A year ago today, radical feminist philosopher Mary Daly passed away. A year ago, I didn’t really know who she was. This post on Shakesville featuring her obituary was more or less my first introduction to Daly. Commenters wrote about how liberating her writing was. Other commenters wrote that they were glad she died because she was ‘transphobic’ and a ‘genocidal cis woman’. As ‘trans allies’ learned of the ‘transphobia’, they quickly backtracked and apologized for their writing “rest in peace” in previous comments. Criticism of Melissa’s post continued even after she added an addendum about Daly’s supposed transphobia at the bottom of the post, even after Melissa said how she had been unaware of it before commenters pointed it out. Others apologized because their ‘privilege’ must have kept them from knowing what Daly had written about transsexuality. (I’m certain it wasn’t ‘cis privilege’ that kept her from reading a radical feminist book.)
Luckily, a couple other commenters noted that they would be seeking out Daly’s writing now. Some Shakesville contributors came to Melissa’s defense, noting how baffling it was that some self-identified trans individuals still weren’t satisfied after the post had been altered to reflect their criticism. What more did they want from her? To have not mentioned Daly or her death at all?
*
Before reading anything of Andrea Dworkin’s, I “knew” that she hated all men, was totally against all sex, and was generally someone to be disliked. I thought all of that was true, mainly (and sadly), through “feminist” blogs and websites. Then I actually read some of her work.
Then I read some of Catherine MacKinnon’s work. Then I read Sonia Johnson.
And then there was no turning back.
They all gave me the language I needed for understanding my own life, my oppression, and my liberation. Everything fell into place, one ‘click’ triggering the next, working towards completing the puzzle of how to get the hell out of patriarchy now.
Fewer than a dozen pages into Daly’s Gyn/Ecology, I had the words to describe my yearning to find some ‘pre-patriarchy’ self, to get back to something that I had been robbed of in the first place. . . Background. This is what it felt like to see something else, to see beyond all the lukewarm feminist, ‘queer studies’ texts assigned in my women’s studies courses.
This was going to do something, ignite something, make me finally understand it all. And this was what I have been kept from reading.
I wasn’t supposed to see it because: those angry lesbians, those man-haters, those transphobes, those feminazis, those sex-negative feminists. . .
Those. . . women.
To the extent any of these women have been mentioned in my women’s studies classes, it’s mostly been to point out what not to think and what brand of feminism to avoid. Dworkin came up in a conversation on prostitution, though in the context of our class not being assigned any of her writing. Daly was mentioned in a book for a queer studies course, but only to point out how much she supposedly hated trans individuals. The exception for a positive mention came in a history of feminist theory course, taught by a very politically active ‘second-waver’ (and co-editor of a popular women’s studies textbook). Both Dworkin and MacKinnon were mentioned in a piece by John Stoltenberg that was assigned, in which he details their anti-pornography civil ordinance. Other than this one instance of a positive mention (in more than three years of courses, mind you), all other references were to point out how wrong they were. Usually, though, their existence was just ignored.
So. Here are some women you should not ignore:
Start spinning.
Against All Evidence 
Dr. Mary Daly was a wonderful, intelligent and amazing womon. I wish I had read her work before she left this world, because Gyn/Ecology changed my life as much as Intercourse did.
I still need to get back to reading “Intercourse”. I got it from the library a couple years ago, but never got around to reading much of it at length. Oh, my infinite to-be-read-at-a-future-date list.
I know right.
Intercourse is still so amazing, I think I will re-read it actually š
Thank you, you solved my dilemma.
A few days ago, I wrote a reply, more or less, to one of your posts. I wanted to comment on your blog about it, but I had to get ready to go visit my (mentally-exhausting, abusive) family for New Year’s Eve, and so I forgot as I forget a lot of stuff all the time. I concluded my post with something that, well, you just answered to.
