
of the
parentalist model,
whether
applied
in the clinical
setting
or more
broadly,
is that it avoids
the
stereotyping
that either maternalist or
paternalist
models reinforce.
It does this
by rejecting
the idea that the
physician
is
solely
the instru-
ment of the
patient,
or that s/he is
totally superior
to the
patient.
Clear-
ly,
for most of their life
span, parents
and their children are adults.
Throughout
their
lives, just
as
parents
learn from one
another,
so
physi-
cians who subscribe to this model
really
do learn from their
patients,
whose
rationality
is not
necessarily
distorted but
may
even be
sharpen-
ed
by
the time for reflection which sickness and
hospitalization
sometimes affords.
Moreover,
such
physicians
feel no need to cut off
their emotional life when
they put
on their white coats and wear their
stethoscopes
around their
necks; they may
also construe their role not
as
independent agents
but as collaborators with other health
profes-
sionals as well as with their
patients.
In other
words, parentalist physi-
cians as well as their
patients may
manifest
passivity
and
aggressivity,
emotion and
reason, community
and
agency-all
of the attributes
stereotypically assigned only
to one sex or the other.
Feminist
ideologies
and criticisms
Such a model of the
physician-other relationship necessarily
entails
30
mary
b. mahowald
rejection
of sex-role
stereotypes.
It is thus
compatible
with
feminism,
but not all varieties of feminism.
Unfortunately,
a
large
number of
peo-
ple interpret
feminism
stereotypically,
and it is that
sterotype
which
is at odds with the traditional
image
of the
physician.
I would like to
conclude
by briefly delineating
different feminist
ideologies,
and
relating
these to alternative models of the
physician-patient relationship.
Preliminarily, however,
we need to
acknowledge
that
feminists,
whatever their
political ideology,
share the views that
(1)
women
general-
ly occupy
a subordinate
position
to most men in
contemporary
socie-
ty,
and
(2)
this is not the
way society
should
operate (Jaggar 1974).
The first
point
is well documented in the
comparative
data on
economic
distribution,
and
by
laws and statutes
illustrating
sex
discrimination
throughout history
and
continuing through
our own
day
(Illich 1982, 24;
Ratner
1978, 20-23).
The second
point
is more con-
troversial. In
general, however,
women as well as men who enter
medicine tend to
support
either view less often or less
strongly
than
others
support
them
(Ginzberg
and Brann
1980;
Lesserman
1978).
If
we were able to
speculate
on reasons for that
reticence,
and in some
cases, disagreement
with basic feminist
positions,
several
possible
ex-
planations
are
apparent.
One is that the
very accomplishment
of women
who enter medicine is enhanced
by
the fact that so few succeed. Another
is that their success has been achieved
by
and
may yet
be
dependent
on male-defined criteria of
accomplishment.
A third reason is that
solidarity
with other women is a difficult attitude to
develop
or main-
tain for individuals who have been socialized to view women as
generally
inferior to
men,
and in that context to view themselves as
exceptional.
A fourth reason is that individual differences are
greater
than those
between the sexes
(Beauvoir 1952).
Since male and female medical
students are more similar to one another than female medical students
are to other
women,
it is less
likely
that
they
would see themselves as
subordinate or inferior to their male
counterparts (Heins 1977, 421-7).
As I have
already suggested, physician
resistance to feminist
arguments might
be reduced
through recognition
that feminism has
several forms. These
may
be classified as
liberal,
socialist or
marxist,
and radical
(Mahowald 1976, 219-28). Jaggar
has
carefully
delineated
and assessed these
ideologies
in her Feminist Politics and Human Nature
(1983), distinguishing clearly
between socialist feminism and classical
marxism as different feminist theories.
My purpose here, however,
is
not to embark on an extended discussion of
these,
but
simply
to use
the labels as illustrative of different
approaches
that
may
be used
by
individuals who concur in their
rejection
of sexism. In that
light,
a liberal
feminism
may
be characterized as one which
emphasizes
individual liber-
ty,
and thus
supports
the fundamental structure of American
society,
31
hypatla
with its essential individualism. That same
emphasis
entails a reformist
critique
of sexual discrimination as
impeding
the
rights
of individual
women to achieve their full
potential.
The
potential
of
women,
it is
claimed,
cannot
justifiably
be confined
by legislation
based on sex-role
stereotypes. Applying
that
critique
to the
physician-other relationship,
the liberal feminist would
clearly reject
medical
paternalism,
as
reflecting
the
legally
reinforced social
paternalism
which has
kept
women "in their
place" (i.e.,
at home
raising children, dependent
on a
man),
and so
stifled their
potential throughout
most of
history.
Where
physicians
are allowed to violate the
autonomy
of their
patients (whether
women
or
men),
even
though
defended on
grounds
that
they
thus
promote
the
patient's good,
the
philosophy
of liberal feminism is
flatly
contradicted.
But if such a feminist is consistent in her or his liberal
position,
a
pa-
tient
autonomy
model is not
acceptable either,
because exclusive em-
phasis
on
patient autonomy might
conflict with the liberal's insistence
on
respect
for the
autonomy
of
physicians,
a
growing
number of whom
are women.
I would define radical feminism as a reversal of the traditional sex-
role
relationship.
In
critiquing
the male
supremacist model,
it
argues
for the
superiority
of feminine
values,
and the
importance
of main-
taining
those values
through
women's clear
support
for one another.
Radical feminism thus issues a clear
challenge
to the medical
profes-
sion's dominance over women's
lives, particularly
with
regard
to their
reproductive
health.
Although
the
critique
extends to all
aspects
of
medicine as
embodying
a kind of
"patriarchal religion" (Raymond
1982),
it
specifically
advocates efforts to
place
the care of women's
health
entirely
in the hands of women themselves. The model thus frank-
ly
invoked is
maternalism,
but a maternalism of which
only
women
are deemed
capable.
Insofar as feminine values
replace
masculine values
in a hierarchical
system,
medicine
may
then be matriarchal.
From the
standpoint
of radical
feminism,
health caretakers
ought
primarily
to nurture women's
interests,
and women's interests are best
known
by
themselves. Male
participation
in medical care must therefore
be subordinated to women's dominance in roles of both
patient
and
physician,
since
they possess greater experience
and
expertise
than men
with
regard
to
healing.
One of the most serious threats to women's status
in this
regard (also
at odds with a liberal feminist
approach)
is an in-
creasing
incidence of court ordered deliveries
by
cesarean section for
women who had declined to
undergo surgery
recommended for the sake
of the fetus
(Annas 1982, 16-7, 45). Clearly many physicians agree
with
feminist criticism of such court
orders;
as one
(male)
obstetrician
remarked to
me, surgery
under such circumstances constitutes assault
upon
the
pregnant
woman. To the extent that the medical
profession
32
mary
b. mahowald
supports
the
right
of women to terminate their
pregnancies
and to refuse
medical
procedures,
it invokes a
patient autonomy
model which is con-
genial
to radical feminism. To be
consistent, however,
radical feminists
would also have to
support
the
autonomy
model for female
physicians,
and this
provides
no
help
at all in
dealing
with
physician-other
con-
flicts in which both
parties
are female.
Two other
interpretations
of feminism are associated with a
critique
of the socio-economic structure in which we find
ourselves, namely,
capitalism
or individualism. While both of these are related to the marx-
ist
tradition,
the "classical marxist"
approach
maintains that the
op-
pression
of women is
secondary
to universal economic
oppression;
in
constrast,
a socialist feminist
theory
affirms that the liberation of
women is
indispensable
to economic
equality.
Either of these views
represents
a
challenge
to the
inequality signified by paternalist
or mater-
nalist models of the
physician-other relationship.
Both are also consis-
tent with
parentalism.
Marx's motto at the end of the
Critique of
the
Gotha
Programa exemplifies
the
parentalist attempt
to balance
response
to individual needs with social contributions
proportionate
to the dif-
fering
talents of individuals: "From each
according
to
ability,
to each
according
to need"
(Tucker 1972, 388). However,
this orientation is
obviously opposed
to the individualist economic orientation often at-
tributed to the American medical establishment.
Consequently,
to the
extent that
physicians
subscribe to that
orientation,
whether
they hap-
pen
to be women or
men,
endorsement of either socialist or traditionalist
marxist feminism is
improbable.
It is
possible, however,
for
physicians
to
join
a
critique
of economic
or other kinds of individualism as
occasioning disparities
and
inequities
among groups
of
people requiring
health care. Where
they
do
so,
a
corresponding
version of feminism is
compatible
with their view of the
physician-other relationship.
That version of feminism would take ac-
count of the different
needs, preferences
and abilities of individual
women and
men,
thus
relying
on the
principles
of beneficence and
autonomy.
It would also have to take account of a
principle
I have
only indirectly
discussed
through
references to
equality
and
inequali-
ty, namely, justice.
The
balancing
of the
principles
of beneficence and
autonomy
which is
necessary
in situations of conflict would be ac-
complished through appeal
to
justice, particularly
distributive
justice,
as the
principle
on which
equitable
or fair distribution of
goods
and
services
may
be determined.
In the interest of
fairness,
the
degree
to which one is
obligated
to
practice
beneficence towards a
specific individual,
as contrasted with
another,
should be calculated on the basis of the harms thus avoided
and the benefits thus
promoted among
all of those affected. The
degree
33
hypatia
to which one is
obligated
to
respect autonomy
of one individual as
op-
posed
to another should be determined on the basis of the
preferences
thus fulfilled or denied. In situations of conflict our
priority
for
respec-
ting autonomy
and
promoting
others' welfare rests with those who are
most affected
by
our decisions. This of course is
why
the decision of
a
pregnant
woman should override that of others
regarding
continua-
tion or discontinuation of her
pregnancy (Jaggar 1976).
The
importance
of considerations of distributive
justice
to the
paren-
talist model of the
physician-other relationship
is
apparent
when we
recognize
that most
parents
have more than one
child,
and most
physi-
cians
many
more than one
patient.
Since
time, expertise,
and material
resources are
surely
limited
(and
probably
our
psychological
or im-
material resources are limited as
well), parents
and
physicians
have to
monitor their distribution of resources so as to treat all of their children
or
patients fairly
or
justly.
As never
before, through government
cur-
tailment of reimbursement for
services,
and
through
escalation of costs
of new and old
services, physicians
are forced to confront the ethical
dilemmas
arising
from
problems
of limited resources. Some
interpreta-
tion of distributive
justice
is
inevitably applied
to these situations. The
challenge
is to choose
among
alternative
interpretations
the one most
defensible from a moral
point
of
view,
and feasible for statutes and
clinical
practice.
I cannot here launch into an
analysis
of different
conceptions
of
distributive
justice,
with
arguments pro
and con
concerning
each.
Anyway,
others have done this
quite extensively
and
critically (Rawls
1971;
Nozick
1974;
Walzer
1983).
I would conclude then
by simply
specifying
the
conception
of
justice
that underlies
my
view that socialist
or marxist
feminism,
and a
parentalist
model of the
physician-other
relationship
are
compatible,
and
preferable
to the alternatives.
Basically,
these models entail an
emphasis
on
equality
which
permits
some limita-
tion to the
liberty
of those who are more
advantaged.
John Rawls has
well elaborated the essential
components
of
my
notion in his
Theory
of
Justice
(1971, 302,3). Paraphrasing
Rawls,
the crucial factors are
(a) equal liberty
for
all,
and
(b)
no increase of
advantages
for the
already
advantaged, except
in cases where the
disadvantaged
thus become bet-
ter off.
Although
Rawls treats the first of these as a
priority principle,
I am
unwilling
to
give greater weight
to
liberty
over
equality,
and so
insist on
maintaining
maximal
liberty
and
equality
simultaneously.
It
may
be
impossible
to achieve this in extreme
dilemmas,
and I would
probably
need an account similar to Ross's
(1930) prima
facie duties
to defend
my
claim that
liberty
and
equality
should both be
upheld.
Nonetheless,
if one subscribes to both
principles,
the other
options
men-
tioned here
regarding
feminism and the
physician-other
relationship
are
34
mary
b. mahowald
neither
logically
nor
existentially acceptable.
If one does subscribe to
them,
one is both feminist and
parentalist.
Finally, then,
I
appeal
to the
principle
of
justice
or fairness as the
basis for
overcoming
the
frustrating
influence of sex-role
stereotypes
and
stereotypic images
of the
physician,
the
patient,
and the relation-
ship
between them. Where
justice
is the basis for
defining
or redefin-
ing
the
physician-other relationship, compatibility
between medical
practice
and
any ultimately justifiable
version of feminism is clear
enough.
While liberal feminism
appears compatible
with the
patient
autonomy model,
it
only really
is so if we limit the
autonomy
of the
physician,
and thus violate the view of
justice
on which a liberal
philosophy
is
based, namely, equal liberty
for men as well as women.
Radical feminism is
compatible
with the
patient autonomy
model also
(if
we
ignore
the
problem
of women
physicians),
but it
manifestly
con-
tradicts the
principle
of
justice by imputing
to all men a
secondary
status
to all women: in other
words,
it embodies the
injustice
of sex-role
stereotyping,
even as does
paternalism.
This leaves us with a marxist
or socialist
feminism,
which
is,
as I have
already suggested, compati-
ble with the
parentalist
model of the
physician-other relationship.
However,
the
interpretation
on which this version of feminism rests
is one which
gives
due
weight
to both beneficence and
autonomy.
So
construed, justice
is a
critical, mediating principle
for
addressing
con-
flicts between feminism and medicine.
notes
1. The total number of
physicians
in the U.S. as of Dec.
31, 1980,
included
408,780
men and
52,509 women,
cf. Catherine M. Bidese and Donald G. Danais
(1982, 14, 15).
Regarding
women as
patients
of a
study
of
physician
visits
(U.S. Department
of Health
and Human Services
1983, 20): Although
the rates did not differ much for males and
females in the
youngest
and oldest
age groups,
for the
age span
from about 15
years
of
age
to 64
years
of
age,
females had a
higher
rate of
physician
visits than males did.
A
portion
of this difference is related to visits
concerning
childhood and
pregnancy, par-
ticularly
in the 15-44
year age
bracket.
2.
E.g.,
for the
year
1979 life
expectancy
at birth for women was 77.6
years,
for
men 69.9
years.
Cf. U.S.
Department
of Health and Human Services
(1982,
Table
#10).
3. Cf. Aaron Handler
(1975, 3):
2.2 million females
employed
in the 28 health oc-
cupational categories comprise
71 % of all
persons
in these
categories;
37% are
registered
nurses,
28%
nursing aides,
10%
practical nurses,
9%
physicians. (Data
for the last decade
have not
yet
been
published.)
4. Note that informed consent and
proxy
consent are distinct
concepts,
as definable
either
legally
or
morally.
Informed consent is
imputed
to the
patient him/herself,
while
proxy
consent is
imputed
to a
surrogate, i.e.,
someone who decides in behalf of another.
35
hypatia
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38
judith
m. hill
Pornography
and
Degradation
I have taken a Kantian
approach
to the issue of
pornography
and
degrada-
tion.
My
thesis is that
by perpetuating derogatory myths
about
womankind,
for the sake of financial
gain,
the
pornography industry
treats the class
of women as a means
only,
and not as
composed
of individuals who are
ends in themselves. It thus
de-grades
all
women,
as members of this
class,
imputing
to them less than full human status.
The issue of
pornography
has often been
approached
from a
Utilitarian
point
of
view,
with the discussion
focusing
on what the con-
sequences
of
pornography might
be. There is a
great
deal of literature
concerning
whether or not the
availability
of
pornographic
material is
responsible
for violence
against women,
or for
promoting
a de-
personalized
attitude toward sexual
relationships.
There is not a
great
deal of
agreement
on these
empirical questions (Berger, 1977).
Recently,
there have been several
attempts
to introduce
city
or
county
ordinances
banning
the sale of
pornography,
in
Minneapolis,
In-
dianapolis,
Los
Angeles,
and
Suffolk,
New York. The
proponents
of
these ordinances have
argued
that
pornography
violates the civil
rights
of
women, apparently
a non-Utilitarian
argument. However,
their
argu-
ment turns on the
premise
that the
effect
of
pornography
is to
deny
equal opportunities
to women. Thus
far,
the courts have
rejected
this
line of
reasoning,
and the
constitutionality
of the
proposed statutes,
largely
because
they
are not convinced that the
consequences
of
por-
nogrpahy
are such as to warrant restrictions of First Amendment
rights.
I am interested in
presenting
an
argument
that does not
appeal
to
the
consequences
of
pornography,
a
strictly
non-Utilitarian
argument
that rests on the
hypothesis
that
pornography degrades
women. I believe
that
pornography
does
degrade
women.
However,
the
concept
of
degradation
is a
slippery one, which,
like other
concepts
of
oppression,
has not been examined as
carefully
as it must be if we are
going
to
discuss
oppression illuminatingly.
In the first
part
of this
article,
therefore,
I will offer an
analysis
of the
concept
of
degradation.
In the
second
part,
I will show
why
and how
pornography degrades
women.
Hypatia
vol. 2, no. 2
(Summer 1987).

by
Judith M. Hill.
39
hypatla
I
I
propose
that we
begin
with the
assumption
that
degradation
in-
volves, literally,
a
de-grading.
This
proposition is,
I
realize,
both
vague
and
ambiguous.
It is
ambiguous
because
"de-grade" may suggest
either
(1)
to
down-grade,
to lower the worth
of,
to
de-value,
or
(2)
to
assign
a lower
grade to,
to
give
a lower
evaluation,
to characterize as of lesser
worth. In other
words, de-gradation may
be
thought
to entail either
a real loss of
worth,
or an
imputed
loss of worth. In either
case,
the
proposal
is
vague,
because it
gives
no indication of the kind of value
that must be
lost,
or
imputed
to be
lost,
in order for
degradation
to
take
place.
The
following examples suggest
a direction we
might
take in
firming
up
this
proposal.
In William
Styron's novel, Sophie's Choice, Sophie
mentions that
although
the Nazis
routinely
shaved the heads of all inmates at
Auschwitz,
those inmates who
occupied positions
of favor were
per-
mitted to wear headscarves in order to hide their
"degrading
baldness."
In Emma Goldman's
autobiography, recounting
a
period
of time
spent
in
prison,
she describes as
"degrading"
the
prisoners being
forc-
ed to march in
lockstep
while
carrying
buckets of excrement from their
cells to the river.
In both these
cases,
the writers are
describing
environments in which
severe
physical
abuse was a
commonplace.
The horrors of the Nazi
death
camps
are well-known. The
plight
of
working
class women in
prisons
in the late nineteenth and
early
twentieth centuries was also
ap-
palling:
forced labor under
sweatshop conditions,
with
inadequate food,
crowded
living quarters,
and no medical facilities. Given the context
of
physical
abuse in both
cases,
it is
significant
that what Goldman and
Styron's Sophie
focus on as
degrading
is not
any physical
abuse or
deprivation
at
all,
but on
practices
the
importance
of which
(to
both
practitioner
and
victim)
is
largely symbolic.
In both
cases,
it is a kind
of
public display
of low status which is described as
degrading.
Extrapolating
from
Styron
and
Goldman,
I would
suggest
that the
de-grading
involved in
degradation
is a
lowering
of moral status. A
person
is not
degraded merely by losing
status as
president
of the com-
pany
or as most valuable
player
or as woman of the
year. Degradation
is not to be confused with decline or defeat. It is not a matter of
losing
power
or
prestige
or
privilege,
but of
losing something considerably
more central to one's
personhood.
To
give
this account a Kantian in-
terpretation: degradation
involves
being
treated as
though
one were a
means
only,
as
though
one were not an end in
herself,
as
though
one
were
something
less than a
person.
40
judith
m. hill
However, degradation
is not
simply
a matter of
being
treated as
something
less than a
person.
If this were
true,
then shaved heads and
forced marches would be the least of the
degradations
inflicted
upon
Sophie
and
Goldman,
for in much of the
physical
and mental abuse
they
suffered
they
were treated as less than
persons.
It is not a suffi-
cient condition of
degradation
that a
person
be treated as
something
less than a
person.
I am inclined to
say
that it is a
necessary
condition of
degradation
that a
person
be
perceived-by
herself or
by
others-as
being
treated
as
something
less than a
person. Degradation
occurs with the creation
of a
public impression
that a
person
is
being
treated as
something
less
than a
person. Thus,
baldness was
degrading
within the context of
Auschwitz because it marked one as a member of the class that was
being
treated as sub-human. Forced marches for
prisoners doing
housekeeping
chores were
degrading
because their sole
purpose
was to
exhibit-for the benefit of the
prisoners
and the
guards,
at least-the
complete
submissiveness and obedience of the
prisoners
and the com-
plete
control of the
guards;
forced marches served as a demonstration
that the
prisoners
could be treated in whatever
manner,
however in-
human,
that the
guards
desired.
In
short, degradation
is a
public phenomenon.
If there is no
percep-
tion of a
person being
treated as
though
she were a means
only,
then
she is not
degraded, although
she
may
be
exploited
or cheated or abus-
ed. For
example,
consider the difference between an
employer
who
underpays employees
while
expressing contempt
for
them,
and an
employer
who
underpays employees
while
cultivating
an
image
of
benevolent concern. The former
degrades
her
employees;
the latter
"merely"
cheats them.
Or,
consider the difference between a man who
publicly
treats his wife as a
servant,
and a man who treats his wife as
a means
only
while
expressing
love and affection for her.
Again,
the
former
degrades
his
wife;
the latter
"merely"
takes
advantage
of her.
Although degradation requires
a
public perception
of someone be-
ing
treated as a means
only,
this
perception
need not be
widely
shared:
it is often
enough
that the victim
perceives it, i.e.,
that it be
public
in
principle only.
On the other
hand,
it
may
be true that the
degradation
is more severe if the
perception
is more
widespread.
To be
actually
observed in
public being
treated as less than a
person
is more
degrading
than
being subjected
to the same treatment in
private.
This
suggests,
to return to a
question
raised
above,
that
degradation
involves a
de-grading
in the sense of
imputing
a lesser value
to,
rather
than in the sense of
lessening
the value of. Covert treatment of a
per-
son as a means
only-a
matter of
exploitation
or abuse rather than of
degradation,
if
my analysis
is
correct-implies
no conviction on the
41
hypatia
agent's part
that his action is
morally justifiable,
that the other deserves
to be treated as a means
only.
Such actions do
not, therefore, impute
a lesser moral worth to the victim.
However,
an
agent
who lets his vic-
tim know that he is
intentionally treating
her as a means
only,
exhibits
a certain
contempt
for
her,
demonstrates a certain conviction that his
action is
justifiable,
that she deserves to be treated as less than a
per-
son.
Finally,
an
agent
who treats his victim as
something
less than a
person
in
public places,
for the whole world to
observe,
demonstrates
a conviction that her worthlessness is so extreme that all the world can
be counted
upon
to
regard
him as
justified
in
treating
her
accordingly.
In
short,
the more
public
the
display
of
contempt,
the
stronger
is the
imputation
of moral worthlessness.
It
may
sometimes be
thought
that
degradation de-grades
not
only
in the sense of
imputing
lesser moral worth to a
person,
but also in
the sense of
actively lessening
the moral worth of a
person.
In
particular,
I
suspect
that
people
who
degrade
others often
vaguely
think of this
as a kind of
challenge
or as a test. One meets the
challenge, passes
the
test, by insisting (presumably
at whatever
cost)
on
being
treated with
respect.
One fails the test
by acquiescing;
and the
penalty
for failure
is the loss of one's
right
to be treated with
respect. Thus, degradation
carries with it its own
justification: people
who allow themselves to be
treated as less than
persons
deserve to be treated as less than
persons.
This is a mistake. A
person
does not have to earn the
right
to be
treated as an end in
herself,
to be treated with fairness and considera-
tion;
and a
person
does not forfeit these
rights by failing
to insist that
they
be
respected.
These are
rights
a
person
has
simply
in virtue of be-
ing
a
person,
in virtue of
having
the
potential
(in theory,
at
least)
for
certain kinds of behavior.
Consequently, degradation
is
always
moral-
ly wrong.
It does not become less
wrong
because the
degraded person
acquiesces.
On the other
hand,
Thomas Hill
(1973)
has
argued, correctly
I
think,
that
although
one does not forfeit moral
rights by acquiescing
to
degradation,
such
acquiescence
is not
always morally
neutral. Hill's
argument proceeds
in terms of a moral
duty
of self
respect.
There
are,
he
allows,
circumstances under which even a
self-respecting person
could
not
reasonably
be
expected
to
object
to
degrading treatment-e.g.,
when
she does not understand that her
rights
are
being violated,
or that she
has a
right
to
object,
or when it
might
be
dangerous
or in some
way
disastrous for her to
object;
and
certainly
no moral blame attaches to
a failure to insist on
being
treated with
respect
under such circumstances.
However,
when a
person
is aware that her
rights
are
being
violated,
and the cost of
objecting
to such treatment would not be
excessive,
then
a
person
fails in her moral
duty
to herself if she fails to insist on her
42
judith
m. hill
rights.
Although
I
agree
with the
spirit
of Hill's
argument,
I would be more
comfortable
making
the
point
in terms of moral
courage
than in terms
of a
duty
of
self-respect.
Moral
courage,
like
physical courage,
is a trait
one
develops by exercising
it. When a
person
acts in a
cowardly
man-
ner,
in a situation in which
courage
is called
for,
she takes a
step
in
the formation of her own character.
Obviously,
no
single
act of moral
cowardice will make one a moral coward.
However,
it becomes more
and more difficult to insist on one's
rights
each time one fails to do
so. If a
person habitually acquiesces
to
degrading
treatment while
understanding
that she has a
right
to
object,
and under circumstances
in which there is no reason to
expect
severe
reprisals
for
objecting,
she
cultivates moral
cowardice,
a weak character.
Thus, degradation
does not
merely impute
a lesser value to the
degraded person.
A
person
who
acquiesces habitually
and
unnecessarily
to
degradation
becomes a lesser
person,
in the sense that she will have
a lesser
capacity
to act in a moral manner.
It does not
by any
means follow that such a
person
deserves to be
treated as less than a
person.
As I have
said,
a
person
does not have
to earn the
right
to be treated as an end in herself. It does follow that
degradation
should be taken
very seriously.
A
person
who tolerates
degrading
treatment because it would be
embarrassing
to
object,
or
because it would result in some financial
loss,
is
risking
her moral
character. To summarize: a
person
is
degraded
when she is
publicly,
or at least
overtly,
treated as a means
only,
as
something
less than a
person. Degradation
involves a
de-grading
at least in the sense that it
entails a
(false) imputation
of a lower moral status than
persons,
as
such,
are
ordinarily accorded;
and sometimes also in the sense that it
involves a diminution of the moral
courage
of the
person degraded.
II
Now we
may
turn to the
question
of whether or not
pornography
degrades
women.
Obviously,
the answer to this
question
will
depend
in
part
on what
we
identify
as
pornography.
The
Indianapolis
and
Minneapolis city
or-
dinances,
which were framed
primarily by
Andrea Dworkin and
Catherine
MacKinnon,
defined
pornography
as "the
graphic sexually
explicit
subordination of
women,
whether in
pictures
or in words." The
proposed
ordinances listed six
conditions,
at least one of which would
have to be
present
in order to
qualify
a work as
pornographic. Among
these conditions were:
(1) presenting
women as sexual
objects
"who
enjoy pain
and
humiliation"; (2) presenting
women as
"experiencing
43
hypatia
pleasure
in
being raped"; (3) presenting
women as
objects
for "domina-
tion, conquest, violation, exploitation, possession
or use."
(Shipp 1984)
It should be noted that Andrea Dworkin is of the
opinion that,
in
fact, virtually
all of what
passes
for "adult entertainment" falls into
one or more of these
categories.
She
points
out
that, etymologically,
pornography
is "the
depiction
of vile
whores";
and that after exten-
sive research on the content and nature of
contemporary
"adult enter-
tainment,"
she has concluded that it is still best described as the
depic-
tion of vile whores. "The fact that
pornography
is
widely
believed to
be 'sexual
representation'
or
'depictions
of sex'
emphasizes only
that
the valuation of women as low whores is
widespread
and that the sex-
uality
of women is
perceived
as low and whorish in itself"
(Dworkin
1981, 201).
In
short, although
Dworkin's
proposed
ordinances do not
mandate
censorship
of
sexually explicit,
or
obscene, material,
as
such,
it is
probably
fair to
say
that she
expects
them to have the effect of
eliminating
most of what is
commonly regarded
as
pornography.
Perhaps
for this
reason,
some critics of the
Minneapolis
and In-
dianapolis
ordinances have drawn the conclusion that these ordinances
threaten all
sexually explicit
material. Civil libertarian Nat Hentoff
(1984),
for
example,
decried the ordinances as
endangering
"such works
as...Dr.
Zhivago,...Lolita,
and of
course,
bountiful sections of the Old
Testament." As I understand the
proposed ordinances, they
would not
ban such
works;
and it is not
my
intention in this
paper
to
object
to
such works as these.
Therefore,
in order to avoid this sort of
misunderstanding,
I will elaborate a bit on the Dworkin/MacKinnon
definition of
pornography, narrowing
in on a
genre
I shall call Victim
Pornography.
Victim
pornography
is the
graphic depiction
of situations in which
women are
degraded by
sexual
activity, viz., (a)
situations in which a
woman is treated
by
a man
(or by
another
woman)
as a means of ob-
taining
sexual
pleasure,
while he shows no consideration for her
pleasure
or desires or
well-being,
and
(b)
situations in which a woman is not
only subjected
to such
treatment,
but
suggests
it to the man in the first
place. Furthermore,
Victim
Pornography presents
such
activity
as enter-
taining.
There is no
suggestion
that women should not be treated as
less than
persons;
and often there is no hint that a woman
might
dislike
such treatment.'
I believe that Victim
Pornography
does
comprise
at least a
very large
part
of what
passes today
for adult entertainment. Dworkin is
right
in
maintaining
that much of what is
commonly regarded
as
pornography
is a celebration of violence and
exploitation.
However,
I want to em-
phasize
that the issue I am
addressing
is not the
morality
of what is
commonly regarded
as
pornography:
I am not concerned here with
44
judith
m. hill
material that is
sexually explicit,
or
obscene,
as such. The focus of
my
discussion is neither
Lady Chatterly's
Lover nor
Playboy's
"Ten Coeds
At
Home,"
but Victim
Pornography: depictions
of women
being
bound, beaten, raped, mutilated, and,
as often as
not, begging
for more.
It will be
my
contention that Victim
Pornography
does
degrade
all
women.
The truth of this thesis is not
immediately
obvious. The fact that much
of
pornography depicts
women
begin
treated as means
only,
does not
entail that
pornographic
material itself treats women as means
only.
Consequently,
since it is
degradation,
and not
depictions
of
degrada-
tion that we have found to be
morally
reprehensible,
the fact that some
pornographic
material
depicts
situations in which women are
degrad-
ed does not entail that this material is
morally reprehensible,
nor
therefore,
that it
ought
to be censored or eliminated.
To
repeat
the conclusion drawn in Part I: In order for
degradation
to take
place,
some
person
must be treated as a means
only.
It will not
suffice that a
fictional person
be treated as a means
only. Therefore,
we should be
looking
for
ways
in which
pornography might
be
respon-
sible for real
people being
treated as means
only.
There is some initial
plausibility
to the claim that the women who
serve as models for Victim
Pornography-women
who act in
por-
nographic
films or
pose
for
pornographic magazines-are
treated as
means
only, by
the
producers
and/or the consumers of
pornographic
material. One can
imagine
that the
experience
of
being bound, beaten,
and
raped
in front of camera crews or
photographers
must be
humiliating
at best. Women are
subjected
to this humiliation so that
the
producers
of
pornography
can make a
profit,
and so that the
patrons
of
pornography
can have a sexual thrill. In
short,
the
producers
of
por-
nography
treat their models as instruments for
making money; patrons
of
pornography
treat them as instruments for sexual
pleasure.
However,
before
concluding
that the women who are filmed and
photographed
for Victim
Pornography
are
necessarily
treated as means
only,
we should consider the distinction between
(a) treating
a
person
(only)
as a
means,
and
(b) treating
a
person
as a means
only.
There are
many people
with whom one has
quite
limited relation-
ships, e.g.,
one's
teachers,
one's
political representatives,
the
proprietors
of businesses one
frequents.
If one's
relationship
with such
people
has
not
developed beyond
the
point
where one avails oneself of the ser-
vices or
goods provided by
the
other,
it
may
be said that one treats
the other
(only)
as a means to one's own ends. This does
not,
of
course,
preclude
the
possibility
that the user treats the
provider
with
respect,
politeness, cordiality. Clearly
it is not
relationships
such as these that
Kant meant to
proscribe.
As with
any
human
relationship,
business rela-
45
hypatia
tionships
are
subject
to
abuse;
it does not follow that there is
anything
morally reprehensible
about business
relationships
as such.
On the other
hand,
there
may
be
people
whom one treats as
though
their
desires, feelings, interests,
are
unimportant, insignificant.
One
may
have
relationships
in which one
actively
avoids
dealing
with
any aspect
of a
person
other than the service this
person provides
for one. In such
cases,
one treats a
person
as
though
she were not an end in
herself,
but a means
only.
This sort of
relationship
differs from that described
above in that the first sort does not involve
treating
a
person
as
though
she were not an end in
herself,
but
only
not
treating
a
person
as
though
she were an end in
herself,
while the second sort of
relationship
involves
both. It is
only
the second sort of
relationship
that violates Kant's Im-
perative;
and it is
only
the second sort of
relationship, therefore,
that
can be
degrading.
In other
words,
we do not
degrade people by treating
them
(only)
as means to our
ends,
as limited business contacts. We
degrade people by treating
them as means
only,
as
though they
were
not ends in
themselves,
as
though they
were less than
persons.
With this distinction in
mind,
let us return to the treatment of women
who are filmed or
photographed
for Victim
Pornography.
One can
imagine
the
producers
of Victim
Pornography treating
their
models as
though they
were means
only:
as
though they
were not
per-
sons
deserving
of
respect
and
consideration,
as
though
their
pain
and
humiliation were
amusing
or
boring. Indeed,
it is
probably
true that
most
producers
of Victim
Pornography
do treat their models in this
way.
However,
this is not a
necessary
feature of the
production
of
por-
nography,
even of Victim
Pornography. Although
it would be naive
to
suppose
that the
producers
of
pornography typically
show
respect
and consideration for their
models,
we can at least
imagine
a
producer
of
pornography taking
time to ensure that the model's
job
is no more
painful
than
necessary; treating unpleasant aspects
of her
job
as
unpleas-
ant
aspects,
rather than as
opportunities
for
leering; treating
the models
as
people doing
a
job
for
pay,
rather than as so much meat. A
pro-
ducer of
pornography
who behaves in this
way
still treats the model
as a means to
making profits,
and
perhaps only
as a means to
making
profits
(and
not as an
artist,
or as a
friend,
for
example);
but does not
treat her as a means
only,
as
though
she were not an end in
herself,
as less than a
person.
In other
words,
it is not a
necessary
feature of the
production
of Vic-
tim
Pornography
that the models be
degraded. Certainly
it
may hap-
pen,
and often does
happen;
and
certainly
it is
morally reprehensible
when it
happens.
But
pornography,
even Victim
Pornography,
can sure-
ly
be
produced
without
degradation
to the
models2;
and therefore the
potential
for
degradation
to models is not a reason to end the
produc-
46
Judith
m. hill
tion of
pornography.
After
all, pornography
is not the
only industry
in which there is
potential
for
degradation. Any employer may degrade
employees, treating
them as
though they
were not
deserving
of con-
sideration or
respect.
It is easiest to do this when the work is menial
and the
employee
has no real
alternatives-e.g.,
to waitresses and
porters.
But in
any industry
it is
possible
for a certain sort of
person
to abuse a
position
of
authority by treating
subordinates as means on-
ly.
Even a
superficial
look around the
working
world will reveal
junior
executives and
adjunct college faculty being
treated as less than
per-
sons
by supervisors
who make themselves feel
superior by
the contrast.
The
point
is that as
long
as the
degradation
of subordinates is not a
necessary
feature of an
industry,
but
contingent upon
a certain kind
of
person being
in a
position
of
authority,
it is not a reason to
abolish,
nor even to
deplore,
the
industry
itself.
The
hypothesis
that the women who act in
pornographic
films and
pose
for
pornographic magazines
are
necessarily
treated as means
only
by
the
patrons
of
pornography,
is even less
plausible
than the
hypothesis
that
they
are
necessarily
treated as means
only by
the
producers
of
pornography.
It is
doubtlessly
the case that
many people
use
pornography
as a
means of
obtaining pleasure.
The women who act in
pornographic
films
and
pose
for
pornographic magazines are, therefore, indirectly,
in-
struments of
pleasure
for
patrons
of
pornography. However, although
it
may
follow that the
patrons
of
pornography
treat the models in
por-
nographic
material
only
as means to their own
ends,
it does not follow
that
they
treat them as means
only,
as
though they
were not ends in
themselves. The
relationship
between the
patrons
and the women who
model for
pornography
is
not,
as
such, sufficiently personal-they
do
not
actually
interact-to allow of this
description.
In
short,
it is not true that women who serve as models for
por-
nography
are treated as means
only,
as less than
persons, by
consumers
of
pornography.
On the other
hand, although
it
may
be true that these
women are
only
treated as
means,
this is not in itself
degrading
to them.
It becomes
apparent
that
any
sort of
degradation attaching
to
por-
nography
will not occur on the
personal
level
suggested by
the
hypotheses
we have
just
considered.
However,
we have not
yet
con-
sidered the
hypothesis
that the
pornography industry degrades
women
as a class rather than this or that individual woman.
The
pornography industry regularly publishes
material
which, speak-
ing conservatively,
tends to contribute to the
perpetuation
of
derogatory
beliefs about womankind. Victim
Pornography,
in
particular, depicts
women not
simply
as ill
treated,
but as
eager
to be used and
abused,
totally lacking
in human
dignity:
as more or less worthless for
any pur-
47
hypatia
pose
other than casual sexual intercourse.
Many pieces
of
pornography
depict
all female characters in such
negative ways.
Of course
pornography
is
fiction,
and does not
purport
to be
anything
other than fiction.
However,
fiction is not
supposed
to be devoid of
all factual
truth; indeed,
fiction should contain truths about human
nature,
about
motivation,
about
power,
and so on.
Consequently,
although pornographic
material
may
make no claim to be
describing
actual states of
affairs,
we
might say
that it offers a
perspective
on the
actual nature of womankind. The
perspective
offered
by
Victim Por-
nography
is
that,
in
general,
women are
narcissistic, masochistic,
and
not
fully persons
in the moral sense.
