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Hypatia A JOURNAL OF

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Summer 1987 Volume 2, Number 2

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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 envisioned a regularpublicationdevoted to feminist philosophy. Hypatia is the realization of that vision; it is intended to encourageand communicatemany differentkinds 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 to Canada, Mexico and overseas surface; $10/year to overseas airmail. Single copies will be sold for $20 (institutions)and $10 (individuals).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 respectivelyas 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.

MargaretA. Simons, Southern Illinois Universityat Edwardsville Assistant Editors BeverlyB. Ayyar ThorayaHalhoul Copy Editor TameraBryant Editorial Assistant FlorenceGillig Book Review Editor JeffnerAllen, EasternMontanaCollege The Forum Editor MariaLugones, CarletonCollege Associate Editors Azizah al-Hibri(Editor 1982-84),New York SandraBartky, Universityof Illinois, Chicago Ann Garry,CaliforniaState University,Los Angeles SandraHarding, Universityof Delaware Helen Longino, Mills College Donna Serniak-Catudal,Randolph-MaconCollege Joyce Trebilcot, WashingtonUniversity,St. Louis Advisory Board ElizabethBeardsley,TempleUniversity Simonede Beauvoir,France(1908-1986) GertrudeEzorsky,BrooklynCollegeof City Universityof New York ElizabethFlower, Universityof Pennsylvania VirginiaHeld, GraduateCenterof City Universityof New York GraciellaHierro,Mexico Judith JarvisThompson,MassachusettsInstituteof Technology Mary Mothersill,BarnardCollege MerrileeSalmon, Universityof Pittsburgh Anita Silvers,San FranciscoState University Editorial Board KathrynPyne Addelson, Smith College JacquelineAnderson,Olive Harvey College, Chicago Asoka Bandarage,BrandeisUniversity SharonBishop, CaliforniaState University,Los Angeles LorraineCode, York University BlancheCurry,Shaw College ElizabethEames, SouthernIllinois Universityat Carbondale

Feathers, University of Pennsylvania Ann Ferguson, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Jane Flax, Howard University Nancy Fraser, Northwestern University Carol Gould, Steven's Institute of Technology Susan Griffin, Berkeley, California Donna Haraway, University of California, Santa Cruz Nancy Hartsock, University of Washington Hilda Hein, College of the Holy Cross Sarah Lucia Hoagland, Northeastern Illinois University Alison Jaggar, University of Cincinnati Elizabeth Janeway, New York Evelyn Fox Keller, Northeastern University Rhoda Kotzin, Michigan State University Lynda Lange, University of Alberta Linda Lopez McAlister, University of South Florida Patricia Mann, City College of New York Kathryn Morgan, University of Toronto Janice Moulton, Smith College Andree Nichola-McLaughlin, Medgar Evars College Linda Nicholson, State University of New York, Albany Susan Ray Peterson, New York Connie Crank Price, Tuskegee Institute Sara Ruddick, New School of Social Research Betty Safford, California State University, Fullerton Naomi Scheman, University of Minnesota Ruth Schwarz, University of Pennsylvania Elizabeth V. Spelman, Smith College Jacqueline M. Thomason, Los Angeles Nancy Tuana, University of Texas at Dallas Caroline Whitbeck, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Iris Young, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Jacqueline Zita, University of Minnesota

Summer, 1987 Volume 2, Number 2

contents Editorial

1

Playfulness, "World "-Travelling, and Loving Perception

3

Mary B. Mahowald

Sex-Role Stereotypes in Medicine

21

Judith M. Hill

Pornography and Degradation

39

Victoria Davion

Do Good Feminists Compete?

55

Susan Wendell

A (Qualified) Defense Of Liberalism

65

Andrea Nye

The Unity of Language

95

Julien S. Murphy

The Look in Sartre and Rich

113

H. E. Baber

How Bad is Rape?