See, I have this problem:
I’m not just a trans-ally, I also have what you could call “gender issues” and, even though I’m not entirely out, yes I’m transgendered or genderqueer. For a lot of “radical feminists” (between scare quotes because I refer to the stereotype), I’d be a “gender traitor”. Yes, I like masculinity. Yes, I feel masculine. Yes, I’m also a historian and I happen to like to quote Dead White Males all the time. My favorite painter is Jacques-Louis David. My favorite songs are all sang and written by Angry Leftist Class-Oppressed White Dudes. But I’m still a radical feminist, and I love and admire Dworkin. (I also like Solanas – oh the irony.)
And here’s the other thing: I’m what you’d call “anti-BDSM”, and I have an unapologetic stance against it: I seek to live in an ideal (and probably utopian) world where BDSM doesn’t exist. But it just so happens that most trans-allies and trans* books I read are pro-BDSM and “sex-positive”. But, um, no, I won’t support the rights of people to believe there are “natural” dominants and “natural” submissives and that it’s a “valid identity” in both a sexual and non-sexual way. You’d think that champions of emancipation would notice the theoretical/philosophical problem there, but apparently not.
So, thank you, and I still like your blog a lot.
Are you male or female?
Biologically or psychologically?
Or are you asking if I have functioning ovaries? Because I do have them. Unfortunately for me, I wish they didn’t, and I wish my gonads had instead dropped in utero – but then I’d be an entitled, privileged, douchey asshole, and I wouldn’t have read your post I linked and enjoyed 90% of its contents.
Make what you want from that.
You use the word “kyriarchy”
are you serious?
One can not be “psychologically” female OR male.
Where’s this post I’m linked too btw? Couldn’t find it. That’s not meant to sound too snarky btw.
Eleutheria’s post here is where she discusses both a post of yours and one of mine.
Thanks Lishra. Will read it, and the rest of Eleutheria’s stuff and give it some thought and get back to both of you.
Hahah I get called a transphobe. El oh fucking el.
Well, seems like it was a trick question and I fell for it – see, my sex/gender/identification/orientation chart was out of reach when I read and replied this morning, shortly after I was bothered by the phone that woke me up from the insomniac 3-4 hours of sleep I got last morning.
Maybe I should have asked “Genetically” or “Biologically” instead.
I must say that I was very confused as to why a radical feminist – who, I take it, don’t believe in binaries – would ask me such a question – “male or female”? I was very confused as to why you were using “male” and “female” instead of “man” and “woman”, and I found that offensive – but that’s because I thought you were using them as nouns, not as adjectives.
So it might have been a trap, but there was some language misunderstanding as well.
Yes, obviously, I do know that female/male refer to biological sex and thus can’t exist psychologically, nor even emotionally. It’s feminine/masculine, as gender expressions, that do – if they do, as they are constructs.
So, to sum up, you were asking me very bluntly, very upsettingly, very intimately, what are the genitals I was born with down there, and if they have been or not modified – I assume. Was that your question?
See, I like sarcasm, but it’s a bit though to get through it when you can’t tell if the other person is trying to start a conversation or if zie (in this case, she) wants to attack. You can do both if you want. Let me start by saying this: you didn’t “get called a transphobe” in my post (if that’s what you’re referring to). I didn’t saw your post and write a response/comment to scream “OMG LOOK TRANSPHOBE!!!” if that’s what you think. (You inspired me to state a few thoughts, a commentary in general on Where I Am Now with my feminist stances and paradoxes.) I saw what you wrote on trans politics – I mostly saw that you wrote “transphobic” in your post and “transphobe” in your About page – and I shared that info to my readers (some of whom might be very sensitive/triggered to that, hence the warnings – I apply Trigger Warnings to my posts, in case you didn’t notice and, did you notice? I didn’t put “transphobia” in the Trigger Warnings of that post, surprise! because it wasn’t the point of my post), with the words you used. And, no, I might not have gotten your sarcasm. (Newsflash: English might be your first language; it’s not mine.) I left it at that. If you hate being called a transphobe, or if you reclaim the term transphobe – I have no idea. I didn’t find a post where you explained – if it’s there, if I’d have found it, I might have linked it in my post so that my readers know who they are reading about. That was pretty much the only reason why I made any allusions to transphobia in my post. Also, I admit that I don’t know much about you, and didn’t make a lot more research into your posts.