I would not
suggest
that it is the intention of
pornographers
to con-
vey
the
message
that all women
may be,
or should
be,
or like to be
treated as less than
persons.
This is almost
surely
false. Most
por-
nographers
are not at all interested in
influencing behavior,
or in con-
veying
universal
truths;
their intention is to titillate.
Nevertheless,
because
pornography
trades in
stereotypes, shunning any
careful or
serious character
development (by
its
very nature;
this is what makes
it bad
literature),
and because the
stereotypes
that titillate
(at least,
that
titillate the
patrons
of Victim
Pornography)
are
derogatory
ones-the
nymphomaniac,
the
masochist,
the mindless
playmate-much
of Vic-
tim
Pornography supports
the idea that all women fall into one or
another of these
categories,
whether or not this is its intention. The
genre
of Victim
Pornography,
taken as a
whole, implies
that most
women are
mindless,
masochistic
nymphomaniacs.
That is to
say,
this
would be the
logical
conclusion to draw on the basis of the characteriza-
tion offered in Victim
Pornography.3
The
point
I want to make here is not that Victim
Pornography
is
responsible
for
negative
attitudes and/or violent behavior toward
women. If
pornography
were eliminated from the
culture,
there would
probably
be no discernible
change
in beliefs
about,
or attitudes towards
women,
unless
many
of its
spiritual cognates
were eliminated
simultaneously. Conversely,
if all
aspects
of the tradition of
treating
women as less than
persons except pornography
were
eliminated, por-
nography
would become more or less
innocuous,
would be difficult
to take
seriously.
In other
words,
I am inclined to be
quite
conservative
in
estimating
the
degree
of
potential pornography
has,
in and of
itself,
to
actually plant
the seeds of
derogatory
beliefs
about,
and
subsequent
violent behavior
toward,
womankind.
Pornography only
contributes
to the nurture of the
plant.
Again,
the
point
is not that Victim
Pornography
has
negative
conse-
quences
for women. The
point
is that Victim
Pornography
contains
implications
that defame womankind. The
perspective
on women of-
48
judith
m. hill
fered
by
Victim
Pornography
is not
only derogatory,
it is false. Most
women are not
mindless,
masochistic
nymphomaniacs.
Most women
do not
enjoy being
beaten and
raped.
Most women do not
want,
or
expect,
to be treated as less than
persons by
their sexual
partners. (This
may
seem so obvious that it should not have to be said.
Indeed,
it should
not have to be said.
However,
a look at what
goes
on at
rape
trials
will show that it is
not, unfortunately, obvious.)
Nevertheless,
the
pornography industry routinely publishes
material
that
supports
this view of womankind. The
pornography industry
does
not care that this view is false. This is what
sells,
to the tune of $7 billion
a
year.
In
short,
the
pornography industry
is
quite willing
to defame
womankind for the sake of
making
a
profit.
In so
doing,
the
pornography industry degrades
womankind. It treats
the class of women as
nothing
more than a means to its own financial
ends. It treats the class of women as
though
such a
smearing
of its
reputation
is
unimportant,
trivial. In other
words, pornography
degrades
women because it treats them as members of a class which
has no honor and is not entitled to
respect.
The
pornography industry
treats women as
though
the truth about their nature
may
be
ignored
or distorted with
impunity.
The
point
is not that
pornography may
in-
cite men to
rape
women. The
point
is that the
pornography industry
blithely perpetuates derogatory myths, blithely lies,
about the nature
of
women,
for its own financial
gain.
In
publishing
Victim
Pornography,
the
pornography industry
treats
women,
as a
class,
as less than
persons.
In
my view,
this is sufficient
to
support
the claim that Victim
Pornography
is
morally objectionable,
A word about the
legal implications
of this
analysis:
The
anti-pornography
ordinances
proposed
in
Indianapolis
and Min-
neapolis suggest
that the sale of
pornography
be viewed as a violation
of women's civil
rights.
I think this is more
promising
than the old
approach
of
objecting
to
pornography
on
grounds
of
obscenity.
The
champions
of free
speech
characterize all
obscenity
laws as
attempts
to curtail the free
exchange
of ideas
simply
because the most sensitive
members of
society
are offended
by
them. However absurd it
may
be
to characterize Victim
Pornography
as an
exchange
of
ideas,
the civil
libertarians do not seem
likely
to
relinquish
this
position any
time soon.
The
approach
taken
by
MacKinnon and Dworkin has the
advantage
of not
lending
itself to this
interpretation.
Even a
cursory reading
of
their defense will show that
they
are not
bluestockings imposing
their
personal subjective
standards of
decency
on the rest of
society.
Furthermore, treating pornography
as a violation of civil
rights
rather
than as an affront to
people
who are offended
by obscenity,
entails
that it cannot be dealt
with,
as Joel
Feinberg (1980, 89) suggests, by
49
hypatia
noting
that
people
do not have to read what offends them. In other
words,
if
pornography
were
objectionable simply
in the sense that it
offends some
people,
it
might
be
appropriate
to conclude that censor-
ship
is not warranted. As
Feinberg argues,
if the material that offends
one is
easily avoided,
as obscene books and movies
are,
the fact that
they
are offensive to some does not constitute reason to censor them.
However,
if
pornography
is not
simply obscene,
but a violation of civil
rights,
the
suggestion
that
people
who find it
objectionable
should
simp-
ly
avoid
it,
is
hardly appropriate.
Violations of civil
rights
are not cor-
rected
by ignoring
them.
The MacKinnon/Dworkin
appeal
to the civil
rights
of women rests
on
equal rights
statutes. Their
hypothesis
is that
pornography
is a
discriminatory practice
based on sex because its effect is to
deny
women
equal opportunities
in
society.
This
approach
has the
disadvantage
of
having
to
appeal
to
highly
controversial studies
concerning
the conse-
quences
of
pornography:
its success
depends
on the
plausibility
of the
claim that when
pornography
is offered for
sale,
the result is a
signifi-
cant
negative
influence on
people's
beliefs about
women,
and a subse-
quent negative
influence on
people's
behavior towards women. To
date,
this claim has been treated
by
the courts as not
providing
sufficient
reason to curtail first amendment
rights.
Whatever
negative
conse-
quences
the sale of
pornography might
have-and these are
minimized-they
are not
thought
to be serious
enough
to warrant
censorship.
My analysis
of Victim
Pornography
as
degrading suggests
a different
unpacking
of the MacKinnon/Dworkin
hypothesis
that
pornography
violates the civil
rights
of women. On
my account,
Victim
Pornography
libels women as a
class,
in
impugning
the nature of women. This
ap-
proach
would not have to
rely
on controversial
empirical
studies con-
cerning
the
consequences
of
pornography.
Libel can be established
without
demonstrating
actual
damage
to the
plaintiff.
Libel laws
originated
in a time when a
person's
honor and
reputation
were valued
for their own
sake,
and not
simply
because of their business value.
Therefore,
in
proving libel,
it is
enough
to show that a
defamatory
state-
ment about the
plaintiff
is false.
Furthermore,
this
approach
does not constitute a new
challenge
to
free
speech.
Libel has never been
protected by
the First
Amendment,
and it is
unlikely
that even the most liberal of civil libertarians would
be
tempted
to
argue
that it should be.
Would a case
against
Victim
Pornography
as libel stand
up
in court?
There are
precedents
for
treating defamatory
statements
concerning
groups
as libel. The rationale is that individuals can be harmed
by
defamatory
statements about
groups
of which
they
are members as well
50
judith
m. hill
as
by defamatory
statements about them as individuals. For
example,
repeated
statements to the effect that all
lawyers
are dishonest
obviously
cause harm to individual
lawyers. Although
a
particular lawyer may
be hurt more
by
statements to the effect that
she,
in
particular,
is
dishonest,
than
by
statements to the effect that all
lawyers
are
dishonest,
the latter as well as the former
certainly
has the
capacity
to
damage
her
reputation
and business. In order to
protect individuals,
the law
must
prevent
unwarranted defamation of
groups
as well as of
specific
individuals.
Group
libel suits have been
brought successfully by:
an individual
who was defamed as a member of a
jury;4
an individual who was defam-
ed as a member of a board of
County Commissioners;5
an individual
who was defamed as a member of a staff of doctors at a
hospital;6
an
individual who was defamed as a member of a
group
of
engineers
employed by
a construction
company.7 Historically,
there has been some
reluctance on the
part
of the
judicial system
to extend the
principle
of
group
libel to
large groups, e.g.,
to
defamatory
statements about "all
Jews,"
"all
priests,"
"all Blacks."
Obviously,
this would
present
an
obstacle to
finding
the
pornography industry guilty
of libel
against
the
class of women.
However,
it is reasonable to assume that individuals
may
be
unjustly
defamed
by derogatory
statements
concerning large
groups
of which
they
are
members,
no less than
by derogatory
statements about small
groups
of which
they
are members
(Reisman
1942, 770-771). Consequently,
I do not think this obstacle is
insurmountable.
The
major difficulty
I foresee in
establishing
that
pornography
libels
women as a class is the
problem
of
establishing
that Victim
Pornography
does indeed
imply
that women are
generally
masochistic
nym-
phomaniacs.
The
pornography industry
will insist that it is
dealing
in
fiction,
that the material it sells
depicting
the
degradation
of women
has
nothing
to do with
reality;
that its
object
is to
entertain,
not to
inform.
It is
beyond
the
scope
of this
paper
to construct the
legal
case
against
pornography.
I will
only repeat
that the fact that films or
reading
material are
presented
as fiction does not entail that
they
are
supposed
to
be, expected
to
be,
devoid of truth.
Furthermore,
it is not
necessary
to
prove
intent to
injure
in
establishing libel;
the fact that the
producers
of Victim
Pornography
do not intend to influence
anyone's
beliefs about
the nature of women as a class
(if
it is a
fact),
is irrelevant. If the con-
tent of Victim
Pornography
carries the
implication that,
in
general,
women are
masochistic, nymphomanic,
and not
fully persons
in the
moral
sense,
the case for libel stands.
To conclude: The
pornography industry
makes a
large
share of its
51
hypatia
profit by selling
material that
displays
a total lack of
regard
for the
truth about womankind on the
part
of the
industry. Pornographic
material that
depicts
all or most women characters as masochists or
nymphomaniacs
or as mindless
demi-persons,
carries with it the im-
plication
that this is the nature of
womankind,
and therefore of all in-
dividual women. Whether or not
anyone
believes that this is true of
women,
or acts
accordingly,
as a result of
reading pornographic
books
or
watching pornographic films,
the
implication
itself is
defamatory.
In
marketing
such
material,
the
pornography industry
treats all women
as
nothing
more than means to its own financial
gain.
This is not a
matter of the
pornography industry excusably treating
women
only
as
means in the course of a
very
limited business
relationship
(in
the
way
in which an
employer might excusably
treat an
employee only
as a
means).
The
propagation
of false and
derogatory
statements about a
class of
people,
for the sake of
profit, inexcusably
treats all members
of that class as
though they
were means
only,
as
though they
were not
ends in themselves.
Many
women are embarrassed even to
acknowledge
the existence of
pornography. Many
fear that
they
would
only
invite ridicule
by open-
ly objecting
to it. Some women believe that
pornography
has
nothing
to do with
them,
or that it is
harmless,
or that
censorship
is a
greater
evil than
pornography. Primarily
for these
reasons, many
women make
no
objection
to
pornography.
I
hope
to have shown that
pornography
does concern all women.
Whether or not
pornography
ever incites men to
rape,
or
promotes
de-
personalized sex,
all women are defamed
by
material that
implies
that
typically,
women like to be treated as less than
persons by
their sexual
partners;
and all women are
degraded by
the
pornography industry's
display
of
contempt
for womankind in
marketing
such material.
Embarrassment and fear of ridicule are not
good
reasons to refrain
from
objecting
to the sale of
pornographic
material that
supports
false
and offensive beliefs about womankind. As we noted in Part
I, degrada-
tion should be taken
seriously
not
only
because it involves
treating peo-
ple
as
though they
were less than
people,
but also because it involves
an erosion of moral
courage
on the
part
of the
degraded person.
We
cannot afford to
pretend
that
pornography
does not concern us.
Only
by expressing outrage
at
being used,
can we
hope
to maintain
self-respect.
52
judith m. hill
notes
1. I should
acknowledge
that men as well as women can
be,
and sometimes
are,
portrayed
in
pornographic
material as
being degraded. Nevertheless,
we would do well
to
keep
in mind a few
significant
differences between
pornography
that
portrays
men
as
degraded,
and
pornography
that
protrays
women as
degraded: (1)
Material in which
men are the victims of
sexually aggressive
women is the
exception
rather than the
rule;
(2) Very
little else in the culture reinforces the idea of men
being degraded by women;
and
(3)
The victimized men and
aggressive
women in such material are
usually depicted
as
homosexual,
and therefore not
"really"
men and not
"really" women, respectively,
by
the standards of the material
itself; thus,
it is still
quasi-women
who are victimized
and
pseudo-men
who are victimizers.
2. I am not
suggesting,
of
course,
that women who
participate
in
making
Victim
Pornography
are less
degraded
than other women
by
the sale
of pornography,
but
only
that
they
are not
necessarily degraded
in their role as models.
3. A word about the
importance
of context. If we lived in a culture in which
nothing
supported
the idea that women are less than full
persons,
I
might
be more reluctant to
say
that Victim
Pornography
has
implications concerning
the nature of womankind. If
nothing
in the culture
supported
the idea that women
may
be treated as
though they
were not ends in
themselves,
I
might
be
willing
to
say
that Victim
Pornography
is
pure
fantasy,
no more to be taken
seriously-no
more to be
generalized
from-than a car-
toon that
portrays
cats as indiscriminate
eaters,
or an advertisement that
portrays
auto
mechanics as
good
natured and
helpful,
or a
story
that
portrays
men as
enjoying
abuse.
But the fact is that there are
many
facets of our culture that tend to
support
the view
that women like to be abused. Much of
popular
music romanticizes such
relationships;
advertisements
tacitly give
them a
stamp
of
approval by describing
abuse as the norm
for the attractive
upper-middle
class
family
next
door,
or
by giving
it a
slightly
exotic
flavor;
some
religious dogma openly prescribes treating
women as less than
persons.
In
light
of this
tradition,
Victim
Pornography
cannot be
easily
dismissed as mere
fantasy,
with no
implications concerning
the nature of women. Victim
Pornography
contributes
to the tradition of
viewing
women as less than full
persons,
whatever the intention of
its authors.
4.
Byers
v.
Martin,
2 Colo.
605,
25
Am.Rep.
755
(1875);
Welsh v. Tribune
Publishing
Co.,
83 Mich.
661,
57 N.W. 562
(1890).
5. Wofford v.
Meeks,
129 Ala.
349,
30 So. 625
(1900);
Palmerlee v.
Notage,
119
Minn.
351,
138 N.W. 312
(1912);
Prosser v.
Callis,
117 Ind. 105, 19 N.E. 735
(1888).
6. Bornmann v. Star
Co.,
174 N.Y.
212,
66 N.E. 723
(1903).
Contra: Kassowitz v.
Sentinel
Co.,
226 Wis.
468,
227 N.W. 177
(1938).
7.
Hardy
v.
Williamson,
86 Ga.
551,
12 S.E. 874
(1891).
53
hypatia
references
Berger,
Fred. 1977.
Pornography, sex,
and
censorship.
Social
Theory
and Practice 4
(2):
183-210.
Dworkin,
Andrea. 1981.
Pornography:
Men
possessing
women. New
York:
Perigee
Books.
Feinberg,
Joel. 1980. Harmless immoralities and offensive nuisances.
In
Rights, justice
and the bounds
of liberty.
Princeton: Princeton
University
Press.
Goldman,
Emma. 1983.
Living my life.
New York:
Knopf.
Hentoff,
Nat. 1984. War on
pornography.
The
Washington Post,
31
August, p.
A21.
Hill,
Thomas. 1973.
Servility
and
self-respect.
The Monist 57
(1):
87-104.
Reisman,
David. 1942.
Democracy
and defamation: Control on
group
libel. Columbia Law Review 42
(5).
Shipp,
E.R. 1984. Federal
judge
hears
arguments
on
validity
of
Indianapolis pornography
measure. New York
Times,
31
July, p.
A10.
Styron,
William. 1979.
Sophie's
choice. New York: Random House.
54
victoria davion
Do Good Feminists
Compete?
In this
paper
I
argue against
the view
widely
held
among
feminists
that
nurturing
and
competition
are
incompatible.
I also
explore
the
following
two more
specific objections against competition: (1)
com-
petitions
are "mini-wars" which
encourage hatred; (2)
while not "mini-
wars,"
competitions
foster a war-like
mentality. Underlying
these ob-
jections
is the fear that too
strong
a sense of self makes war
likely by
severing
connection with others. I
argue
that because
patriarchy
en-
courages
women to have too little sense of
self,
some
competition may
be useful.
M
y topic
is the
relationships
between
competition, nurturing,
and
war. I have been disturbed
by
a common view
among
feminist thinkers
regarding competition.
It is seen as an evil which must be eliminated
if
people
are to nurture one another.
Examples
of this attitude are as
follows. In a review article on
Virginia
Woolf's Three
Guineas,
Mar-
cia Yudkin
(1984)
claims that Woolf wants to
"get
one to back off from
institutions and
practices
that
promote
'war' in the narrow
sense,
and
then see that those institutions and
practices
are 'war' in a wider sense."
Yudkin
supports
this view. Woolf herself
says
of
competition
and
jealousy
that
they
are emotions ". . . which we need not draw
upon
biography
to
prove,
nor ask
psychology
to
show,
are emotions which
have their share in
encouraging
a
disposition
toward war"
(1938, 21).
In "The future-If There is One-Is
Female," Sally
Miller Gearhart
(1982),
in
discussing war,
states that the
qualities
of
"objectification,
violence and
competition"
characterize a war-like
mentality. Finally,
the authors of "The Answer is
Matriarchy"
state: "We have been
taught
to base our
personal relationships
on the warrior mode of
competition,
beating
and
conquering
our friends and associates in
games,
in business
and in
politics" (Love
and Shanklin
1984, 279).
There are two sorts of
objections
in the
positions
stated above. The
first is that
competitions
are themselves "mini-wars" which
encourage
hatred toward others. The other is that even if
competitions
are not
themselves
"mini-wars," competition
fosters a war-like
mentality.
These
assumptions
about the nature of
competition
merit some careful ex-
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1987).

by
Victoria Davion.
55
hypatla
amination which
they
have not
yet
received. In this
paper
I
attempt
to contribute toward such an examination. This
project
will include
a discussion of what I believe are some
positive aspects
of
competi-
tion,
as well as a close look at the two
objections
stated above.
My
examination of these
objections
will include an
analysis
of their
origin.
More
specifically,
I believe that these
objections
are based on a belief
that
competition
fosters a
strong
sense of self and that the
develop-
ment of a
strong
sense of self causes a loss of a sense of connection
with
others,
the loss of which is
necessary
for war and detrimental to
nurturing.
Hence I believe that the fear of
competition
can
ultimately
be linked with the view that a
strong
sense of self is a bad
thing.
The
view that a
strong
sense of self can lead to a war-like
mentality
is im-
plied
in the work of Sara
Ruddick,
which I shall discuss. I
suggest
that
although
too
strong
a sense of self
may
be a bad
thing,
too little is not
good
either. Even if it is true that too
strong
a sense of self can lead
to a war-like
mentality,
this isn't
likely
to be a
general problem
for
women raised under
patriarchy.
Women tend to have the
opposite pro-
blem,
too little sense of self. This isn't
surprising,
as women are en-
couraged
to
put
the interests of others above our own
constantly.
I
sug-
gest
that
perhaps competition
can be
helpful
in the
reaching
of a
healthy
balance between a sense of oneself and a
feeling
of connection with
others. The
subject
of
competition
is therefore
important
because it
raises these
interesting
and
important
issues about connection and dif-
ference,
which have been
receiving
a
great
deal of attention
among
feminist thinkers.
The first
project
is to define
"competition."
This turns out to be
a rather difficult task. The O.E.D.
provides
several definitions:
(1)
"Ac-
tion of
endeavoring
to
gain
what another endeavors to
gain
at the same
time."
(2)
"A contest for the
aquisition
of
something;
a match to deter-
mine relative excellence."
(3)
"A trial of
ability
in order to decide
superiority
of fitness of a number of candidates." A few comments
on these definitions are in order. Notice that none of them
say anything
about the
type
of
activity,
but rather focus on the
purpose
of
engaging
in it. This
suggests
that
any
number of activities can be
competitions
of some sort. And so the definitions are rather abstract.
Questions
need
to be asked about what
activity
the match itself consists in as well as
what it is the contestants are
attempting
to win. It
may
turn out that
certain kinds of
competitive
activities are
okay
while others are
objec-
tionable. A related
term, "competitor,"
is defined in the
following way:
(1)
"One who
engages
in a
competition." (2)
"One who seeks an ob-
ject
in
rivalry
with others also
seeking
it."
(3)
"One associated with
another
seeking
the same or common
object,
an associate or
partner."
It is
interesting
that two
seemingly opposite
definitions occur in the
56
victoria davion
O.E.D. for this word. Someone who seeks an
object
in
rivalry against
another and someone
seeking
the same
object,
a
partner.
These defini-
tions
appear
to be
contradictory,
but
they
are the
key
to certain in-
sights
about the nature of
competition,
or at least certain kinds of com-
petition.
Does it make sense to define two individuals both as rivals
and
partners?
I will now show
examples
where this does in fact seem
to be the case. These
examples
form a
subgroup
of
competitive
activities.
One such
example
is tennis. The first
thing
which is obvious but worth
mentioning
is that one cannot
play
tennis alone. A
partner
is
necessary.
Furthermore,
the
partner
should be someone
you
trust for she is the
one who must be relied
upon
to tell
you
when the ball is in and when
it is out.
(Here
I am not
thinking
of
professional
tennis where there
is a
referee).
If the
opponent
wants to cheat in a
private game
she can
probably get away
with this. But if she is
fair,
she will not cheat even
if it is to her
advantage
to do so. This is a
good
exercise in
being
fair
to others and
making
sure that
they get
what
they
deserve. Here we
have a case in which two
people
are
competing
to win. However
they
must also
cooperate
with each other in order for the
competition
to
be
possible. Together they
make it
possible
to have the
experience
of
playing
the
game. Hence,
while
they
are
opponents
in one
sense, they
are
partners
in another. This involves
trust,
a sense of
fairness,
and
even a
friendly
attitude
among
the
players.
Learning
to
accept disappointment
is an
important aspect
of human
development.
And
this, along
with
learning
to be
fair,
can be
developed
from
participating
in certain kinds of
competition.
Also when one is
competing
one learns how to
respond quickly
under a certain
pressure
without
getting
too
upset
if
things
don't work out. Here we can look
for a link between the activities of
competing
and
nurturing.
If some
types
of
competition
can teach one certain admirable or useful
qualities,
then
part
of
nurturing
someone
may
be to
encourage
them to
engage
in
competition,
and even to
compete
with them
yourself.
To nurture
someone is
literally
to
help
them
grow. Teaching
someone admirable
traits is a
part
of this
process.
I
argue
that certain kinds of
competi-
tion, particularly
the
type
that
encourages people
to be
partners
and
opponents
at the same
time,
are not at all
incompatible
with
caring
a
great
deal for others.
Although
as individuals we often have different
goals,
we also at the same time have
many
of the same
ones,
and
by
cooperating
we can fulfill
many
of these. I believe
competition
can teach
this.
People
need to learn that
they
can both be
partners
and have some
different
goals
as well.
I will now examine what I take to be the two
major objections many
feminists have
against competition.
As I stated
before,
these are
(1)
that
competitions
are themselves "mini-wars" and
(2)
that
competi-
57
hypatia
tion fosters a war-like
mentality
rather than a
nurturing
one. I will
begin
with the first
objection.
The sort of
competition
that I have discussed
thus
far, tennis,
is
mainly
a one-on-one
sport.
It is an
example
of a
competition
in which the
competitors
are
working
toward a common
and
yet separate goal.
Team
sports
can be seen in this
light
also. The
opponents
learn to
cooperate
with each other in order to follow the
rules and
play
the
game.
Like
war,
these
games
have more than one
player
on each
team,
and
players
work
together
to beat the other team.
So far this sounds
quite
a bit like war. But we
already
see one essential
difference: those who are
fighting
a war
certainly
do not
cooperate
with
the other side in order to
fight
the war. In a
game
when the rules are
not
followed,
someone
stops things,
but this doesn't
necessarily hap-
pen
in a war. Even
though
there are
supposed
to be rules of
war, they
do not have to be
obeyed
as the rules of team
sports
must. Another
similarity
between team
sports
and war is that often
people
on
oppos-
ing
teams form alliances with teammates and a dislike for members
of different teams.
Similarly,
in a war those
fighting
on
opposite
sides
form a hatred for their
opponents. Giving
out
propaganda against
the
enemies in order to make them seem horrible is a tactic often used in
time of war. If soldiers
begin
to
sympathize
with the
enemy,
the war
effort is
endangered.
The more
hostility
toward the
enemy
the better.
Although
this can
happen,
in team
sports
it needn't.
Hating
the
oppo-
nent is not
necessary
to one's
ability
to be an effective
player.
This
makes sense because
being
an effective
player
doesn't call for
killing
or
severely damaging
other
players.
There are some
games
that are more
violent than
others,
and
perhaps
it would be best to eliminate
these,
but it is
certainly
not the case that all team
sports
are violent. Part of
the reason these
loyalties
to certain teams are formed is the culture sur-
rounding
the
game, yet
there
may
be
ways
to
stop
this. For
example,
players
and teams could
constantly
be rotated so that these alliances
do not form. Hatred of one's
opponent
is not a
necessary component
of team
sports
while it is
necessary
in war. Another
important
distinc-
tion between
competitions
and war is that in
many games people
do
not
only compete
to win. The
experience
of
playing
the
game
itself is
often considered valuable.
Although
this
may
be the case in warfare
as
well,
as some soldiers view the
experience
of combat as valuable in
itself,
this seems to be sadistic and
unfortunate,
while to
enjoy playing
a
game
for the
experience
of
playing
it does not in itself seem
wrong
or unfortunate. Hence we see another
important
difference between
certain kinds of
competition
and war.
Finally
it should be noticed that
in a
war, opponents
want the other side to be no
good
at
fighting. They
have a stake in the other team's
being
bad at this. This
isn't, however,
true of all
competitions.
If I am
going
to
engage
in a
competitive sport-
58
victoria davion
ing event,
I
may
well want the
opponent
to be a
good player,
in order
that the
game
be
exciting.
This reveals that attitudes towards
opponents
can be
very
different
depending
on what kind of
competition
one is
engaging
in.' It doesn't seem
plausible
to maintain that all
competi-
tions are themselves like "mini-wars." It is true that in both
sporting
events and wars we have so called "winners" and
"losers,"
but hav-
ing
"winners" and "losers" is a
similarity
that masks
very great
dif-
ferences between war and other
competitions.
I have not tried to
argue
that wars are not
competitions, although
I think a case for this
might
be
made,
if one wants to
argue
that all
competition
involves a certain
kind of
cooperating
between those on
opposing
sides. However I do
not think that it is
necessary
to
argue
in this
way. "Competition"
is
a
family
resemblance
word,
and
many
different activities
may
be
thought
of as
competitions.
It is
enough
to
point
out that some kinds
of
competition
involve
cooperation
and are not
necessarily damaging
to a
society
that wants to nurture its members. In the abstract it is not
wrong
to
compete
for
something.
The
question
will turn on what is
being competed
for and what sort of
activity
the
competition
is.
Perhaps
the more sensible
objection against competition
is the se-
cond
one, namely
that it fosters a war-like
mentality
even
though
all
competitions
are not themselves "mini-wars." In a review of
Virginia
Woolf's Three Guineas Marcia Yudkin asks
rhetorically,
"If we teach
the
importance
of
competition,
and that one can
only
succeed at the
expense
of someone else who
fails,
are we
contributing
to war?" Yudkin
thinks we are. She claims that because women have not
participated
in
many
of the
competitive
institutions of
patriarchy
we are in a
privileg-
ed
position.
She
says,
"Let's use the
privilege
of our
position
to teach
equality
instead of
hierarchy, leadership
instead of
domination,
self
mastery
instead of
mastery
over
others, cooperation
instead of com-
petition" (1984, 263).
The fear here
may
be that we sever the connec-
tion between
people
when we
compete
with them. And this is
why
com-
petition
is seen as
contributing
toward war. In order to eliminate all
competition
we would have to eliminate
any
kind of
recognition
to in-
dividuals for
jobs
well-done. For
any
kind of
recognition
can be said
to foster
competitive
attitudes in individuals. Is the answer
then, simp-
ly,
to avoid
any
sort of
recognition
of
people
who have done
something
well? I don't think this would be beneficial. The incentive to do well
is often linked to
trying
to
please
someone in order to
gain recogni-
tion. If we
stop recognizing
achievement we will have made a
great
er-
ror,
not to mention that this would
probably
be
impossible.
Even a
smile tells another that
they
have done well.
I think there is a link between the fear that
competition
fosters a war-
like
mentality
and some recent work
being
done on both the
subjects
59
hypatla
of women's ethics and
mothering.
I turn now to an examination of this
link.
To
recognize
someone is to
single
them out.
Perhaps
it is this
sing-
ling
out which bothers certain feminists and is at the root of the claim
that
competition
fosters a war-like
mentality.
To
single
someone out
is to
emphasize
certain differences between her and other
people.
It
is a
process
which focuses on difference rather than sameness. How
does this link
up
with war? In her
article,
"Preservative Love And
Military
Destruction: Some Reflections on
Mothering
and
Peace,"
Sara
Ruddick
(1984b) argues
that maternal
thinking
is
opposed
to violence.
She states "Non-violence is a constitutive
principle
of maternal think-
ing." According
to
Ruddick,
women hold certain different values than
men,
and women have a different
style
of
thinking
than men do. She
calls the maternal
style
of
thinking
"concreteness." This
style "respects
complexity, connection, particularity
and
ambiguity." People
think-
ing
in this
way
are "less concerned with
claiming rights,
more concerned
with
sharing responsibilities. They
do not value
independence
and
autonomy
over connection and the restraints of
caring."
She contrasts
this with another
style
of
thinking
which she calls "abstraction." She
says:
"I am convinced that a certain
style
of
thinking-a tendency
to
abstract-is connected to warfare." This
style
"refers to a cluster of
interrelated
dispositions
to
simplify, dissociate, generalize,
and
sharp-
ly
define." It is this
style
which she associates with men. The
ability
to abstract is seen as connected to warfare because when
something
is
abstract,
it becomes less human. In war the
enemy
becomes an
abstract
entity
rather than a real
group
of
living, suffering
human be-
ings.
Therefore the
ability
to differentiate
sharply
between self and other
is
necessary
in
war,
while a sense that the
enemy
is similar or the same
as
oneself,
a sense of connection with the
enemy,
is
damaging
to the
war effort.
Therefore,
Ruddick
argues,
the
style
of
thinking
characteristic of women is not conducive to
warfare,
while the
style
of
thinking
characterized
by
men is.
With Ruddick's
analysis
in mind we can now return to the
question
of
competition
in
general
and the related
question
of
recognition.
When
we
compete
with
others,
we
engage
in the sort of
activity
that Ruddick
would associate with the abstract
style
of
thinking.
We feel a
sharp
distinction between self and other. We
certainly
don't view their win-
ning
as in
any way
the same as our
winning.
Hence the
competitors
can be said to have
strong
sense of self.
Also,
the
recognition
that com-
petition
fosters once
again brings
out difference rather than sameness
of individuals. If
having
a
sharply
defined sense of self contributes to
a war-like
mentality,
then there
may
be a reason for
avoiding
activities
which
encourage
these traits. On the other
hand, perhaps
activities
60
victoria davion
which
emphasize
connection should be
encouraged.
The conclusion is
that
competition
should be avoided. In "The Answer Is
Matriarchy"
a similar conclusion is reached. The authors state that "Under
capitalism
mothers are faced with a dilemma.
They
can force their children to con-
form to a
competitive economy,
to a
competitive
educational
system,
to
competitive games
.... Under socialism a mother who
attempted
to nurture the
unique
will of her child would most
likely
be denounced
or arrested.
However,
she has the
compensation
that the socialist
patriarchs
socialized her child in a
supportive, non-competitive way"
(Love
and Shanklin
1984, 278). Here,
all
competition
is
opposed
to
support,
and once
more,
no distinctions between different
types
of com-
petition
are made.
Again,
the fear seems to be that
competition
is
op-
posed
to a
nurturing
attitude which stresses connection rather than
difference.
At this
point
I
suggest
a re-evaluation.
Again
we must notice that
patriarchy
has never
encouraged
women to
develop
a
strong
sense of
self. Instead we are
supposed
to live
through
the achievements of
others,
vicariously.
There is
nothing
at all
wrong
with
feeling good
about the
achievements of others. This is
certainly
an admirable trait which should
be
encouraged among people.
But this is
very
different from
getting
confused about which achievements
you
have made and which have
been made
by
others. If one
goes through
life
feeling good
about the
successes of others without
trying
to have the
experiences
which
attemp-
ting
to succeed oneself can
provide,
one
deprives
oneself of
important
experiences
and
important opportunities
for
growth.
It isn't
necessarily
true that maternal
thinking
does indeed serve as
a model of connection
being praised by many
feminists
today.
Rud-
dick comes close to
recognizing this,
but then she backs off. In "Mater-
nal
Thinking"
she
says
"Maternal
practice
assumes a
legitimate special
concern for the children one has
engendered
and
passionately
loves as
well for the families in which
they
live.
Any attempt
to
deny
this
special
form of self-interest will
only
lead to
hypocritical
false consciousness
or
rigid
totalistic
loyalties" (Ruddick 1984a, 239).
It is odd that Rud-
dick
explains
the
special
interest in a child as
self-interest.
Here I think
there is a confusion between self and other.
Perhaps
in order to suc-
cessfully
raise a small child in need of total care from others it is in-
deed
necessary
to be selfless for a
period
of time. This
may
in fact be
a
good thing,
but to confuse this interest in another with self interest
is to be confused about boundaries between self and other. In
patriar-
chy,
women are
supposed
to
engage
in this sort of
"special
self
interest,"
which is a
euphemism
for "interest in some
other,"
to the exclusion
of a
healthy
interest in
oneself,
all the time. This makes it
possible
for
men to obtain the service and devotion
they
desire from women.
Also,
61
hypatia
women who have a confused notion of what it is to be self-interested
don't have a sense of connection with world at
large
and all
of
its in-
habitants but rather with
specific
individuals whom
they
view as
special.
It is not clear how this is
any
better than self-interest in the first
place,
and it
certainly
isn't clear how
having
an
especially strong
interest in
the
well-being
of some
special
other is
going
to
help prevent
war. In
fact, appeals
to the
well-being
of loved ones have been used as a
way
of
convincing
someone to
go
to war.
Having
a
healthy
interest in the
well
being
and achievements of others is a
great thing,
but this is
very
different from a confused identification with others to the
point
where
one's sense of self
disappears completely.
I'm not at all convinced that
we need to become selfless in order to
prevent
war. I think this would
be too bad. If what Ruddick and others
say
about men's and women's
different
styles
of
thinking
is
true,
it seems that while men
may
have
too
strong
a sense of
self,
women have too little. If this is
so,
then
engag-
ing
in the sort of activities that
help
foster a
stronger
sense of self
may
be
just
what is needed for women at this
point.
If
competition
will
help
accomplish this,
then it
may
be
good
rather than evil when used cor-
rectly.
What is needed is a balance between a sense of oneself and a
sense of connection. I have
suggested
that certain kinds of
competi-
tion can
help people
see themselves as connected while different at the
same time. Of
course,
it will be noticed that
my examples
have been
taken from a certain kind of
competition, sports.
But other
types
of
competition may
be beneficial as well.
Competing
to see who can do
the best
job
on a
project
that is considered worthwhile is one candidate.
An
example might
be a
clean-up campaign
in which all of the contestants
realize that the
project
itself is worth-while and so have a sense of work-
ing together
on a
good thing,
while at the same time each tries to do
the best
job
and win the
competition.
Here
people
work
together
for
the same
goal
-
a clean environment
-
while at the same time each
has her own
personal goal,
that of
winning. Competitions
of this sort
might
be vehicles which can
help
us
develop
a balance between a
healthy
sense of ourselves as
unique
worthwhile individuals and a sense of con-
nection with others. Such a balance will be as
likely
to
help
us eliminate
war as the
attempt
to stress sameness and selflessness ever
could,
with
the added benefit of
recognizing
our
uniqueness
in the
process.
In
closing
I cannot refrain from
remarking
that this
paper
leaves me
with an
uneasy feeling.
I have been
against competition
for
quite
some
time. I'm not even sure that I have
changed my
mind. I
hope
however
that I have taken an
important step
in
looking
at some of the
good
things
that
competition
has to
offer,
as well as
pointing
out some
assumptions
which underlie the
objections
to
competition
I have discuss-
ed. I think that this must be done before
any
kind of
intelligent
deci-
62
victoria davion
sion can be made as to which
types
of
competition,
if
any,
are beneficial
and which
types
are harmful.
notes
1. This
point
was made
by
Naomi Scheman
during
the discussion
following
an earlier
draft of this
paper
at the Midwest Conference of the
Society
for Women in
Philosophy
at
Carbondale, Illinois,
October
12,
1985.
references
The
Compact
Edition
of
the
Oxford English
Dictionary.
1971. Oxford
University
Press.
Gearhart, Sally
Miller. 1982. The future-If there is one-Is female.
In
Reweaving
the web
of life:
Feminism and
nonviolence,
ed. Pam
McAllister.
Philadelphia:
New
Society
Publishers.
Love,
Barbara and Elizabeth Shanklin. 1984. The answer is matriar-
chy.
In
Mothering,
ed.
Joyce
Trebilcot. New
Jersey:
Rowman and
Allenheld.
Ruddick,
Sara. 1984a. Maternal
thinking.
In
Mothering,
ed.
Joyce
Trebilcot. New
Jersey:
Rowman and Allenheld.
. 1984b. Preservative love and
military
destruction: Some Reflec-
tions on
mothering
and
peace.
In
Mothering,
ed.
Joyce
Trebilcot.
New
Jersey:
Rowman And Allenheld.
Woolf, Virginia.
1938. Three
guineas.
New York and London: Har-
court Brace Jovanovich.
Yudkin,
Marcia. 1984. Reflections on Woolf's Three
guineas.
