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Mark Lause: Can there be a "feminism run amok" that jibes with paternalism? Well, it's hardly "feminism" if it does. ====== Unfortunately, Yes. Check out the Femecon list (feminist economists). The variety of feminism on exhibit there, WHEN AND ONLY WHEN, it enters actively into a particular political struggle,or is expressed by someone on a list such as this or lbo-talk, needs to be confronted. My objection on this list about 10 years ago with a sudden burst from Jim Cramer on the subject of "Bourgeois Feminism" was based precisely on its bursting out of nowfhere. There was no legitimate context or need for such an outburst. David's sudden bringing in of a bunch of 'crazies' was analogous to that uncalled for post from Cramer. But again¸what gives the feminists on femecon "space" for their anti-woman feminism is the failure of leftists in general over the years and decades to incorporate into their thought and action the emancipation of women (including 'making room' for women in left politics. The First Feminist Movement in part emerged from their exclusion from the abolitionist movement. The second feminist movement emerged in part from their treatment in the anti-war movement of the '60s. Finally, there is always a fringe element (or several fringe elements to ANY movement, and to let that fringe enter into one's response to the movement (or even appear ot let it) is just bad politics. Several posters on lbo-talk (quite rational in most respects) can't refrain from taking gratuitous jabs at real or alleged "hippies." Why? What's the point of it? There is a poignant letter from Paul Baran to Paul Swezzy (I think in the very early '60s) in which he speaks of his weekly trip into San Francisco to attend the meetings of a little ragtail anti-war group. But he made the complaint in a private letter, not just as a general attack on "beats" or whatever. In other words, Paul Baran had dhis focus on the main struggle, and worked with whatever was there to work with. If on some occasins its obnoxiously liberal feminist economists who are _there_ on a given struggle, then you work with them. And you don't attack them behind their backs. If they start to fuck up the struggle, you oppose them. But yu don't oppose them just to show how radical you are: instead that is apt to suggest how sexist you are. Carrol ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
