In a message dated 97-05-25 13:13:57 EDT, you write: >Maggie has responded to this, and I have nothing really to add, except >to ask a question and offer a reference or two. First, isn't much of >this dichotomization of men and women rooted (I confess to almost >complete ignorance as to its true origins) in the writings of, say >Carol Gilligan and "difference feminism"? Second, Katha Pollit wrote >an excellent article entitled "Are Women Morally Superior to Men?" >(with the smaller super-title of "Marooned on Gilligan's Island") in >the December 28, 1992 issue of _The Nation_ (I have a copy of it, if >anyone is interested in further info or a fax). I thought Doug and/or >Maggie might find this quite stimulating. Pollit looks at the popular >book by Deborah Tannen (_You Just Don't Understand_) which I have read >and found to be stunningly shallow and strewn with seemingly willful >misinterpretations of male/female speech samples. Lastly, Noam >Chomsky wrote a rejoinder to notions of science vaguely similar to >Gilligan's conceptions of sharp gender differences of (inter alia) >cognitive faculties. This can be found at > > http://www.lbbs.org/zmag/articles/chompomoart.html > >and might also be of interest. > > >Bill First, I would be interested in the article--perhaps you might email me privately and I could arrange for you to fax it to me. The debate over the difference/sameness/moral superiority of women/men is an old one in the feminist (aka suffragette, aka women's lib) movement. Several feminist authors have examined this, the one who comes to mind is Mary P. Ryan who wrote about how the cult of womanhood in the nineteenth century was a suffragette demand which ultimately was used to discriminate against women in the workplace. In fact, early women's movements worked hard for protections for women in the workplace which were later turned against women to keep them out of highly paid industrial positions. It is only the more recent women's movement which began in the 1960s looking to level out the pay playing field for women in the market place. Most early women's movements tried to get protections for women based on the idea that women could not perform both their reproductive responsibilities in the home and work in the market place. (The earliest record of analysis of, and demands for, equal pay for equal work and equal pay for work of equal value I have found are in the works of Mathew Carey. Carey left Ireland one step ahead of the British police, landed in Philadelphia circa 1790(ish) and started the first printing house in the USA with money borrowed from Lafayette. In the 1820s and 30s he published a series of pamphlets under his own name and psuedonyms analyzing the connection between low wages and poverty with particular emphasis on the low wages paid working women.) The idea that men and women are different, and that women are morally superior, still has great currency, especially amongst upper class academics--Sylvia Hewlett was famous for promoting the idea that women's true calling was in reproductive responsibilities, and a very good feminist answer to Hewlett can be found in Faludi's BACKLASH. In fact, for anyone interested in an overview of some of the debates within the women's movement in this century, BACKLASH is still one of the best books out there. (I have two copies--one's a paperback, I'll mail it free to the first asker). maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