In
Women and men's
wars,
ed. Judith Stiehm. Oxford:
Pergamon
Press.
63

















































































































































susan wendell
A
(Qualified)
Defense of Liberal Feminism
Liberal feminism is not committed to a number of
philosophical posi-
tions for which it is
frequently criticized, including
abstract individ-
ualism,
certain individualistic
approaches
to
morality
and
society,
valu-
ing
the mental/rational over the
physical/emotional,
and the traditional
liberal
way
of
drawing
the line between the
public
and the
private.
Moreover,
liberal feminism's clearest
political commitments, including
equality
of
opportunity,
are
important
to women's liberation and not
necessarily incompatible
with the
goals
of socialist and radical feminism.
Introduction
Because I am committed to
socialism,
I do not think of
myself
as a liberal feminist and would not defend liberal feminism without
important qualifications.
On the other
hand,
I want to defend certain
aspects
of liberal feminism because I am also committed to some tradi-
tional liberal
principles,
such as
equal opportunity
for
self-development
and a modified version of Mill's
principle
of
liberty,
and to
many
liberal
feminist reforms. In
addition,
I
hope
that
my
defense of liberal feminism
will
help
to demonstrate that feminism has
out-grown
the
political
tradi-
tions from which it
emerged,
and that traditional
political categories
are no
longer very
useful for
understanding
the similarities and dif-
ferences
among
feminist
analyses, strategies
and
goals.
What Is Liberal Feminism?
If it is true that feminism no
longer
fits
comfortably
into the tradi-
tional
political categories,
it is somewhat artificial to be
talking
about
liberal feminism. Liberal feminism is an historical tradition that
grew
out of
liberalism,
as can be seen
very clearly
in the work of such
feminists as
Mary
Wollstonecraft and John Stuart
Mill,
but feminists
who took
principles
from that tradition have
developed analyses
and
goals
that
go
far
beyond
those of 18th and 19th
Century
liberal
feminists,
and
many
feminists who have
goals
and
strategies
identified
as liberal feminist
by
such writers as
Jaggar
and Struhl
(1978),
Eisen-
stein
(1981)
and Scheman
(1983) reject major components
of traditional
liberalism. For these
reasons,
instead of
trying
to define liberal feminism
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1987).

By
Susan Wendell.
65
hypatia
precisely,
I will
give
a brief
description
of the
political
commitments
most
clearly
identifiable as liberal feminist and then focus on the
alleged-
ly
liberal feminist views that have come under recent criticism.
I can
safely say
that liberal feminism is not committed to
socialism,
or it would be socialist feminism. Liberal feminists
usually are, however,
committed to
major
economic
re-organization
and considerable re-
distribution of
wealth,
since one of the modern
political goals
most
closely
associated with liberal feminism is
equality
of
opportunity,
which
would
undoubtedly require
and lead to both.
(I
will return to this sub-
ject later.)
The liberal feminist
tradition,
like most other feminist tradi-
tions,
has
always
asserted that the value of women as human
beings
is not instrumental to the welfare of men and children and that it is
equal
to the value of
men,
and demanded various forms of
public
and
private recognition
of
it, including respect
for women's freedom and
privacy.
Liberal feminists have
always promoted equality
of
legal rights
for
women,
and have more
recently
demanded an end to de
facto
discrimination on the basis of
sex,' enlisting
the State in
attaining
that
goal.
Liberal feminists have the traditional liberal beliefs in the
power
of education as a means of social reform and its
importance
to human
fulfillment, and,
since
Mary Wollstonecraft, they
have demanded educa-
tion for
girls
and women
equal
to that offered to
boys
and men.
Liberal feminism is
frequently
criticized for its
alleged
commitments
to the
philosophical assumptions
and
developments
of the liberal tradi-
tion from which it
grew. Any
evidence that liberal feminists do not have
these commitments can be
interpreted
as
showing
the
inconsistency
of
liberal feminist
theory
(as
it is
by Jaggar [1983, 37:28]),
but it seems
to me more
interesting
and
optimistic
to
interpret
it as
showing
that
liberal feminism is a
philosophically
better kind of liberalism. In
any
case,
I will start
my
defense of liberal feminism
by arguing
that it is
not committed to a number of
philosophical positions
for which it is
criticized, including
abstract
individualism,
certain kinds of in-
dividualistic
approaches
to
morality
and
society, valuing
the mental/ra-
tional over the
physical/emotional,
and the traditional liberal
way
of
drawing
the line between the
public
and the
private.
Then I will
argue
that liberal feminism's clearest
political
com-
mitments: to the
promotion
of women's
greater recognition
and self-
value as
individuals,
to
equality
of
opportunity,
to the
promotion
of
equal
education for
girls
and
boys,
to
ending
sex
prejudice
and
defac-
to
discrimination,
to
equality
of
legal rights,
and to the use of educa-
tion as a
major
tool of social
reform,
are
important
to women's libera-
tion and not
necessarily incompatible
with the
goals
of socialist and
radical feminism.
66
susan wendell
Liberal Feminism and Abstract Individualism
In "Individualism and the
Objects
of
Psychology,"
Naomi Scheman
describes the individualist
assumptions
of "the
ideology
of liberal in-
dividualism" in this
way:
Thus,
it is
supposed
to be a natural fact about human
beings,
and hence a constraint on
any possible
social
theory, that,
no matter how social our
development may
be,
we exist
essentially
as
separate
individuals-with
wants, preferences, needs, abilities, pleasures,
and
pains-and any
social order has to
begin by respecting
these as
attaching
to us
determinately
and
singly,
as a
way
of
respecting
us.
Classical liberal social
theory gets
off the
ground
with
the observation that individuals so defined are in need
of
being
enticed-or threatened-into
enduring
and
stable association with one another.
(Scheman 1983, 231)
In Feminist Politics and Human
Nature,
Alison
Jaggar
characterizes
abstract individualism thus:
The
assumption
in this case is that human individuals
are
ontologically prior
to
society;
in other
words,
human
individuals are the basic constituents out of which social
groups
are
composed. Logically
if not
empirically,
human
individuals could exist outside a social
context;
their
essential
characteristics,
their needs and
interests,
their
capacities
and
desires,
are
given independently
of their
social context and are not created or even fundamental-
ly
altered
by
that context. This
metaphysical assumption
is sometimes called abstract individualism because it con-
ceives of human individuals in abstraction from
any
social
circumstances.
(Jaggar 1983, 28, 29)2
As I
interpret Scheman,
she is
asserting
that a
component
of abstract
individualism is the
assumption
that human
beings
do
not, by
our
nature,
desire
society
for its own sake.
Thus,
we "need to be enticed
or threatened into
enduring
and stable association." This is not
clearly
part
of
Jaggar's conception
of abstract
individualism,
but in another
passage
she does criticize "the liberal
assumption
that human individuals
are
essentially solitary,
with needs and interests that are
separate
from
if not in
opposition
to those of other individuals"
(Jaggar 1983, 40).
Jaggar
seems to hold that abstract individualism includes the
assump-
tion that human
beings'
most
important characteristics, including
some
67
hypatla
important needs, interests, capacities
and
desires,
are not caused
by
the
society
in which we
developed
as children or live as adults. Scheman
makes it clear that she thinks abstract individualism does not
deny
that
our
development
is social.
By
this I assume she means that abstract
individualism can
acknowledge
that the
needs, interests, capacities
and
desires which each individual has
are,
at least in
part,
caused
by
the
society
in which s/he
develops. Jaggar
does not
appear
to concede this
much to abstract
individualism,
since she
says
it
assumes, among
other
things,
that individuals' "essential characteristics . . . are
given
in-
dependently
of their social context and are not created or even fun-
damentally
altered
by
that context"
(see passage quoted above).
Later
she
says:
"If we
reject
abstract individualism and
suppose
instead that
human desires and interest are
socially constituted,
then we can
expect
that the members of
any society
are
likely
to learn to want
just
those
things
that the
society provides" (Jaggar 1983,43).
Scheman and
Jaggar
seem to
agree
that abstract individualism in-
cludes the
assumption
that human individuals can be conceived of out-
side a social context because their
characteristics, including
their
needs,
desires and
capacities,
can be
adequately
described without reference
to their social context. Note that this
assumption
differs from the claim
that our social context does not cause our most
important
character-
istics,
and it does not
imply
that claim.
Society might
cause us to have
many
characteristics that are neither
socially
defined nor
dependent
on
society
for their continuation in us. Nor does this
assumption imply
that we do not desire
society
as
part
of our
nature,
since we
might
desire
association with other individuals without
desiring
a
particular
kind
of association that could
only
be described
by
reference to a social con-
text, e.g.
we
might
all want to be members of some human
group.
The
assumption
that individuals can be conceived of and
adequately
describ-
ed without reference to our social context
does, however, imply
that
our social
positions
and
relationships
are not essential characteristics
of
people,
that we can be understood and identified
apart
from them.
How is this abstract
individualism,
distilled from
Jaggar
and
Scheman's
descriptions,
related to liberal feminism? Scheman
seems,
in the
following passage,
to believe that liberal feminism has some com-
mitment to abstract individualism as she has described
it,
and that this
commitment has
political implications
that are
threatening
to the status
quo
but also
wrong-headed.
The fear arises from a
recognition
of the fact that men
have been free to
imagine
themselves as
self-defining only
because women have held the intimate social world
together,
in
part by seeing
ourselves as
inseparable
from
68
susan wendell
it. The norms of
personhood,
which liberals would strive
to make as
genuinely
universal as
they
now
only pretend
to
be, depend
in fact on their not
being
so. ...
Thus,
the fear aroused
by
liberal feminism's ideal of
opening
to women the same sort of
autonomy previously
reserv-
ed for men
is,
I
think,
a real one.
There is
every
reason to react with alarm to the
pros-
pect
of a world filled with
self-actualizing persons pull-
ing
their own
strings, capable
of
guiltlessly saying
'no'
to
anyone
about
anything,
and
freely choosing
when to
begin
and end all their
relationships.
It is hard to see
how,
in such a
world,
children could be
raised,
the sick or
disturbed could be cared
for,
or
people
could know each
other
through
their lives and
grow
old
together.
Liberal feminism does have much in common with this
sort of 'human
potential'
individualistic
talk,
but it is
my
suspicion
that it was in reaction to the
deeper,
and more
deeply threatening, insights
and demands of feminism
that the current
vogue
for self-actualization
developed-
urging
us all back inside the
apolitical
confines of our
own heads and hearts and
guts. (Scheman 1983, 240-241)
Jaggar (1983, 42) argues
that liberal feminism
provides
an
implicit
challenge
to abstract individualism"
by focussing upon
the
ways
that
male
supremacy
molds women's
interests,
needs and wants. Ultimate-
ly, however,
she
interprets
this
implicit challenge
as an
inconsistency
of liberal feminist
theory,
which she sees as based
upon essentially
the
same view of human nature as modern non-feminist liberalism. Because
Jaggar (1983, 33,35)
views liberal feminism as
fundamentally
an at-
tempt
to
apply
liberal
principles
of
political equality
and individual liber-
ty
to women as well as
men,
and because she sees these
principles
as
deriving
from the liberal
conception
of human nature as she
interprets
it, understandably
she views liberal feminism as
having
some commit-
ment to the same
conception
of human nature.
According
to
Jaggar,
this
conception
includes not
only
abstract individualism but "normative
dualism,
. . . the view that what is
especially
valuable about human
beings
is their 'mental'
capacity
for
rationality" (1983, 40),
the belief
that this
capacity
is
possessed
in
approximately equal
measure
by
all
men
(or people),
and "the instrumental
interpretation
of
rationality
which holds that an individual can make a rational choice between a
variety
of means to a
given end,
but that one cannot
give
a rational
justification
for
any particular
rank
ordering
of ends"
(1983, 41).
I
will discuss the
question
of liberal feminism's commitment to these
69
hypatia
additional beliefs about human nature and values
shortly,
but let us
look first at whether liberal feminism is committed to abstract
individualism.
I see no reason to attribute commitment to abstract individualism
to liberal feminists unless
they express
such a commitment or it is im-
plied by
other
positions they adopt. Jaggar says
that the liberal
prin-
ciples
of
political equality
and individual
liberty
are derived from a view
of human nature which includes abstract
individualism,
and if
they
must
be,
then liberal feminists are committed to abstract individualism.
Therefore,
it is
important
to examine the
plausibility
of the claim that
these
principles important
to liberal feminists
imply
a commitment to
abstract
individualism,
and I will do this first.
Later,
I will
present
two
examples,
one historical and one
contemporary,
of feminists commit-
ted to the liberal ideals of
political equality
and individual
liberty
who
do not derive them from a view of human nature which includes abstract
individualism.
I take it that the liberal ideal of
political equality
includes
legal equali-
ty
and
equal rights
to
political participation
and that the liberal ideal
of individual
liberty
means
(roughly)
freedom of
thought, expression
and action within the limitation that we do not harm others. How
might
it be
argued
that a commitment to these ideals commits one to abstract
individualism? Let us consider a few
plausible possibilities.
It
might
be maintained that the
only philosophical justification
of
the liberal ideal of
political equality
is some view that human
beings
are
equally
valuable in virtue of some basic characteristics or
capacities
we all
share, regardless
of our social
backgrounds
and
present
social
contexts. Such a view seems to
imply
that societies do not create some
of the most
important
characteristics or
capacities
of human
beings,
since there are so
many
different kinds of human
society
and so
many
possible positions
in
them,
and the view
generalizes
over all human be-
ings. Thus,
this view
appears
to
imply Jaggar's
version of abstract
individualism.
However,
this view is not the
only possible justification
of the liberal
ideal of
political equality.
One
might
maintain that
political equality
is the best
system
for
helping people
to
protect
their own
interests,
or
that it makes the best
provision
for most
people's happiness
or self-
development (see
the discussion of J.S. Mill and Carol Gould
below),
whatever their
interests, happiness
or
self-development
consist in. One
might
claim that it has
proven dangerous
to the
interests, happiness
or
self-development
of human
beings
to allow others to make
major
decisions
affecting
their lives without their
representation
or consent.
Alternatively,
one
might
defend
political equality
between
any
two
groups (such
as men and
women)
on the
grounds
that there is no
prov-
70
susan wendell
en correlation between
membership
in one of the
groups
on the one
hand
and,
on the other
hand, capacity
to
participate
in
government,
to exercise
political rights
and to make decisions that
protect
the in-
terests of oneself and others. All of these alternative
justifications
are
compatible
with the assertion that there are no characteristics or
capacities
that all human
beings
share.
Indeed, they
are
compatible
with
the view that
many
of the
important
characteristics of individuals are
created
by
their societies and/or manifested in their social
relationships.
It
might
be maintained that the
only philosophical justification
for
political
freedom or individual
liberty
is some view that
all,
or at least
most,
human
beings
can best decide for themselves how to
develop
themselves or
accomplish
their own
well-being.
This view seems to im-
ply Jaggar's
version of abstract
individualism,
because it
implies
that
society
could not affect individuals so
profoundly
that
they
would not
be their own best
guardians, e.g. by causing
them to want
things
that
make them
unhappy
or
giving
them
persistent
false beliefs about the
consequences
of certain decisions.
However,
liberals can and
frequently
do concede that human
beings
are often bad at
ensuring
our own well-
being
or
development,
but
argue
that since
history
seems to indicate
that we are even worse at
ensuring
other
people's,
the best
arrange-
ment is individual
liberty
with the limitation that one does not harm
others or interfere with their similar
liberty.
Incidentally,
one does not have to hold that there is no
objective
basis
for
criticizing people's
values and
ways
of life
(within
the limitation
that
they
do not violate the
rights
of
others)
in order to defend individual
liberty. Jaggar
is
wrong
when she
says:
Individuals are entitled to set their own ends
and,
so
long
as
they
do not violate the
rights
of
others,
there are
in
principle
no limits to what
they may
want to do or
believe
they ought
to do. In
principle, therefore,
liberals
are committed to the belief that individuals are fulfilled
whenever
they
are
doing
what
they
have decided
freely
to do however
unpleasant, degrading
or
wrong
this
may
appear
to someone else.
(Jaggar 1983, 174)
One can hold
(as J.S. Mill
did)
that there is an
objective
basis for criticiz-
ing people's choices, persuading
them to live in certain
ways,
and even
teaching
them certain values at a
young age,
but that it is
wrong
to
interfere with the conduct of the lives of adults so
long
as
they
are not
harming
others. I
may
well believe that I
knowfor
certain what is best
for
you
and that I should under no circumstances force
you
to do it
or
prevent you
from
choosing something
I know is bad for
you.
This
commitment to non-interference
may
be based on the
political
concern
71
hypatia
that to interfere on behalf of
good opens
the door to interference on
behalf of
evil,
or on the belief that there are some
goods, perhaps
the
most
important ones,
that cannot be forced
upon people
or that are
only good
for us when we choose them. For
example,
I
may
be con-
vinced that a friend of mine should not
stay
with an alcoholic husband
who
constantly
mocks and belittles
her,
even
though
she believes that
her
staying
is best for both of
them,
but I
may
be
equally
convinced
that no one should force her to leave him and that it would not be
good
for her to be forced to leave him.
Perhaps
the liberal ideals of
political equality
and individual
liberty
are
supposed
to commit liberals to abstract individualism because
they
imply
that there
may
be
something important
to
safeguard politically
on behalf of individuals. If all the
important psychological
character-
istics of
individuals, including capacities
and
needs,
are
entirely
social-
ly
constructed or determined
by
their social
context,
then what basis
could there be for
protecting
the individual in and from
society?
If socie-
ty entirely
constructs the
individual,
then
society
cannot violate the in-
dividual, except perhaps by
means of its own internal
contradictions,
e.g., by creating
individuals who need certain conditions and then
depriving
them of those conditions. There can be no moral
objection
to a
highly
controlled
society,
indeed to
any society
that is
internally
consistent in this
respect,
unless one has a view of human nature that
includes the
possibility
that some
important
characteristics of in-
dividuals, especially capacities
or
needs,
are not
entirely socially
con-
structed. Yet
surely
this latter view of human nature is not abstract in-
dividualism,
or if it
is,
then most
people, including
most
socialists,
are
committed to abstract individualism. If some of our
capacities
or needs
are not
socially constructed,
the individuals
might
have some interests
to
protect
in and from
society.
This is not to assert that individuals
have no fundamental desire to be
part
of
society,
nor that none of their
important
characteristics are caused
by society,
nor that their most im-
portant
characteristics and interests can be described
independently
of
their social context.
Interestingly, Jaggar says:
Socialist feminism is committed to the basic Marxist
conception
of human nature as created
historically
through
the dialectical interrelation between human
biology,
human
society
and the
physical
environment.
(Jaggar 1983, 125)
If human nature is created in such a dialectical
relation, surely
we
can
place
the dialectic at risk
by allowing society
to
suppress
new natures
when
they emerge.
Since it is
unlikely
that
everyone
in a
society
will
72
susan wendell
change
in the same
way
at the same
time,
we cannot
provide
the condi-
tions
necessary
for
changes
in human nature unless we
give
sufficient
protection
to individual interests. This
problem
has been
recognized
in liberal
theory.
Some traditional liberal thinkers have tended to view
human nature as
essentially unchanging
in its
important characteristics,
but others
(like Mill)
have been concerned to
safeguard
the
possibility
of
change by
not
allowing any society,
no matter how
harmoniously
constructed in relation to
present
human
nature,
to have such control
over the lives of individuals that new natures could not
emerge, develop
and
spread.
Unless one believes that human nature will
change
no matter
how unusual individuals are
treated, anyone
who wants to allow for
the
possibility
of
major changes
in
humanity
must be concerned about
political liberty.
A concern to allow for
changes
in human nature
might
also lead one to conclude that
political equality
is a
good principle
to
adopt,
on the
grounds
that it
can,
in the
right conditions, promote
the
sort of
diversity
that leads to dialectical
movement,
and that to allow
some
people
more
political rights
than others
endangers
the freedom
to
change.
I have found no
good
reason to believe that the liberal ideals of
political equality
and individual
liberty
commit
everyone
who holds
them to abstract individualism.
Furthermore,
I can offer two
examples
of feminist
philosophers
committed to these liberal ideals who do not
derive them from a view of human nature which includes or
implies
abstract individualism.
Although
there is not room here to discuss or
quote
from their work at
length,
I think the reader will find these ex-
amples illuminating
and
relatively straightforward.
In The
Subjection of Women,
J.S. Mill
(1870)
derived the
necessity
for women's
political equality
with men from two convictions: that
women need
political equality
to
safeguard
their own interests3 and that
political inequality
interferes with the
happiness
of both women and
men.4 In
addition,
Mill
argued
that women must have
liberty
of action
because it is
necessary
to their
happiness,
both as a means to
fulfilling
their desires and because freedom of choice
is,
in
itself,
an
important
ingredient
of
happiness.
Mill did not hold the
components
of abstract individualism as
Jag-
gar
and Scheman describe them.
First,
he took the
position
that human
beings, by
our
nature,
desire association with others for its own sake
(Mill [1861] 1957, 40). Second,
in The
Subjection of Women,
Mill makes
one of his most
persuasive
and detailed
arguments
that
many
of
peo-
ple's important characteristics, including
their
capacities
and
desires,
are
shaped by
the
society
in which
they
are raised
(pp. 141-144).
In-
deed,
he states that we cannot know what the natural differences bet-
ween the sexes are until women and men are social
equals (pp. 38, 41,
73
hypatla
125). Thirdly, although
Mill did believe he knew some
things
about
human nature that were
relatively independent
of social
context,
such
as that
people
are
happier
when
they
can make
important
choices about
their own
lives,
he did not believe that all the most
important
characteristics of individuals could be described
independently
of social
context. There are at least two facts about individuals that were
vitally
important
to Mill and could not be described
independently
of social
context: how
strongly they
desire the welfare of others
([1861] 1957,
41-43)
and whether
they
can interact with others as
equals (1870, 81,
148-153).
For a modern
example,
consider the value framework offered
recently
by
Carol Gould in "Private
Rights
and Public Virtues:"
I think the
preeminent
value that
ought
to underlie the
feminist movement is
freedom,
that
is, self-development.
This arises
through
the exercise of
agency,
that
is, through
the exercise of the human
capacity
of free
choice,
in forms
of
activity
undertaken to realize one's
purposes
and to
satisfy
one's needs. Such
activity
is manifested both in
social interaction and in human work as a transforma-
tion of the natural world. On this
view,
each human be-
ing
is
regarded
as an
agent
with a
capacity
for free choice
and
self-development.
In this
respect,
all individuals are
equal.
Since
they
are all
equal
in this
way,
there is no
reason for one individual or for
any
class of individuals
to have more of a
right
to exercise this
capacity
for self-
realization than
any
other.
Thus,
there are no
grounds
for
making
differences in
gender
the basis for differen-
tial
rights
to self-realization. The
equal rights
of women
and men are thus
grounded
in the nature of human
agen-
cy
itself.
(Gould 1983, 3-18)
I do not know whether Gould would
identify
herself as a liberal
feminist,
but from the
equal right
to
self-development
she concludes
that we have an
equal right
to
participate
in the decisions of
govern-
ment and in decisions in the
economic,
social and cultural domains
(Gould 1983, 6,9). Thus,
like most modern liberals and most
feminists,
Gould extends her concern for
equality beyond
the traditional liberal
ideal of
political equality,
but she includes this kind of
political equali-
ty among
her
goals.
She also
says
that free choice is
necessary
to self-
development,
and that it
requires
the
privacy
of individuals and
"freedom to
arrange
their
personal
relations without the interference
of institutions or of the state"
(Gould 1983,
10. See also
pp. 5-6, 13.).
She therefore
supports
a version of the liberal ideal of individual
liberty.
74
susan wendell
By saying
that
self-development
is
grounded
in social interaction and
in
work,
Gould
implicitly rejects
the view that
society
does not create
our
important characteristics,
and the view that individuals can be ade-
quately
described without reference to our social context.
Furthermore,
she would not hold that human
beings
do not
by
nature desire
society,
because that would
imply
that we do not desire the conditions
necessary
for our
self-development,
which she
says
include "the full
development
of both
individuality
and
community" (Gould 1983, 17). Thus,
she does
not hold
any
of the
components
of abstract individualism as
Jaggar
and Scheman describe it. Both Mill and Gould illustrate the
possibility
of a commitment to liberal
principles
of
equality
and
liberty
which is
not based
upon
beliefs about human nature which include abstract
individualism.
Practical Forms of Individualism
Since liberal ideals of
political equality
and individual
liberty
need
not be derived from a view of human nature that includes abstract in-
dividualism and do not
imply
such a
view,
I see no reason to attribute
a belief in abstract individualism to liberal feminists unless
they express
such a belief or it is
implied by
other
positions they adopt.
But does
liberal feminism
promote
a kind of
practical individualism,
an in-
dividualistic
approach
to
living
like that ascribed to it
by
Scheman in
the
passage quoted above,
in which individuals are too absorbed
by
their own "self-actualization" to care about or take
any responsibility
for other
people's happiness?
Scheman's
description is,
I
think,
a caricature of both the human
potential
movement and liberal feminism's commitment to in-
dividualism. A commitment to the value of individuals and their self-
development,
or even to the ethical
priority
of individuals over
groups,
does not commit one to narcissism or
egoism
or to the belief that one's
own most
important
characteristics are somehow
independent
of one's
relationships
with other
people. Indeed,
liberals have
long
defended
liberty
and
equality partly
on the basis of their benefits to human rela-
tionships.
One of
Mary
Wollstonecraft's
([1833] 1967) major arguments
for women's education and
opportunity
to
develop
as
independent
in-
dividuals was
that,
with these
benefits,
women would be better wives
and mothers. In The
Subjection of Women,
Mill
(1870, 66-70, 170-174)
argued
that some of the worst
consequences
of
inequality
between the
sexes were in the
damage
done to
people's relationships
and the
poten-
tial unrealized in
them, especially
the
relationships
between women and
men and those
among
men. Ms.
magazine,
which is
very representative
of modern liberal
feminism,
contains a
large proportion
of articles
75
hypatla
which focus on
relationships, discussing
the
damage
done to them
by
inequality
and
presenting proposals
for
making
them more
egalitarian.
(See
Ms. Vol
XII.)
The liberal feminist tradition
hardly supports
the
narrow sort of individualism attributed to it
by
Scheman.
What, then,
is the content of liberal feminism's individualism? Cen-
tral to liberal feminism is the assertion that women are valuable in
themselves,
as individual human
beings,
and not
just
as sources of
pleasure
and
providers
of services for men and children. Note that one
can believe this and also
consistently
believe that all or
many
of the
most valuable characteristics of all
individuals, including women,
are
created and manifested in their
relationships
with
others,
but that
women's
relationships
have
placed
too much
emphasis
on their
pleasing
and
taking
care of others and not
enough
on their
engaging
in
equal
or
reciprocal
interactions.
In her
critique
of liberal feminism, The Radical Future
of
Liberal
Feminism,
Zillah Eisenstein makes a similar observation about the
function of individualism in feminist
theory:
Individualism
posits
the
importance
of
self-sovereignty
and
independence
as a universal claim and therefore can
be used to
justify
women's
independence
from men....
Feminism uses the individualistic stance
against
men
because men inhibit women's self and collective
develop-
ment;
it need not extend this vision to
premise
women's
isolation from one another. In other
words,
the liberal
conception
of an individual with
rights
and of women's
independence
from men are
important
contributions to
feminist
theory.
The
points
must be
distinguished
from
the
ideology
of liberal individualism that
posits
the
isolated, competitive
individual.
(Eisenstein 1981, 154)
The
possibility
of women's
coming
to value ourselves more as in-
dividuals with needs and desires of our own and less as nurturers and
sources of
pleasure
to others raises the
spectre
of women's
becoming
"selfish." This is
not,
I
think,
because selfishness would
necessarily
result,
but because
present
relations in our culture are built so
firmly
on the
assumption
that men will
indulge
in certain kinds of emotional
and
practical
selfishness and women will
aspire
to
pleasing
men and
acting
out the role of selfless nurturer.5 Insofar as women's identities
and interests are subordinated to the
family
and their
relationships
with
men,
men are able
(and encouraged)
to avoid
taking equal responsibility
for
childcare,
housework and other forms of service
work,
and for
maintaining
emotional
relationships. Thus,
it
may
be difficult for us
to
imagine
a woman's
giving up
the selfless role without
imagining
her
76
susan wendell
exchanging
it for the selfish
one,
but that is not the
only possibility.
A woman
may accept doing
her share of
nurturing
and
giving pleasure
but refuse to do more than her share. Such a
change appears
selfish
and
uncaring only
if we assume that men are
incapable
of
responding
by taking greater responsibility
for their own and their children's nur-
turance and emotional
life,
i.e. for
doing
their share.
The
possibility
that women
might
no
longer identify
ourselves
primarily
as
nurturers,
sources of
pleasure
and maintainers of relation-
ships
is
very threatening
to the
present
division of labour and
respon-
sibility.
This
might
account for the
strong
resistance liberal feminists
have
always
encountered
(from
men and
women)
when
they attempt
to
apply
liberal
principles
of
liberty
and
equality
to
women,
even where
men have
adopted
these
principles
for themselves. The
hopeful pros-
pect
this
possibility presents-of widening
the
sphere
of one's
identity,
interest and
responsibility
and of
valuing
one's own
experience
as
highly
as that of
others-may
also account for liberal feminism's
popularity
among
North American
women,
since liberal feminism
puts
a
great
deal
of
emphasis
on women's value as individuals. This
hypothesis
is an in-
teresting
alternative to the
theory
that liberal feminism is more
popular
in North America than socialist or radical feminism because of its
greater apparent compatibility
with
capitalist ideology.
One
might
think
(as
Jaggar [1983, 193-194] does)
that since modern
liberal feminism advocates
equality
of
opportunity
it is committed to
a meritocratic model of
society
and a
competitive
form of
individualism,
in which each of us is
pitted against
the others in
striving
for our own
narrow self-interest.
Although
it is
probably
true that some liberal
feminists hold these three commitments as a
package,
and
although
it has been tied to them
historically, equality
of
opportunity
is a
broadly
applicable political goal
that is not
necessarily
attached to either
meritocracy
or
competition.
Equality
of
opportunity
is a
promising
solution to a certain kind of
problem
of distribution. When desire for
something
exceeds the
supply
of it and need is not an
appropriate criterion,
or not
appropriately
the
sole
criterion,
for
sharing it, equality
of
opportunity may
be an excellent
solution. This sort of
problem
does not arise
only
in
capitalist
or other
competitive
economic
systems.
Some
things
cannot and others should
not be distributed
equally,
or even on the basis of
need,
such as the
job
of
surgeon
or the use of electron
microscopes
or the finest musical
instruments.
Any society
is
likely
to confront this kind of distribution
problem,
and
equality
of
opportunity
is a
way
of
ensuring
that those
who are
capable
of
doing
a
job
well or
making very good
use of a scarce
resource will be chosen to do so. There need be no
competition involved,
since distribution can be based on
demonstrating
a certain level of
pro-
77
hypatia
ficiency,
and a
society
can commit itself to
providing
the
appropriate
work or the scarce resource for
everyone
who attains that level.
When
authority
or
power
(and sometimes
wealth)
are the scarce
resources distributed
by equality
of
opportunity,
a so-called
meritocracy
results. The name is somewhat
deceptive,
since merit in the sense of
moral desert is
frequently
not involved.6 In
any case, many people
who
support equality
of
opportunity
as a
way
of
creating
and
selecting
doc-
tors, scholars, plumbers,
musicians and childcare workers would not
also
support
it as a
way
of
distributing political authority
and
power
or wealth. If wealth were distributed
according
to need and
political
power
were
shared,
let us
say by
means of
participatory democracy,
equality
of
opportunity
to do other
things
would not
produce
a
meritocracy,
nor would it have to foster a
competitive
form of
individualism.7
Thus,
the
political implications
of
equality
of
opportunity
lie in the
answer to:
opportunity
to do what? If the answer is: to
acquire wealth,
then
creating equality
of
opportunity
amounts to
cleaning up capitalism
so that it is sex-blind
(or race-blind,
or
whatever, depending
on whose
opportunities
are to be
equalized),
and we do not know if or how this
would be
possible.
If the answer is: to
develop
as full a
range
of our
capacities
as
possible,
then
bringing
about
equality
of
opportunity may
require creating
an
egalitarian
socialist
society.
There
are,
of
course,
many possible
answers in addition to these two rather extreme ones.
However,
even under some conservative answers to:
opportunity
to do
what?, creating equality
of
opportunity
seems to
require major changes
in the structure and distribution of work and the distribution of
resources.
Thus,
as
Jaggar (1983, 194) points out, equality
of
oppor-
tunity
can be a
political goal
which
appears safely
reformist and turns
out to have rather radical
implications.
I will return to this
subject
later.
At this
point,
I
hope only
to have shown that
calling
for some kinds
of
equality
of
opportunity,
for
example, equal opportunity
for women
to
engage
in all forms of
training
and work
(a popular
demand of liberal
feminists),
does not commit liberal feminists to either a meritocratic
model of
society
or a
competitive
form of individualism.
Mind over
Body,
Reason over Emotion?
Liberal feminists are often criticized for
adopting
mainstream,
male-
biased
values,
for
assuming
in their demands for
equal
education, equal
rights
and
equality
of
opportunity
that what is most worth
having
and
doing
is what men think worth
having
and
doing. Jaggar says:
Liberal feminists assume that most individuals are like-
ly
to discover fulfillment
through
the exercise of their
78
susan wendell
rational
capacities
in the
public
world and
consequently
these feminists
emphasize
the
importance
of
equality
of
opportunity
in that world.... Liberal feminist
assump-
tions rest on a devaluation of women's traditional work
and indeed of the labor of most
working people. (Jaggar
1983, 188)
Jaggar particularly emphasizes
the fact that the liberal tradition
valued individuals for their
capacity
to
reason,
and she
places
liberal
feminism
firmly
in the tradition which values the rational over the emo-
tional and the mind over the
body.8
Much has been written about the
connection between that
system
of values and the
oppression
of
women,
whom men have tended to
identify
with the emotions and the
body.9
If liberal feminism is committed to that value
system,
it
might
be a
very
serious force for conservatism.
My
own
impression
is that liberal
feminists are divided on this
issue,
and to understand how
they
are
divided,
it is
necessary
to look at various
approaches
to that value
system.
A
way
of
looking
at the world which divides human faculties into
reason/emotion or
mind/body,
and human activities into rational/
emotional or
mental/physical,
and then
places greater
value on
reason,
the mind and rational and mental activities can
be,
and has
been, criticiz-
ed on two bases.
First,
one
might argue
that it is artificial and inac-
curate to divide human faculties and
many
human activities in this
way,
that reason and
emotion,
mind and
body
are so
intermingled
and in-
tegrated
in most human activities that such a division is
rarely applicable
and
usually
obscures the
complexity
of real
people
and their behaviour.
10
Second, one
might argue that, having
made these
distinctions,
it is
wrong
to value reason more than
emotion,
mind more than
body,
the
rational and mental more than the emotional and
physical,
since all
are
equally necessary
to human survival and the richness of human
experience.
In
addition, one
might,
without
necessarily challenging
the
accuracy
of its divisions or the wisdom of its
placing
value where it
does, argue
that this traditional
system
of values has been
misapplied
to women
and their activities. Liberal feminists have
long
maintained that women
have the same
capacity
to reason as do
men, are no more emotional
by
nature and no more determined
by
our
bodily processes.
This
Jag-
gar acknowledges. However,
liberal
feminists, including
Wollstonecraft
and
Mill, have also
argued
that
many
of women's traditional
activities,
especially
childcare and
management
of a
household, require
reason
and the exercise of the mind to a far
greater degree
than men
usually
recognize, and, as Mill
(1870, 105-111) claimed, confront us with over-
79
hypatia
whelining
evidence of women's
equal,
if not
superior,
mental
capacities.
Thus,
even if one
accepts
(as Mill
essentially does)
or fails to
challenge
this traditional
system
of
values,
one is not committed to
devaluing
women's traditional work or the skilled labour of most
working peo-
ple.
Of
course,
most women and
many
men also
perform many
relative-
ly
unskilled tasks
(such
as
washing
floors and
collecting garbage),
and
in this value
system
such tasks are not valued in
themselves, although
they may
be valued for their
necessary
results. Notice that this view
does not
imply
that
people
who
perform
a lot of unskilled labour should
be valued less than those who do
not,
nor that
they
should be
paid less,
nor even that
they
should have to do this
work,
since someone who
holds this view
might
also think that unskilled labour should be
phased
out wherever
possible (without putting people
out of
work)
or shared
equally by everyone.
Where do liberal feminists stand
among
all these
possible positions?
One
thing
is certain: ever since Mill there have been
many
liberal
feminists
insisting upon
the value of women's work in the home. Recent-
ly
in
Canada,
liberal feminists have been
prominent among
those call-
ing
for
pensions
for homemakers and reform of the
marriage
and
divorce laws to
acknowledge
the financial contribution to the
family
of women's work at home.
Clearly,
not all liberal feminists
accept
the
de-valuing
of women's traditional work.
However,
it is not clear on
the basis of these facts alone whether
they accept
the
general system
of values we have been
discussing. Fortunately,
other evidence is
available. In their concern to eliminate sex-role
conditioning
in child-
raising
and education and to
stop
the
stereotyping
of
adults,
liberal
feminists have neither
simply
striven to raise
girls
more as
boys
have
been raised nor
simply
asserted that women have
traditionally
male
characteristics.
They
have also striven to
give boys
some of the advan-
tages
of
girls'
traditional
upbringing, notably permission
to have and
express
tender and vulnerable emotions and
encouragement
to behave
in
nurturing ways
towards
others,
and
they
have affirmed the
legitimacy
of men's
having traditionally
female
characteristics, especially
emotional
expressiveness
and
competence
in housework and
caring
for children.
1
Their
taking
this
position
on sex roles shows that
many
liberal feminists
recognize
that there are virtues in both
traditionally
female and tradi-
tionally
male
characteristics,
and it also shows that
they
do not de-value
the emotions or women's traditional labour to
anything
like the
degree
that the culture in
general
has de-valued them.
Some liberal feminists
denigrate housework,
childcare and
many
of
women's traditional activities and
characteristics,
and want
only
a
chance to succeed in a
traditionally
male arena of
activity.