The thing is? I liked that one post. Not all of it. I don’t agree with all of it, but I agreed with parts of it. And, yes, I enjoyed it, like I enjoyed your writing style.
But I’m not a “masochist” (I refer to this post of mine for the “joke” – yes, it’s a joke): even though I liked your post, I really don’t feel like staying around indefinitely giving praise for your post, while you judge if my ideas (and “the rest of my stuff”) are deemed worthy of your brand of radical feminism in order to engage in equal discussion*. Damn, you certainly don’t have to like or agree with what I post – I don’t only blog on feminism (I refer to my blog FAQ for that) and, yes, I blog about Dead White Dudes because I happen to be a historian. Certainly you might have valid (or not/whatever/who cares?) reasons to attack and snark. The problem is, from your last comments, I can’t yet figure out what’s your standpoint. Or if I’m being “tested”. Hint: I don’t like being or feeling that I’m tested. No, this is not a petty demand requiring you to obey to my particularities. I’m just pointing out that I’m triggered by being tested, because my (abusive) mother liked to play games like that. So it makes me fucking pissed off when I feel someone is testing me as if to check if I’m a good student who seeks approval and education. You want to check out some of my stuff? Check out my trauma tantrum tag.
*Yes, my biological sex and thus my genital organs are “female”. Genetically, I do think (hell, I never got it checked – who really does it?!) I’m XX, too, because my ovaries are functional and I can menstruate. I was raised, socialized, conditioned and abused as a woman by the patriarchy**. I don’t have any male privilege. (I do have, however, white privilege.) Is that what’s the minimum required in order for two female-bodied, female-at-birth, female-conditioned persons to start considering if they can engage in an equal discussion? Is there more?
**What was the snark and square quotes to kyriarchy? Because that’s one of the things where I don’t get if you’re mocking the use of the word by your use of square quotes or what. I’m not the first feminist on teh interwebz who uses the concept kyriarchy (and also patriarchy) and I doubt you dropped from Radical Feminist Patriarchy-Blaming Savage BlogIsland yesterday, didn’t you? So what, exactly, is your statement of shock and/or snark about my use of the concept kyriarchy?
Edit on previous comment: Scare quotes obviously, not square quotes. Bah, it’s almost 6:30am here. I took sleeping pills a while ago now to try to get myself to bed earlier. Still haven’t worked. (Yes, I have insomnia.) Try to ignore the typos/weird grammatical constructs above.
Woah chill out hey. None of those comments were meant to come out as attacking you and I am sorry if it came across that way. Taking the piss a little, yes, but attacking you, no.
What I mean by male is a human with xy chromosomes and female is a human with xx chromosomes. If I wanted to know about your genitals I would have asked. I don’t by the way. Maybe it was because I was too lazy to read your link but I couldn’t tell v much from what you posted. Look, I did really enjoy your post and admit your strong critique of bdsm is nothing short of brilliant! It’s just well, I am very critical of so called transphobia.
And I usually associate slash see libertarian hedonist pseudo feminists use the word kyiarchy so when I did check yer blog, I was confused.
Also I apologise for my classism/racism for assuming English is your first language, as I mentioned I didn’t check your blog at all then just skimming it and then reading the entry when lishra provided a link. I don’t have all day to spend on the Internet just intermittently when I get time.
I apologize for taking the offensive. I have that tendency, plus I couldn’t tell from your comments what were your intentions. I actually didn’t even think that you were just being Internet!lazy, which is okay, of course – I’m rather addicted to it as I mostly work/study at home and stay in front of my computer all day.
I should probably add that I’m not used to comment on blogs outside of Livejournal/Dreamwidth. It took me ages to start commenting casually on Shakesville, and yet it’s very liberal (sometimes too blah!moderate) – but the mods are very intimidating. Your blog persona is intimidating, which I guess is the point. (I should know since mine (although it’s a dude) is meant to be intimidating as well for newbies at French Revolution geekism, which is one of the things I blog about.)