125

Maria Lugones

COMMENT/REPLY Luisa Muraro Mary Libertin Harry Brod

On Conflicts and Differences Among Women

139

The Politics of Women's Studies and Men's Studies

143

Does Manning Men 's Studies Emasculate Women's Studies?

153

THE FORUM Candace Watson

Celibacy and Its Implications For Autonomy

157

Notes On Contributors

159

Announcements

161

Submission Guidelines

165

editorial Readyingthis issue for the printerand, at the sametime, preparing our displayfor the NationalWomen'sStudiesAssociationconference in Atlanta, whose theme this year is "WeavingWomen'sColors: A Decade of Empowerment,"has highlightedfor me the centralityof the feminist strugglearounddifferences,both in the NWSA and in feminist philosophy. Maria Lugones' paper, which is "about crossculturaland cross-racialloving," beautifullyexpressesthis 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 possibilityand complexityof a pluralisticfeminism." Difference is a theme runningthroughoutthis issue of Hypatia. AndreaNye analyzesthe "refusalto hear others" that underliesthe traditionalsearchby malephilosophersfor the unityof language.Her echoesLugones,whose critiqueof the searchfor unityas authoritarian concept of "world-travelling"offers an epistemologicalalternative. JulienMurphy,like Lugones,drawson MarilynFrye'sconceptof "arrogant perception,"in "The Look in Sartreand Rich," where she develops an existentialtheory of oppressionand liberation. Several authors in this issue take controversialstances within feminism.VictoriaDavionargues,againstthe "viewwidelyheldamong feministsthat nurturingand competitionare incompatible,"that certain kinds of competitioncan help women recognizetheirdifferences whilemaintaininga senseof connection.MaryMahowalddevelopsan egalitarianmodel (parentalism)for the physician-otherrelationshipto arguefor the compatibilitybetweenfeministandmedicine.H.E. Baber, in herpaper,"How Badis Rape?,"makesthe argumentthat "thework that most women employedoutsidethe home are compelledto do is moreseriouslyharmful"than rape. SusanWendell,in "A (Qualified) Defense of LiberalFeminism," challengesthe characterizationsby feministphilosophersof feminismliberalism.JudithHill proposesan alternative philosophical basis for a feminist attack on victim pornography. In the spiritof feministcontroversy,Hypatiadevotesspacein each generalissueto commentson previouslypublishedarticles,withreplies invited from authors.As the currentissue illustrates,this section of the journalis alive and well. This issue also containsthe first publication of TheForum,a section,editedby MariaLugones,thatis designed to encouragephilosophicaldialogueon a singletopic. To furtherthat dialogue,The Forumeditorwill announcea newtopic for The Forum for each generalissue, and continueto invite contributionson topics on whichwe have alreadypublishedshort papers.The next topic will 1

hypatia be Women and Poverty. Additionalpapers on the currenttopic of Celibacyare invited. Papersare also invited for the SpecialIssue on the Historyof Womenin Philosophy,editedby LindaLopezMcAlister. The SpecialIssueon FeministPerspectiveson Science,editedby Nancy Tuana, has been expandedto two issues, and will appearas the Fall 1987, and Spring 1988 issues. For details on contributingpapersfor The Forum, for the Special Issue on the History of Women in Philosophy,or for generalsubmission,pleaseconsultthe Submission Guidelines. We wish to thank all those readerswho have subscribedto Hypatia in 1987. We also wish to acknowledgethose readerswho includeda contributionwith theirsubscriptioncheck. The expensesin beginning autonomouspublicationlast yearwereconsiderable.Theycontinueto growas we beginpublishingthreeissuesthisyear.We urgethosereaders who have not yet subscribedfor 1987 to do so as soon as possible. Subscribingto Hypatia is the best way to follow developmentsin feministphilosophy,join in our dialogue,andreceiveour SpecialIssues immediatelyupon publication.Editors from other, long-established journalsreportthat it takes an averageof four renewalnoticesbefore a subscriberrenewsa subscription.We can ill afford the time and expense requiredto run such a renewalcampaign.Please take this opportunityto subscribeusingthe attachedsubscriptioncard.Thankyou again for your supportfor 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 understood 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 necessarilyacquired flexibility in shifting from the mainstreamconstruction of life where she is constructed as an outsider to other constructions 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 recommend 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 travelling 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 affirm this travelling across "worlds" as partly constitutive of crossHypatia vol. 2, no. 2 (Summer 1987). © By Maria Lugones.