For that
matter,
some Marxist and radical feminists have similar attitudes and
80
susan wendell
ambitions. This is
perfectly
understandable when we consider how
many
women do traditional work because
they
had little or no
choice,
how
easy
it is to become
trapped
in
it,
and how little
recognition
or reward
it
usually
receives. We do not have to attribute their
point
of view to
the
value-system
of the liberal
tradition,
but even if we do attribute
it to
that,
it is clear that
many
other liberal feminists have not
just
ac-
cepted
that value
system
but have
challenged
it.
Liberal feminists' concern to eliminate sex discrimination and
gain
equality
of
opportunity
for women to
engage
in
traditionally
male ac-
tivities need not arise from a belief that these activities are
likely
to
be more
fulfilling
for
everyone
than
traditionally
female activities. It
frequently
arises from the belief that
people should,
as far as
possible,
get
to do the work
they
want to do and are
capable
of
doing,
and that
no one should have to settle for work s/he is not
challenged by
or
dislikes
doing.
As Mill
(1870, 186) said,
"If there is
anything vitally
important
to the
happiness
of human
beings,
it is that
they
should relish
their habitual
pursuit."
The Public and The Private
-
The
Pornography
Issue
One area in which liberal feminism has
clearly expanded
the outlook
of liberalism and
improved upon
traditional liberal
theory
is in draw-
ing
the lines between the
public
and
private spheres
of life and between
legitimate
and
illegitimate
interference
by
the State. That those lines
cannot
simply
be drawn at the
family,
because individuals sometimes
need the
protection
of the
public (or
the
State)
from members of their
own
families,
has been
implicitly
or
explicitly recognized by
liberal
feminists since Mill. As
Jaggar (1983, 198-199) points out,
liberal
feminist
practice
has tended to diminish the
private sphere, although
liberal feminists tend to retain a theoretical commitment to the
right
to
privacy.
Anita Allen
(1983) argues
that such a commitment
may
be
very
valuable to
women,
and I would like to
point
out here that a com-
mitment to
privacy
and individual
liberty
does not
necessarily place
liberal feminists in
opposition
to other feminists on one of the
major
feminist issues of our
time-pornography.
Jaggar says:
The liberal feminist commitment to
liberty
and the in-
violability
of
private
life
places
liberal feminists
among
most other feminists in their
opposition
to restraints on
contraception, abortion, homosexuality,
etc. The same
commitment, however, separates
liberal feminists from
most other feminists on the issue of
pornography
....
Pornography presents
a
special problem
for liberal
81
hypatla
feminists because of liberalism's historic commitment to
freedom of
expression
and the
right
to
privacy.
Liberal
feminists
may
be
'personally'
or
'privately'
revolted or
titillated
by pornography,
but
they
have no
'political'
grounds
for
opposing
it unless it can be shown to have
a direct causal connection with the violation of women's
rights. (Jaggar 1983, 180)
I have
argued
elsewhere at
length (Wendell 1983)
that a
very good
case for
restricting
the
display
and
availability
of
pornography
that
por-
trays
violence and coercion and the
production
and distribution of
por-
nography
that is created with children or
by
other coercive means can
be made on the basis of Mill's
principle
of
liberty
alone. Mill's
princi-
ple
allows us to interfere with
expression
when it causes serious harm
to
others, provided
that the harm cannot be
prevented by acceptable
means other than
restricting
the
expression.
I do not know
exactly
what
Jaggar
means
by
"a direct causal connection with the violation of
women's
rights,"
but even
though
we have
relatively
little information
now about
pornography's
effects on
people's behaviour,
we can see
that unrestricted
production, display
and
availability
of
pornography
causes serious direct harms that cannot be
prevented by acceptable
means other than
placing
restrictions on it.
Furthermore,
restriction
by
the State is not the
only possible
form of
opposition
to
pornography.
Many people
committed to freedom of
expression passionately
hate the
messages
about
women,
men and
sexuality
that most
(even non-violent)
pornography conveys, just
as
they
hate
many messages
about other
aspects
of life
conveyed by popular
culture and the
media,
and
yet they
believe that it is better to
oppose
such
messages
with alternative
messages
and with education that
promotes
a critical attitude toward
pornography
than to involve the law. Liberals have other
political
commitments
besides their concern for individual
freedom,
and
they
are not
usually
reluctant to use that freedom to
promote
their own views about how
to treat oneself and other
people morally.
Liberal Feminism's Political Commitments and
Women's Liberation
Women and individualism
I have said that liberal feminism is committed to
promoting
women's
recognition
of their own value as individuals and
public
and
private
recognition
of that value
by
others. I have
argued
that this does not
mean that liberal feminism is
encouraging
women to become
selfish,
to seek their own interest without concern for other
people's
welfare.
Yet
might
not selfishness be the
practical
outcome of
promoting
82
susan wendell
women's
greater
value as
individuals, especially
in a
society
which bases
men's value so much
upon competition?
We cannot dismiss the
possibility
that as women become more con-
cerned with our value as
individuals,
we will lose the
special
moral em-
phasis
on care and
responsibility
that Carol
Gilligan (1982)
has iden-
tified in her studies of sex differences in
approaches
to moral
problems.
Interestingly,
some of
Gilligan's subjects
seem to
regard
the idea of
doing justice
to their own
needs,
desires and
rights
as
virtually
taboo.12
In
placing emphasis upon
care and
responsibility
for
others, they
seem
to
forget
that
they
too are
people
with needs and
rights. Surely
there
is now
good
reason to believe that
they forget
or avoid this because
girls
and women are
taught
that
pleasing
and
taking
care of others is
what
gives
them
worth,
and that a
good
woman is a selfless woman.
Gilligan (1982, 149) says,
and I
agree,
that mature moral
development
for women involves an
integration
of the
concept
of
rights
and a
recogni-
tion of their own
rights,
which will enable women "to consider it moral
to care not
only
for others but for themselves." What
many
women
are
striving
for is a
balanced, complex interplay
between concern for
oneself and concern for
others,
which includes the
understanding
that
one's own welfare is not and cannot be
independent
of the welfare of
other
people.
A
way
of
thinking
and
living
that
integrates
self-value
and care for others is not
easy
to achieve in a culture that
constantly
presents
a
dichotomy
between selfishness and self-sacrifice.
However,
asserting
the worth of women as individuals at least creates the
possibili-
ty
that we will move toward such an
integration,
while
leaving
women
with self-sacrifice out of fear that we will switch over to selfishness is
too
hopeless
a solution for me to
accept.
Women's
developing greater
individualism is not
only
in our
per-
sonal interest but also
politically important
at this
time,
as
many
socialist
and radical
feminists,
as well as liberal
feminists, recognize.
Women
are not
likely
to demand
rights
and freedoms
they
think
they
do not
deserve. Nor are women who feel that their own worth comes from
taking
care of others
likely
to demand that men take
equal responsibility
for the welfare of
children,
the sick and the old.
Self-sacrifice and
over-identifying
with others also interferes with
women's abilities to work
together,
to
co-operate
in
opposing oppressive
social institutions and
creating
alternatives to them. Too often we
carry
self-sacrifice into the women's movement when we have
stopped
sacrificing
ourselves for men but have not learned to take our own needs
and desires
seriously.
Such self-sacrifice is not a
gift freely given;
it car-
ries with it the same load of resentment and unrealistic
expectations
of reward that were there when it was
given
to men. In
addition,
if
women in feminist
political
and service
organizations try
to take too
83
hypatla
much
responsibility
for other women's
welfare,
we make it difficult
for them to find the
strength
and skill to take care of themselves. Then
the
helpers
exhaust
themselves,
and those
they
set out to
help
continue
to feel weak and
helpless.
In
political practice
as
elsewhere,
there is
not a
simple
choice between
being
selfless and
being
selfish. It is
possi-
ble to
respect
one's own needs and desires while also
taking
a keen in-
terest in other
people's
and
remaining willing
to make some
sacrifices,
if
necessary,
for them.
Learning
to strike this balance is the basis of
co-operation,
and for most
women,
it means
giving up
the moral ideal
of self-sacrifice.
Equality
of
opportunity
I have
argued
that
equality
of
opportunity
is not a
goal just
for com-
petitive
economic and social
circumstances,
and that its
political
im-
plications depend
on the answer to:
Opportunity
to do what? In-
terestingly,
if one
gives
some rather conservative answers to this
ques-
tion and
advocates,
for
example, equality
of
opportunity
to
gain
prestige, power
and
wealth,
one finds that
achieving
it would
require
major changes
in North American
societies,
as
Jaggar points
out:
In
identifying
barriers to women's
achievement,
liberal
feminists have become
increasingly
aware of 'internal'
as well as 'external' barriers.
They
have seen how the total
environment of male
supremacy shapes
women's
percep-
tions of
themselves;
molds women's
interests,
needs and
wants;
and limits women's
ambition,
determination and
perseverence.
Liberal feminists conclude that
equality
of
opportunity requires equality
in children's
early
educa-
tion and environment.
(Jaggar 1983, 194)
I think it can be
shown,
and I have
argued
elsewhere
(Wendell 1976),
that
creating
even
equal employment opportunity
for women and men
requires giving girls
and
boys
the same
early
education in the follow-
ing respects:
a)
Girls and
boys
must be
given
the same
(or equally good)
condi-
tions for
developing
basic skills and
knowledge.
b)
Girls and
boys
must be
given
the same information about the
jobs
and roles available to them.
c)
Girls and
boys
must be
given
the same
(or equally good)
means
of
acquiring
whatever
special
skills and
knowledge
are
necessary
to all
the
professions.
d)
Girls and
boys
must be
given
the same
(or equally good)
condi-
tions for
physical development.
84
susan wendell
e)
Girls and
boys
must be treated the same in the matter of their
psychological development;
i.e. neither sex should be influenced more
than the other to
develop
or not to
develop particular psychological
traits or desires.
Jaggar
draws attention to the fact that liberal feminists could
argue
for state control of
every aspect
of life on the basis that it would be
needed to create all the
necessary
educational conditions for
equality
of
opportunity,
and such a
position would,
of
course,
be
incompatible
with liberal feminism's commitment to individual
liberty.
On the other
hand,
liberal feminists could see the creation of these conditions as a
long-term project
to be
accomplished partly by
state
control, e.g.
over
public
educational
institutions,
and
partly by
such
personal
and
political
efforts as
persuading parents
and other adults to
change
their child-
raising practices, informing young people
of their choices and
encourag-
ing
them to
develop
their
capacities,
and
drawing
attention
(especially
in the
media)
to a wide
range
of
possible
role-models.
Also essential to
reaching
even such a modest
goal
as
equal employ-
ment
opportunity
is
ending defacto
sex discrimination in
higher
educa-
tion, training, hiring
and
promotion
for all
occupations.
Liberal
feminists have
sought
the
help
of the State in
preventing
de
facto
discrimination
by legislation against
it and
implementation
of affir-
mative action
programmes.
3
Yet discrimination takes so
many forms,
some of them
quite subtle,
and can occur at so
many points
in a
per-
son's
career,
that it cannot be
completely prevented
so
long
as sex
pre-
judice
still exists.
Ending
sex
prejudice requires
both
putting
an end
to sex
stereotyping,
i.e. to
attributing
and
assigning
characteristics and
behaviour to individuals on the basis of
sex,
and
changing
the value
system
that undervalues the
activities,
achievements and characteristics
of women or associated with women. As I have
argued
elsewhere
(Wendell 1980),
both
steps
are
required
to
bring
about the end of sex
discrimination.
Having
started with the
relatively
conservative
goal
of
creating equal
employment opportunity
for
women,
we find that to achieve it we must
bring
about two
major
social reforms:
giving girls
and
boys
the same
early
education and
ending
sex
prejudice,
which in turn will
require
major
redistribution of resources and vast
changes
in consciousness.
Other reforms
may
also be
necessary
to
achieving
this
goal.
For exam-
ple, many
women are
handicapped
in
reaching
their
employment goals
by having
to work a double
day
because of the
unequal
division of
labour at home.
Thus,
it
may
be
necessary
either to
get
men to take
equal responsibility
for childcare and
housework,
or to socialize the
labour women do at home so that it does not have to be the
respon-
sibility
of individual
women,
in order to create
equal employment op-
85
hypatla
portunity.
Most of the more
general
answers we could
give
to
'oppor-
tunity
to do what?,' such as
opportunity
to
develop
one's full
capacities
or
opportunity
to have both
satisfying
work and a
happy family life,
would
certainly
seem to
require
an end to women's double
work-day
and fair redistribution of
responsibility
for childcare and housework.
Equality
of
opportunity
turns out to be a more radical
political goal
than it
might
at first
appear.
It is
notoriously
difficult to assess the
long-term consequences
of
working
for social reforms. In "Feminism: Reform or Revolution?"
Sandra
Harding (1976),
who identifies herself as a socialist
feminist,
argues convincingly
that the reform/revolution
dichotomy
is not a
useful
guide
to
political actions,
and that those of us committed to re-
making society
should assess reforms as
strategies
toward the feminist
goal
of a
non-oppressive society.
Charlotte
Bunch,
who defines herself
as a
"radical,"
in that she is committed to fundamental
changes
in socie-
ty,
and who
says,
"The
primary goal
is women
gaining power
in order
to eliminate
patriarchy
and create a more humane
society" (Bunch 1981,
196),
offers five criteria for
evaluating
reforms on the basis of their
contribution to that
goal: "1)
Does this reform
materially improve
the
lives of
women,
and if
so,
which
women,
and how
many? 2)
Does it
build an individual woman's
self-respect, strength,
and confidence?
3)
Does it
give
women a sense of
power, strength,
and
imagination
as a
group
and
help
build structures for further
change? 4)
Does it educate
women
politically, enhancing
their
ability
to criticize and
challenge
the
system
in the future?
5)
Does it weaken
patriarchal
control of
society's
institutions and
help
women
gain power
over them?"
Of the three
major
reforms
required
to
bring
about
equality
of
employment opportunity,
I find
giving girls
and
boys
the same
early
education the most difficult to assess
along
the lines
Harding
and Bunch
suggest.
This is because the
consequences
of this
particular
reform de-
pend
so
heavily
on our success in
dealing
with the kind of sex
prejudice
which undervalues women's traditional
activities,
achievements and
characteristics. If this
prejudice, essentially
the
value-system
discussed
on
pages 78-81,
has a
great
deal of influence in the
process
of
bringing
about the same
early
education for
girls
and
boys,
that reform is
likely
to consist of
trying
to raise
girls
the
way boys
are now raised
(with
all
of its vices as well as its
virtues)
without
trying
to
give boys,
and
girls,
any
of the
good
elements of
girls' present upbringing. Placing equal
value on women and the
strengths
and virtues
traditionally
associated
with women is essential if this liberal reform is not to result in the in-
creased masculinization of all
society,
which
would,
I
think,
be un-
acceptable
to most socialist and radical feminists as well as to
many
liberal feminists.
86
susan wendell
Ending
sex discrimination and
prejudice
are
long-term goals
that sure-
ly
must be an essential
part
of
anyone's plans
to create a more humane
and less
oppressive society.
Liberals
might
be
criticized, by
those who
want to
bring
about a
society
in which the State is either
unnecessary
or
utterly transformed,
for
enlisting
the State in the
fight
to end sex
discrimination and undermine
prejudice.
Yet it is not clear
why
we
should not enlist the State's
help now,
no matter what we want or believe
its
long-term
fate to be. Liberal feminists want the State to
help bring
about
changes
in behaviour and consciousness that
they hope
will
become
virtually permanent, passed
from
generation
to
generation
as
sex
prejudice
dies
out; eventually,
it is
hoped,
the State's involvement
will have become
unnecessary,
because sex
prejudice
will have become
a rare
eccentricity.
Ending
women's double
work-day by
fair re-distribution of
respon-
sibility
for childcare and housework and the other labour women
per-
form at home is
surely
a
goal
that meets both
Harding's
and Bunch's
criteria for
good
reform. In
fact,
it is
high
on the
agenda
of most radical
and socialist feminists.
Many
would
argue
that it is not
possible
to
achieve it in a
capitalist economy.
If that is the
case,
then liberal
feminists committed to kinds of
equality
of
opportunity
that
require
ending
the double
work-day
and also committed to
capitalism
will have
to choose between them. I
think, however,
it is an
open question
whether
this '1 or
any
of the other reforms
supported by
liberal feminism can
be achieved within
capitalism,
a
question
which can be answered
only
by trying.
Equality
of
legal rights
Liberal feminists have
long
been committed to
achieving
women's
equality
with men in
legal rights.
This commitment is
frequently
criticiz-
ed
by
socialist and radical feminists on three
grounds. First, equality
under the law is far from sufficient to
guarantee
that women will not
be
oppressed,
even
by
the
legal system,
since access to freedom and
justice
is determined in
large part by
access to social and economic
power.
Most liberals are also aware of the
insufficiency
of
legal equality
to end women's
oppression,
if
only because,
as
dejure class,
race and
sex discrimination has been reduced over the
past
150
years
in the
English-speaking world,
the
power
and
pervasiveness
of de
facto
discrimination have been revealed.
Second, legal equality
can be used
to cover
up
or rationalize other kinds of
inequality, including defacto
discrimination and the more subtle
ways
in which women's choices are
limited. "After
all,"
it can be
said,
"there are no rules
preventing
them
from
doing anything they want,
so women must not be
trying
hard
87
hypatia
enough,
or
perhaps
women don't
really
have what it takes to
get
what
they
want."
Third,
since
many
socialist and radical feminists are com-
mitted to
abolishing
or
transforming
the State
completely,
it seems to
them futile and
perhaps
a
betrayal
of their ultimate
goals
to work for
legal
reforms.
These
objections
to
working
for
legal equality
must be
weighed
against
its benefits. The immediate benefits to individual women of
moves toward
legal equality
have been substantial. For
example,
re-
cent reforms of the
marriage
laws in some Canadian
provinces
have
guaranteed
for the first time that women who have contributed their
labour to
making
the
family
farm or business successful will not lose
everything
if the
marriage
breaks down. A
good argument
can be made
that most
legal
reforms have not
produced
the beneficial effects on in-
dividual women's lives that were
expected
of
them,'5
but we must
ap-
preciate
what
legal equality
can do for some women when we see them
winning
back
jobs they
lost because of sexual
harassment, winning
monetary compensation
because of
wage discrimination,
and
winning
the
right
to be considered on an
equal
basis with men for
jobs
from
which
they
were
previously
excluded.'6
Nevertheless,
I
suspect
that the
greatest
benefits of
legal equality
are
not the immediate benefits to individuals but the
long-term
contribu-
tions that both the
public struggles
for
legal equality
and the
recogni-
tion of
principles
of
equality
in the laws of the land have made toward
changing people's
beliefs and attitudes. Consider the
long struggle
(which
is not
yet over)
to reform the
rape laws,
the enforcement methods
by
which
they
were
applied,
and the treatment of
rape
cases in the
courts. Some
rape
victims have
surely
benefitted
directly
from im-
provements
in the
way they
are treated
by
the
police
and
prosecutors,
and from
changes
in court
procedures
and standards of
appropriate
evidence.
Rape
victims used to be
(and many
still
are)
on trial for their
chastity
and sexual
morality,
as
though
there were a
presumption
that
they
were more
responsible
for the actions of an accused
rapist
than
he was. In
many places
in Canada and the United
States,
the
legal
situa-
tion of the
rape
victim has
improved considerably,
but still
everyone
admits that
relatively
few
rapists
are convicted
(an
estimated 2% in
Canada),'7
and even fewer serve a
significant prison
term.
However,
consider the enormous
improvement
in
awareness, especially among
women,
of the realities of
rape, compared
to most
people's
attitudes
and beliefs about it fifteen
years ago.
At least some of that
improve-
ment has come from the
public
efforts to reform the
legal system. People
have
begun discussing
the issue of
responsibility openly,
and more and
more victims are
refusing
to
accept guilt
and shame for
having
been
raped.
When the law
supports
them in its
judgment, by changes
in the
88
susan wendell
criminal code and in the
opinions expressed by judges, people begin
to re-examine attitudes
they
took for
granted.18
The law is a
public
ex-
pression
of what behaviour is
acceptable
or
unacceptable
in a
society.
For
many citizens, unfortunately,
it is the standard of
morality;
few
people
will condemn actions the law condones. In most
matters,
the
law is a weak tool for
forcing people
to behave in the
ways
we want
them
to,
but I see the
law,
and the
public struggle
to reform the
legal
system,
as
powerful
forces for
changing
consciousness.
Those who fear that
obtaining legal equality
will fool women into
believing
that we are the social and economic
equals
of men are under-
estimating
women
and,
I
think,
not
paying enough
attention to the
historical evidence.
Surely history
shows that
oppressed groups
do not
tend to be satisfied with
legal equality,
and that
obtaining
it
helps
to
uncover the other sources of
oppression.
Whatever
ideological
uses the
dominant
groups
can make of
legal equality, they
have
hardly
succeeded
in
convincing everyone
that the other
aspects
of
oppression
are illu-
sions.19
Education and reform
The
major purpose
of some and the most effective result of
many
liberal feminist reforms seems to be
changing
women's and men's beliefs
and
feelings
about
ourselves,
other
people
and the nature of our inter-
actions with one another. It
is,
of
course,
a liberal tradition to
hope
to
improve
social and economic conditions in
large part by educating
individuals. Behind this tradition lies a faith in the moral
potential
of
human nature. The reformer who counts on the
efficacy
of education
believes that when
people
know the nature and causes of their own and
other
people's unnecessary suffering,
and when their
ability
to care for
themselves and others is
cultivated, they
will be moved to create a bet-
ter
society.
This view of human nature is
very
different from the
pic-
ture,
often attributed to
liberals,
of
psychologically
isolated individuals
pursuing
their narrow
self-interest,
but it is at least as much a
part
of
the liberal tradition. It is also a view
shared, implicitly
or
explicitly,
by
most
feminists,
whose
strategies rely heavily
on the
power
of
chang-
ing people's
beliefs and
feelings.
Feminist
Strategies
What are the alternative
strategies open
to feminists? We can con-
vince women and men to end our
oppressive
relations or coerce them
somehow into
ending
them. Liberal feminists
accept
and even advocate
a certain amount of coercion
by
the
State,
for
example,
to
prevent
sex
discrimination. In
practice,
in
representative democracies,
State coercion
89
hypatia
requires
the
support
or tacit
acceptance
of a
majority
or
near-majority
of the
people,
and most liberal feminists remain committed to the
prin-
ciple
of
majority rule, modified,
of
course, by guaranteed minority
rights.
It is also
noteworthy
that however much socialist and radical
feminists
may
believe that consciousness is determined
by
material con-
ditions and
power relations,
few are
willing
to advocate a
minority's
changing
them
by coercing
the
majority, except perhaps
when lives are
in immediate
danger.
Feminists tend to shun this
strategy
for two
reasons: women have too often been
betrayed
and victimized
by
vanguard politics,
in which a
minority
decides and enacts what it thinks
best for the
majority;
and we are
suspicious
of coercion and violence
as means to a
non-oppressive society.
The reasons for these two at-
titudes are too numerous to discuss
here,
but I think
anyone
familiar
with the literature of the women's movement would
agree
that the at-
titudes are
very strong
and
widespread among
feminsts.20
If coercion of the
majority
is to be
avoided,
then
changing
con-
sciousness is the immediate basis for feminist
strategy.
We must con-
vince the
majority
of
people
to
change oppressive institutions,
unfair
distributions of resources and
power,
and the other social
inequities
which cause
unhappiness
and
corrupt
our
personal
relations. The
ques-
tion then becomes: What are the best
ways
to
change
consciousness?
It is still an
open question. Certainly
no one knows
enough
about it
yet
to
say
that
working
for the reforms liberal feminists advocate is
not one of the most effective
strategies
toward
ending
women's
op-
pression
in North America.
Qualifications
For reasons too numerous and
complex
to discuss
here,
I find liberal
feminist
analyses
of the nature of women's
oppression
and the condi-
tions which
perpetuate
it
inadequate. Furthermore,
I am committed
to ultimate
goals
that most liberal feminists would
reject, especially
end-
ing private ownership
of the means of
production.
In
addition,
liberal
feminist
principles
are
rarely applied
on a
global scale,
and it seems
clear that much of the
oppression
suffered
by
women in
poor
coun-
tries is due not to their
inequality
with men in their own countries
(which
is not
insignificant),
but to their
inequality
with those of us who live
in
wealthy
countries.
Yet, despite
these
qualifications,
I
support wholeheartedly
the liberal
feminist reforms I have
discussed,
and I
suspect
that to
struggle
for
them is the most effective
strategy
for our time and
place,
the best
way
to move here and now toward a
just
and
compassionate society
in which
freedom flourishes.
90
susan wendell
notes
I wish to thank the members of the Canadian
Society
for Women in
Philosophy
who attended the 1984 Conference in Montreal and the editor and referees of
Hypatia
for their
helpful
comments on an earlier version of this
paper.
1. The fact that
early
feminists concentrated on
eliminating legal inequities
should
not be taken as a
sign
of their relative conservatism. The
power
and extent of
defacto
discrimination
rarely
becomes
apparent
until most of the
dejure
discrimination has been
removed.
2. For
another, similar,
definition of abstract
indivdualism,
see Carole Pateman
(1979, 25).
3. Mill also makes this
point
in a letter to Florence
Nightingale.
See Mill
(1972,
Letter
1169,
December
31, 1867).
4.
Throughout
The
Subjection of Women,
Mill describes the
ways
he observed
political inequality causing unhappiness
and
preventing happiness among
women and
men in his own
society.
See
especially Chapter
IV.
5. For a
good
discussion of this
point,
see M. Rivka Polatnick
(1984).
6. The
explanation
of this
point
is too
complex
to deal with here. See Susan D.
Wendell
(1976, chapter II).
7. In her
justly
harsh criticism of
meritocracy, Jaggar
seems to miss this
point.
See
Jaggar (1983, 193-197).
8. This is not
just
a liberal
tradition,
of
course,
but
many liberals, including
Locke
and
Mill,
are in it.
9.
See,
for
example,
Sandra
Harding (1983).
10. See
Harding (1983)
and Adrienne Rich
(1976).
11. This is
clear,
for
example,
in
Ms., especially
in the
magazine's
section: "Stories
for Free Children."
12. See
especially
the case of Ruth
(Gilligan 1982, 101-103).
13. For a discussion of discrimination and affirmative action as a means of
prevent-
ing it,
see Susan Wendell
(1980).
14. On this
question,
see
Virginia
Held
(1984),
Diane Ehrensaft
(1984),
Janice
Moulton and Francine Rainone
(1983).
15. Frances Olsen
(1983)
has
argued
that
many legal
reforms of the
family
and the
marketplace
that have benefitted some women have had side effects that worked
against
many
women's
interests;
in the
end, however,
she does not
deny
that
many
individual
women's lives have been
substantially improved by legal reform, only
that
legal
reform
is sufficient to create the kinds of relations
among people
that she wants to see.
16. See The Canadian Human
Rights Reporter
for some
inspiring
evidence of this
kind.
17. 1984
figures
from the Canadian
Advisory
Council on the Status of Women.
18. Consider the influence of the New
Bedford, Massachusetts,
case alone.
19. In a Harris
poll
commissioned
by
Ms. in
March, 1984,
57% of a
representative
sample
of 1006 American women felt that the
organized
movement for women's
economic,
social and
legal equality
had
just begun.
See
Ms.,
Vol.
XIII,
No.
1, July, 1984, p.
56
20. For a
good
discussion of this issue see Sheila Rowbotham
(1979).
91
hypatla
references
Allen,
Anita. 1983. Women and their
privacy:
What is at stake? In
Beyond
domination. See Gould 1983.
Bunch,
Charlotte. 1981. The reform tool kit. In
Building feminist
theory,
ed. The
Quest
Staff. New York:
Longman.
Ehrensaft,
Diane. 1984. When women and men mother. In
Mothering.
See Trebilcot 1984.
Eisenstein,
Zillah. 1981. The radical
future of
liberal
feminism.
New
York:
Longman.
Gilligan,
Carol. 1982. In a
different
voice.
Cambridge,
MA: Harvard.
Gould,
Carol C. 1983. Private
rights
and
public
virtues:
Women,
the
family
and
democracy.
In
Beyond domination,
ed. Carol C. Gould.
Totowa,
NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.
Harding,
Sandra. 1976. Feminism: Reform or revolution? In Women
and
philosophy,
eds. Carol C. Gould and Marx W.
Wartofsky.
New York: Putnam.
---. 1983. Is
gender
a variable in
conceptions
of
rationality?
In
Beyond
domination. See Gould 1983.
Held, Virginia.
1984. The
obligations
of mothers and fathers. In
Mothering.
See Trebilcot 1984.
Jaggar,
Alison M. 1983. Feminist
politics
and human nature.
Totowa,
NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.
Jaggar,
Alison M. and Paula
Rothenberg Struhl,
eds. 1978. Feminist
frameworks.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mill,
John Stuart. 1870. The
subjection of
women,
New York: D.
Appleton.
- .
[1861]
1957. Utilitarianism. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.
- . 1972. The later letters
of
John Stuart Mill 1848-1873. Ed. F.E.
Mineka and D.N.
Lindley.
Toronto:
University
of Toronto.
Moulton,
Janice and Francine Rainone. 1983. Women's work and sex
roles. In
Beyond
domination. See Gould 1983.
Olsen,
Frances. 1983. The
family
and the market: A
study
of
ideology
and
legal
reform. Harvard Law Review 96
(7):
1497-1578.
Pateman,
Carole. 1979. The
problem of political obligation.
New York:
John
Wiley
and Sons.
Polatnick,
M. Rivka. 1984.
Why
men don't rear children: A
power
analysis.
In
Mothering.
See Trebilcot 1984.
Rich,
Adrienne. 1976.
Of
woman born. New York: Norton.
Rowbotham,
Sheila. 1979.
Beyond
the
fragments.
London:
Islington
Community
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Scheman,
Naomi. 1983. Individualism and the
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of
psychology.
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In
Discovering reality,
eds. Sandra
Harding
and Merrill B. Hintikka.
Boston: D. Reidel.
Trebilcot, Joyce,
ed. 1984.
Mothering: Essays
in
feminist theory.
Totowa,
NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.
Wendell,
Susan D. 1976. The
subjection of
women
today.
Ph.D.
diss.,
University
of British Columbia.
---. 1980.
Discrimination,
sex
prejudice
and affirmative action.
Atlantis 6
(1):
. 1983.
Pornography
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Pornography
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93

















































































































































andrea
nye
The
Unity
of
Language
This
paper
identifies the
founding project
of traditional
philosophy
of
language
as an
attempt
to
unify
the
diversity
and
individuality
of
spoken language
in order to
produce
a
transpersonal intelligibility.
The
supposed necessary
truth that we cannot
directly
understand what others
say
which underlies such a
project
is
exposed
as a willful avoidance of
the discourse of others
typical
of masculine
styles
of communication.
Philosophy
of
language begins
with the
attempt
to
unify
language,
to reduce to one formal
reality,
one
logic,
or one
grammar,
language's apparent diversity. Although
the mechanisms of unification
differ as the
history
of this
project,
and of
philosophy, unfolds,
the
beginning point
is the same.
Platonists, phenomenologists, linguists,
positivists,
offer alternate
principles
on which a unified
language
can
be understood but share a more
profound agreement:
the
diversity
of
individuals'
speech
must be
rejected
as
self-evidently unintelligible.
This
paper attempts
to understand this assertion of self-evidence from a
feminist
perspective,
not as a
rationally necessary judgment
but as a
blind
spot.
Self-evidence masks the
position
from which the
philosophical
unification of
language begins.
The
philosopher
has deter-
mined that he will not see and will not
hear,
and so will not understand
what others
say,
a refusal that
gives
him license to substitute his words
for theirs.
The use of the masculine
pronoun
for the
philosopher
is not meant
to be
generic.
The refusal to hear that as the
starting point
of the
philosophical
unification of
language
is a masculine
position,
that
is,
it constitutes the
position
of men in male-dominated
society.
As
philosophy
of
language develops,
a
language
is theorized that fits a
masculine conversational
style,
and
philosophical discourse, claiming
to be above
ordinary talk,
becomes the
paradigm
of a certain kind of
exchange
between men. The terms of this
exchange
are set
by
the
estrangement
of the
speakers,
both from each other and from the often
"feminized"
objects
about which
they
talk.'
This
paper attempts
to move outside the
economy
of an alienated
exchange
between men. If
philosophy
is read within this
paradigm
the
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1987).

By
Andrea
Nye.
95
hypatia
unintelligibility
of
heterogeneous
talk continues to be self-evident. To
rationally critique
or
logically analyze
the
arguments
of
philosophers
would be to suffer from the same blindness and deafness that is at the
center of the
attempt
to
unify language.
Instead I
try
to exercise that
gift
for which women are often
credited,
the
ability
to listen to what
others are
saying; not, however,
for the
traditionally
"feminine"
pur-
poses
of
empathy
and
support,
but in order to understand what men
are
saying. Only
in this
way,
can feminist
thought engage
in conversa-
tion or
dispute
with those who claim for their
language
the
authority
to tell us who we are and what we
may
do.
Plato was
perhaps
the
founding
father of authoritarian
language.
His
image
of the
sun,
with its remorseless
clarity, symbolizes
rational
order,
the
systematic arrangement
of
concepts
reflected in
logical
form.
In
Plato,
vision is substituted for voice. The
philosopher contemplates
the forms in
silence,
in a revelation that even
philosophical language
can
only imperfectly express.
Dazzled
by
the
light
of
reason,
the
eye
of the mind achieves
unity
and
escapes
the
perceived diversity
of
physical
things.
An
inability
to
speak
and a blindness to material
reality
clears
the
way
as the Platonic
philosopher
becomes
successively
unable to look
"directly
at animals and
plants"
in their
bewildering
detail
(Plato
Republic 523, b-c).2
His
soul,
in its search for
truth,
has turned
away
from the
diversity
of
"becoming"
to the
contemplation
of essence
(Plato
Republic 518, c).
Mathematics
plays
its traditional role in this achieve-
ment of
seeing
and not
seeing,
because in mathematical
reasoning,
"each
unity (is) equal
to
every
other without the
slightest
difference
between its
parts (Plato Republic 526, a).3 Any application
that would
reattach number to "visible and
tangible
bodies" mars
unity
and returns
the search for truth to
"huckstering,"
mere commerce or
profiteering
(Plato Republic 525,c).4
So Plato formulates an
argument
for
linguistic unity
that is rework-
ed
by linguists, phenomenologists, positivists. Perceptions
of
physical
things, always relative, shifting, diverse,
are not
intelligible
or
expressible
in
rationally
ordered
language.
The most such
particular
and
personal
insights
can
yield
is a babble of
tongues,
a confusion of
language games,
a
complex
web of
"procedures, sequences,
and co-existences"
(Plato
Republic 516, d),
of
prizes, successes, honors,
"the
incessant, disorderly
buzzing
of discourse"
(Foucault 1972, 229)
that the
"knowing" speaker
will eschew. For the
philosopher,
a
rejection
of these
practices
and
discourses is
necessary
if the
way
to truth is to be cleared. From the
perspective
of the
sun, linguistic diversity
can
only
be seen as a
curse,
as the
punishment
a
jealous god
inflicts on the
people
of
Babel,
as the
ultimate
tragedy,
the
thwarting
of the
project
of ascent to
perfect
knowledge.
Insistence on the
multiplicity
of
language
is a
depraved
96
andrea
nye
resistance to the
clarity
of the sun which illuminates Platonic forms
as well as their
counterparts,
universal
grammar, propositional calculus,
the
phenomenologist's
essences.
Linguistics
inherits the Platonic
project.5 Linguists try
to establish
clarity
in
language by practicing
a kind of
paleontology. Factoring
out
the diverse features of
language,
the
linguist
discovers
permanent
struc-
tures that
operate
not
diachronically
and
mutably
as each word is
respoken
and
remeant,
but
synchronically
and
uniformly. Etymology,
as successive
layers
of intended
meanings,
becomes the
unsystematizable
flesh which falls
away
when one
contemplates
the
generative
structures
of
language.
Just as Platonic
forms,
these structures are to be studied
in isolation from the confused and diverse intentions that
originated
them in the same
way
a fossil can be examined
long
after the individual
animal whose
body
has
given
it form has
disappeared. Language
becomes,
as Bakhtin
put it,
...
the sclerotic
deposits
of an intentional
process, signs
left behind on the
path
of the real
living project
of an
intention,
of the
particular way
it
imparts meanings
to
general linguistic
norms.
(Bakhtin 1981, 292)
Each individual leaves its mark in a hard durable medium and when
irrelevant differences between one remnant and another are
disregard-
ed,
a
generalized
form of life or
speech
can be outlined.
At the same
time,
the science of
paleontology pretends
to tell us
something
about the
living
animal. The student of Plato's forms was
expected
to return to the dark cavern of
practical
affairs to advise and
instruct. The
linguist,
or
logician,
claims to discover
something
about
actual
thought
and
language.
For these reasons there can never be a
perfect
detachment from
linguistic
realities. Neither the Platonist nor
the
linguist
can
escape completely
the
corrupting
intentions of
speakers.
As Bakhtin continues:
these eternal
markers, linguistically
observable and fix-
able,
cannot in themselves be understood or studied
without
understanding
the
specific conceptualization they
have been
given by
an individual.
(Bakhtin, 1981, 292)
If a form like "the
Good,"
or a semantic element such as "red" is
to have
any meaning,
or
any interest,
it must remain linked in some
way
to what individual
speakers
mean
by
the words
"good"
or "red."
So diversities in
ordinary usage
continue to threaten to
compromise
the
clarity
of a unified
language.
The dream of
oneness, order,
and
harmony,
of a
clarity
of
thought
which would reduce
diversity
to over-
riding design
or
principle,
is under
seige
from the confusions of the
97
hypatia
flesh. The
philospher king gives way
to
physical appetites,
the
legislator
yields
to
practical political exigencies,
the
linguist
to the semantic ir-
regularities
of
poetry
or
metaphor.