Also, I navigate between left ideologies, between progressive and more radical theories, and I know that’s something some people don’t like/are used to, because it’s conflicting. That’s a bit what your post inspired me to talk about. I’m attached to different principles, I’m not satisfied with just one set of ideas, but sometimes they contradict themselves. But that also means I don’t know from where I’m going to be attacked.
I understand where you come from for questioning trans politics (I’m using what lishra said in her recent post, I don’t know for your personal stance though) and why you’re critical of it being called transphobia. I started reading lishra’s new link post on that – I read the first, I think, and although I don’t agree with everything, I get the obvious difference between questioning identity and questioning identity politics. For a different (personal) example, you can question the nationalist politics adopted by QuĆ©bec to defend the identity of the QuĆ©bec people – and you fucking should question and criticize its nationalist politics because it’s sometimes falling into WFC (White French Catholic) supremacism and that’s scary as fuck. That doesn’t mean one should deny the existence of a particular identity in the North-East of North America where there is a strong majority population of French-speakers who have a typical French culture and a different history of classist/WASPist oppression/exploitation. And that doesn’t mean either that we should forget we’re fucking white too, and, really, we should just stfu sometimes because when a WFC QuĆ©bec-Nationalist Dude plays at the Oppression Olympics it gets old and irritating very fast. /end national politics anecdote. [You talked of your classism/racism for assuming English was my first language. I think you’re from Australia, from your posts? I don’t know enough about Australia, given that they’re far from where I live and from my reality, and I don’t know much about their relation to the British Imperialism and WASPism. In North America, WASPism was used against French-speakers, whether white or not. (Classism too, as French Canadians were generally either rural or proletarian and “the bosses” were all English – and by that I don’t mean they were English Canadians: they came directly from Great Britain.) Although there is obviously a racial difference, we were still told to “speak white” – even if, yes, we’re white. But North American ethnology is fucked up and I recently learnt it apparently thinks/used to think that Italians and Irish aren’t white, so it makes sense that French wouldn’t be white for it either. (And yes, I have an anecdote from my grandfather (born in 1930) confirming it existed.) Tl;dr: years ago, when I was still a teenager and started discussing in English on the Internet (the French Internet seems very under-developped by comparison), I was shamed for my “weird English” and, yes, I still have construct “weird sentences”, and, yes, there are still times I don’t “get” everything even if I’m now at a level of English-speaking and English-writing in which I can write a paper for an International conference – with a corrector, though. I thought it might be culturally useful to share this, sorry for the tl;dr though.]
I don’t know how the concept of kyriarchy is supposed to be defined and used – Wikipedia isn’t very useful for that – but frankly I don’t care much. Concepts can be played with. I don’t use kyriarchy to replace patriarchy. I use both kyriarchy and patriarchy, because kyriarchy covers aspects of male-male exploitation (of course, patriarchy plays a role too). If I talk of class oppression, I will talk of kyriarchy first of all, but I don’t forget the patriarchal deal that facilitates and supports hierarchies. (That’s what my experience with feminists using kyriarchy has been anyway. I don’t generally read the sexy-sexy libertarian hedonist pseudo feminists because they don’t seem to know what trigger warning tags are and I don’t appreciate not knowing when I’m going to end up reading a graphic description of a BDSM “scene” and I’m just really not interested in the TMI Ć la Clarisse Thorn.) I use kyriarchy, too, because kyrios means master/lord and that’s fucking useful to reject and bash BDSM. Finally, because I’m a historian of the French Revolution, and their rhetoric was marked by the rejection of the masters – and yes, I know that the Rich Bourgeois White Dudes triumphed and crushed the other movements and then established their superiority through it. It doesn’t mean the French Revolution isn’t deeply radical – it is: the Rich Bourgeois White Dudes can’t “tame” it. That’s what I study too, why they try to destroy the meaning of the French Revolution because they know it’s too powerful. Sorry for the academicsplaining btw – I don’t know if you know about that, so it’s meant as a sincere explanation of where I come from as a blogger. But you can tell me to stfu about that, because that’s one privilege (academia) I know I have. (I know that sounds fucking 19thc. liberal bourgeois to say but I actually worked hard to gain that privilege – because I’ve known for a long while it was the only way for me to win a certain freedom and independence from my family, class and nation. I know, it’s not cool and you can call me a sell-out to the bourgeois institutions. I try to remind myself I will leave before they make me a bourgeois.)