3

hypatla culturaland cross-racialloving. ThusI recommendto womenof color in the U.S. that we learn to love each other by learningto travel to each other's "worlds." On the other hand, the paper makes a connection betweenwhat MarilynFryehas named"arrogantperception"andthe failureto identify with personsthat one views arrogantlyor has come to see as the productsof arrogantperception.A furtherconnectionis madebetween this failureof identificationand a failure of love, and thus between loving and identifyingwith anotherperson. The sense of love is not the one Fryehas identifiedas both consistentwith arrogantperception and as promotingunconditionalservitude."We can be takenin by this equation of servitudewith love," Frye (1983, 73) says, "becausewe maketwo mistakesat once: we think, of both servitudeand love that they are selfless or unselfish." Rather, the identificationof which I speakis constitutedby whatI come to characterizeas playful"world"travelling.To the extentthat we learnto perceiveothersarrogantlyor cometo see themonly as productsof arrogantperceptionandcontinue to perceivethem that way, we fail to identifywith them-fail to love them-in this particularlydeep way.

and Love Identification As a child, I was taughtto perceivearrogantly.I havealso been the objectof arrogantperception.ThoughI am not a White/Anglowoman, it is clear to me that I can understandboth my childhoodtrainingas an arrogantperceiverandmy havingbeenthe objectof arrogantperception withoutanyreferenceto White/Anglomen, whichis someindication thatthe conceptof arrogantperceptioncanbe usedcross-culturally and that White/Anglomenare not the only arrogantperceivers.I was broughtup in Argentinawatchingmen and women of moderateand of considerable means graft the substance' of their servants to themselves.I also learnedto graftmy mother'ssubstanceto my own. It was clearto me that both men and women were the victimsof arrogant perceptionand that arrogantperceptionwas systematically organizedto breakthe spiritof all women and of most men. I valued my rural 'gaucho' ancestrybecauseits ethos has alwaysbeen one of in povertythroughenormousloneliness,courageandselfindependence reliance.I found inspirationin this ethos and committedmyselfnever to be brokenby arrogantperception.I can say all of this in this way only becauseI have learnedfrom Frye's"In andOut of Harm'sWay: Arroganceand Love." She has givenme a way of understandingand articulatingsomethingimportantin my own life. Fryeis not particularlyconcernedwithwomenas arrogantperceivers 4

