Reading Dan Richman's column last Friday, "Feminists Neglect the Mainstream," nearly brought me to dig my transfer applications out of the trash. I was angry. Angry to see ignorance twist the vital and painful social discourse of gender roles into an immature political tract. Angry to see ignorance paraded with pride. This letter is not a personal attack on Dan Richman because, unfortunately, he is not alone.
Does Richman have a valid perspective on the women's movement? Of course he does. As a white male in a society engaged in the difficult creative process of redefining gender roles, he could share his own experience. If he went on to study gender roles in a precise and thoughtful way, we could listen to his more general observations.
He chose neither path for his article. Instead he stepped beyond the limitations of his own experience and ran amok through the china shop of sexual politics, clumsily smashing everything in sight.
His article revealed a basic lack of knowledge. He simply took his own unprocessed reflections, slapped on the attention-grabbing words of "feminist" and "militant feminist" (he used the terms interchangeably) and made sweeping simplifications. With these tools alone, he claimed to "expose the modern feminist movement for what it is." Please, have some humility.
How can we take this article seriously? I will let it speak for itself. In his discussion of abortion he writes: "Because the militant feminist revels in the abortion [sic]." Dissecting this sentence would only waste our time; he gives us only false generalizations and bad grammar to work with. Other gems include: his attempt to describe the dynamic feminism of Camille Paglia after watching her on TV, his claim that feminists view motherhood as "demeaning" and his assertion that the National Organization of Women (the "NOW gang" in his words) is full of "angry and bitter women." What kind of journalism is this?
The very dead white males of the Western tradition are turning in their graves. Immanuel Kant, a 19th century moral philosopher, would have some advice for Richman's irresponsible writing. In his "Critique of Pure Reason," Kant explained how to make our subjective judgments match objective reality more closely: "we add to ... a judgment the limitation under which the judgment is made." That is, unless Richman admits his limited knowledge of and perspective on the women's movement, he is simply being arrogant.
"Feminism is a tough issue to talk about," he writes. We can agree with him here. For many of us, female and male alike, questioning gender roles is a difficult learning process; we confront our own racial, sexual and class biases. The last thing we need is arrogance. Educate yourself.
His article is rooted in an arrogant tradition. French feminist Simone de Beauvoir described this phenomenon in "The Second Sex:" "Representation of the world is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view which they confuse with the absolute truth." Thus, he presents his own "right way" to achieve a more balanced society. Any ideas falling to the left of this mainstream line are cast onto the dung heap of "feminism" or "extremism," left to rot in useless anger and paralyzing bitterness. Ironically, Richman himself often criticizes "feminists" for rejecting more mainstream viewpoints. Does he consider himself to be open-minded?
What is this "mainstream" viewpoint as Richman sees it? "Silent majority" feminism dictates that women can only effect change within the system. The main rule is: Don't make anyone angry. To back up his ideas, Richman has to rewrite history (Rachel Rochat did the same in her letter of July 20). From his comfortable '90s armchair, he looks back and "salutes" women who "fought for equal rights." How does he think we got where we are today? We are indebted to the women and men who risked themselves to challenge complacent "mainstream" America and create a healthier society. Study history -- don't take it for granted.
Feminism is, and always has been, fighting the "silent majority" that Richman is so proud of representing. We don't want to be silent. As women, we have been silenced for as long as we can remember, as long as our mothers, our grandmothers, our great-grandmothers can remember.
As women we break that silence in many different ways, whether we put stickers on fraternity cars, write for Spare Rib or leave an abusive relationship. We are sick of the complacent, ignorant "silent majority."
As Dr. Stockman shouts in Henrick Ibsen's play, "An Enemy of the People:" "Don't think that you can fog my brain with that magic word - the 'People'! Not any more! Just because there is a mass of organisms with the human shape, they do not automatically become a people. That honor has to be earned!"