Okay, sorry for the self-centered, narcissistic TMI novel about Me, Myself and I. (Wow, is that really that long?) I stop speaking about myself now. I should finish writing my blog FAQ and just link to that in the future.
Hi. I noticed some blog traffic coming from your blog post, so I actually had read it recently. I’m glad you commented here too – thanks š I started writing a post that was a quasi response to that last portion of your post about my Schrƶdinger’s-box-like ‘transphobia’ since I hadn’t written much about trans/queer politics. [By the way, I changed the tag of ‘trans issues’ to ‘trans politics’, which you linked to, so you might want to change it since nothing shows up with the old tag now.]
I think I’ll just go ahead with the post and maybe we can shift the discussion over there, if you would like to comment further, that is. The post relates to radical feminists/lesbians/women being called ‘transphobic’ for even the most basic questioning of certain aspects of trans politics. I’ll be linking to several posts which are very relevant to your concerns about the trans/genderqueer community/ies being at odds with radical feminism and so forth.
And for what it’s worth, I don’t think any of the things you listed somehow negate being a radical feminist. Like, it’s nice to remove oneself from male (mainstream) culture, but I don’t fault you for having attachments to ideas, music, what-have-you that come from the male sphere of cultural production. Ideally, maybe you’d just be listening to the Indigo Girls and quoting Beauvoir instead of Sarte (or whoever)… but, yeah. And you like Dworkin, so all is forgiven! Heh.
Also, you surely aren’t a “gender traitor”… radical feminists want to abolish gender, as it is a harmful social construct, so a “gender traitor” probably doesn’t exist either š
And thanks again for the blog praise. From what I’ve gotten to read of yours so far, yours is cool too.
Oh! And have you read Nine Deuce’s BDSM blog series? I think you’d really like it. Here’s the first part… it’s great and, naturally, incredibly disturbing. She has other posts on the topic that are great as well.
Oh, and I forgot to reply to your comment I realise. I readi Nine Deuceās BDSM blog series when you linked it yesterday (that’s what I did most of the day, oh despair). Amazing research and debunking. Very disturbing too – especially the submissive blogs. I had already stumbled across one – and I wasn’t searching for one – and damn, it’s disturbing. The “BDSM guides” too. I wish she had discussed it actually. There’s one or two around (well, they all say the very exact same tired rhetoric, so) that had messed me up so much three years ago.
Re: my attachment to male mainstreem culture.
Don’t worry; I only quoted Sartre once. XD Actually, I don’t even know what he writes about, but I liked that short text on the RĆ©sistance I could just copy/paste to my journal. I typically quote 18th century Enlightenment Dudes though. And, yes, I should get to quote more ladies, and to quote Beauvoir, and to buy her books, because they’ve been on my list for a while. (I fail.)
Re: music.
I should probably add that I recently realised (with infinite sadness) that all my favorite songs to revolt by (i.e. with themes of resistance, revolt, revolution, etc.) were written/sang by dudes (generally French/French-speaking dudes, so it’s either QuĆ©bec liberation mov’t or French Mai 68/socialist/anarchist type of songs, that’s what I was referring to). My favorite singers prior to that had always been women though, although my first favorite band was Evanescence and that has so many levels of wrong I’m not even going to describe – it should be self-explanatory. I still completely adore Amanda Palmer and Emilie Autumn though. (I love Autumn’s rage and hatred, but not her sexy-sexy death-burlesque.) My only regret is that they don’t sing more engaged songs that go outside of themselves. It’s okay, too, but sometimes I feel like hearing people singing about something else than themselves.
I just put up the post if you’d like to go take a look.
Sheesh. My comments are long. Sorry lishra for taking up your space to talk about myself. That’s really, really not cool, especially in the same thread I claimed I liked masculinity and felt masculine. You can absolutely tell me to stfu at any time. Although I don’t know if it counts as a privilege to like masculinity/feel masculine.