The confusion can never be com-
pletely
cleared
away. Logical
form is
always
confounded
by
a bewilder-
ing array
of
"language games"
which in their
diversity
and contradic-
tions resist
any attempt
to define
clearly
what can and cannot be said.6
Linguistic
structures are
challenged by speech practices
that
persist
in
being ungrammatical; any
actual
speaking community
with divisions
of
class, interest, status,
accommodates deviations which confront "or-
thodox" discourse with
poetry, patois,
dialect. The
intelligibility
of such
"deviant"
speech
is often the most comfortable
protest
an
oppresed
situation
permits.7
The "orthodox"
grammatical
or rational
speaker
must, therefore,
be
carefully
selected and his or her
inevitably faulty
performances kept
distinct from
orderly linguistic "competence."
Even
philosphers
who
acknowledge
the
diversity
of
language games
or the
heterogeneity
of
logical
forms
cling
to some
vestige
of
unity.
The
language game theory
of
Wittgenstein's Investigations (1958),
even
as it asserts the
multiplicity
of the uses of
words,
never casts off the
need for
criteria; although
these are not the criteria of universal
forms,
they
constitute rules of
practice
that
provide
a
grounding
for mean-
ingful speech.
Derrida's deconstruction of
logocentric
discourse in
Of
Grammatology (1976),
even as it asserts the
heterogeneity
of
discourse,
still
provides
a uniform version of the
production
of
linguistic
mean-
ing
which reduces to traces and
ruptures
which are
all,
it is
claimed,
that
meaning
can be. Here the outlines of a unified
order,
dim and
ultimately compromised,
are still
present
in the
attempt
to "account"
for
language:
to
anchor,
with
Wittgenstein, linguistic practices
in in-
stinctive, primitive, interactions,
or to
indicate,
with
Derrida,
the
metonymical
and
metaphorical
mechanisms
by
which discourse must
be
generated.
At the same
time,
in the
speech
of
any individual,
a stubborn
idiosyn-
crasy persists. Wittgenstein
himself
ponders
this
mysterious "personali-
ty"
of words:
Suppose
someone said:
every
familiar
word,
in a
book,
for
example, actually
carries an
atmosphere
with it in our
minds,
a "corona" of
lightly
indicated uses . . .
(1958,
181).
Now I
say nothing
about the cause of this
phenomenon. They might
be associations from
my
childhood.
(1958, 216)
Words take on for each
person
a
unique flavor,
the aura of "certain
associations and memories" which are
part
of a
unique history.
Not
only that,
but even an individual's
speech
has no
unity.
Bakhtin in his
98
andrea
nye
Dialogic Imagination (1981) speaks
of the
poor, uneducated, peasant
who must
speak intelligently
a
variety
of discourses. He
(or she)
must
speak
the
language
of the
hearth,
of the old
proverbs
and
folksongs,
he
(or she) must,
when
dealing
with
village officials, speak officialeze,
and he
(or she)
must understand
something
of the
language
of the
church. The fact that it is all in
Russian,
or
French,
or
English
is in-
significant
beside the difficult transitions that must be made from one
set of
pre-suppositions
and
logical
structures to another. And
yet
the
peasant accomplishes
the transitions with
ease,
all the time
giving
each
modality
an individual voice.
Anyone
must do the
same,
must
speak
to
family,
to
government,
to
clerks,
to the academic
community,
to
the
priest,
in
languages
that differ in
reasoning
and orientation. No
one can
escape
such diverse
positioning, according
to
Bakhtin,
because
any
non-differentiated
"socio-ideological position"
is
impossible.
This
multiplicity
of discourses is
acknowledged
in literature.
There,
the omniscient narrator
represents
the closest
analogy
to the
philosopher's
rational
hegemony
over
language,
but understood in the
context of the discourse of other
characters,
even the narrator's om-
niscience becomes
only
one identifiable
style.
The
novelist, writing
within the "stratification" of
discourse,
must take
up
a
particular posi-
tion "amid the
heteroglossia
of
(his) epoch" (Bakhtin 1981, 300).
Fur-
thermore,
the shift from one
"language"
to another is
accomplished
without
syntactical
markers
(Bakhtin 1981, 300, 304), making
it clear
that no
underlying unity
can account for our
skill,
either as writers or
as
readers,
to
change perspective.
There are no common structural
features that can
provide
the basis of this
inter-intelligibility.
Subtle
changes
of tone are indicated without overt markers such as the
punc-
tuation of indirect
speech
and still a reader of an author like Dickens
easily recognizes
when a different character's
viewpoint
is
being
ironical-
ly reported.
The removal from words of this
"personality"
is
necessary
if there
is to be a
logical language.
Instead of
expressing personal experience,
language
must be
grounded
in authoritarian
impersonal
truths. Posi-
tioned, fluid, unique,
human
experience
must be hardened into data
that cannot be
questioned.
A more stable and
unitary
foundation must
be found for
language
than either
platonic form,
which
may
itself be
only
a
unique personal vision,
or
grammatical
structures which have
no
meaning
unless
compromised
with a semantics that links words to
experience.
Science becomes the new instrument for
overcoming
what
Ayer (1958)
calls the
"egocentric predicament,"
and for
constructing
in its
place
a universal
objective
truth that can be understood. As Russell
explains,
the task of
philosophy
99
hypatla
. . . consists in
criticizing
and
clarifying
notions which
are
apt
to be
regarded
as fundamental and
accepted
un-
critically.
As instances I
might
mention:
mind, matter,
consciousness, knowledge, experience, causality, will,
time. I believe all these notions to be inexact and
approx-
imate, essentially
infected with
vagueness, incapable
of
forming part
of
any
exact science.
(Russell 1956, 341)
When
sensory
content is claimed as the
finally
stable content of com-
municable
concepts,
it is
necessary
to
guard
anew
against personal
idiosyncrasy
and
inaccessibility.
Whatever is to count as
sense-data,
must be uniform and accessible to all.
So,
in an
attempt
to avoid in-
dividual
sensation, Carnap
denies
phenomenological
content
altogether,
asserting
that
descriptions
of
"experiences"
are
really
statements about
the
body (1971, 86).
The
early Wittgenstein,
for
perhaps
the same
reasons,
denies the Tractatus'
logical simples experiential
content. The
privacy
and the essential
incommunicability
of
personal experience
is
unsuitable as a basis for science or
logic,
and formal structures are
again
detached from
experience.
Ayer
is more cautious. It is
true,
he
argues,
that it is a convention
of our
language
that no one can
experience
another's
sensations,
and
that,
because the histories of two
people
do not
overlap,
sensations can-
not be the basis of mutual
understanding (1958, 154).
But because I
can
imagine
a
language
in which I have the same
experiences
as
others,
and I
always
could have had the
experience
of someone
else,8
it is
possi-
ble to infer that
they
see
things
as I do. Because sense-data are con-
tingently
owned
by
one
person
rather than
another,
it is
possible
to
argue
from
analogy
that others'
experiences
are similar to
mine,
and
that others' observations can be relied on. For
Ayer,
the
analogy
is
necessary.
We do not feel what another
feels,
but could have. We
play
our
game
of
patience
with our own
cards,
but assume that we could
equally
well
play
with another's. And
although
the cards must be
only
mine, they
share the structure or "form" of other's cards.9
Seeing
that
we
appear
to be
playing
the same
game,
and
given
the
apparent
similari-
ty
of the moves that others
make,
we are warranted in
inferring
that
they
feel as we do. The barrier that
persists
between the
logical space
of individual's
experiences,
is
bridged only
because we can
imagine
that
the other's
experience
is
ours,
and therefore are able to substitute what
we
might
feel for what another feels.'
It is as clear to
Ayer
as it is to
Carnap
that it will be disastrous to
logical language
to have its
particulars
remain the
experiences
of in-
dividuals. Either others'
precepts
must become
mine,
as
Ayer argues
they contingently
could have been since the
pool
of sense-data is
only
100
andrea
nye
arbitrarily
divided into a series of
"histories,"
or
precepts
must be aban-
doned
altogether
for a
logically coherent,
canonical idiom that refers
to states of the
physical world,
as in
Carnap.
If it were the case that
I could
immediately
communicate to others
my response
to a
situation,
make them see it and feel it as I
do, experiences
and
opinions
would
not have to be
replaced by "data,"
or
by
measurements of
physiological
response.
That the
way
I feel is not
communicable,
that there can be
no words which
reliably carry experience,
is the
beginning point
from
which both
Ayer
and
Carnap
construct a
theory
of unified scientific
language.
Even when
phenomenology
resuscitates
subjectivity against
an ob-
jective
factual
positivism,
the
necessary
truth that we have no direct
access to others'
thoughts
or
feelings
remains foundational. Husserl
agrees
we
recognize
others
only
as "co-existences"
i.e.,
as
seemingly
analogous
to ourselves. At the same
time, phenomenology
must de-
fend its claim to
universality.
It must show that the essential relations
and structures it discovers are not
peculiar
to one
individual, race,
na-
tionality,
or culture. This must be done
against
the obvious fact of diver-
sity
in intentional structure.
Husserl
(1970)
describes his
struggle
to resolve this conflict in The
Crisis
of European
Sciences. Like the omniscient
novelist's,
the
phenomenologist's positioning
"above his own natural
being
and above
the natural world"
(152)
is what will enable him to
escape
the distor-
tions inherent within
any particular perspective.
He must remove himself
from
practical
involvement and
concerns,
and become a
"fully
disinterested
spectator" (157). Taking nothing
for
granted, nothing
as
"ground,"
he can then
inquire
into the horizons of
thought.
But if this
remains a
purely solipsistic inquiry,
if it is
only
his own
thoughts
that
are in
question,
his discoveries will have no
meaning
for
anyone
else.
Somehow the
phenomenologist
must
manage
to name a common
reality
beneath the
"openly
endless
multiplicity
of
changing experiences
and
experienced things,
one's own and other's"
(164)
to achieve an inter-
subjective
truth." But Husserl
recognizes
the distortion
possible
in
any
move from one individual's
thought
to the
thought
of "man."
The naivete of the first
epoche
had the
result,
as we im-
mediately saw,
that
I,
the
philosophizing "ego,"
in
taking
myself
as the
functioning "I,"
as
ego-pole
of trans-
cendental acts and
accomplishments, proceeded
in one
leap
and without
grounding,
that
is, illegitimately,
to at-
tribute to the mankind in which I find
myself
the same
transformation into
functioning
transcendental
subjec-
tivity
which I had carried out alone in
myself. (Husserl
101
hypatia
1970, 186)
In fact we do not live our lives as "isolated" thinkers but have "con-
tact with other human
beings";
different
people
who see
things
in dif-
ferent
ways.
Husserl
rejected
his earlier claim that all
things
exist
only relatively
to a transcendental
ego.
Not
only
are we in contact with others but
a
"reciprocal
correction"
goes
on which establishes a
"harmony
of
validity,"
and a definition of what is "normal."
However, although
Husserl claims to
accept
the
"intersubjectivity"
of the
phenomenologist's knowledge,
he does not
give up unity.
Whether
"anyone says
so or
not," throughout any seemingly
irreducible
disagree-
ment,
there is
always
"a
unification," "brought
about" or at least "cer-
tain in advance as
possibly
attainable
by everyone."
Each of
us,
Husserl
asserts,
lives in "one and the same world"
(1970, 163).
The terms on which such a unification must be achieved are made
clear. As Husserl
notes,
there is
always plenty
of
"discrepancy."
What
if
people
do not think or
speak "normally?"
What if
they
are insane?
Or act like children?
Or,
one could add in the same
spirit,
what if
they
are of a
different, "primitive," culture;
what if
they
are women? How
can what
they say
be subsumed under what "mature and normal human
beings say,"
those who are
part
of the "world of culture?" Some
peo-
ple,
Husserl
says:
do not cofunction in
respect
to the world understood in
the hitherto
accepted
(and
always fundamental)
sense,
that is the world which has truth
through
"reason."
(Husserl 1970, 187, emphasis added)
We
must, therefore,
Husserl
continues,
attribute to these "abnormal"
subjects
a
way
of
thought
as
"analogue"
of ourselves.
Although
for
Husserl,
a
process
of correction does
occur,
it
apparently only operates
among people
who share the same cultural world and subscribe to the
same standards of
reason;
others can be
directly
understood
only
as
analogous.
The
impossibility
of
understanding any
radical deviation
from our own
thought
is
self-evident,
as is the
necessity
for
unity.
Husserl's
intersubjectivity
can
only
be achieved on that basis.
But in what non-declinable
language
could such a universal thinker
communicate his
insights?
To
express
a
truth,
it is actual
language
he
must
use,
a
language
whose
very grammar
involves a
positioning
in
relation to others. A different
language,
a different kind of "I" must
be
invented,
Husserl
declares,
different from the
ordinary
"I" who is
always
in relation to a
"you"
or a "we." This
"equivocation"
on "I"
is
necessary
to define a
position
above natural existence and to con-
102
andrea
nye
stitute the world as the "world for all"
(1970, 184).
For this transcenden-
tal
"I," ordinary language
with its declinable
verbs, pronouns,
demonstratives,
must be
rejected,
and
words,
as
they
come from
another's
mouth,
mixed with another's
breath,
must be
purged
of their
alien
personality.
The Platonist also
rejected
the
speech
of others as
unintelligible.
For
Plato the inconsistent
opinions
of the uninitiated and uneducated were
unintelligible
because
they
were
contradictory
and
incapable
of
being
formally expressed.
The
shifting
and diverse nuances of
speech
were
empty
because
they
were not related to universal ideas under the unified
sovereignty
of the Good. The Platonic student was
enjoined
to close
his ears and
eyes
to the babble of
tongues
in the
Assembly
or in the
Law courts. He was
urged
to turn his back on illusions of
ordinary
experience,
to
reject
the earnest discussion of
honors, strategies, coming
events, engaged
in
by
the
prisoners
of the cave. He should instead make
the ascent to the
sun,
to a world of formal relations that will order
human
thought
and institutions.
The
unintelligibility
of others'
speech
becomes in the
positivist's argu-
ment the absolute
inaccessibility
of other minds. No
longer
is it the con-
tradictions in
popular opinion
that
justify disregarding ordinary speech,
but the rational
certainty
that our
experience
is
private,
and that we
can
never,
no matter what
anyone says
or how
eloquently they say it,
know what another is
feeling.
This
necessary philosophical
truth then
justifies
a
projection
of the scientist's own
seeing
onto others. The con-
venient
provisio
that he "could have been in their shoes" allows the
positivist
to substitute what he sees for what others are
seeing.
The scien-
tist, then, just
as the Platonist or
phenomenologist, may proceed
in
an authoritative idiom to
pronounce
truths for
everyone,
that is for
people
in
general,
who will have
nothing
themselves to
say
because their
unsystematic
babble is irrelevant to truth and
knowledge. Ordinary
im-
pressions
and concerns are
replaced,
not with
metaphysically
ordered
concepts,
but with the data that
previously
established "correct"
methods of measurement will make uncontestable.
Empirical
studies
will take the
place
of
personal opinions:
studies that
may
show that
lowering
the taxes of the rich will make the
poor
better
off,
or that
a defensive shield could be built in
space
that would
stop enemy missiles,
or that
rape
is
accompanied by "precipitating"
behavior on the
part
of the victim. Such studies based on data are the authorities used to
support programs
and
policies.
Science silences the uninitiated as its
language
in
economics, sociology
or
military
science reaches a
degree
of technical
complexity
accessible
only
to
experts
who
exchange
infor-
mation at conferences and have no interest in the views of
"laymen."12
Husserl makes a similar commitment. The
phenomenologist,
remov-
103
hypatia
ing
himself from
practical experience
to intuit
essences,
must claim to
discover an
objective knowledge.
That is to
say,
he must claim to
speak
for
everyone
and not
just
for himself. Those who are "insane," "irra-
tional," "primitive," "childish,"
must not be allowed to confuse the
orderliness of
thought. They
must be understood not in terms of their
own diverse and
philosophically
incoherent
thought,
but in terms of
the
philosopher's
unified
thought.
The "I" of
interpersonal language,
Husserl
asserts,
must take on a new
meaning:
it must detach itself from
the
"yous"
and
"theys"
of
ordinary
discourse. Then a
language
can
be invented that will
express
the
thoughts
of the
"absolutely unique,
ultimately functioning ego."
In each case
rejection
of the
diversity
of
speech
is a
rejection
of others'
speech.
Others'
speech
is claimed to be
unintelligible
and so
replaceable
by
the articulated unified
speech
of one authoritarian
voice,
whether
that voice is of the Platonic
school,
the
phenomenologist's
transcenden-
tal
ego
or the
community
of scientists. In all these
cases,
the
practical
advantages
of a unified
language
are dubious. Once
unified,
or fossiliz-
ed,
in Platonic
conceptual trees,
in transformational
grammar,
in the
phenomenologist's essences,
or in the
positivist's propositional calculus,
language
is not able to
perform
its function as communication or even
provide
evidence of what that
might
have been. The
philosopher
of
Plato's
dialogues
carries on a
monologue punctuated by
the
admiring
assent of his
students,
but the
dialogue typically
ends on a note of con-
fusion. The student
may
have been intimidated
by
Plato's
logic
to as-
sent,
but at the same time he has not
given up
his common sense views.
He is shaken and
unsure,
but Plato's
argument
has
given
him
nothing
of substance to substitute for his naive beliefs. The
positivist's proposi-
tional calculus becomes the
computer program,
but the
printout
is
only
an artifact until
corrupted by
a translation into human
speech.
The
jargon
of
phenomenology
is
unintelligible
to all but
professional
philosophers
and can serve no useful
purpose.
In no case is there a
revolution in the
way people talk,
instead an alternative to
talking
is
proposed
in the form of an alienated
exchange
accessible
only
to a few
initiates.
Nor can the social value of a technical
language purged
of
idiosyn-
crasies and
ambiguities,
be a sufficient
justification
for the
philosopher's
project. When,
in a scientific discourse unified
through
adherence to
a mathematical model of
clarity
and
precision,
we achieve
accuracy and,
consequently, mastery
over our terms and our
practice,
the
pure
mathematics of the
philosopher
can
supposedly
be translated into the
formulae that will
improve
human life. At the same
time,
it is clear
that some
technological
innovation is an
improvement
over natural
pro-
cesses and some is not.
Synthetic clothing
that binds the
body
is not
104
andrea
nye
better than
cotton;
automobiles are an inefficient means of mass tran-
sit;
food additives cause
disease,
etc.'3 The mathematical formulae of
science cannot
express
these
practical problems,
much less make com-
mensurate the
conflicting
values of
profit
and
public health, produc-
tion and
quality
of life. A technical
accounting
of
projected
accident
rates and costs of
improvement
of a
dangerous product may,
for ex-
ample, prevent
a
practical problem
from
being
understood or solved.
Technical
language
is as
potentially damaging
to human life as it is
potentially improving.
There
may
be
political advantages
to a discourse that is
unified,
in
which,
as Foucault
said,
"limitation and exclusion" create
great
con-
ceptual
"edifices" in which falsehood is
proscribed
and in which the
roles of
speakers
are fixed.
However,
even
according
to Foucault
(1972,
227), any political
motive to construct
"epistemes"
or
systems
of discur-
sive
practice,
is reinforced
by
the
philosophical insistence,
with us since
the "defeat of the
Sophists,"
on an ideal truth and on
rationality.
The
epistemes, although
Foucault is not
willing
to
identify
them with the
project
of a "conscious
subject,"
reflect a common
philosophical ideal,
a
"craving,"
not
just
for
political power
which must
always
be
limited,
parochial, incomplete,
and defined within the discourse
itself,
but for
an alienated rational order removed from
practical
life.
The
philosophical project
of the unification of
language
cannot be
understood as
practical.
A unified
language
is not useful for com-
munication, may
cause more evil than
good,
and is not translatable
into
political power
without remainder. The
question
remains as to how
the
philosophical project
of unification can be made
intelligible.
As
is often the
case,
what is taken for
granted,
what is asserted as
necessary
truth,
reveals what is most
problematic.'4
The unification of
language
rests on and
begins
from the
position
that there is no
way
to under-
stand what others feel or understand as
uniquely
their own. Direct com-
munication is
impossible. Only
this
stance,
this
positioning,
can make
intelligible
the
craving
for
unity.
The
yearning
for
perfect knowledge
begins
from a
self-imposed separation
from the
always clamorous,
much
too
intelligible
voices that constitute
any
human
society.
Who is it that
Plato refused to hear? In Athens there were
many
voices he
might
have
wished to
avoid, especially given
his
precarious position,
as
suspected
sympathizer
with
Sparta
and with aristocratic
despotism.
Rich mer-
chants had new economic
power,
the
Sophists preached
the democratic
ideas of social contract and consensus
politics, shopkeepers
and
blacksmiths
spoke up
in the
Assembly.
These voices of common
opinion
Plato
deplored
as too confused to be
intelligible,
as outcries of rabble
rousers and
upstarts
whose
"appetites"
threatened to undermine the
smooth
perpetuation
of Athenian class
privilege.
105
hypatia
The
positivists
had different voices to avoid
hearing.
Positivism's
prescription
for a
logical language
is based on a
proscription
of
metaphysics. Logical clarity
was extolled as the alternative to the mean-
inglessness
and
emptiness
of
theology
and
ethics;
German
metaphysics,
full of bombast and overinflated emotional
claims,
was
exposed
as
dangerous. However,
the tactic of the Vienna Circle was avoidance.
The
positivist
turned his back on
metaphysics,
on
metaphysical
anti-
Semitism,
and on
metaphysical
theories of a master race. As mean-
ingless,
these claims need not be heard because
strictly speaking they
cannot be understood. The
resulting
edifice of a
philosophy,
shared
by
the
Anglo-American analytic tradition,
that
meticulously
and
single-
mindedly
articulates the
logical
claims of
science, flourishes,
but
flourishes
alongside
an even more
virulently flourishing metaphysics.
Meaningless though
it
may
have been declared to be
by
the Vienna Cir-
cle, metaphysics
continued to communicate to the German masses well
enough
to
inspire
a Fascist concensus.
Furthermore,
the
positivist
with
his
newly
constituted value-free science could be re-enlisted into the
service of the state as technocrat.
When Husserl wrote the Crisis
of
the
European
Sciences in
1935,
the motives for not
hearing
must have been even more
pressing.
The
vulgarization, banalization, pornographization, gynophobia
of German
culture,
mixed with
pained
reactions to the
growing political
and
economic
crisis, produced
a dischordant chorus of voices that would
be
finally
silenced
only by
Hitler's
meglomaniac
rhetoric. Husserl's call
for a return to the classical sources of
philosophy
and for a reaffirma-
tion of the
rationality
of western culture
ignored
this
cacaphony.
In-
stead,
an attention to
subjective
consciousness and a
"bracketing"
of
the external world constituted the establishment of a universal
philosophy
of the sciences as a safe haven of
rationality.
From these refusals to
hear, philosphers begin
to
philosophize:
if there
is to be a common
meaning,
it must be
constructed,
because as
long
as names are allowed to shift and
mutate, they
will not be understood
and the
speaker,
removed from
ordinary discourse,
will remain alone.
No man of sense will like to
put
himself or the education
of his mind in the
power
of names. Neither will he so
far trust names or the
givers
of names as to be confident
in
any knowledge
which condemns himself and other ex-
istences to an
unhealthy
state of
unreality. (Plato,
Cratylus, 440c)
The
ordinary person may
be content with the
fleeting
and
subjective
insights expressed
in the
ambiguous language
of common
sense,
but
the
philosopher
will rise above
particular
and
contingent
concerns. Such
106
andrea
nye
personal
concerns could never be
expressed
or understood when their
names
might
mean one
thing
in one
person's mouth,
and another in
another's,
and when
judgments,
instead of
holding still,
are retracted
and revised with
bewildering speed
as we move from one situation to
another. An artificial communication must be devised that will fill the
silence where was once the babble of
tongues.
Otherwise the
philosopher's
isolation is intolerable. Once it has been decided that we
begin
from a solitude in which we will not hear what others are
saying,
will not allow their words to touch us or move
us,
and will not take
from them their tainted
talk,
the
project
of the unification of
language
opens
as the
only way
in which that solitude can be relieved.
Again,
the
original position,
that our
thoughts
and
feelings
are our
possessions
and others'
their's,
establishes the
position
from which ra-
tional order is constructed and defended. Once the
grounding
of
discourse is so
laid, any
communication becomes a
guarded
communica-
tion,
one in which
openness
is mediated
by categories
and structures
that channel what is to be said into
acceptable
and bearable idioms.
What is outside structure:
"madness," "irrationality," "metaphysics,"
"childishness," "poetry,"
can be
legitimately ignored
or
repressed. By
a
"gentleman's agreement," by
the establishment of what is
"correct,"
the rules for how a
thing
is to be said
successfully
restrain what is to
be
said,
so that no direct confrontation with another's
thoughts
or feel-
ings
is
necessary.5
If Husserl
(1970, 184)
insisted that he had neither
"willfully"
nor
"by
accident" cut himself off from the human
race,
it was
because,
for the transcendental
ego,
the
"you's," "we's,"
"he's" that make
up
the human race no
longer
existed. The assertion of the
"necessity"
of such a
"bracketing"
cover the
complex
attitudes that
might
motivate
a reduction of others to
"phenomena."
The real motive for the ascent
to the Platonic sun is not the
necessary
truth that
opinion
is un-
intelligible,
that the
feelings
of others are
inaccessible,
or that inter-
subjectivity
can
only
be achieved
by unity,
but must be
placed
back
one
logical step.
The
question
is not
why, given
our
solitude,
we want
to
escape
to some artificial
parody
of
communication,
but
why
we are
estranged
in the first
place.
Possible reasons for such a refusal to hear
others,
for such a blind-
ness to others'
situations,
are not hard to reconstruct. To hear someone
else
may
be
painful
and
disturbing
when it
involves,
as it often
must,
their
anxiety
or
anger, especially
when it is
anger
or
anxiety
for which
we
may
be
responsible.
It
may
also be
disturbing
in
deeper ways.
To
listen is to be in someone's
power.
It is to be
open
to the
changes
that
hearing may
effect. And that can
mean,
from a defensive
perspective,
a loss of self. Even another's
joy may
be
threatening,
if we take it as
107
hypatia
revealing
our own failure and
deficiency.
In each case historical
study
may
uncover the social
settings
of such
reasoning,
and its
expression
in self-evident
philosophical
truth.
Biographical
and
psychological
studies
may
throw further
light
on
familial relations that
shape
a
personality
more comfortable with
alienated
separation
than with
engagement.
Such a withdrawal is
discussed
by Nancy
Chodorow
(1978)
as one
possible
mode of
pre-
Oedipal development.
The
very young
child must deal with the difficult
problem
of the mother's
disappearance
and return. This feared
rup-
ture in the child's
symbiotic unity
with the mother
engenders
frustra-
tion and
anxiety.
The conflict can be resolved in different
ways.
One
way, typical
of the woman's
assumption
of
identity
with the
mother,
involves the
recognition
of the mother as an autonomous
subject,
set-
ting
the tone for
continuing relationships
of
mutuality
and
respect.
The
masculine
reaction,
informed
by difference,
is to
gain
distance and
autonomy by withdrawing
into a
private
world from which he can view
the mother as a
manipulatable
or
disposable object.
It is not
surprising,
given
Chodorow's
analysis
of masculine
psychology,
that
official,
authoritarian discourse is dominated
by
men;
male domination
goes
deeper
than a conscious
co-option
of
discourse,
and can be linked to
an
infirmity
generated
in the
socio-psychological
conditions under which
male
personality
is formed.
The
possibility
of both historical and
psychological
studies of
philosophical theorizing suggests
that what is claimed as
philosophical
necessity
constitutes instead a different kind of
inevitability.
It is in-
evitable that a
personality
overcome with fears of
intimacy
and
engage-
ment with others will
attempt
to construct a substitute discourse. It is
inevitable that avoidance of chaotic social conflict will lead to
theorizing
divorced from
reality.
At the same
time,
the
language spoken by
some-
one who has drawn back from the words of others into reason or
logic
must,
like
any
other
language, carry
the marks of its
original
inten-
tion. Even in the
pure
authoritarian tones of Platonic
order, logical
positivism, phenomenology,
there is a certain tone of
insecurity,
of
defensiveness,
of retreat from the claims and
complaints
of others. In
the end it is the assertion of the
unintelligibility
of
ordinary speech
that
is
intelligible,
as a certain kind of
speech,
as the
complex, nuanced,
interested,
even
passionate, expression
of a human
position.
When the
speech
of
philosophers
is understood in this
way,
the
project
of the
unification of
language appears
in a new
light
as
prompted by
a
previously
undertaken alienation. The
champion
of
unity
must find a
new
language,
not because the old was
unintelligible
but because he
has,
at the
very beginning
of his
project,
determined not to hear what
others
say.
If in the visual
world,
to look at the sun is to
go blind,
to
108
andrea
nye
listen with the solar
light
of reason is to
go
deaf and dumb to the
cries,
to the
pleas
for
help,
to the atrocities committed
by
those around us.
notes
1. Cf. recent
empirical
studies
documenting
differences in masculine and feminine
conversational
styles
as collected
e.g.
in Chris Kramarae
(1981).
2. Cf. Luce
Irigaray (1974)
where
Irigaray
uncovers the tension between the essen-
tial
inaccessibility
of the sun to the
eye
and its
importance
to the claim for authoritarian
vision. Because the sun can
only
be
glimpsed obliquely,
as "differe d'un
miroir,"
its
guiding light
is
replaced by
"the natural
light"
of reason whose claim to
sovereignty
borrows the sun's
glory.
3. Cf. twentieth
century proponents
of
logical form,
such as
Frege,
who also
propose
mathematization of
language
to cure
language's ambiguity
and
subjectivity. E.g.
"On
the Aim of the
Conceptual
Notation" and "On the Scientific Justification of a
Concep-
tual Notation"
(Frege 1972).
4.
However,
Plato
interestingly
includes as
legitimate
uses of mathematics not
just
"the conversion of the soul from the world of
generation
to essence and truth" but also
"the uses of war."
5. A
parallel
between classical forms and
linguistic
structures is evident in Katz's
(1981)
most recent work where he
argues
that
linguistics
involves a Platonic
ontology
of abstract entities.
6. In
Wittgenstein's language games,
delineation of
necessary
characteristics
gives
way
to
family
resemblance:
interlocking,
non-exclusive uses
through
which there is no
common thread.
7.
E.g.,
this
may
be the
explanation
for the
prevalence
of
patois
under colonial
rule. The native
language may
be
suppressed
or
lost,
but a
purposeful tampering
with
the
oppressor's
words allows a slave or servant to humiliate a master to his
very
face
and in his own
co-opted language.
8. Cf. Bertrand Russell
(1956, 161-162)
who
argues
that it is a "matter of
empirical
fact" that I can't know
by
immediate
experience
what another is
experiencing (emphasis
added).
9. Cf. Russell on
Logical
Atomism
(1956, 173).
The
particulars
with which we are
"acquainted" may vary
and be
subjective,
but the inferences the scientist draws-"the
astronomer's sun" not the sun of
ordinary experience-are public
and
intelligible
to all.
10.
Ayer
offered a more
simplistic
solution to the
problem
of other minds in
Language,
Truth and
Logic (1952, 132)
where he
collapsed
the inferable content of
another's
experience
into
"empirically
derived structure."
11. Cf. Husserl
(1970, 179):
"The world ... is from the start taken
only
as a correlate
of the
subjective appearances, views, subjective
acts and
capacities through
which it con-
stantly has,
and ever
attains, anew,
its
changeable (but) unitary
sense."
12. The two
aims,
that of
leaving spoken
discourse as it is and
providing
a canonical
idiom,
are sometimes
combined,
as when Putnam
argued
that the reference of
ordinary
terms can be fixed
by
reliance on scientific
"experts."
We
trust,
even
though
we don't
understand,
that there are established criteria accessible to science that determine what
is a wren or a
sparrow. Ordinary people
will continue to
speak
their own
ungrounded
language,
but are aware that a
grounding
in scientific definition exists. "There are tools
109
hypatia
like a hammer or a screw and a screw driver which can be used
by
one
person;
and there
are tools like a
steamship
which
require
the
cooperative activity
of a number of
persons
to use"
(Hillary
Putnam
1978, 125).
More often it is made clear that
philosophy
does
not tell us "how certain
symbols
are
actually
used" or could be used in
practical life,
but is instead a
"logical activity." e.g., Ayer (1952, 70).
13. For other
examples
see Lewis Mumford
(1963, 52-53).
14. Cf. Husserl's comment
(1970, 189): "Every
self-evidence is the title of a
problem,
with the sole
exception
of
phenomenological self-evidence,"
with its familiar combina-
tion of
insight
into others'
blindspots,
and blindness to one's own.
15. This encroachment can be seen in the blurred and
shifting
line between
grammar
and semantics.
Grammar,
as the
scope
of selection
restrictions,
structural
semantics,
or
generative
semantics
expands, engulfs successively
what little is left of semantics as a
brute intrusion of
unintegrated
content into
linguistic
structure.
references
Ayer,
A.J. 1952.
Language,
truth and
logic.
New York: Dover.
---. 1958. The
foundations of empirical knowledge.
London:
MacMillan.
Bakhtin,
M.M. 1981. The
dialogic imagination.
Austin:
University
of
Texas Press.
Carnap, Rudolph.
1971. Foundations
of
the
unity of science,
vol. II.
Chicago: University
of
Chicago
Press.
Chodorow, Nancy.
1978. The
reproduction of mothering:
Psychoanalysis
and the
sociology of gender. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Derrida, Jacques.
1976.
Ofgrammatology.
Trans.
Spivak.
Baltimore:
Johns
Hopkins
Press.
Foucault,
Michel. 1972. The
archaeology of knowledge.
Trans. A.M.
Sheridan. New York:
Harper
Torchbooks.
Frege,
G. 1972.
Conceptual
notation and related articles. Ed. and trans.
by
Terrell
Bynum.
Oxford: Clarendon.
Husserl,
Edmund. 1970. The crisis
of European
sciences.
Evanston,
IL: Northwestern
University
Press.
Irigaray,
Luce. 1974. Jeune
vierge-pupille
de l'oeil. In
Speculum
de
l'autre
femme.
Paris: Les Edition le Minuit.
Katz,
Jerold J. 1981.
Language
and abstract
objects.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Kramarae,
Chris. 1981. Women and men
speaking. Rowley,
MA:
Newbury
House.
Mumford,
Lewis. 1963. Technics and civilization.
New York:
Harcourt,
Brace,
Jovanovich.
Plato. 1961. The collected
dialogues.
Ed. Edith Hamilton and Hunt-
110
andrea
nye
ington
Cairns. Princeton: Princeton
University
Press.
Putnam, Hillary.
1978.
Meaning
and reference. In
Contemporary
philosophical logic,
eds. I.M.
Copi
and J.A. Gould.
Russell,
Bertrand. 1956.
Logic
and
knowledge.
London: Allen and
Unwin.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig.
1958.
Philosophical investigations.
Oxford:
Blackwell.
111

















































































































































julien
s.
murphy
The Look in Sartre and Rich
The relevance of Sartre's
theory
of "the look" for feminist
philosophy
is evaluated
through juxtaposition
of his
analysis
with
images
of
women's
oppression
in Rich's
early poetry.
A
theory
of liberation that
recognizes
the existential dimensions of women's situations is
presented.
Following
traces of feminist vision in Rich's recent work
challenges
the
category
of "woman" which lies at the root of the sexism.
Crucial to feminist
theory
is an
understanding
of the
oppres-
sion we
experience
as women in
patriarchal society.
The
category
"woman,"
which dooms us to sexist
oppression,
is a
category, which,
none of us can
entirely escape.
"Woman" is also a
category
that none
of us can
deny
if we are to understand our lives in
patriarchy.
We make
even the most
liberating
of choices in the midst of sexist constraint.
No matter how we
shape ourselves,
we live in a
society
in which we
are seen
by
others as women.
The
oppression
we
experience
is so ever
present
that
any
feminist
theory
needs clear and concrete
insights
into its structure. As feminist
philosophers, moreover,
we are immersed in
oppression
even as we
theorize about it. A
phenomenological approach
to the nature of sex-
ist
oppression
can reveal the lived situation
by
which the
oppression
of women is maintained
through daily
acts that manifest an
oppressive
kind of
seeing. Enlightening
views on the
experience
of
oppression
can
be found in the
phenomenological work, Being
and
Nothingness by
Jean Paul
Sartre, especially
Sartre's
theory
of "the look."
Although
Sartre does not address sexist
oppression
and has
only
the barest sketch
of a
theory
of
liberation,
his
theory
of "the look" is
integral
to a
feminist
phenomenological analysis
of
oppression
and liberation.
Without
intending to,
Sartre has
provided
us with a
particularly
useful
description
of women's
experience
of devaluation in a world where men
are dominant. The relevance of Sartre's
theory
of "the look" for
feminist
philosophy
will be shown
by juxtaposition
of his
analysis
with
images
of women's
oppression
in the
early
work of a feminist
poet-
Adrienne
Rich-tracking
the
development
of women's consciousness
through
a
phenomenological style. By moving through
the Sartrean look
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1987).

By
Julien S.
Murphy.
113
hypatla
and
beyond
to
images
of
liberating
vision
among
women in Rich's re-
cent
works,
The Dream
of
a Common
Language,
A Wild Patience Has
Taken Me This
Far,
and Your Native
Land,
Your
Life,
we can
develop
an incisive
analysis
of the movement out of
oppression:
that movement
in which we are not born
women,
must
recognize
ourselves as
women,
and need be women no
longer (Beauvoir 1952, 249; Wittig 1981, 47-54).
The movement
beyond oppression requires
new
eyes
for the
oppressor
and the
oppressed.
Sartre
(1974, 229)
writes of the
oppressor:
"In order
for the
oppressor
to
get
a clear view of an
unjustifiable situation,
it
is not
enough
to look at it
honestly,
he must also
change
the structure
of his
eyes."
Sartre's claim that the
oppressor
must
"change
the struc-
ture of his
eyes" implies
that one must choose those actions which
radically disrupt
the
present system
of
judging
and call into
question
how one is to be in the future. Rich
(1979, 35)
writes of women's
pro-
ject
as
oppressed:
"The act of
looking-back,
of
seeing
with fresh
eyes,
of
entering
another text from a new critical direction-is for women-an
act of survival." The act of
examining
our lives anew is
presented by
Rich as central to the realization of our freedom.