maria lugones but as the objects of arrogantperception.Her concernis, in part, to enhance our understandingof women "untouchedby phallocratic machinations"(Frye 1983, 53), by understandingthe harmdone to women throughsuch machinations.In this case she proposesthat we could understandwomen untouchedby arrogantperceptionthrough an understanding of whatarrogantperceptiondoesto women.Shealso an proposes understandingof whatit is to love womenthat is inspired by a visionof womenunharmedby arrogantperception.To lovewomen is, at least in part, to perceivethem with lovingeyes. "The loving eye is a contraryof the arroganteye" (Frye 1983, 75). I am concernedwith women as arrogantperceiversbecauseI want to explore furtherwhat it is to love women. I want to explore two failures of love: my failure to love my mother and White/Anglo women's failureto love women acrossracialand culturalboundaries in the U.S. As a consequenceof exploringthese failuresI will offer a loving solutionto them. My solutionmodifiesFrye'saccountof loving perceptionby adding what I call playful "world"-travel. It is clearto me that at least in the U.S. and Argentinawomen are taught to perceivemany other women arrogantly.Being taught to perceivearrogantlyis partof beingtaughtto be a womanof a certain class in both the U.S. and Argentina,it is part of being taughtto be a White/Anglo woman in the U.S. and it is part of being taught to be a womanin both places:to be both the agentand the object of arrogantperception.My love for my motherseemedto me thoroughly imperfectas I was growingup becauseI was unwillingto becomewhat I had been taughtto see my motheras being. I thoughtthat to love herwas consistentwithmy abusingher(using,takingfor granted,and demandingherservicesin a far reachingway that, sincefourotherpeople engagedin the samegraftingof hersubstanceonto themselves,left her little of herselfto herself)and was to be in part constitutedby my identifyingwithher, my seeingmyselfin her:to love herwassupposed to be of a piece with both my abusingher and with my being open to beingabused.It is clearto me that I was not supposedto love servants: I couldabusethemwithoutidentifyingwiththem,withoutseeingmyself in them. WhenI came to the U.S. I learnedthat part of racismis the internalization of the proprietyof abusewithoutidentification: I learned that I could be seen as a being to be used by White/Anglo men and women withoutthe possibilityof identification,i.e. withouttheir act of attemptingto graft my substanceonto theirs,rubbingoff on them at all. They could remainuntouched,without any sense of loss. So, womenwho are perceivedarrogantlycan perceiveotherwomen arrogantlyin theirturn. To what extentthose womenare responsible for theirarrogantperceptionsof otherwomenis certainlyopento ques5

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 having been taught that love is consistent with abuse, consistent with arrogant 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 loving that I was taught, I do not mean to say that the connection between 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 substantive among them. Here I am not particularlyinterestedin 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 "relation." 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 separatismin 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 because 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 concernis a harmfulfailureof love that leaves me independentfromthemin a waysimilarto the wayin which,onceI ceased to be my mother'sparasite,she became,thoughnot independentfrom all others, certainlyindependentfrom me. But of course,becausemy mother and I wanted to love each other well, we were not whole in this independence.White/Anglo women are independentfrom me, I am independentfrom them, I am independentfrom my mother, she is independentfrom me, and none of us loves each other in this independence. I am incompleteand unrealwithoutotherwomen. I am profoundly dependenton otherswithouthavingto be theirsubordinate,theirslave, 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 somethingother than one's own will and interestsand fearsand imagination."This is much more helpfulto me so long as I do not understandFryeto mean that I should not consult my own interestsnor that I should excludethe possibilitythat my self andthe self of the one I love maybe importantly tiedto eachotherin manycomplicatedways.SinceI am emphasizing here that the failureof love lies in part in the failureto identify and since I agreewith Frye that one "must consult somethingother than one's own will and interestsand fears and imagination,"I will proceed to try to explainwhat I think needs to be consulted.To love my motherwas not possiblefor me whileI retaineda sensethat it was fine for me and others to see her arrogantly.Loving my mother also requiredthat I see with her eyes, that I go into my mother'sworld, that I see both of us as we are constructedin her world, that I witnessher own senseof herselffromwithinherworld.Onlythroughthistravelling to her "world"couldI identifywithherbecauseonly thencouldI cease to ignoreherandto be excludedandseparatefromher.Onlythencould I see her as a subjecteven if one subjectedand only then could I see at all how meaningcould arise fully betweenus. We are fully dependent on eachotherfor the possibilityof beingunderstoodand without this understandingwe are not intelligible,we do not make sense, we are not solid, visible, integrated;we are lacking. So travellingto each other's "worlds" would enable us to be through loving each other. Hopefullythe senseof identificationI havein mindis becomingclear. But if it is to become clearer, I need to explain what I mean by a "world" and by "travelling"to another "world." In explainingwhatI meanby a "world" I will not appealto travelling to otherwomen'sworlds.RatherI will leadyou to see whatI mean by a "world"the way I cameto proposethe conceptto myself:through the kindof ontologicalconfusionaboutmyselfthatwe, womenof color, 8

maria lugones referto half-jokinglyas "schizophrenia"(we feel schizophrenicin our goingsbackand forthbetweendifferent"communities")and through my effort to make some sense of this ontologicalconfusion.