(To my defense, I am a rather lonely person and don’t have many people with whom to talk about these feminist questions, which I really like to talk about obviously, so… yeah, even though I’m just having a comment-monologue right now, but yes. Stfu, I will do that.)
I also read your post (the one you linked here) and I started looking up a few links. Just telling you that I’m not ignoring it – just letting my ideas fall in place a bit to think about it before I reply. (There’s a part of that in my latest tl;dr comment to Aileen Wuornos though.)
No worries about writing a lot! I was concerned that there might be a little brawl, but that was very swiftly diffused. I’m glad that stuff got figured out and that everyone’s fine.
Nine Deuce’s series is totally awesome – glad you wasted the day away with it! The eyestrain caused by fabulous bloggers… heh.
Despite being a women’s studies major, I don’t have many “real-life” people to discuss feminist matters with either. My partner… my dog… uh… yeah. If you’ve read my post from today, you can see why.
Totally take your time with that other post, if you even want to respond. No obligations or due dates š It took me months before I felt sure enough with my new-ish beliefs to finally do that post and put it out there.
By the way, I would have never guessed that you’re primarily a French speaker!
@Eleutheria
No apologies needed š I’m glad that we came to an understanding š Not being overly familiar with the French revolution or French culture etc (well, I wish I was! I’ve visited Quebec City + Montreal once and it was a.m.a.z.i.n.g, no sneaky meanings, just was incredible!) I didn’t catch the reference. My French extends about as far as “can you speak english?” and “please” and “thank you” … and I can’t even type it.
When I first made the move from LJ to WP it was really intimidating to me as well, I think I mentioned this some where on my blog recently, but I was too scared to comment at I Blame the Patriarchy for AGES.
Yeah I’m from Australia, and we are a really fucked up racist country as well, we had the White Australian only immigration policy for way too long, and people here are still disgustingly hostile to Aboriginal Australians (impact of British Colonialism) – as far as I know, Ontario in terms of it’s politics + legal system is fairly similar to Australia, but I wouldn’t know about the rest of Canada.
I can totally empathise about having some what conflicting political ideological loves, same way I feel about my love of horror/zombie movies + radical feminism and a lot of other aspects of my personal/nondigital life (okay, well, not really, but, I’m trying here š )
EL OH FUCKING EL. Hahahahha, OH SNAP to that Clarisse comment, okay, I don’t like attacking womyn, but seriously, a lot of her work irks the shit out of me. To me it seems so vile and womon hating. When I first started blogging it was from a pro-porn + pro-BDSM angle, and then I grabbed a brain of my own, not one plucked from the male-stream media/white world. So that’s where I know kyriarchy from.
I have a fair deal of academic privilege as well (although, I am a high school drop out and I managed to get into university, I have NO idea what that means) so believe it or not, all this stuff about the French revolution is fascinating to me, as that was one of the first things we were taught about in terms of understanding Libertarian ideology. I’d love to learn more, but ahh, there’s never enough hours in the day are there (like right now, I’m meant to be doing work + chores, but I am procrastinating on the internerdz, and plus you deserve a decent response, unlike my semi-sober one last night hah :P)
@Lishra
Me neither! I just rant on about it to usually who ever I can. Mostly my dog also.
i recently started reading daly for the first time, and i was amazed to realize that my perspective has changed now, forever, from just 2 chapters of “quintessence.” 2 chapters! i cant wait to see what else she has to say, and i too feel like i missed out having not read her work while she was alive. dworkin too for that matter. it bothers me very much that the transactivists and fun-fems celebrated when each of them died, and they seemed particularly glad to be rid of mary daly. celebrating the death of any radical feminist, productive women and fearless revolutionary thinkers who wanted to (and did) help other women, at great personal cost. its just perverse, it really is.
heres a link to my first daly-inspired post:
http://factcheckme.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/24-hour-menergy/
The celebration of the death of *any* woman is disgusting, particularly from people who say they are feminists.
Great post, by the way.