Yet, precisely
because
new
ways
of
seeing
are needed
by
both
oppressor
and
oppresed,
we
find ourselves in a
problematic
situation: How can we "look back"
with "fresh
eyes"
when even our backward
glance
is
shaped by
the look
of the
oppressor?
Feminism and feminist
philosophy
exist not
outside,
but in the midst
of, patriarchy, giving
rise to the
perplexing
dilemma:
If we are seen as
belonging
to that
group
of individuals
having
"women's
eyes," through
looks that blind our vision in advance and
against
our
will,
how can we claim to see with "fresh
eyes?"
What fresh
views of ourselves can we
develop-without
illusion-while
existing
within societies which assert
emphatically
that we are less than men?
I.
Distance, Desire,
and Destruction in "The Look"
Analysis
of our
oppression
in
patriarchy begins
with an examina-
tion of how we are seen as "women." Our awareness of
falling
under
the construct "woman" often occurs in individual encounters in
daily
social life. The work of Sartre and Rich is instrumental in
demonstrating
the lived situation of the
look,
and the
ways
in which this
oppressive
kind of
seeing
effect a fundamental difference in our existence. The
movement of
oppression begins
with the look of the
oppressor,
a look
whose
distance, desire,
and destruction frame the context for our lives.
The look of the
oppressor is,
as
Marilyn Frye (1983, 66-72) points
out,
centered around
arrogance. Indeed,
from a Sartrean
perspective,
the look of the other can rob us of our
possibilities,
alienate us from
ourselves and our
options
for
choice,
and make us feel in the service
114
julien
s.
murphy
of the other. The
impact
of the look can be so
devastating
that it reduces
us,
at a
glance,
to
powerlessness,
to the status of a
thing.
The
recogni-
tion that we are
always
under the
gaze
of the other evidences that our
freedom is held in constant check. We
live,
to
varying degrees,
as ob-
jects
in the world of others.
The
power
of the look to rob us of our
possibilities
is in the looker
who
negates
the freedom of the individual looked at. The
look,
be it
one of vehement
degradation,
or mild
interest, presents
a moment of
conscious life in which we are aware of
existing
for others as
merely
concrete bodies. For
Sartre, any individual, irrespective
of
gender,
ex-
periences
the
anguish
of
being objectified
in the
experience
of
being
seen. Insofar as each
person
is
capable
of
receiving
and
returning
the
gaze,
each
person
can function as
oppressor
and
oppressed.
Sartre
(1953, 345)
writes that
"being-seen-by-the-Other"
is the truth of
"seeing-the-Other."
The mutual
oppression
of the looker and the
looked-at is not unlike the
power play
common to male forms of com-
petition,
as illustrated
by
Sartre's all male
examples
of
spy
and war-
fare scenes: a man
peeping through
a
keyhole
feels the look when he
hears
footsteps suddenly approaching,
a man
hiding
in a dark corner
experiences
the look when another circles the area with a
bright light;
men
crawling through
the brush in the midst of an attack encounter
the look of others when
they
come
upon
an ominous farmhouse
(Sar-
tre
1953, 350, 257, 353).
In the
look,
individuals
engage
in a social war
of mutual
objectification.
Rich's instances of the look directed at women show that the ob-
jectification
can strike at the
very
core of one's
being
and can be more
devastating
than Sartre described in his warfare
examples.
For
Rich,
the look of the other can so
interrupt
our lives that we
may
not be able
to stare back. So
foreboding
is our
experience
of the
"eye
of the
glass"
that we
may
hide behind our
eyeball
like "a woman
waiting
behind
grimed
blinds slatted across a
courtyard
/ she never looks into"
(1975,
177).
The force of the stare
marks,
as an
incision,
our
power
to see:
"Walking,
I felt
my eyes
like wounds / raw in
my head,
/ so
postal-
clerks,
I
thought,
must stare"
(1975, 62).
The
eye
as a
wound,
does
not
yet see,
but rather
experiences only
the
pain
of
being
looked at.
Within
oppressive vision,
distance is established
by
the looker in order
to be saved from
objectification.
The looker creates distance
by
enter-
ing
into a vacuous isolation. Sartre
(1953, 258)
notes the remoteness
of the looker in the look: "The Other's look is the
disappearance
of
the Other's
eyes
... one hides his
eyes;
he seems to
go
in front of them."
Rich
(1975, 185)
illustrates the
experience
of
being
seen
by
one who
is hidden in his
gaze: "your eyes
are stars of a different
magnitude
/
they
reflect
lights
that
spell
out: EXIT."
115
hypatla
Desire is the most familiar element of the look directed toward
women. Rich
(1975, 124)
writes of the
conjunction
of distance and
desire,
"How
many
men have touched me with their
eyes
/ more
hotly
than
they
later touched me with their
lips."
Distance and desire can
work
together
to reduce women in the
eyes
of men to
objects
for viola-
tion. In a discussion of
desire,
Sartre
(1953, 258)
writes of desire for
women much in the
way
that one would desire an inanimate
object.
He can "desire a woman in the
world, standing
near a
table, lying
naked
on a
bed,
or seated at
my
side." Even the most casual instance of desire
assumes the violation of women in Sartre's work. He writes of "absent-
minded
desire," by referencing
when one "undresses a woman with
his look." Such a
metaphor suggests
action at a
distance-undressing
a woman with one's
eyes-reflects
the
presumed all-encompassing
power
of the
oppressor's gaze.
The alienation that the looked at
experiences through
the desire of
the looker is found in the
poetry
of Rich
(1975, 227):
"I am
trying
to
imagine
how it feels to
you
/ to want a woman /
trying
to hallucinate
desire centered in a cock / focused like a
burning glass,
desire without
discrimination: to want a woman like a fix."
The destructive nature of the look lies in its
capacity
to annihilate
the freedom of the individual who is looked at. The desire of the look
is
inevitably
linked to an act of destruction. Sartre
(1953, 756, 757)
claims that the
desiring
look
always
seeks the destruction of its
object.
In the suddenness of the
look,
"I
experience
a subtle alienation of all
of
my possibilities (Sartre 1953, 258).
Rich
(1975, 186) states,
"You
look at me like an
emergency."
To be seen as an
"emergency,"
is to
experience
oneself in the look of another as a
thing
to be
controlled,
stopped, extinguished.
The destructive
aspect
of
oppressive seeing
con-
stitutes a view of women that
presupposes
our extinction as autonomous
beings
and disconnects us from an
array
of
possibilities
we fashion for
ourselves. The look directed toward women within
patriarchy
distances
women from
positions
of
power,
focuses on women as
objects
of male
sexual
desire,
and seeks the destruction of women as free
subjects.
II.
The
Eyes
of the
Group
When the look is
analyzed
in terms of
groups
of individuals of une-
qual power
the
complexity
of the movement out of
oppression
becomes
evident. Collective awareness of a shared social situation
brings
with
it a shift in
perception
such that the
group
looked at need no
longer
view itself under the
guise
of
limiting
social constructs. Our
recogni-
tion of the look of
oppressive seeing
is
accompanied by
the
possibility
that we need not be
women,
that our
eyes
need not be
shaped by
the
116
julien
s.
murphy
oppressor.
The look between
political
and economic
groups
of
unequal
social
standing
is
aptly
described
by
Sartre
(1953, 543)
in terms of the look
of "the Third" and the
"Us-object."
The
Third,
be it
God, capitalism,
the white
race,
or
patriarchy
constitutes a series of individuals as a
totality by impressing
on those individuals a social construct
comprised
of an
arbitrary
collection of traits. The Third maintains its
position
of
power
in
society by restricting
the
possibilities
of the
Us-object
to
the
range
of characteristics attributed to it.
Frye's (1983, 56)
notion
of
coercion,
as a
"manipulation
of the circumstances and
manipula-
tion of the
options"
is central to the
power
of the Third. If the Third
is understood as
patriarchy,
the Third would be said to maintain itself
by
a
grand
scheme
involving manipulation
of circumstances and choices
which
require
females to do what is deemed
fitting
and
proper
for
"women."
The
Us-object
comes into existence
through
the look of the Third.
The
oppression
of an individual as "woman" is no
longer
seen as a
random act of
misplaced aggression,
but is
recognized
as
pertaining
to a shared situation of collective
oppression.
The entire series of in-
dividuals seen as "women" becomes an
Us-object
in which each
member of the
Us-object
shares in common the awareness of
being
look-
ed at
by
the Third.
Yet,
no member of the
Us-object
can
actually
be
that
object,
for the collection of traits that form the
Us-object depends
entirely
on the
judgment
of the Third. We can never be
women,
for
"woman" is a form of existence that is forced
upon
us from the out-
side
by
the Third with the demand that we see ourselves
through
the
eyes
of the
Us-object
and do not claim a vision of our own.
The
emergence
of the
Us-object
from the look of the Third entails
a
change
in
perception
in which the Us
acts,
in
light
of its awareness
of the
gaze
of the
Third,
to
bring
forth its
own,
new
eyes.
In Rich's
"The
Phenomenology
of
Anger" (1975, 201),
female consciousness
emerges
into self-consciousness
through recognition
of its
anger
at the
look of the Third: "I hate
you.
/ I hate the mask
you wear, your eyes
/
assuming
a
depth
/
they
do not
possess, drawing
me / into the
grotto
of
your
skull." In Rich's
"Burning
Oneself Out"
(1975, 170),
the
eye
of female
consciousness,
"the
eye
sunk inward / the
eye bleeding
with
speech," struggles
to
speak
the
language
which it sees for itself: "a
pair
of
eyes imprisoned
for
years
inside
my
skull / is
burning
its
way
out-
ward,
the headaches are terrible"
(1975, 125).
Action taken
by
the
Us,
when it
perceives
the look of the
Third,
runs
a
perilous
course between
falling
back into and
thereby perpetuating
the constructs created
by
the
Third,
and
transcending
those constructs
altogether.
For Sartre
(1953, 675),
we cannot
actually
be the constructs
117
hypatia
created
by
the
Third,
and hence he calls such constructs "unrealizables."
We can
only attempt
to claim those constructs in our
daily
lives. Such
attempts
are
always projects
of "bad faith."
They
assume we could
actually
exist in terms of their demands. It would
mean,
as
Frye (1983,
74) writes,
that "she has assumed his interest. She now sees with his
eye,
his
arrogant eye."
In bad faith we
slip
into
seeing
ourselves
primari-
ly through
the
eyes
of the others. In bad
faith,
we
may attempt
to
ig-
nore the historical and
political
context of the constructs created
by
the Third. We
may
even
deny
the restriction of choice that such con-
structs
impose
on our lives. Or we can
reject
the constructs
entirely
and
avoid bad faith
by authentically claiming responsibility
for our situation.
To avoid bad
faith,
we must
recognize
that we are the
object
of the
gaze
of the Third. The first
step
in
freeing
ourselves is to claim our
oppressive
situation. Sartre
(1974, 145) writes,
a Jew must demand "full
rights
as a
Jew,"
a worker must "demand to be liberated as a worker."
It is
only through
a
political
identification with the
oppressive construct,
that the
oppressed
can move toward
rendering
that construct mean-
ingless. Any attempt
to disassociate ourselves from our historical situa-
tion is but an inauthentic
attempt
at assimilation. We must claim we
are
"women,"
not because
any
one of us
really
is a
"woman,"
but
rather because we all are immersed within a historical situation of be-
ing
seen as "women." It is
only
from
acting
within our historical situa-
tion,
that true liberation can be
brought
about.
However, although
authenticity
entails
claiming
our
oppression,
it does not
require
that
we
negate any possible
moments of freedom within our situation.
Authenticity
demands an acute awareness that we must be free in this
world,
that we must choose ourselves
by taking
into account these cir-
cumstances. As
long
as there are choices within our
situation,
we have
some
freedom,
and since situations
always
afford some
range
of
choices,
Sartre
(1953, 629)
claims we are
"wholly
and forever free." We must
use our freedom to not
only
claim our
rights
but we must act "to
go
beyond
that situation to one that is
fully
human"
(Sartre 1974, 145).
An authentic
appraisal
of our situation as
women, requires
a com-
mittment to
taking up
our lives in the midst of the
patriarchal gaze.
How we are seen as "women" in
patriarchy
is
part
of our
reality.
As
Rich
(1978, 25)
writes in
"Twenty-One
Love
Poems,":
"Wherever in
this
city,
screens flicker / with
pornography,
with science-fiction vam-
pires,
/ victimized
hirelings bending
to the
lash,
/ we also have to walk.
... Our lives
occur, unmistakably,
within our historical situation. Rich
remarks,
"We need to
grasp
our lives
inseparable
from those rancid
dreams." Our freedom is
inseparable
from the
oppressive
context that
sees us as "women."
We take
up
our freedom when we look
closely
at ourselves in a situa-
118
julien
s.
murphy
tion which
is,
in
part,
forced
upon
us. In "The
Images"
Rich
(1981a,
3) asks,
"But when did we ever choose to see our bodies
strung
/ in
bondage
and crucifixion across exhausted air/ when did we choose /
to be
lynched
on the
queasy
electric
signs
/ of midtown when did we
choose / to become the masturbator's fix." We have not chosen the
crude
depictions
of ourselves or to live in a world that
oppresses
us.
Yet,
we do choose how we see ourselves. Rich
(1981a, 5) writes,
"I
recollect
myself
in that
presence."
That our
eyes
need not be
shaped by
the
oppressor
becomes in-
creasingly
evident as we claim our freedom in the midst of our historical
situation. In the refusal to exist for others and in the
development
of
our consciousness as
oppressed beings
there
emerges
a new mode of
seeing by
which we move out of
oppression.
III. Feminist Vision
Feminist vision claims that women must be free and
proposes,
as
central to that
goal,
a
revisioning
of how we see ourselves and each
other under the
patriarchal gaze.
The "look" of feminist vision in Rich's
later
poetry
is
grounded
in the
development
of women's consciousness
through
a
solidarity among
women that is at once both sexual and
political.
Rich envisions a
gynocentric
movement in her lesbian
feminism. She describes the
discovery
of women
seeing
each other as
lovers: "that two women / ... should think it
possible
/ now for the
first time /
perhaps,
to love each other / neither as fellow-victims /
nor as a
temporary
shadow of
something
better"
(Rich 1975, 133, 134).
Feminist vision enables us to take a fresh look at
ourselves,
at each
other,
and at our situation. In the "look" of feminist vision we discover
that our
eyes
need be neither those of the victim nor those of the
op-
pressor.
Feminist
seeing, through
its boldness and
freedom, confronts
and moves
beyond
the
distance, destruction,
and desire that
permeate
the look
of oppression.
Rich uses hereness as a
confrontation
with distance. She writes of
the choice to act
"here,"
that
is,
in our own bodies and from our own
situations. We take
up
our vision and our
lives,
as she entitles one
poem,
"Not Somewhere Else but Here"
(Rich 1978, 39).
The choice to be
"here,"
to be for
ourselves,
is
depicted by
Rich
(1978, 6)
in "Phan-
tasia for Elvira
Shatayev,"
a celebration of the women's
climbing
team
that
perished
on Lenin's Peak. Rich
reflects,
in the
person
of
Elvira,
"for months for
years
each one of us / had felt her own
yes growing
in her ... that
yes gathered
its forces."
Yet,
the climbers' consciousness
expands only
to encounter
limits,
"to meet a No of no
degrees
/ the
black hole
sucking
the world in." The women's collective
vision,
woven
119
hypatia
together
with the mountain and the blue
sky,
is described
by Rich,
"our
frozen
eyes
unribboned
through
the storm / we could have stitched that
blueness
together
like a
quilt."
The real
danger
is not mountain climb-
ing,
but the isolation of women from each other: "We know now we
have
always
been in
danger
/ down in our
separateness
/ and now
up
here
together
but till now / we had not touched our
strength."
The choice to confront the distance of
patriarchal oppression
with
acting here,
within our
situation,
does not alleviate our
oppression.
Hereness can
manifest, however,
a movement toward wholeness. In
"Origins
and
History
of
Consciousness,"
Rich
(1978, 8)
writes of
women's
consciousness,
of the "drive to
connect,"
the
urge
to assem-
ble the
pieces
of ourselves into a
meaningful
web of
experience.
The
look of the
oppressor
is broken when the
oppressed
connect with each
other for
understanding
and
transforming
our lives. Rich
presents
a
wholistic and tactile
image
of feminist vision: "the water / is
mild,
I
sink and float / like a warm
amphibious
animal / that has broken the
net." We take
up
our lives "here" within our situations when we break
through
the
netting
and no
longer
transcribe the differences between
women as barriers to a common
womanly
vision.
In A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far
(A WP)
Rich
(198 la)
acknowledges
the differences that exist between women and that
may
impede solidarity, specifically, racism, family roles, physical limitations,
politics,
and
failings
in
friendships.
All the while Rich stretches
language
across these barriers
trying
to understand how we are divided from each
other. In her
poem
on
racism, "Frame,"
Rich
(1981a, 46)
describes
the
experience
of a white woman
seeing
a white
policeman
assault a
black
woman, writing,
"I don't know her. I am /
standing though
somewhere
just
outside the
frame
/
of
all
this, trying
to see. " The
family
differences between women
emerge
in the distance between a
daughter-
in-law and her mother-in-law in "Mother-in-Law"
(1981a, 31),
with
the mother-in-law
asking
"tell me
something true,
"
and the
daughter-
in-law
responding,
"Ask me
something."
The difference of
physical
limitations are described in "Transit"
(1981a, 19)
when the
impaired
skiier, knowing
the other woman will soon
pass
her
by,
looks for
something
common between them: "And when we
pass
each other I
look into her face /
wondering
what we have in common / where our
minds
converge,
. . . as I halt beside the fence
tangled
in
snow,
/ she
passes
me as I shall never
pass
her / in this life." In "For Ethel
Rosenberg"
Rich
(1981a, 29)
confronts
political
differences between
women
asking,
"Ethel
Greenglass Rosenberg
would
you
/ have marched
to take back the
night
/ collected
signatures
/ for battered women who
kill / ... would
you
have burst the net." The
pain
of failures in friend-
ships
is found in "For Julia in
Nebraska,"
when Rich
(1981a, 18) speaks
120
julien
s.
murphy
of "when our
maps diverge,
when we miss
signals,
fail" and in "Rift"
(1981a, 49)
a break between
friends,
"I have in
my
head some
images
of
you:
/
your
face turned
awkwardly
from the kiss of
greeting"
and
mentions the
pain
of missed
signals, divergence,
"when we fail each
other / there is no exorcism. The hurt continues."
Yet, despite
the dif-
ferences in women's
situations,
Rich seeks common
ground through
the barriers that have
separated
us.
The "look" of the
oppressor
denies women's freedom
by positing
us as
objects
in the
patriarchal
world. In the "looks" of feminist con-
sciousness we discover new forms of
subjectivity
and
power through
action that
refuses
destruction.
By choosing
to
act,
we
align
ourselves
with moments of freedom at the core of our
subjectivity. Although
we
are seen as
powerless,
we claim
power
within ourselves
by refusing,
whenever
possible,
to allow
patriarchy
to limit our
possibilities.
Our
freedom to act in small or
great ways
constitutes our rebellion. To take
up
our lives
against patriarchy
moves us to new
ground.
As Rich
(1978,
75) writes,
"No one who survives to
speak
/ new
language,
has avoid-
ed this: / the
cutting-away
of an old force that held her / rooted to
an old
ground."
Feminist vision sees the source of our
power
to act within
patriarchy
as
lying
with ourselves.
Through
feminist
vision,
each of us sees in new
ways
the
daily
actions
required
to retain our freedom amidst
oppressive
constraints. In "A Vision" Rich
(1981a, 50)
thinks of the
gaze
of
Simone
Weil,
"You.
There,
with
your gazing eyes
/ Your
blazing eyes
/
. . . You with
your
cornea and iris and their
power
/
you
with
your
stubborn lids that have
stayed open
/ at the moment of
pouring liquid
steel?" Feminist vision
brings
us to see ever more
forcefully,
ever more
deeply.
The look can
reshape
the world such that
we, along
with
Rich,
may
dare to wonder what it would be like "to take and use our
love,
/
to hose it on a
city,
on a world"
(1978, 13).
With
every
act that
springs
from consciousness of our situation as
women,
we make a
reality
for
ourselves.
Feminist vision recasts desire to
encompass
a
passion
for our freedom.
The desire between women need not be bounded
by patriarchy.
Rich
(1978, 76)
writes of the look between
women,
"Two
women, eye
to
eye, measuring
each other's
spirit,
each other's limitless desire / ...
Vision
begins
to
happen
in such a life." Vision enables us to see our
possibilities.
With
integrity
we create ourselves in the midst
of patriarchal
desire.
Integrity
is not
loyalty
to an absolute
principle,
but commitment to our
freedom that
expresses
steadfastness to the
project
of
moving
out of
oppression.
In Rich's
poem, "Integrity" (1981a, 9), anger
and
tenderness are summoned so that we can
pursue
our
projects
from our
121
hypatia
own
ground. Integrity presents
a
way
of
looking
at ourselves and each
other that
places
as central the
projects
we choose within our situa-
tions. As we cast aside external standards for
evaluating ourselves,
each
of us discovers
unique patterns
for
assuming
our situational freedom.
The steadfastness of
integrity
enables us to steer a course
through
and
out of
oppression.
IV. Vision's Voice
Feminist vision
acquires
voice in Rich's most recent
poetry,
Your
Native
Land,
Your
Life (YNL) (1986), bringing
full circle the hints of
a feminist
theory
of
oppression
and liberation.
Although
there is still
look
imagery
in
YNL,
"And if
my
look becomes the bomb that
rips/
the
family
home
apart" (1986, 16),
it is voice that
emerges
as a central
metaphor allowing
the
"eyes bleeding
with
speech"
to break
open.
Rich
speaks
from the
center, defying
her
marginal
woman's situation: "from
the center of
my body
/ a voice bursts"
(1986, 94), speaking through
and
beyond
women's
situation, "speaking from,
and
of,
and
to, my
country" (1986, jacket flap).
The
emergence
of voice is marked in
"North American Time" which
begins by breaking through
the net of
politically
correct
poetry,
"When
my
dreams showed
signs
/ of becom-
ing
/
politically
correct / no
unruly images
/
escaping beyond
borders
/ when
walking
in the street I found
my
/ themes cut out for me / .
. then I
began
to
wonder,"
towards the affirmation of feminist voice
bold
enough
to address
any injustice,
"out of the
Bronx,
the Harlem
River / the drowned towns of the
Quabbin
/ the
pilfered
burial
mounds / the toxic
swamps,
the
testing-grounds
/ and I start to
speak
again" (Rich 1986, 33-36).
Rich
gives
voice to her feminist vision and offers
glimpses
of libera-
tion
by thinking through
connections common to diverse forms of
op-
pressions, interweaving sexism, racism, heterosexism,
anti-semitism into
experience.
For
instance,
in "Yom
Kippur
1984"
(1986, 75-78)
women
and men are fellow-sufferers as
Jews, Blacks,
and homosexuals: "What
is a Jew in solitude? / ... What is a woman in solitude: a
queer
woman
or man? . . .
faggot
kicked into the
icy
/
river,
woman
dragged
from
her stalled car / ...
young
scholar shot at the
university
...
nothing
availing
his Blackness." The
poem goes
on to connect two forms of
oppression
in a
single experience:
"Jew who has turned her back / .
.
hiking
alone / found with a swastika carved in her back at the foot
of the cliffs /
(did
she die as
queer
or as
Jew?)"
The voice of feminist vision chooses to confront the world's suffer-
ing,
the world's
injustice,
to move outward from a feminist
politic
to
embrace the
"edges
that
blur,"
"to connect ... the
pain
of
anyone's
122
julien
s.
murphy
body
with the
pain
of the
body's
world / for it is the
body's
world /
they
are
trying
to
destroy
forever / the best world is the
body's
world /
filled with creatures filled with dread"
(Rich 1986, 100).
To confront
the world's
body
does not mean
"withdrawing
from difference with
whose
pain
we can choose not to
engage" (Rich 1981b, 90),
but rather
knowing
the world
through
our women's
situation,
our
"womanly
lens." "When / I
speak
of an end to
suffering
... I mean
knowing
the
world,
and
my place
in
it,
. . . as a
powerful
and
womanly
series
of choices: and here I write these
words,
in their fullness:
powerful,
womanly," (Rich 1986, 8, 27).
For
Rich,
we are at the same
time,
womanly, powerful, responsible
and accountable to a vision that can-
not
ignore injustices
that
may escape
feminist
analysis. "Try telling
yourself"
she writes in another
poem, "you
are not accountable / to
the lie of
your
tribe / the breadth of
your planet" (Rich 1986, 34).
Feminist vision needs to
speak
from the center of our
lives,
and
we,
as
feminists,
need to see our lives as centered
in,
and central to the world
in which we live.
Rich sees
ways
out of
oppression
and towards liberation as both
recognizing
our
womanly
situation as a lens
through
which we see the
world,
and as
defying
our
womanly
situation
by referring
to "the
breaker of rules . . . the one / who is neither a man nor a
woman,"
and later "when we who refuse to be women and men as women and
men are /
chartered,
tell our stories of solitude
spent
in multitude /
. . .what will solitude mean?"
(Rich 1986, 57,78).
The movement out of
oppression
involves constant reexamination
of the
category
"woman" as
integrally
linked to all other
oppressive
constructs,
such that we see that at one
moment,
we are not born
women,
but become women when under the
patriarchal gaze.
At
another
moment,
we must
recognize
ourselves as women. We must con-
front "woman" as the construct under which we are
seen,
and
which,
attempts
to
shape
our
reality. And,
as
yet
another
moment,
we need
to be women no
longer.
The
hereness, power,
and
integrity
of feminist
vision
respond
to the
distance, desire,
and destruction of
oppression
by demonstrating
that our vision need not be that of the
oppressor.
Vision's voice
presents
new
ways
of
speaking
about ourselves and
refuses to be silent to the limits
patriarchy
has
placed
on our situation.
The voice of fresh
eyes
is
possible
when we
lay
aside
"woman,"
while
not
forgetting
that we take
up
our lives in the center of a world that
continues to see us under that construct. With fresh
eyes,
we
appraise
our
possibilities
for freedom within and on the
ground
where we find
ourselves. Within our
situation,
we
speak
as
subjects,
for
ourselves,
and others in the midst of our movement out of
oppression.
123
hypatla
notes
My
thanks to Jeffner Allen for her
insightful
comments on earlier drafts of this
paper.
references
Beauvoir,
Simone de. 1952. The second sex. Trans. H.M.
Parshley.
New York: Bantam.
Frye, Marilyn.
1983. In and out of harm's
way: Arrogance
and love.
In The
politics of reality: Essays
in
feminist theory. Trumansburg,
New York: The
Crossing
Press.
Rich,
Adrienne. 1975. Poems: Selected and
new,
1950-1974. New York:
Norton.
1978. The dream
of
a common
language.
New York: Norton.
. 1979. On
lies,
secrets and silence. New York: Norton.
--- . 1981a. A wild
patience
has taken me this
far,
1978-1981. New
York: Norton.
--
. 1981b. Notes for a
magazine:
What does
separatism
mean?
Sinister Wisdom 18:90.
----.
1986. Your native
land, your life.
New York: Norton.
Sartre,
Jean-Paul. 1953.
Being
and
nothingness.
Trans. Hazel E.
Barnes. New York:
Washington Square
Press.
.1974. The
Writings of
Jean-Paul
Sartre,
Vol 1. Trans. Richard
C.
McLeary;
eds. Michel Conat and Michel
Rybalka. Evanston,
Illinois: Northwestern
University
Press.
Wittig, Monique.
1981. One is not born a woman. Feminist Issues 1
(2):
47-54.
124
h.e. baber
How Bad Is
Rape?
I
argue
that to be
compelled
to do routine work is to be
gravely
harmed.
Indeed,
that
pink-collar
work is a more serious harm to women
than
rape.
My purpose
is to
urge politically
active feminists and feminist
organizations
to
arrange
their
priorities accordingly
and devote most
of their resources to
working
for the elimination of sex
segregation
in
employment.
R
ape
is bad. This is uncontroversial.' It is one of the
many wrongs
committed
against
women. But how bad is
rape,
more
particularly,
how
bad is it vis-a-vis other
gender-based
offenses? I shall
argue
that while
rape
is
very
bad
indeed,
the work that most women
employed
outside
the home are
compelled
to do is more
seriously
harmful insofar as
doing
such work
damages
the most fundamental interests of the
victim,
what
Joel
Feinberg
calls "welfare
interests,"
whereas
rape typically
does not.2
It
may
be
suggested
that the
very question
of which of these evils
is the more serious is misconceived insofar as the harms
they
induce
are so different in character as to be incommensurable.
Nevertheless,
for
practical purposes
we are often
obliged
to
weigh
interests in diverse
goods against
one another and to
compare
harms which are
very
dif-
ferent in nature.
Feinberg's
account of how we
may
assess the relative
seriousness of various
harms,
in Harm to Others
(1984)
and
elsewhere,
provides
a rational basis for such
comparisons
and for
my
considera-
tion of the relative seriousness of
rape
and work. In
addition, my
com-
parison
of these harms
brings
to
light
a lacuna in
Feinberg's
discussion
which I
propose
to fill
by providing
an account of the
way
in which
the duration of a harmed state contributes to its seriousness.
Why Rape
is Bad
Rape
is bad because it constitutes a serious harm to the victim. To
harm a
person
is to
thwart,
set back or otherwise interfere with his in-
terests. Understood in this
sense,
"harm" is not
synonymous
with
"hurt." We
typically
have an interest in
avoiding chronic, distracting
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1987).

by
H.E. Baber.
125
hypatia
physical pain
and
psychic anguish
insofar as we
require
a certain
degree
of
physical
and emotional
well-being
to
pursue
our
projects,
hence hurts
are often harmful
(e.g.
root canal
work). Arguably,
there are also harms
which are not hurtful. Our interests extend to states of affairs
beyond
immediate
experience.
I have an
interest,
for
example,
in
my reputa-
tion so that if I am slandered I am harmed even if I am
altogether
unaware of what is
being
said about me. Names can never hurt me but
they can,
even without
my knowledge,
harm me insofar as I have an
interest in others'
thinking
well of me. Harms are thus to be understood
in terms of the interests or stakes that
persons
have in states of affairs.
Virtually everyone
has an interest in
avoiding involuntary
contact
with
others, particularly
unwanted contacts which are intimate or in-
vasive.
Being raped
violates this interest
hence, quite apart
from
any
further
consequences
it
may
have for the victim or for
others,
it con-
stitutes a harm. In
addition, people
have an interest in not
being
used
as mere means for the benefit of
others,
an interest which is violated
by rape. Finally,
all
persons
can be
presumed
to have an interest in
going
about their business free of restriction and interference.
Rape,
like other crimes of
violence,
thwarts this interest. Since
rape
sets back
some of the victim's most
important interests,
the victim of
rape
is in
a harmed condition.
Furthermore,
the condition of
being raped
is a
harmful
condition
as well as a harmed condition insofar as it has a
tendency
to
generate
further
harms-anxiety, feelings
of
degradation
and other
psychological
states which
may
interfere with the victim's
pursuit
of other
projects.
In these
respects rape
is no different from other violent crimes. The
victim of assault or
robbery
is violated and this in and of itself con-
stitutes a harm. In
addition, being
assaulted or robbed is harmful in-
sofar as victims of assault and
robbery
tend to suffer from fears and
psychological
traumas as a result of their
experience
which
may
interfere
with their
pursuit
of other
projects.
Now there is a
tendency
to
exaggerate
the
harmfulness
of
rape,
that
is,
to make much of the
incapacitating psychological
traumas that some
victims suffer as a result of
being raped.
One motive for such claims
is the
recognition
that the harm of
rape per
se is often underestimated
and hence
that,
in some
quarters, rape
is not taken as
seriously
as it
ought
to be taken.
Rape
has not been treated in the same
way
as other
crimes of violence. A
person,
whether male or
female,
who is
mugged
is not asked to
produce
witnesses,
to
provide
evidence of his
good
character or
display bodily injuries
as evidence of his
unwillingness
to
surrender his wallet to his assailant. In the
past, however,
the burden
of
proof
has been
placed wrongfully
on the victims of
rape
to show
their
respectability
and their
unwillingness,
the
assumption being
that
126
h.e. baber
(heterosexual) rape
is
merely
a sexual act rather than an act of violence
and that sex acts can be
presumed
to be desired
by
the
participants
unless
there is
strong
evidence to the
contrary.
This is not so. Writers who
stress the traumas
rape
victims suffer cite the deleterious
consequences
of
rape
in
response
to such
assumptions.
It
is, however, quite unnecessary
to
exaggerate
the harmfulness of
rape
to
explain
its seriousness. Women are not
merely
sexual resources
whose wants and interests can be
ignored-and
women do not
secretly
want to be
raped.
Like
men,
women have an
important
interest in not
being
used or interfered
with,
hence
being raped
is a harm. Even if it
did not hurt the victim
physically
or
psychologically
or tend to
bring
about
any further
harms it would still be a harm in and of itself. A
person
who is assaulted or robbed does not need to
produce
evidence
of the
psychological
trauma he suffers as a
consequence
in order to
persuade
others that he has been harmed. We
recognize that, quite apart
from the
consequences,
the act of assault or
robbery
is itself a harm.
The same should be true of
rape.
If we
recognize rape
for what it
is,
a violent crime
against
the
person,
we shall not take
past
sexual activi-
ty
as evidence that the victim has not
"really"
been
raped any
more
than we should take a
history
of habitual charitable contributions as
evidence that the victim of
mugging
has not
"really"
been
robbed,
neither shall we feel
compelled
to stress the
psychological consequences
of
rape
to
persuade
ourselves that
rape
is in and of itself a harm.
If this is made
clear,
there is no
compelling
reason to
harp
on the
suffering
of
rape
victims.
Furthermore, arguably,
on
balance,
it
may
be undesirable to do so.
First, making
much of the traumas
rape
vic-
tims
allegedly
suffer tends to reinforce the
pervasive
sexist
assumption
that women are cowards who break under stress and are
incapable
of
dealing
with
physical danger
or violence.
Secondly,
it would seem that
conceiving
of such traumas as
normal, expected consequences
of
rape
does a disservice to victims who
might
otherwise be
considerably
less
traumatized
by
their
experiences.
The Relative Seriousness of Harms
Everyone agrees
that
rape
is bad. The
disagreement
is over how bad.
This raises a more
general question, namely
that of
ranking
harms with
regard
to their relative seriousness.
Given our
understanding
of harm as the
thwarting
of a
being's
in-
terests and our
assumption
that a
person's
interests extend
beyond
im-
mediate
experience,
it will not do to rank harms
strictly according
to
the amount of
disutility they generate
for the victim or the extent to
which
they
decrease his
utility.
A
person
is harmed when his interests
127
hypatla
are
impeded regardless
of whether he suffers as a
consequence.
Per-
sons have an interest in
liberty,
for
example,
and are harmed when
deprived
of
liberty
even if
they
do not
feel
frustrated as a
consequence.
The advice of stoics has a hollow
ring
and
projects
for
"adjusting"
people
to
severely
restrictive conditions strike most of us as
unacceptable
precisely
because we
recognize that even if self-cultivation or condi-
tioning
can
prevent
us from
being
hurt or
feeling
frustrated
by
the
thwarting
of our most fundamental
interests,
such
practices
cannot
pre-
vent us from
being
harmed.
Intuitively,
the seriousness of a harm is determined
by
the
impor-
tance of the interest which is violated within the network of the vic-
tim's interests.
Some interests are more
important
than others in the
sense that harm to them is
likely
to lead to
greater damage
to the whole
economy
of
personal (or
as the case
may
be, community)
interests than harm to the lesser interest
will
do, just
as harm to one's heart or brain will do more
damage
to one's
bodily
health than an
"equal degree"
of harm to less vital
organs. Thus,
the interest of a stan-
dard
person
in X
may
be more
important
than his interest
in Y in that it
is,
in an
analogous sense,
more "vital"
in his whole interest network than is his interest in Y. A
person's
welfare interests tend to be his most vital
ones,
and also to be
equally
vital.
(Feinberg 1984, 204-5)
A
person's
"welfare interests" are those which are
typically
most
vital in a
personal system
of
interests, e.g.
interests in
minimally
de-
cent health and the absence of chronic
distracting pain,
a tolerable en-
vironment,
economic
sufficiency,
emotional
stability,
the absence of
intolerable stress and minimal
political liberty-all
those
things
which
are
required
for the "standard
person"
to
pursue any
further
projects
effectively.
These are interests in conditions that are
generalized
means to a
great variety
of
possible goals
and whose
joint
realization,
in the absence of
very special circumstances,
is
necessary
for the achievement of more ultimate aims.
... When
they
are blocked or
damaged,
a
person
is
very
seriously
harmed
indeed,
for in that case his more
ultimate
aspirations
are defeated
too;
whereas setbacks
to a
higher goal
do not to the same
degree
inflict
damage
on the whole network of his interests.
(Feinberg 1984, 37)
Three
points
should be noted here.
First,
we decide which interests
128
h.e. baber
are to count as welfare interests
by reflecting upon
the needs and
capacities
of the "standard
person."
Some
people
indeed are more
capable
than the standard
person-and
we have all heard their
inspira-
tional stories ad nausaum. The standard
person
however cannot be ex-
pected
to
produce
saleable
paintings
with a brush held in his mouth
if
paralyzed
nor can the standard
person
be
expected
to overcome
grind-
ing poverty
and
gross
discrimination to achieve brilliant success at the
very pinnacle
of the
corporate
ladder.
Secondly,
welfare interests are interests in
having minimally
tolerable
amounts of
good things, just enough
to enable their
possessor
to
pur-
sue his ulterior interests.
Empirical questions may
be raised as to what
sort of environment is "tolerable" to the standard
person,
what
degree
of
political liberty
he needs to
pursue
his
goals
and how much material
security
he
requires.
Nevertheless a
person
who lives under conditions
of extreme
political oppression,
who ever fears the
midnight
visit of
the secret
police,
or one who
spends
most of his time and
energy
scratch-
ing
to maintain the minimal material conditions for survival is effec-
tively
blocked from
pursuing
other ends.
Now
persons
have an interest in
having
more of
goods
such as
health,
money
and
political liberty
than
they require
for the
pursuit
of their
ulterior interests since such
surplus goods
are a cushion
against
unfore-
seen reverses. In hard
times,
a middle class
family may
have to cut its
entertainment and
clothing budget-a working
class
family
however
may
be reduced to chill
penury
while the
truly poor
are forced out on
to the street. Nevertheless the interest in
having money,
health and the
like in excess of the tolerable minimum is not itself a
welfare
interest.