"Worlds"and "world"travelling Some time ago I came to be in a state of profoundconfusion as I experiencedmyselfas bothhavingandnot havinga particularattribute. I was sure I had the attributein question and, on the other hand, I was sure that I did not have it. I remainconvincedthat I both have and do not have this attribute.The attributeis 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 becameconfusedwas to call my friends, far away people who knew me well, to see whetheror not I was playful.Maybetheycouldhelpme out of my confusion.Theysaid to me, "Of courseyou areplayful"and they saidit withthe sameconvictionthat I had about it. Of courseI am playful. Those peoplewho werearoundme saidto me, "No, you arenot playful.You area serious woman. You just take everythingseriously."They werejust as sure about what they said to me and could offer me everybit of evidence thatone couldneedto concludethattheywereright.So I saidto myself: "Okay, maybewhat'shappeninghereis that thereis an attributethat I do have but there are certainworldsin which I am not at ease and it is becauseI'm not at ease in those worldsthat I don't have that attributein those worlds.But whatdoes that mean?"I was worriedboth about what I meant by "worlds" when I said "in some worlds I do not have the attribute"and what I meantby sayingthat lack of ease was what led me not to be playful in those worlds. Becauseyou see, if it was just a matterof lack of ease, I could work on it. I can explainsome of what I meanby a "world." I do not wantthe fixityof a definitionat this point, becauseI thinkthe termis suggestive and I do not wantto close the suggestivenessof it too soon. I can offer some characteristicsthat serve to distinguishbetweena "world," a utopia, a possibleworldin the philosophicalsense, and a worldview. By a "world" I do not mean a utopia at all. A utopia does not count as a worldin my sense.The "worlds"that I am talkingaboutarepossible. But a possibleworld is not what I mean by a "world" and I do not meana world-view,thoughsomethinglike a world-viewis involved here. For somethingto be a "world" in my sense it has to be inhabited at presentby some flesh and blood people. That is why it cannot be a utopia. It may also be inhabitedby some imaginarypeople. 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 process of becoming. What it is to be a Hispanic in this country is, in a dominant Anglo construction purposefully incomplete. Thus one cannot 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 construction 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, moneycentered 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 construction, 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 outsidethe mainstreamof, for example,the U.S. dominant constructionor organizationof life are "world travellers"as a matterof necessityand of survival.It seemsto me thatinhabitingmore thanone "world"at the sametimeand "travelling"between"worlds" is part and parcelof our experienceand our situation.One can be at the sametimein a "world"that constructsone as stereotypicallylatin, for example,andin a "world"thatconstructsone as latin.Beingstereotypicallylatin and being simplylatin are differentsimultaneousconstructionsof personsthat arepartof different"worlds."Oneanimates one or the other or both at the same time withoutnecessarilyconfusing them, though simultaneousenactmentcan be confusingif one is not on one's guard. In describingmy senseof a "world,"I meanto be offeringa description of experience,somethingthat is trueto experienceevenif it is ontologicallyproblematic.ThoughI wouldthinkthatanyaccountof identity that could not be true to this experienceof outsiders to the mainstreamwould be faulty even if ontologicallyunproblematic.Its easewouldconstrain,erase,or deemaberrantexperiencethathaswithin it significant insights into non-imperialisticunderstandingbetween people. Those of us who are "world"-travellers havethe distinctexperience of being differentin different"worlds"and of havingthe capacityto rememberother "worlds" and ourselvesin them. We can say "That is me there, and I am happyin that "world." So, the experienceis of being a different person in different "worlds" and yet of having memoryof oneselfas differentwithoutquitehavingthe senseof there being any underlying"I." So I can say "that is me thereand I am so playfulin that "world."I say "Thatis me in that "world"not because I recognizemyself in that person, ratherthe first personstatementis non-inferential.I may well recognizethat that personhas abilitiesthat I do not haveand yet the havingor not havingof the abilitiesis always an "I have ..."

and "I do not have . .. ", i.e. it is always experienc-

ed in the first person. The shift from beingone personto beinga differentpersonis what I call "travel." This shift may not be willful or even conscious, and one may be completelyunawareof beingdifferentthan one is in a different "world," and may not recognizethat one is in a different "world." Eventhoughthe 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,someoneof a differentpersonalityor characteror someone who uses space or languagedifferentlythan the other person. Ratherone is someonewho has that personalityor characteror 11

hypatia uses space and languagein that particularway. The "one" heredoes not referto someunderlying"I." Onedoes not experienceanyunderlying "I."