Finally
it should be noted that "welfare
interests,
taken
together,
make a chain that is no
stronger
than its weakest link." There are
few,
if
any
tradeoffs
possible among
welfare interests: an excess of one
good
cannot
compensate
for the lack of a
minimally
tolerable level of another.
"All the
money
in the world won't
help you
if
you
have a fatal
disease,
and
great physical strength
will not
compensate
for destitution or im-
prisonment" (Feinberg 1984, 57)-nor,
one
might add,
will
fringe
benefits, company picnics, impressive
titles or even
high pay compen-
sate for
dull, demeaning
work in an all but intolerable environment.
The
greatest
harms which can come to
persons
are those which af-
fect their most vital interests. To maim or
cripple
a
person
is to do him
a
great
harm insofar as one's interest in
physical
health is a
very
vital
interest, indeed,
a welfare interest.
Stealing
a sum of
money
from a
rich man is less harmful than
stealing
the same sum of
money
from
a
pauper
insofar as
depriving
a
person
of his means of survival sets
back a welfare interest whereas
depleting
his excess funds does not.
Now in
light
of these considerations it should be
apparent, first,
that
129
hypatla
rape
is a serious harm
but, secondly,
that it is not
among
the most
serious harms that can befall a
person.
It is a serious offense because
everyone
has an interest in
liberty
construed in the broadest sense not
merely
as freedom from state
regulation
but as freedom to
go
about
one's business without interference. Whenever a
person's projects
are
impeded,
whether
by
a
public agency
or a
private individual,
he
is,
to
that
extent,
harmed.
Rape
interferes with a
person's
freedom to
pur-
sue his own
projects
and
is,
to that
extent,
a harm. It does
not, however,
render a
person altogether incapable
of
pursuing
his ulterior interests.
Having
a certain
minimally
tolerable amount of
liberty
is a welfare in-
terest without which a
person
cannot
pursue any
further
projects.
While
rape
diminishes one's
liberty,
it does not diminish it to such an extent
that the victim is
precluded
from
pursuing
other
projects
which are in
his interest.
No doubt most
rape victims,
like victims of violent crime
generally,
are traumatized. Some
rape
victims indeed
may
be so
severely
traumatiz-
ed that
they
incur
long-term,
severe
psychological injury
and are
rendered
incapable
of
pursuing
other
projects.
For the standard
per-
son
however,
for whom
sexuality
is a
peripheral
matter on which
relatively
little
hangs,3 being raped, though
it constitutes a serious assault
on the
person,
does not violate a welfare interest. There is no evidence
to
suggest
that most
rape
victims are
permanently incapacitated by
their
experiences
nor that in the
long
run their lives are much
poorer
than
they
otherwise would have been.
Again,
this is not to minimize the harm
of
rape: rape
is a
grave harm,
nevertheless some harms are
graver
still
and,
in the
long run,
more harmful.
Times,
interests and harms
What can be worse than
rape?
A number of
tragic
scenarios come
to mind:
(1)
A
person
is killed in the bloom of
youth,
when he has in-
numerable
projects
and
plans
for the future.
Intuitively
death is
always
a bad
thing, though
it is
disputed
whether it is a
harm,
but
clearly
un-
timely
death is a
grave
harm insofar as it dooms the victim's interest
in
pursuing
a
great many projects.
(2)
A
person
is
severely
maimed or
crippled.
The interests of a
person
who is
mentally
or
physically incapacitated
are thwarted as the
range
of
options
available to him in his
impaired
state is
severely
limited.
(3)
A
person
is
destitute, deprived
of
food, clothing
and shelter. Here
one thinks of the victims of famine in Africa or street
people
reduced
to
sleeping
in
doorways
in our otherwise affluent cities. Persons in such
circumstances have not
got
the resources to
pursue
their ulterior
interests.
130
h.e. baber
(4)
A
person
is enslaved. He is treated as a mere tool for the
pursuit
of his master's
projects
and
deprived
of the time and resources to
pur-
sue his own.
Each of these misfortunes is worse than
rape.
And the list could be
continued.
Notice that all of the harmed conditions described are not
merely
painful
or traumatic but chronic rather than
episodic. They occupy large
chunks of
persons' histories-or,
in the case of
untimely death, actually
obliterate
large segments
of their
projected
histories. To this extent such
harmed conditions interfere more with the
pursuit
of other
projects
which are conducive to
persons' well-being
than does
rape.
Now it is not
entirely
clear from
Feinberg's
discussion how the tem-
poral
extent of harms
figure
into calculations of their relative
seriousness.
Feinberg (1984, 45ff.) suggests
that
transitory hurts,
whether
physical
or
mental,
do not harm the interests of the standard
person,
for whom the absence of
pain
is not a focal
aim,
whereas
chronic, distracting pain
and emotional
instability
set back
persons'
most vital interests insofar as
they preclude
them from
pursuing
their
goals
and
projects.
Nevertheless,
intense
pain,
however
transitory, may
be all-
encompassing
and
completely distracting
for the extent of its duration.
It is not
entirely
clear from
Feinberg's
discussion however
why, given
his account of interests and
harms,
we should not be forced to con-
clude that some
transitory
hurts are harms not because
they
violate an
interest in not
being
hurt but because
they preclude
the victim from
pursuing
other
interests,
albeit for a
very
short time.
Indeed,
it is not
clear
why
we should not be
compelled
to
regard
some
very transitory
pains,
traumas and inconveniences as set-backs to welfare interests. If
we
agree
that
being imprisoned
for a number of
years impedes
a welfare
interest insofar as it
precludes
the
prisoner
from
pursuing
his ulterior
interests while
imprisoned, why
should we not
say
that
being
locked
in the bathroom for
twenty
minutes is a harm of
equal,
if not
greater
magnitude, though
of shorter duration? After
all,
while locked in the
bathroom,
I
am,
if
anything,
in a worse
position
to
pursue my
ulterior
interests than I should be if I were in
prison.
Intuitively
however the duration of a harmed state
figures impor-
tantly
in assessments of its seriousness.
Being
locked in the bathroom
for
twenty
minutes is
not,
we
think,
a
great
harm of short duration-it
is
simply
a trivial harm insofar as it makes no
significant
difference
to the victim's total life
plan. Being imprisoned
for several
years,
on
the
contrary,
does make an
important
difference to the victim's
biography:
all other
things being equal
it
precludes
him from
realizing
a
great
number of aims that he should otherwise have
accomplished.
131
hypatla
All is not as it was after the
prisoner
has served his sentence. After
his
release,
the
prisoner
has much less time to
accomplish
his ends. A
large
chunk of his life has been blanked out and most
likely
his total
life
history
will be
poorer
for it.
Imprisonment impedes
a welfare interest insofar as it
deprives
the
prisoner
of the minimal amount of
liberty requisite
for the
pursuit
of
a
great many
of his ulterior interests.
Furthermore,
the
deprivation
of
liberty imposed upon
the
prisoner,
like other harms to welfare
interests,
cannot be
truly compensated by
an abundance of other
goods.
Even
the lavish
banquets
and luxurious accommodations
imagined by
self-
proclaimed
advocates of law and order who
deplore
the "soft treat-
ment" of offenders could not
compensate
for the restriction of in-
dividual
liberty imposed upon prisoners. Furthermore,
benefits con-
ferred
after
the
prisoner's
release cannot
truly compensate
him either.
A
person
who has been
falsely imprisoned may
be
"compensated"
after
a fashion with a
monetary
settlement but we all
recognize
that this does
not
really
set
things right:
he
has,
after
all,
lost that
many years
off
of his life and as a
consequence
he will never achieve a
great many things
that he would otherwise have achieved.
We
might capture
our intuitions about the role that the duration of
harmed states
play
in
determining
their seriousness in the
following way:
Typically, people's
focal aims
are,
as it
were,
timeless. Some
people,
indeed, may
have the ambition to
accomplish
certain feats at certain
times of their
lives, e.g.
to make a million
by age thirty,
but in most
cases the
objects
of our desires are not
temporally tagged
and
timing
is
not,
in the strict
sense,
essential to their realization. I can no
longer
make-a-million-by-age-thirty though
I still can make a million. Of
course I would
prefer
to have the million sooner rather than later.
If,
however, my
aim is
merely
to make a million at some time or other
I can afford to sit
tight. Though
the circumstances that
prevail
at some
times
may
be more conducive to the achievement of
my goal
than those
which
prevail
at other
times,
it is not essential to the realization of
my
ambition that it occur at
any special
time.
My
aim is not
essentially
time-bound.
Because most of
persons'
focal aims are not
time-bound, persons
by
and
large
can afford to sit
tight. Barring
the occasional Man from
Porlock,
our interests are not
seriously
set back
by transitory pains
or
other
relatively
short-lived distractions. A
momentary twinge may pre-
vent me from
starting
to write
my paper
at 12:05. No matter: I shall
start it at
12:06,
and the
delay
is
unlikely
to have
any significant
effect
on
my
total
opus. My
interest is in
producing
a certain
body
of work
during my
lifetime and this interest is
sufficiently
robust to withstand
a
good many temporary
set-backs. Nevertheless,
while most
people's
132
h.e. baber
interests are
relatively robust,
insofar as
they
are not
time-bound, they
are not
impregnable. Long-term
or chronic distractions can
seriously
impede
even those interests which are not time-bound. If I suffer from
chronic, distracting pain
or emotional
instability
for a number of
years
I
may
never write
my paper
or realize
many
of
my
other ambitions.
Art is
long
but
life, alas,
is short.
Now when it comes to
assessing
the relative seriousness of various
harms we consider them with
respect
to their
tendency
to interfere with
our
typically
"timeless" aims. The most serious harms are those which
interfere with the
greatest
number of interests for the
longest time,
those
which are most
likely
to
prevent
us from ever
achieving
our
goals.
The
greatest harms,
those which
damage
welfare
interests, therefore, bring
about harmed states which are chronic rather than
episodic.
Working
is worse than
being raped
On this account
being obliged
to work
is,
for
many people,
a
very
serious harm indeed insofar as work is chronic: it
occupies
a
large part
of the worker's
waking
life for a
long
time. For the fortunate
few,
work
in and of itself contributes to the worker's
well-being.
For
many
workers, however,
work
provides
few satisfactions. For the least for-
tunate,
whose
jobs
are
dull,
routine and
regimented,
work
provides
no
satisfactions whatsoever and the time devoted to work
prevents
them
from
pursuing any
other
projects
which
might
be conducive to their
well-being.
As a matter of fact women
figure disproportionately though
not ex-
clusively
in this
group.
Discrimination is not
only
unfair-and this in
itself constitutes a harm-it is harmful insofar as
many
women as a
result of
discriminatory employment practices
are
compelled
to take
very unpleasant, underpaid,
dead-end
jobs and,
as a
consequence,
to
spend
a substantial
part
of their
waking
lives at
tedious, regimented,
mind-killing
toil. A
great many
men have
equally appalling jobs.
I
sug-
gest
however that
anyone,
whether male or
female,
who
spends
a
good
deal of time at such work is in a more
seriously
harmed state than one
who is
raped.
Women however have an additional
grievance
insofar
as such
jobs
fall
disproportionately
to them as a
consequence
of unfair
employment practices.
A few hours or even a week of
typing
statistics or
operating
a switch-
board,
however
unpleasant, may
not be
seriously
harmful. For most
women in the
workforce, however,
such
unpleasantness occupies
a
substantial
part
of their
waking
hours for
years. Currently
most women
can look forward to
spending
the
greater part
of their adult lives
typ-
ing, hash-slinging, cashiering
or
assembling
small
fiddly
mechanisms.
133
hypatia
To be
compelled
to do such work is to be harmed in the most serious
way. Doing
such work
impedes
a welfare interest: it
deprives
the worker
of the minimal
degree
of freedom
requisite
for the
pursuit
of a number
of other interests. As with other such
deprivations,
the harm done can-
not be undone
by
other benefits. Sexists
may suggest
that women in
such
positions gain
satisfaction from selfless service to their
employers
and families and some
self-proclaimed
feminists
may suggest
that the
satisfaction of financial
independence
makes
up
for the
drudgery.
This
is however
plainly
false. The amount of time workers must
spend
at
their
jobs deprives
them of the freedom
necessary
to the effective
pur-
suit of their other
projects.
For this there can be no true
compensation.
Rape,
like all crimes
against
the
person,
is bad in
part
because it
deprives
the victim of some
degree
of freedom;
being compelled
to work
is worse in this
regard
insofar as it
chronically deprives
the victim of
the minimal amount of freedom
requisite
to the
pursuit
of other im-
portant
interests which are conducive to his
well-being.
Work is worse than
rape
in other
respects
as well. The
pink-collar
worker,
like the
rape victim,
is used as a mere means to the ends of
others
but, arguably,
in
being
used the worker is violated in a more
intimate,
more detrimental
way
than the
rape
victim.
Rape
is an emo-
tionally charged
issue insofar as it has become a
symbol
of all the
ways
in which women are violated and
exploited,
but
rape per
se
merely
violates the victim's sexual
integrity.
The work that most women do
however violates their
integrity
as intellectual
beings.
The routine clerical
work which falls almost
exclusively
to women
precludes
the worker's
thinking
about other matters: she is fettered
intellectually
for the
greater
part
of her
day.
Such work
occupies
the mind
just enough
to dominate
the worker's inner life but not
enough
to be of
any
interest. One does
not have to
buy questionable
Cartesian doctrines about the nature of
the self to
recognize
that
persons
have a
greater
stake in their mental
and emotional lives than
they
do in their
sexuality. Recognizing this,
it seems reasonable to
suggest
that
being "raped" intellectually
violates
a more vital interest than
being raped sexually.
Now there are indeed certain
disanalogies
between the harms of
rape
and
pink-collar
work.
First, arguably, persons
have a
right
not to be
raped
but
they
do not have a
right
to avoid
unpleasant
work. Second-
ly,
while
rapists clearly
harm their victims it is not so clear that
employers, particularly
if
they
have not
engaged
in unfair
hiring prac-
tices,
harm their
employees. Thirdly,
it
may
be
suggested
that the
rape
victim is
forced
into a
compromising position
whereas the
pink-collar
worker is not.
Finally,
it will be
suggested
that the work most women
do is not so
grim
as I have
suggested.
None of these
suggestions
however
seriously damages my
case.
134
h.e. baber
First,
I have not
argued
that
being compelled
to do
unpleasant
work
is a
wrong
but
only
that it is a
harm,
and a
grave
one. To be harmed
is not
necessarily
to be
wronged,
nor do
persons
have a
right
absolute
not to be harmed in
any way.
It
may be,
in some
cases,
that the ad-
vancement of the interests of others
outweighs
the harm that comes
to the victim so
that,
on
balance,
the harm to the victim does not con-
stitute an
injustice
or a
wrong.
As
consumers,
all of
us,
men and
women
alike,
have an interest in
retaining
women as a source of
cheap
clerical
and service work. It
may
be
that,
on
balance,
this
outweighs
the in-
terest of women as
potential
workers in not
being exploited-though
I doubt it. If this is so then the
exploitation
of women in these
posi-
tions is not a
wrong.
It
is, nevertheless,
a harm.
Secondly,
on
Feinberg's account,
natural disasters-and not
merely
persons
who omit to aid victims-cause
great
harm. More
generally,
to be in a harmed state is not
necessarily
to be harmed
by
some moral
agent.
To
suggest
that workers are
seriously
harmed
by
the work
they
do is not to
say
that their
employers
are
harming
them.
Indeed,
it seems
that most
supervisors, managers
and owners of businesses are rather
like carriers of harmful diseases:
they
are
causally responsible
for
per-
sons'
coming
to
harm,
but we should not want to
say
that
they
harm
anyone.
Thirdly,
most women in the
pink-collar
sector are
compelled
to work:
the
myth
that most women enter the workforce to
get
out of the house
and make
pin money
has
long
been
exploded.
Now intuitions about
what constitutes coercion differ
radically.
Some
suggest,
for
example,
that a woman who cannot
display
bruises or wounds as evidence of
a
desperate struggle
has not
really
been forced to have sex with her
assailant. I however
go
with the commonsensical
meaning
of
coercion,
without
pretending
to know the
analysis.
On this account a woman with
a knife to her throat is forced to
engage
in sexual intercourse and a
woman with no other
adequate
means of
support
for herself and her
family
is forced to work. An
exceptional person
indeed
may pull
herself
up by
the
bootstraps;
the standard
person
however cannot.
Fourthly,
a
growing sociological
literature on women in the
workforce, observation,
and
personal experience
all
suggest
that the
work most women do is
every
bit as harmful as I have
suggested.
A
"phenomenology"
of womenswork is
beyond
the
scope
of this
paper,
and
beyond my competence
as an
analytic philosopher.
Even if I should
succeed in
conveying
the dull
misery
of the
working day,
the stress at
other
times, knowing
that another
day
of work is
getting closer,
and
beyond this,
the
knowledge
that there is no
way out,
it would not be
entirely
to the
point.
As
Feinberg notes, except
for
Epicureans,
for
whom the absence of
pain
is a focal
aim,
neither
physical pain
nor
135
hypatla
psychic anguish
is in and of itself a harm:
they
are harms
only
insofar
as
they impede
the
agent's
interests. It is not the
misery
of
working
per
se but the extent to which most work
precludes
one's
pursuit
of
other ends which makes work the
grave
harm that it is. Even if
many
workers avoid the
hurt,
all endure the harm insofar as their interests
are
impeded
and their lives are
impoverished.
Finally,
I
recognize
that
many
men are forced to do
demeaning, dull,
often
dangerous
work.
Again,
this is
hardly
a criticism of
my
case. I
grant
that men are harmed in the most serious
way by being
forced
into such
drudgery. My suggestion
is
merely
that a
person,
whether
male or
female,
who
spends
a
good
deal of time
doing
such work is
in a more
seriously
harmed state than one who is
raped. Rape
is
bad,
indeed, very
bad. But
being
a
keypunch operator
is worse.
I
recognize
that this conclusion will be met with considerable hostili-
ty. Beyond
the harm that
rapists
inflict
upon
their
victims, rape
is a
powerful symbol
of the
oppression
women suffer and thus
naturally
arouses the wrath and
indignation
of
virtually
all women who are aware
of their situation.
Still,
to the vast numbers of
single parents
who are
unable to
provide
a
minimally
decent standard of
living
for their families
on the
wages paid
for "women's
work,"
to all women who do
pink
collar
work,
and to all who
recognize
that
they
are in
danger
of
being
compelled
to take such work-and
virtually
all of us are in
danger-
the shift of
emphasis by
some feminist
organizations
from activities
geared
to end sex discrimination in
employment
to a
range
of other
projects
is
extremely irritating.
Why Rape
is Considered the
Supreme
Evil-a
postscript
In
light
of the fact
(which
should be
apparent
to all reasonable
peo-
ple)
that
spending
the better
part
of one's
waking
hours over a
period
of
years
at
boring, regimented
work is worse than
being
the victim of
violent
crime,
one wonders
why
it is so often assumed that
rape
is the
supreme
evil. Two
conjectures
come to mind.
First,
it is
generally
assumed that women are
largely incapable
of
dealing
with
danger
or
physical
violence. Since
rape
is a crime
against
women
primarily, given
this
assumption,
it would follow that most
rape
victims would be more traumatized than victims of other violent crimes.
This is an insult to women: it is incumbent
upon
us to show that we
are as macho as
anyone!
Secondly,
women are
traditionally
viewed
primarily
in connection
with concerns which center around their
sexuality-in
terms of their
roles as
lovers,
wives and mothers. Because women are seen in this
way,
it is
commonly
assumed that
they
have a
greater
stake in matters con-
136
h.e. baber
cerning sexuality
in the broadest sense than do men.
So,
for
example,
all issues
concerning reproduction
are
thought
of as "women's issues"
despite
the
recognition by
all but the most
primitive peoples
that men
play
an essential role in the
reproductive process. Indeed,
it is often
assumed that women have more of a stake in sexual matters than
they
do in
any
other concerns.
Given these
assumptions
it would follow that
any
violation of sex-
ual
integrity
would be
extremely
harmful to women.
Arguably
if
rape
is considered
among
the
gravest
of harms it is
largely
because women
are
regarded
as
beings
whose welfare is tied
up
most
intimately
with
sexual concerns and
relationships, persons
to whom other
matters,
such
as intellectual stimulation and
professional achievement,
are
relatively
peripheral.
Most women take
strong exception
to
being regarded
as "sex ob-
jects."
What is often
thought
to be
objectionable
about this role is the
suggestion
of
passivity,
the
implication
that one is an
object
which is
used for sexual
purposes
rather than a
subject
of sexual
experience.
But there is
something
even more
objectionable
about the idea of be-
ing
a "sex
object," namely
the
suggestion
that one is
primarily
a sex-
ual
being,
a
person
whose most
important
interests are connected to
the
genital
area and the
reproductive system
and with roles that are
tied
up
with one's
sexuality.
I
suggest
that the
primary
reason
why rape
is
regarded
as one of the
most serious harms that can befall a woman is
precisely
because women
are
regarded
as sex
objects, beings
who have little of value
beyond
their
sexuality.
Further I
suggest
that women who would
regard being raped
as the
supreme
violation and humiliation are
implicitly buying
into this
view.
If these are indeed the reasons
why rape
is seen as
supremely
harm-
ful to
women,
as I
suggest they are,
then it follows that the
suggestion
that
rape
is the worst harm that can befall a woman is a
consequence
of sexist
assumptions
about the character and interests of women.
Rape,
like all other crimes of
violence,
constitutes a serious harm to the vic-
tim.
Nevertheless,
I have
suggested
that to consider it the most serious
of all harms is no less sexist than to consider it no harm at all.
notes
1.
Everyone agrees
that
rape
is bad. The
controversy
concerns the criteria for
counting
an act as an instance of
rape
in the first
place, including
the relevance of the victim's
137
hypatia
prior
sexual
conduct,
and the trustworthiness of victims'
testimony.
The recent
reopen-
ing
of the Dotson
case,
for
example, represents
a threat to feminist
gains
insofar as it
tends to undermine the
credibility
of victims-not because it
suggests
that
rape
is less
serious than is
commonly supposed.
The core
meaning
of
"rape"
is "forcible or fraudulent sexual intercourse
especially
imposed
on women"
(The
Little
Oxford Dictionary)
but
given
the elaborate and confus-
ing
rules of sexual
etiquette
that have
traditionally figured
in human
courtship
rituals
it has not
always
been clear what constituted fraud or coercion in these matters. In
par-
ticular,
it has been assumed that female
coyness
is
simply part
of the
courtship
ritual
so that women who
acquiesce
to the sexual demands of
acquaintances
under
protest
are
merely playing
the
game
and thus have not in fact been forced into
anything.
That is
to
say
it is assumed that under such conditions the sexual act is not an instance
of rape
at
all,
hence that a woman who claims she has been
raped
in such circumstances is dis-
ingenuous
and
may
be assumed to have malicious motives.
It is to these
assumptions
that women should
object-not
to
my suggestion
that
rape
is a less serious harm than has
commonly
been
thought.
What sexists underestimate
is not the seriousness of
rape
but rather the
frequency
with which it occurs.
2. See
especially chapters
1 and 5 in Joel
Feinberg (1984).
3.
My argument
rests on the
assumption
that
very
little
hangs
on
sexuality issues,
that
persons
focal
aims,
and hence their
interests,
have to do
primarily
with matters which
are
quite separate
and not much affected
by
sexual
activities,
whether
voluntary
or in-
voluntary.
In
spite
of
popular acceptance
of Freudian
doctrines,
this does seem to be
the case.
In a
society
where
people's
most
important
aims were tied
up
with sexual
activities,
things
would be different and
rape
would be even more serious than it is
among
us. Im-
agine,
for
example,
a
society
in which women were excluded
entirely
from the workforce
and
marriage
was their
only
economic
option
so that a woman's
sexuality,
like the
cowboy's horse,
was her
only
means of
livelihood;
imagine
that in this
society
sexual
purity
were
highly
valued
(at
least for
women)
and a woman who was known to be
"damaged goods"
for whatever
reason,
was as a result rendered
unmarriageable
and
subjected
to constant humiliation
by
her relatives and
society
at
large.
In such cir-
cumstances
rape
would indeed violate a welfare interest and would be
among
the most
serious of
crimes,
rather like horsetheft in the Old West. There are no doubt societies
in which this is the case. It is not however the case
among
us.
Again,
some
people may regard
their sexual
integrity
as so
intimately wrapped up
with their
self-concept
that
they
would be violated in the most
profound way
if forced
to have sexual intercourse
against
their will. There are no doubt
persons
for whom this
is the case. It is not however the case for the standard
person.
Admittedly,
this is an
empirical conjecture.
But we do
recognize
that it is the case
for the standard male
person,
and the
assumption
that women are different seems to
be a manifestation of the sexist
assumption
that women are
primarily
sexual beings.
references
Feinberg,
Joel. 1984. Harm to others. Oxford: Oxford
University
Press.
138
comment/reply
luisa muraro
On Conflicts and Differences
Among
Women
Jana Sawicki uses the work and methods of Foucault to
explore
the
possibility
of a
politics
of difference. I
argue
that Foucault
may help
us overcome some forms of
dogmatism
inherited from men's
political
philosophy
of the
past,
but Foucault is otherwise
useless,
or worse:
misleading.
Because Sawicki
presents
a
politics
of
diversity among
women
regardless of,
and
independent from,
a
politics
of sexual dif-
ference,
I believe Foucault is
misleading.
1 .Jana Sawicki's
contribution,
"Foucault and Feminism:
Toward a Politics of Difference"
(1 986),
illustrates the
advantages
and
the
disadvantages
a woman
may expect
when
using
ideas elaborated
by
men to reason about herself and the world.
Like
myself
and other
women,
Jana Sawicki calls for
politics
in which
the
diversity among
women would not hinder
us, but,
on the
contrary,
would be a source for creative
change.
She turns to Foucault in order
to
lay
out "the basic features of a
politics
of difference." She then
ap-
plies
the results of her research to a matter that divides feminists in
the United States.
According
to
Sawicki,
we can use Foucault's work
to our own
purpose, despite
the androcentrism of his
writings.
I can see one
advantage
of Sawicki's
referring
to Foucault: she finds
in his
writings
the theoretical means to
fight
the
dogmatism
that some
feminist
positions
have assimilated from the
political
and
philosophical
tradition. There is no doubt that a woman who reads Foucault will
reason about
power
in a much more
sophisticated way
than a woman
who has
only
Marx or Locke in mind.
However,
I think the advan-
tages stop
there.
Foucault can free us from old
dogmatic
ideas.
However,
the
pro-
blem we have doesn't stem from old
dogmatic
ideas. It stems from the
fact that we lack a social form for our
relationships.
In
fact,
the rela-
tionships
between women in
patriarchal
societies have been ruled
by
an external
authority-a
man's
authority.
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1 987).

By
Luisa Muraro.
1 39
hypatla
The
disadvantage
of
using
Foucault for a
politics
of difference is ob-
vious when Sawicki arrives at a
politics
where differences
among
women
are considered without reference to sexual difference.
We know that
only
a
politics
of sexual difference
gives
or can
give
meaning
to our
diversities; otherwise,
the differences
among women,
white or women of
color,
old or
young,
educated or
not, only
result
from men's desires.
If this is
true,
and our
history
tells us it
is,
then the first
thing
re-
quired
from us
by
the conflicts born from
diversity among
women is
that we
proceed
further ahead in sexual difference
politics.
Here Foucault is of no use whatsoever: he
may
even be
misleading.
In
this,
I
agree
with Rosi Braidotti
(1 985)
and Rada Ivekovic
(1 986).
The
philosophers
who
thought
about difference have no
thought
on
sexual difference.
When
reasoning
on
society
and its radical
transformations,
Foucault
takes into account relations between men and
men,
between men and
women,
but not the relations between women and women.
These,
however,
are our main sources of
knowledge
and
strength
with which
to
change society.
The
question
is not
androcentrism,
but how to
pro-
ceed in order to know the
given reality.
2. Jana Sawicki wants to illustrate the value and also the limitations
of Foucault's
politics
of difference. Her illustration of its value is
clear,
while that of its limitations is not. She writes that a
politics
of difference
among
women "need not
lapse
into a form of
pluralism
in which
anything goes" (p. 35).
All
right,
but: is it here that she sees his limita-
tion and then moves
away
from Foucault?
If
so,
the real
danger
Sawicki
points out,
the
danger
of
lapsing
into
a
meaningless
feminist
pluralism,
doesn't
depend
on an intrinsic limita-
tion of Foucault's work. It
depends
on the use she intends to make
of such work.
Sawicki also writes: "in a feminist
politics
of
difference, theory
and
moral
judgements
would be
geared
to
specific
contexts"
(emphasis
mine).
Here we are far from Foucault whose
thought
does not take
moral
judgements
into account. Could this be his limitation? Is reason-
ing
without
resorting
to moral
judgements
a limitation? It isn't to me.
I cannot think of a
way
of
adapting
Foucault to the
problem
that
Sawicki,
like
myself
and other
women,
is
tackling.
The fact that there
are conflicts
among women,
had Foucault been aware of
it,
was neither
a
problem
to
him,
nor a
possible
means to
change anything.
Therefore Sawicki's
attempt
to use Foucault in order to solve the
problem
of difference
among women, inevitably
results in her now mak-
ing
this
problem
in Foucault's
thought commonplace.
1 40
luisa muraro
3. If we want our diversities to become a source of creative
change,
we must
go ahead,
we must bore
deeper
into the
politics
of sexual
difference.
We will further this
politics,
at the level of
practice
and
theory,
when
social
relationships
between women have "a dimension of
verticality"
(this expression,
but not the
idea,
I found in Simone
Weil).
The dimension of
horizontality,
made
possible by feminism,
allow-
ed us to
appreciate
our
belonging
to the feminine
gender
in the forms
of
sisterhood,
of
togetherness,
of
solidarity,
etc.
Verticality
will enable
us to find in the feminine
gender
the source of our human value and
a measure for what we are as individuals as well.
Both these dimensions are
necessary
for a social existence of the sex-
ual difference. The feminine difference does not exist if a woman
doesn't think herself as
descending
from a feminine
beginning,
whatever
the means
through
which this
relationship
is
signified.
But it has to be
signified.
In the
relationships
between
women,
the dimension of
verticality
is
still weak or
lacking.
Therefore our
politics
of difference is also weak.
When Sawicki refers to Foucault in order to elaborate
thoughts
of
her own and to tackle a
problem
of women's
politics,
she endows him
with
great authority.
The reference to an author is not a neutral action.
The sex of the
person
who makes the reference and the sex of the
per-
son referred to link
together
and
produce
a
meaningful
combination
which bears on the text and its
purport.
A
woman,
Jana
Sawicki, referring
to a
man,
Michel
Foucault,
in
order to solve a
problem concerning relationships
between
women,
in-
directly
tells about the lack of social
authority
of the feminine
origin
and, therefore,
about the weakness of a
politics
of sexual difference.
references
Braidotti,
Rosi. 1 985. Modelli di dissonanza: donne e/in filosofia. In
Le donne e i
segni,
ed. Patrizia
Magli.
Urbino
(Italia):
II lavoro
editoriale.
Ivekovic,
Rada. 1 986. Destin du
sujet
dit "faible" et
critique
du
"devenir
femme." Zagreb (Yugoslavia): manuscript.
Sawicki,
Jana. 1 986. Foucault and Feminism: Toward a
politics
of dif-
ference.
Hypatia
1
(2):
23-36.
1 41

















































































































































comment/reply
mary
libertin
The Politics of Women's Studies
and Men's Studies
This
paper
is a
response
to the
problematic
relation between men's
studies and women's
studies;
it is also a
particular response
to
Harry
Brod's discussion of the theoretical need for men's studies
programs
in his article "The New Men's Studies: From Feminist
Theory
to Gender
Scholarship."
The
paper argues
that a male feminist would be more
effective in a women's studies
program,
that the latter
already
includes
research about the
experiences
of both males and females.
Although
future research on both
genders
is
needed,
the
paper argues
that there
does not
currently
exist a
gap
in
theory
or in
practice
in women's studies
programs,
as Brod claims. The
paper argues
in favor of both men and
women
working together
to
strengthen
and broaden women's studies
programs
in existence and
encourages
the creation of more
programs
and more
study
of
gender
issues.
TIhe
reality
of men's studies
programs
calls for a reconsidera-
tion of women's studies and its relation to men's studies.
Responding
to a sexist
curriculum,
women's studies
originally
met
(and
is still
meeting) important
needs:
providing empirical
evidence
including
previously ignored
data
concerning
women's and men's lives
upon
which
to revise current
knowledge
and
change
our
way
of
thinking
about the
world,
and
using
this as a basis for solutions to a
variety
of
perennial
problems. Responding
to
oppression,
the women's movement demand-
ed
(and
still
demands) reproductive rights,
an end to sexual
objectifica-
tion and
violence, equality
for women in the
workplace
and in the
courts, along
with other concerns and issues. Feminism
spans
across
cultures, age groups, races, sexual-preferences, ideologies, occupations,
and classes-and even
biological
sexes. The
question
is whether
feminists should include men's studies within their
programs
or work
to
develop
men's studies as a
separate discipline
in its own
right.
I would
like to add another
question:
would a man who is a feminist be more
effective in women's studies or men's studies?
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1987).

By Mary
Libertin.
143
hypatla
Harry Brod,
in "The New Men's
Studies,"
believes "men's studies
is essential to
fulfilling
the feminist
project
which underlies women's
studies,
and that feminist
scholarship
cannot reach its
fullest,
most
radical
potential
without the addition of men's studies." This is an
important
claim which needs to be examined. How does Brod define
the feminist
project
which underlies women's studies? And what is the
radical
potential
that the addition of men's studies would foster?
Brod defines the feminist
project
as one
"focusing
on
gender
rather
than
simply
on women." He states that "it is this
expanded
totalistic
vision of women's studies as the
study
of
gender, requiring
a re-vision
of the entire curriculum rather than
simply
the addition of
insights
about
women,
which
brings
the need for men's
study
into focus"
(p. 186).
And the radical
potential
that men's studies would foster
may
take a
back seat to the theoretical
justification for its
existence,
or so it would
seem when he
says
the "need to motivate men towards feminist
political
change"
is not a
"primary
concern" of
his, though
it is a "valid" con-
sideration
(p. 180).
What
happens
to the radical
potential
of feminism when the feminist
project
which underlies women's studies is conceived as one which
focuses on
gender?
Of
course,
this
may
remain to be seen. Brod is cor-
rect to
provide
a historical
perspective
to the issue of
gender studies,
and he is correct to
suggest
that women's studies has
already
been
study-
ing gender
roles of men and women. Thus one
may wonder,
if women's
studies is
studying gender presently, why
men's studies
programs
need
to be instituted and funded. Males and females who are feminists have
been
studying
the
perspectives
of women's and men's
experiences.
Brod
says
that "it is this
expanded
totalistic vision of women's studies as
the
study
of
gender, requiring
a re-vision of the entire curriculum rather
than
simply
the addition of
insights
about
women,
which
brings
the
need for men's
study
into focus"
(p. 186).
But feminists never con-
ceived of women's studies as an addendum to the canon but as a revi-
sion of the canon of
knowledge
to reflect the historical
sociopolitical
context of men's and women's lives.
By referring
at this
point
to the
feminist
project
as an
addendum,
Brod
provides
a basis for
reconcep-
tionalizing
women's studies as
gender studies,
which should be studies
by
men and
women,
but this seems
slightly
inaccurate,
narrows the
definition of women's
studies,
and
depoliticizes
the
grassroots
feminism
underlying
women's studies.
Brod's focus on
gender scholarship
allows him to make a
logical
claim
that "the
project
of
gender scholarship
mandates a
particular concep-
tion of men's studies"
(p. 186).
He
explains:
"This
conception
is
grounded
in an
increasingly
sustained
understanding
and an increas-
144
mary
libertin
ingly emerging
conviction. The
understanding
is that in
falsely generaliz-
ing
man as 'male' to man as 'human' we
have,
to our
great loss,
obliterated the
specificities
of both women's and men's lives. The con-
viction is that the
only way
to
depower
the
pseudo-universality
of
generic
'man' is to
study
man as
particular,
rather than as
pseudo-generic"
(p. 186).
Brod seems to be
turning
the tables around on the issue of
'man' used
generically.
Yet when he calls for a focus on man as
par-
ticular,
is he
referring
to men as individuals or to the
gender?
The
ques-
tion of
specificity
and
generality
is indeed
important
to current feminist
scholarship,
where more
accuracy
is found in
delineating
the
age, class,
physical ability,
sexual
orientation, region, religion, ethnicity, class,
race, occupation
rather than in
generalizing
about all of these areas.
In this
way
feminists can collect and
analyze
the interrelated factors
in
patriarchal society's oppression
of
people through systems
and in-
stitutions and its effects
upon
us all. Feminism is thus more than a
white,
upper
middle class
agenda
for
improvement.
But as Carole Vance and Ann Snitow
explain,
"if careless
generaliza-
tion about women's
experience
is
dangerous
and
mystifying,
so too is
avoidance of
generalization
in the belief that each woman's
experience
is so
unique
and conditioned
by multiple
social influences that
larger
patterns
are
impossible
to
discern,
that to
attempt
to
generalize
is to
do violence to individual
experience" (1984, 133).
In
addition, they
raise
questions
about the
theory
of construction.
They suggest
that feminists
working
on
sexuality
"must
confront
the dialectic between
specificity
and
generalization
and endure its
ongoing
tension"
(p. 133, emphasis
added).
Not
only
do I
agree
with them in this area of
study,
but I also find
the dialectic between
specificity
and
generalization
a
necessary
tension
in all areas of women's studies. I would extend their
warning
to our
present
situation. There is a dialectic between the
specific
and
general,
one which Brod omits from his discussion of how
gender
studies re-
quires
us "to
study
man as
particular,
rather than as
pseudo-generic."
Elaine
Showalter, using
the model of
Shirley
and Edwin Ardener which
shows that "women constitute a muted
group,
the boundaries of whose
culture and
reality overlap,
but are not
wholly
contained
by,
the domi-
nant
(male) group" (1981, 199) suggests
that there is a "wild zone"
of women's
experience-a place
"off-limits" to men-and vice-versa.
But the men's zone of
experience
which is alien to women is "within
the circle of the dominant structure and thus accessible to or structured
by language" (p. 200).
This area of men's
experiences
needs to be
studied from a feminist
perspective,
but it will
require
more than what
Brod
proposes
in his
study
of men as
particular.
Brod seems to have
145
hypatia
ignored
the differences between men and women studied as
groups,
wherein the difference between "dominant" and "muted" exists for
individuals and for the
groups.
The main contradiction in Brod's
position
is that he wants men's
studies to be the
study
of "man as
particular" (p. 186)
while he would
define women's studies as
"gender
studies." He
thereby ignores
the
markedness of the two
groups (man/woman)
which favors man. And
he also seems to
ignore
the manner in which that markedness affects
the
study
of individuals. The need for more than
just
a collection of
data about individuals is essential. And when men and women are
studied as
individuals,
as Brod
states,
is he not
basing
his
reasoning
on an anatomical or
biological distinction,
which comes
very
close to
the same distinction which essentialists hold? Does he hold an essen-
tialist
position
which he undercuts elsewhere in the
paper?
As the French
theorist Helene Cixous
states,
"there are some men who do not
repres
their
femininity,
some women
who,
more or less
strongly,
inscribe their
masculinity" (1985, 81).
She avoids the "confusion
man/masculine,
woman/feminine"
by connecting
the
"political economy"
and the
"libidinal
economy"
and
by referring
to individuals as bisexual
(1986,
81).
She defines
"bisexuality"
as that "with which
every subject,
who
is not shut
up
inside the
spurious
Phallocentric
Performing Theater,
sets
up
his or her erotic universe.
Bisexuality-that
is to
say
the loca-
tion within oneself of the
presence
of both
sexes,
evident and insistent
in different
ways according
to the
individual,
the nonexclusion of dif-
ference or of a sex"
(1986, 84-85).
In
any case,
Brod's
reasoning
is circular
(studying
men as
particular
will
give
us information about men as
particular).
It is also contradic-
tory.
He claims to
agree
with "this
expanded
totalistic vision of women's
studies as the
study
of
gender, requiring
a re-vision of the entire cur-
riculum rather than
simply
the additions of
insights
about
women,
which
brings
the need for men's studies into focus"
yet
his
insights
about men
in
particular
will not seem to
get past
individual
insights
of men. And
these
insights
he claims are needed as additions to the
insights
of women.
He
says
"the
study
of men as
particular, i.e.,
men's
studies,
is a
necessary component
of the feminist claim to
universal,
and not mere-
ly compensatory,
truth"
(p. 187).
His
position
is
illogical
and unfair.
Feminists are
working
toward
change
and are not
claiming
universal
truth. Gender studies is more than a collection of
insights
from all in-
dividuals,
whether or not
they
are feminist.
The
presentation
of his
lengthy "etymology
of the
concept
of
'gender'
in its current
usage" (p. 180),
woven into a discussion of the essen-
tialist and non-essentialist theories of
identity,
thus warrants another
146
mary
libertin
retrospective glance. First,
the debate he
presents
is a red
herring
in
a discussion of men's studies. His case for men's studies does not
logical-
ly depend upon
the
debate;
the essentialist/non-essentialist debates exist
without the
concept
of
gender.
The debate he
presents
is a
narrow,
dichotomous
perspective
on an issue
concerning
the
relationship
be-
tween an individual and a
society;
the non-essentialist
position
is held
by
feminists in France who seem much like non-feminists in
America,
and essentialists such as
Mary Daly
can be seen to
espouse
ideas that
are
very
non-essentialist if the idea of
gender
were not
present.
Moreover,
his
presentation,
in
my opinion,
is riddled with inaccuracies.
I
disagree
with Brod's characterization of the
history
of the
concept
of
gender
as it relates to the non-essentialist
theory
of the self and to
feminism. The debate about
personal identity (is
there a core
self)
was
used
by everyone-radical
and non-radical
feminists,
feminists and non-
feminists,
those who believe in
actively changing
the
patriarchal system
and those who are less committed. The issue is and should be how we
can,
as a
group
of
people
in
society, change
the
system
which harms
us as a
group
and as individuals. Real
empirical
harm is
perpetrated
on individuals and
groups
of individuals in
society.
Whether these in-
dividuals admit
personal
harm is one issue. Whether these individuals
transfer this harm into a
pattern
of harm is another. An individual
may
admit
neither,
or both. A
person making any
of these choices can be
called essentialist or non-essentialist or can use these terms
personally
defined in different
ways.
Whether or not there is a core self to an in-
dividual's
identity,
an individual is a
legal entity,
and feminists have
argued
for
equality
for individuals.
Certainly
individuals are labeled
male or
female, legally,
a label based on
biological
sex. For this
reason,
I cannot
agree
that "the normative
political theory
of feminism was
cast in terms of an essentialist
theory
of the self"
(p. 182).
And for
the same
reason,
I cannot admit that the
"problems
with the non-
essentialist
theory
of the self which
emerges
from the radicalization of
the sex role
hypothesis
cuts
deeply
into mainstream feminist
thought"
and that "it drives a
wedge
between the
political
and academic arms
of the movement"
(p. 181).
When Brod
supports
his contention that
"much of the normative
political theory
of feminism was cast in terms
of an essentialist
theory
of the
self,"
he follows with this sentence:
"Feminism's normative
critique
of male dominated
thought
and action
railed
against
the
stifling
and
repression
of women's authentic selves"
(p. 182).
Instead I contend that feminists worked toward
revising
the
law
(remember
the
ERA)
and that their
primary goals
were
legal
as
they
related to economic
opportunity
and discrimination. In
addition,
I
would contend that more academics
working
in women's studies
sup-
147
hypatla
ported
these feminist
goals,
rather than
being
antagonistic
toward them.
It
may
be convenient for Brod to assess the
history
of
gender
as he
does,
but we should
keep
in mind that even if we
grant
the above
wedge
between academics and
feminists,
"the loss of a
posited
essential self
[which] posed
a
particular problem [the above]
for feminist
theory"
(p. 181) posed
more of a
problem
for those who were
opposed
to
feminist
theory,
for
they
were locked into convention and used essen-
tialist
arguments against
feminist
theory.
I also find Brod's
following
passage,
found after his above
remark,
a bit curious and inaccurate:
In
addition,
it should be noted that the non-essentialist
theory
of the self was
always consistently rejected
from
one
specific
feminist
quarter.
There was
always
a strain
of radical feminist
theory
which held that observed dif-
ferences between women and men were
[his emphasis]
rooted in different inherent
essences,
and some held fur-
ther that these differences should be
celebrated,
not
minimized or
negated.
Those who followed this school
of
thought
could never
fully accept
all the talk of "roles"
which could and should
simply
be "unlearned"
(p. 181).
If Brod is
referring
to lesbians when he refers to the actions of the above
"specific
feminist
quarter"
who constitute "a strain of radical feminist
theory,"
I wonder
why
he omits the word. I also
question
the
veracity
of his claim about this nameless
group.
I know radical lesbians who
worshipped
a mother
goddess
and who also
believed,
as does Cixous
now,
that all
people
are bisexual and who lived
amiably
with hetero-
sexual men. Even those most radical in the nameless
quarter
who
prefer-
red to
separate
themselves as much as
possible
from men would not
agree
that roles could
"simply
be 'unlearned'." I find Brod's
descrip-
tion of
people
who most
simply "celebrated,
not minimized or
negated"
the idea of inherent essences most characteristic of
non-feminists,
such
as
Phyllis Schlafly.
In
any
case Brod connects the above "conflict between feminism's
critique
of sexism
generated by
its
empirical
social
theory,
based on
the non-essentialist sex role model and its
critique
of sexism
generated
by
its normative
political theory,
based on the essentialist self-
development
model" to "two
entirely
different standards of
justice"
(p. 182).
I cannot
agree
that a "normative
political theory
of feminism"
is/was cast in an essentialist
theory
of self. Nor can I
agree
that there
are two standards of
justice
that can be
neatly
linked to the essen-
tialist/non-essentialist
positions,
as Brod does. There is not a clear
either/or exclusion in the
positions.
One cannot link
only
distributive
148
mary
libertin
justice
to the non-essentialist
position
and non-distributive or
personal
justice
with the essentialist
position.
The
problems
Brod sees are cast in dichotomous terms:
man/woman;
feminists in the
academy/outside
the
academy;
essentialist/non-
essentialist; individual/society;
distributive/non-distributive
justice.
Dif-
ferent levels of
questions
and
problems
are linked
together illogically.
If
you
are a feminist
teaching
in a women's studies
program
in an
American
University you probably
believe in a non-essentialist notion
of distributive
justice
and find
yourself looking
across a theoretical
gap
at the radical
political
arm of
feminism, according
to Brod! I
disagree-
this characterization
may
occur and
may
be
quite important
to
discuss,
but it is used to
suggest
either theoretical
problems
of women's studies
programs
or a
split
between feminists outside and inside women's studies
programs,
which is
highly exaggerated.
Men's studies is introduced in-
to the discussion as if it were a solution to
problems
in the women's
movement. This is not the case.
Surely gender
rather than
biological
sex is the focus of much
study
in the
1980's; biological
distinctions between male and female are not
equivalent
to the social distinctions between masculine and feminine.
But rather than make a distinction between non-feminists who
speak
as if
they
were essentialists
(women
should be ladies/women-men
should be
men)
and feminists who
speak
as if
they
were essentialists
(women
have a core women's
identity),
Brod
ignores
non-feminists
altogether
and makes a reader of his
paper
feel much more
splintering
(theoretical) among
feminists than
actually
exists.
He
says
"the
purpose
of men's studies is to fill the
gap [of
studies
that are
sorely lacking]."
There is no
gap.
It is
my
contention that these
studies
(of
men as
particular individuals)
can be made
(and
have been
made)
within women's studies
programs, by
women and men who are
feminists. In other
words,
there is no
logical
theoretical
justification
for the creation of additional men's studies
programs
wihin women's
studies
programs.
To
suggest
that the creation of men's studies
pro-
grams
would allow "the status of men
[to be] equally brought
into
ques-
tion" so that man is not "the assumed
norm,
women
always
... the
'other"'
(p. 187)
is to
forget
that women and men have
already brought
the status of men into
question and,
even
more,
to
forget
that the
historical assumed norms about the status of men and women
require
political
action as well as
study
for
equality
to occur.
Brod tries to counter the
possibility
that men's studies can
develop
"in directions inimical to feminism"
(p. 190).
It is also true that
lasting
change
will
require
the
cooperation
of men. It is for this reason that
feminists should
encourage
men to become feminists and to work in
149
hypatia
women's studies
programs.
Women should enlist the
help
of male
feminists to
study
the
burgeoning
areas of the unknown. But the
pro-
gram,
if it is to be
feminist,
should be called women's studies not
women's studies and men's studies. If there is no theoretical basis for
the creation of
separate programs;
if as Brod
states,
"women in
women's studies
departments
and
programs"
should have the "decision-
making authority
to
incorporate
men's studies
components
into
women's studies"
(p. 192),
what is the
controversy
about? Seen as a
"component,"
men's studies is
already part
of women's studies
pro-
grams
and
part
of the feminist
agenda.
The
controversy may
be about status and
funding.
Men who are
feminists
(and
men who are not
feminists)
would stand a better chance
of
funding
in our
patriarchal
institutions.
Why
should women's studies
departments encourage
the
competition
for
already
limited funds? Such
could be the case at universities with added men's studies
programs.
Some
universities,
it is
conceivable,
could have men's studies
programs
started without a women's studies
program.
Women and men feminists
should instead
together petition
for
larger budgets
for women's studies
and
prevent
the
antagonism
that could occur between two
programs
(men's
and women's
studies)
that
originally may
have been created as
complementary.
Because men's studies can become inimical to
feminism, especially
in this wave of conservativism we are
in,
I
strong-
ly
believe women and men should work
together
to
strengthen
and
broaden the women's studies
programs
in existence and
encourage
the
creation of more women's studies
programs
at other universities.
It would be
tempting
for men who are feminists to
argue
for
separate
status as an
equally
valid
program
and call that
program
men's
studies,
for the immediate
advantages
would be
many
to those
particular
men
personally
and
professionally.
If these men consider the
long-term prob-
lems from their feminist
perspective, they may
see some
disadvantages:
the
possibility
of
cooptation,
the
possible weakening
of the force of
feminism in women's studies
programs.
Indeed,
it is difficult for men to share women's
standpoint.
Thus
women should
encourage
male feminists in whatever
ways
we can.
Allison M.
Jaggar
in Feminist Politics and Human Nature
explains
this
quite
well:
Since women cannot transform
reality alone, they
must
also find
ways
to work
politically
with men without
being
dominated
by
them and men
may
even be able to con-
tribute to women's theoretical work. To do
so, however,
men will have to learn women's
'text,'
a
process
that will
150
mary
libertin
require
at least as much
humility
and commitment as that needed
by
white/Anglo
women to understand the
experience
of women of color.
Even when men contribute to the construction of a
systematic
alter-
native to the dominant world
view,
it is still accurate to describe this
alternative as a
representation
of
reality
from the
standpoint
of women.
... Women's
standpoint
offers a
perspective
on
reality
that is accessi-
ble in
principle
to men as well as to
women, although
a materialist
epistemology predicts
that men will find it more difficult than women
to
comprehend
this
perspective
and that
widespread
male
acceptance
of it will
require political
as well as theoretical
struggle. (1983, 387)2
In our
present
theoretical
struggle
we
may
ask: would a man who
is a feminist be more effective in women's studies
programs
rather than
a
separate
men's studies
program?
The answer is
yes.
notes
A
slightly
different version of this
paper
was distributed at the Midwest Modern
Language
Association Convention in St.
Louis,
November 1985. I wish to thank those
who offered their ideas and
support
at that
time,
and also The
Shippensburg University
Foundation, which,
in
part, supported my
travel to St. Louis.
1.
Harry Brod,
"The New Men's
Studies," Program
for the
Study
of Women and
Men in
Society
and
Department
of
Philosophy, University
of Southern
California,
a
pre-
convention condensed version of a
paper
read in earlier forms at the Western Social Science
Association
Convention, April 26, 1984,
San
Diego California,
and the California State
University, Fullerton, Symposium
on
"Philosophy
and
Women,"
March
2,
1985. The
full
version,
"The New Men's Studies: From Feminist
Theory
to Gender
Scholarship,"
is scheduled for
publication
in
Hypatia:
A Journal
of
Feminist
Philosophy.
This
quota-
tion is from
p. 180; subsequent
references will be
parenthetical.
2.
Jaggar (1983) provides
excellent
analyses
of four
categories
of feminism
(Liberal,
Traditional
Marxism, Radical,
and
Socialist)
in terms of their theories of human nature
and
politics
and
argues
in favor of the
superiority
of Socialist Feminism. This
provides
further information on the debate between essentialist and non-essentialist theories of
identity.
Other relevant discussions of the debate between essentialists and non-essentialists
include Simone de
Beauvoir, (1984, 229-235);
Susan Rubin
Suleiman, (1985, 43-65).
Charles Peirce
([1870]
1984) argues
that "absolute
individuality
is
merely
ideal" in a
context that is
clearly
not connected to
gender
or the
contemporary
feminist debate.
151
hypatla
references
Ardener,
Edwin. 1977. Belief and the
problem
of women. In Perceiv-
ing women,
ed.
Shirley
Ardener. New York: J.M. Dent.
Beauvoir,
Simone de. 1984. France:
Feminism-Alive, well,
and in con-
stant
danger.
In Sisterhood is
global,
ed. and
compiled by
Robin
Morgan.
Garden
City,
NY: Anchor Books.
Brod, Harry.
1987. The new men's studies: From feminist
theory
to
gender scholarship. Hypatia
2
(1):
179-196.
Cixous,
Helene and Catherine Clement. 1986. La Jeune
Nee,
1975. The
newly
born woman. Trans.
Betsy Wing,
forward
by
Sandra M.
Gilbert.
Theory
and
History
of
Literature,
vol. 24.
Minneapolis:
Univ. of Minnesota Press.
Jaggar,
Alison M. 1983. Feminist
politics
and human nature.
Totowa,
NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.
Peirce,
Charles S.
[1870]
1984.
Description
of a notation for the
logic
of relatives. In Memoirs
of
the American
academy,
vol. 9
pp.
317-78.
Reprinted
in
Writings of
Charles S. Peirce: A
chronological
edition: Volume
2, 1867-1871,
eds. Edward C.
Moore,
et. al.
Bloomington:
Indiana
University
Press.
Showalter,
Elaine. 1981. Feminist criticism in the wilderness. Critical
Inquiry (Winter):
197-205.
Suleiman,
Susan Rubin. 1985.
(Re)writing
the
body:
The
politics
and
poetics
of female eroticism. Poetics
Today
6
(1-2):
43-65.
Vance,
Carole and Ann Snitow. 1984. Toward a conversation about
sex in feminism: A modest
proposal. Signs
10
(Autumn):
126-135.
152
comment/reply
harry
brod
Does
Manning
Men's Studies
Emasculate Women's Studies?
Defends "The New Men's Studies: From Feminist
Theory
to Gender
Scholarship" (Hypatia 2:1,
Winter
1987) against
what is
argued
are
Mary
Libertin's
misreadings.
The
argument
for men's studies is
logically
in-
dependent
of
though
related to the debate about essentialism in women's
studies. Men's studies studies men in and as
particular groups.
Intellec-
tual should not be
equated
with institutional
autonomy.
The feminist
study
of men should be
supported by
feminist scholars.
I attribute most of
Mary
Libertin's
disagreements
with what
she thinks
my
article
says
to her
thinking
it
says
more and other than
it does.
Mary
Libertin offers as a criticism the observation that the "case
for men's studies does not
logically depend upon
the debate"
regar-
ding
essentialism/non-essentialism. But I never
presented
one as a
logical
deduction from the other. I wrote
only
that a reconstruction
of this debate would be
illuminating
because some reasons
favoring
men's studies were
already implicitly present
and
accepted
in the trend
towards
gender
studies which in
part emerges
from it. She states as a
criticism: "One cannot link
only
distributive
justice
to the non-
essentialist
position
and non-distributive or
personal justice
with the
essentialist
position.
. . . Different levels of
questions
and
problems
are linked
together illogically."
But this was
my point-I specifically
denied the existence of such
correspondences
and
any
relations of
logical
entailment between these levels. I wrote: "while
recognizing
that these
distinctions cannot be
collapsed
into one
another,
there are nonetheless
conceptual
affinities."
Many
of Libertin's criticisms of
my
account of
aspects
of
gender
scholarship
seem to me to assume broader claims on
my part
than I
make,
as if I were
claiming
to have written a
complete
and definitive
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1987).

By Harry
Brod.
153
hypatia
history
of feminism and women's studies. But I made no such claims.
I claimed
only
to be
articulating
one strain of the recent
history
of
feminist
scholarship, explicitly stating
"this is not intended as
anything
like a
comprehensive
account or
analysis
of the
history
of the field."
I had a much more limited
objective,
that of
tracing
certain relevant
trends in feminist
scholarship.
In much the same vein Libertin distorts
my restricting my
attention in this
essay
to the
scholarly
rather than
political aspects
of
gender
issues to infer an
apolitical
view on
my part.
My
statement near the start of the article
delimiting
its
scope
that
political
considerations "are not
my
concern here" is
quoted
out of
context as a claim that
political
considerations "are not
my
concern."
But if we let the fear of not
saying everything prevent
us from
saying
anything, nothing
will ever be said.
We see red
herrings
in different
places.
The debate on essen-
tialism/nonessentialism is "a red
herring" only
if one has misconstrued
its role in the
essay
as Libertin has. To
my
mind Libertin's discussion
of
particularity
as individualism is a red
herring.
She
pretends
that
my
call for the
study
of men as
particular
reduces to a call for the
study
of individual male
biographies.
This
reading
reduces
my argument
to
absurdity.
I find no basis in the text for such a
misreading. My sup-
posed
"main contradiction" here is sheer invention on her
part.
In the
essay
the call for the
study
of men as
particular
is contrasted with the
sexist
practice
of
studying
men
simply
as
generic
humans. It is a call
to
study
men as a
particular group,
not a call to
refrain
from
studying
men in and as
groups. Certainly
we must take account of differences
among
men and not view men
simply
as a
single generic
class, any
more
than women should be so
viewed,
but the
array
of authorities marshalled
against
me here is
simply
irrelevant.
Just under the surface of Libertin's
wondering
about
why
I did not
name lesbians as a certain strain of feminist
theory
I was
describing
lurks the
implicit charge
of
my
collusion in lesbian
oppression
or
homophobia. My
reasons were that I wished to avoid the kind of false
dichotomizing
and reductionism Libertin elsewhere accuses me of.
While some strains of lesbian
separatism
can be described in the terms
I was
using,
others
cannot,
while other non-lesbian feminists can be
described in these terms. Libertin's mode of
analysis
here is unfortunate-
ly symptomatic
of her
approach. Having
decided I
really
mean
lesbians,
she then criticizes me for
inaccurately portraying
them. She takes issue
with claims not made after
erroneously reading
those claims into the
essay.
The same
misinterpretive strategy gives
rise to her debate with me
about the
autonomy
of men's studies
programs, though here,
in con-
154
harry
brod
trast to the earlier
cases,
an
important
omission in
my essay provides
some motivation for the
misreading.
She reads the
project
of men's
studies
being
defended in the
essay
as an institutional
project,
that of
creating
men's studies
programs separate
from and
competing
with
women's studies
programs.
I would have
thought
it clear
enough
that
the
subject
of
my essay
was men's studies as an
intellectual, scholarly
project,
with the
question
of its institutional embodiment left unad-
dressed. Had I been
arguing
for the
legitimacy
of
something
like Asian
Studies,
for
example,
as a
legitimate
and discrete intellectual
enterprise,
it would have been
inappropriate
to assume
anything
at all on the
ques-
tion of whether I favored Asian Studies
being
an
independent depart-
ment,
or
being
housed in Ethnic
Studies,
Pacific Area
studies,
or under
any
other rubric.
Similarly, my argument
for men's studies
simply
did
not address
questions
of its institutional relation to women's studies.
I
agree
that I could
legitimately
have been
expected
to address these
issues, given
their obvious salience and
practical importance,
and can
be taken to task for this omission. I can
plead only
the constraints of
time and
space
for not
having adequately
done so
(coupled
with the
original
draft of this
essay having
been written several
years ago
when
I was a
neophyte
both in men's studies and institutional
politics).
Given
that such issues should have been addressed more
fully
in the
essay,
Libertin
may perhaps
be more
justified
here than elsewhere in
reading
things
into the
essay. Still,
I would have
expected my
clear statement
that decisions on such
questions
should remain with women in women's
studies to caution
against
Libertin's
hasty assumptions
about
my
position.
Interested readers will find that I more
fully
take
up
these
questions
and
questions
about the relations between men's
studies, gay studies,
and other
fields,
as well as
questions regarding
the
political perspec-
tives of men's studies and their relation to various
feminisms,
in
my
Introduction and
my essay
"The Case for Men's Studies" in
my
edited
book The
Making of
Masculinities: The New Men's Studies
(Allen
&
Unwin, 1987). Briefly,
were we
starting
at
ground
zero I would advocate
"feminist studies" as the rubric for both women's and men's
studies,
and still favor this
terminology
where
appropriate.
But the
question
I take
myself
to be
answering
has a different
starting point.
Given the
existence of
something
called women's
studies,
what should we now
call a new kind of
systematic
feminist
scholarship
on men?
My
answer
is men's studies. In the book I
propose cooperative ways
of
resolving
competition
for
resources, argue
that men's studies must
develop
through
feminist
theory
and in close
cooperation
with women's
studies,
and restate
my
reservations about the new
terminology
of
"gender
155
hypatla
studies."
(Given my express repudiation
of
"gender studies,"
Liber-
tin's statement that I "would define women's studies as
'gender
studies"' is
bafflingly false.)
I
argue
that decisions about
autonomy
or
integration
as
women's,
men's and/or
gender
studies must be made
according
to
particular
circumstances in
particular
institutions. I do
stress the intellectual
autonomy
of men's
studies,
but this does not
necessarily
translate to institutional
separation.
I am worried
by
her call for feminist men to involve themselves in
women's rather than men's studies.
Certainly they
should work to
strengthen
women's
studies,
but I think
they
should also work to fur-
ther men's studies. While I want to be clear that in
principle
either
gender
can
legitimately
and
fruitfully study
the
other,
on the whole I
think there are
good
reasons for men to tend their own
gardens
rather
than others'.
Further,
one cannot so
lightly
switch one's research com-
mitments. As feminists have
convincingly demonstrated,
the
personal
is the
scholarly
as well as the
political.
I think feminist men's desires
to
study
men from feminist
perspectives
should be
encouraged
rather
than
discouraged.
notes
The short time I had to
reply
makes this more of a reaction than a considered
response.
On
rereading
it seems more defensive and combative than I find ideal.
However,
I can do no better at
present.
I
prefer
to let it stand rather than fail to
respond.
156
the forum
candace watson
Celibacy
and Its
Implications
For
Autonomy
This
paper
connects
celibacy
to
autonomy,
which is derived from
economic, emotional,
and sexual self-determination.
Although society
attempts
to control and define women's
sexuality,
the celibate woman
who masturbates can retrieve her
sexuality
without the massive social
rearrangements
which are
necessary
for economic and emotional libera-
tion. Because masturbation is accessible and
singular,
sexual
autonomy
is available to a woman who chooses
celibacy, regardless
of the other
exigencies
in her
life,
as illustrated in the
example
here from
popular
literature.
W omen's
autonomy
must
necessarily
derive from our
economic, emotional,
and sexual self-determination. The
degree
to
which circumstance and culture intervene to
shape
our
economic,
emo-
tional,
and sexual destinies is what feminists understand and articulate
as "the
personal
is
political,"
and is
precisely
what makes
autonomy
anything
but a
personal
choice. In both the economic and emotional
arenas
personal autonomy
is
overwhelmingly contingent
on massive
social
rearrangement.
But in the sexual realm woman's self-
determination is accessible and most
nearly attainable, especially
if she
is celibate and her
celibacy
includes masturbation. While
celibacy
need
not include and
certainly
does not
imply masturbation,
this discussion
will assume the choice to masturbate-a choice which does not in
any
event stand in contradiction to the literal
meaning
of
"celibacy"
or
celibacy
as it is
commonly practiced. Through masturbation,
the celibate
woman can celebrate her
sexuality apart
from the
aspects
of its social
expression,
as in this
example
from
popular
literature:
In those
mornings
I
began
to touch
myself.
I felt what
was at first a
shapeless yearning
in
my body,
and I learn-
ed to
bring
it to life. I would reach between
my legs,
Hypatia
vol.
2,
no. 2
(Summer 1987).

By
Candace Watson.
157
hypatia
separate
the folds of
my
flesh.
My
own saliva on
my
fingertips
would make me
wet;
and I came. I came
again
and
again
in those
mornings, by myself,
with
my thoughts
all
my
own
(Miller 1986, 83).
So
speaks
Anna
Dunlap
in Sue Miller's The Good Mother. Discussion
of this
bestseller, however, invariably
connects Anna's sexual awaken-
ing
to her
lover, Leo, ignoring
Anna's assertion "that I learned to have
those
feelings
unconnected with
anyone
in
particular" (Miller 1986, 85).
This
passage
and its
neglect
reveal both the sexual
power
of the celibate
woman,
and her
potentially
radical
invisibility.
Miller's Anna is
sexually self-determined;
she
develops
and ex-
periences
her
sexuality apart
from
being
a mother and/or a lover. That
Anna
brings
herself to
orgasm against
the
background
of her
daughter
Molly's early-morning play
chatter
seemingly dissolves,
in this instance
at
least,
the contrived conflict between the erotic and the maternal.
Though
Anna loses her lover because she is a
mother,
and in some more
devastating
sense she loses her
daughter,
these losses result from the
male intrusion in the maternal matrix and are unconnected to Anna's
essential erotic
life,
which she
developed
alone and
only temporarily
directed toward Leo.
To be
sure,
the
perceived
need for faithful and fertile wives has
bastardized woman's
sexuality-defined
it
according
to male need and
pleasure. And,
in service to the
species,
women are
sexually
brutalized-subjected
to medical
misogyny, rape
and
battering. Still,
to some
extent, sexuality
can be lived
separate
from its social context.
For
instance,
and for some of
us, spontaneous orgasm
is
experienced
as a
physical impulse strictly.
Even
though orgasm
is overlaid with social
meaning
and
experience,
that
meaning
and
experience (except perhaps
in the case of sexual
trauma)
does not
automatically
render the
pleasure
of
orgasm altogether
irretrievable. While our culture ties our eroticism
to heterosexual intercourse and
reproduction,
we can recall our sex-
uality
without first
turning
the world
upside
down. We
can, through
celibacy
and
masturbation,
define our
sexuality
and
satisfy
ourselves
sexually.
This is not
only personal
and
political,
it is
possible
as well.
references
Miller,
Sue. 1986. The
good
mother. NY:
Harper.
158
notes on contributors
H.E. Baber has her Ph.D. from Johns
Hopkins
and is
currently
assist-
ant
professor
of
philosophy
at the
University
of San
Diego.
Her
primary
areas of interest are
metaphysics
and
philosophy
of mind.
Harry
Brod has held a
joint appointment
in the
Program
for the
Study
of Women and Men in
Society
and the
Department
of
Philosophy
at
the
University
of Southern California from 1982-87. For 1987-88 he
is a Fellow in Law and
Philosophy
at the Harvard Law
School,
where
he is
working
on men's
reproductive rights.
He is Editor of The
Making
of
Masculinities: The New Men's Studies
(Allen
&
Unwin, 1987),
and
A Mensch
Among
Men:
Explorations
in Jewish
Masculinity (The
Cross-
ing Press, forthcoming 1988),
as well as
special
issues of several
scholarly
journals
on various
aspects
of men's studies. He is a
frequent
lecturer
and men's movement
activist,
and is
currently
the National
Spokes-
person
for the National
Organization
for
Changing
Men. He has
published
on social and
political theory, Hegel, applied ethics,
and
critical
thinking,
and is
writing
a book on male feminism.
Victoria Davion is
currently
a lecturer in the
philosophy department,
University
of
Wisconsin,
Madison.
Judith Hill is assistant
professor
of
philosophy
at
George
Mason Univer-
sity. Currently,
she is
working
on a book on the
concept
of reasons
in ethical
theory.
Mary
Libertin is an assistant
professor
of
English
at
Shippensburg
University.
She has
published poetry
and articles on
Virginia Woolf,
James
Joyce,
and semiotics.
Maria C.
Lugones
was born in Buenos
Aires, Argentina
in 1944. She
emigrated
to the U.S. in 1967. She is associate
professor
of
philosophy
at Carleton
College
and a
community organizer among Hispanos
in
the North of Nuevo
Mejico.
Mary Briody
Mahowald teaches
primarily
in the medical school at Case
Western Reserve
University,
but she also
(still)
teaches
Philosophy of
Woman
(2nd ed., Hackett, 1983)
at Western Reserve
College.
Her
published
articles have dealt with
topics
such as
community, pater-
nalism, abortion, feminism,
moral
agency
in
children,
and obstetric
and
gynecological
issues.
Luisa Muraro teaches
philosophy
of
language
and
philosophy
of science
at the
University
of Verona
(Italy).
With other women she started the
group
"Diotima" for a
philosophy
of sexual difference. She is the
author of articles and
essays
in
linguistics
and
politics.
159
hypatla
Julien S.
Murphy
is assistant
professor
of
philosophy
at the
University
of Southern
Maine,
where she is also on the Women's Studies
Faculty.
Her work includes
publications
on
abortion, reproductive technology,
and
AIDS,
as well as
publications
in
phenomenology
and deconstruc-
tion.
Currently,
she is
writing
on Derrida.
Andrea
Nye
teaches
philosophy
and feminist
theory
at the
University
of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Her book Feminist
Theory
and the
Philosophies of Man,
which
explores
the connection between feminist
thought
and masculine
theorizing,
will be available in the Fall from
Croom Helm
Ltd.,
U.K. or Methuen
Inc.,
American distributor.
Candace Watson has a B.A. in Women's Studies from SUNY in New
Paltz,
where she still lives. She is
remodeling
a house and has one
daughter.
Susan Wendell is assistant
professor
of
philosophy
and Women's
Studies at Simon Fraser
University.
She and David
Copp
edited Por-
nography
and
Censorship,
Prometheus
Books,
1983. She has
publish-
ed articles on
discrimination, equality
of
opportunity
and
pornography,
and is
currently writing
about
responsibility
and women's
oppression.
160
announcements
Call for Contributions:
The APA Committee on the Status of Women is
pleased
to announce
publication
of the Feminism and
Philosophy
Newsletter. The
purpose
of the Newsletter is to
provide
information about recent work in the
area of feminist
philosophy, listing
new
publications,
and
providing
book reviews. It will include discussions of how to
integrate
or
"mainstream" this material into traditional
philosophy
courses. It will
also
provide
a forum for
discussing
the status of women in the
profession.
The editor invites contributions to the Newsletter. We are interested
in literature
overviews,
book
reviews, suggestions
for curriculum revi-
sions or
transformations,
discussions of feminist
pedagogical methods,
and so on. It is our intention that the Newsletter serve as a resource
both for feminist
philosophers
and for
colleagues
whose main interests
have not been in the area of feminist
philosophy.
Manuscripts, proposals, suggestions,
and all other communications
and
inquiries
should be addressed to:
Nancy Tuana, Editor,
Arts and
Humanities,
JO
31,
The
University
of Texas at
Dallas, Richardson,
TX 75083-0688.
SWIP Newsletter: Announcements or items for the SWIP Newsletter
for 1987-88 should be sent to the
Editor, Marilyn Friedman,
2550
Yeager
Road, Apt. 20-11,
West
Lafayette,
IN 47906. Ph.
(317)
463-7825.
A
Gay
and Lesbian Caucus is now
being organized
within the
American
Philosophical
Association. The
purpose
of this caucus will
be both to foster the
philosophical study
of
gay
and lesban issues and
to
give
a distinct voice to
gay
and lesbian concerns within the Associa-
tion. For more
information,
contact: Prof. John
Pugh, Department
of
Philosophy,
John Carroll
University,
Union
Heights,
OH 44118.
1987
Index/Directory
of Women's
Media, containing listings
for 525
women's
periodicals,
as well as women's
presses, publishers,
news ser-
vices, radio-TV,
film
groups,
book
stores,
and
more,
is available for
$12.00 from: Women's Institute for Freedom of the
Press,
3306 Ross
Place, N.W., Washington,
D.C.
20008, (202)
966-7783.
Hypatia
T-Shirts: T-Shirts
featuring
the
image
from the cover of
Hypatia
are available in various color/fabric/size combinations. Write
to the
Hypatia
office for details:
Hypatia,
Box
1437, SIUE,
Edwards-
ville,
IL 62026-1437.
161
hypatia
Society
for the
Study
of Women
Philosophers.
An
organizational
meeting
for the
purpose
of
founding
a
Society
for the
Study
of Women
Philosophers
will be held in New York at the
December,
1987
meeting
of the American
Philosophical
Association. The
following
is a tentative
and
preliminary
statement of the
purposes
of the
Society:
The first
purpose
of the
Society
is to create and sus-
tain a
"Republic
of
Letters,"
in which women are both
citizens and
sovereigns.
To that
end,
we shall com-
memorate women
philosophers
of the
past
as well as of
the
present by engaging
their
texts,
whether
critically
or
appreciatively,
in a
dialogical interchange.
In this
way,
both we and our sisters from the
past
can also become
interlocutors for our sisters in the future.
The second
purpose
of the
Society
is to examine the
nature of
philosophy, specifically
in the
light
of women's
contributions to the
discipline. Thus, papers
are welcome
which reflect
upon
the
methodology
and
style
of women
philosophers themselves,
or which
compare
the texts of
women with those of men.
Furthermore,
since
philosophical
method can be
distinguished
from
philosophical understanding,
it is
possible
that
philosophical understanding may
be reach-
ed in a
variety
of
ways
not
usually
considered
strictly
philosophical.
The
Society, therefore,
will also
explore
the nature of
philosophy by comparing
texts that have
traditionally
been defined as
strictly philosophical
with
those, especially by women,
which have been considered
marginal
to the
discipline, e.g., mystical, poetical,
fict-
ional or
autobiographical
texts. We thus
hope
to
enlarge
and enrich the resources of
everyone
who is concerned
with the central and most basic
questions
of human life.
The discussion and emendation of this
statement, along
with the
drafting
of a constitution and the election of a Board of
Officers,
will
take
place
at the December
meeting.
The
Society
is to be
open
to women
and men from all
disciplines. Anyone
who would like to become a
member
please
contact: Veda
Cobb-Stevens, Department
of
Philosophy,
University
of
Lowell, Lowell,
MA 01854.
Acknowledgement: Betty Safford, guest
editor of the
Hypatia special
issue, "Philosophy
and Women
Symposium,"
wishes to
express
her
appreciation
to Professor Sandra
Sutphen
of the
Department
of
Political
Science,
California State
University, Fullerton,
for her
helpful
and detailed editorial comments on one of the
papers
for that issue.
162
announcements
Job Announcement: The
Department
of
Philosophy, University
of
Wisconsin, LaCrosse,
assistant
professor,
tenure
track, begining
fall
semester,
1988. 8
courses/year (4/semester) undergraduate only.
ADS
or ADC: non-Western
philosophy, comparative religion, philosophy
of
religion,
Native American
philosophy, applied
ethics.
Specialization
in one or more
preferred. Teaching responsibilities
will include
frequent
sections of Introduction to
Philosophy,
ABD in
Philosophy required
prior
to
application,
Ph.D.
preferred. Experience preferred.
Some sum-
mer work available. Send
complete
dossier to: Dr. Paul E.
Rasmussen,
Chairperson, Department
of
Philosophy, University
of
Wisconsin,
LaCrosse,
1725 State
Street, LaCrosse,
WI 54601. Deadline for
applica-
tion:
July 15, 1987,
or should the
position
not be
filled,
the effective
date for
application
will be extended one week and thereafter at one
week intervals until the
position
is filled.
Errata: The
Hypatia
Editor
regrets
the
typographical
errors in the
following
items from the Reference section of
Nancy Fraser's,
"Women,
Welfare and the Politics of Need
Interpretation," Hypatia
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Barrett, Nancy
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Fraser, Nancy.
1985a. Michel Foucault: A
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. 1985b. What's critical about critical
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Th e Journal of Val ue
Inquiry
Exe cutive Editor
Jam e s Wil bur
Th e Journal of Val ue
Inquiry
is an inte rnational
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1987,
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