Being at ease in a "world" In investigatingwhatI meanby "beingat ease in a "world"," I will describedifferentways of being at ease. One may be at ease in one or in all of these ways. Thereis a maximalway of being at ease, viz. being at ease in all of these ways. I take this maximalway of being at ease to be somewhatdangerousbecauseit tends to producepeople who haveno inclinationto travelacross"worlds"or haveno experience of "world" travelling. The first way of being at ease in a particular"world" is by being a fluent speakerin that "world." I know all the normsthat thereare to be followed,I knowall the wordsthatthereareto be spoken.I know all the moves. I am confident. Anotherway of beingat easeis by beingnormativelyhappy.I agree with all the norms, I could not love any normsbetter. I am asked to do just what I want to do or what I think I should do. At ease. Anotherwayof beingat easein a "world"is by beinghumanlybonded. 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 becauseof them in a "world" that is otherwiseas hostile to me as "worlds" get. Finallyone maybe at ease becauseone has a historywithothersthat is shared,especiallydaily history,the kind of sharedhistorythat one sees exemplifiedby the responseto the "Do you rememberpoodle skirts?"question.Thereyou are, with peopleyou do not know at all. The questionis posedandthentheyall begintalkingabouttheirpoodle skirtstories.I havebeenin suchsituationswithoutknowingwhatpoodle skirts, for example,wereand I felt so ill at ease becauseit was not my history.The otherpeopledid not particularlyknow each other. It is not thattheywerehumanlybonded.Probablytheydidnot havemuch politicallyin 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 whenone 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 privilegeone or more "worlds" in this way for a varietyof reasons:for examplebecauseone experiences oneself as an agent in a fuller sense than one experiences"oneself" in other "worlds." One may disown a "world" becauseone has first 12

maria lugones personmemoriesof a personwho is so thoroughlydominatedthat she has no senseof exercisingher own will or has a senseof havingserious difficultiesin performingactionsthat are willedby herselfand no difficulty in performingactions willed by others. One may say of a "world" that it is "my world" becauseone is at ease in it, i.e. being at ease in a "world" may be the basis for the evaluation. Giventhe clarificationof whatI meanby a "world,""world"-travel, and being at ease in a "world," we are in a position to returnto my problematicattribute,playfulness.It may be that in this "world" in whichI am so unplayful,I am a differentpersonthan in the "world" in which I am playful. Or it may be that the "world" in which I am unplayfulis constructedin such a way that I could be playful in it. I could practice,even though that "world" is constructedin such a way that my being playful in it is kind of hard. In describingwhat I take a "world"to be, I emphasizedthe firstpossibilityas both the one that is truestto the experienceof "outsiders"to the mainstreamand as ontologicallyproblematicbecausethe "I" is identifiedin somesense as one and in some sense as a plurality.I identify myself as myself throughmemoryand I retain myself as differentin memory. When I travelfrom one "world"to another,I havethis image,this memory of myselfas playfulin this other "world." I can thenbe in a particular "world" and have a double imageof myself as, for example,playful and as not playful. But this is a very familiar and recognizable phenomenonto the outsiderto the mainstreamin some centralcases: whenin one "world"I animate,for example,that "world's"caricature of the person I am in the other "world." I can have both imagesof myselfand to the extentthat I can materializeor animateboth images at the same time I become an ambiguousbeing. This is very much a partof trickeryand foolery. It is worthrememberingthat the trickster and the fool are significantcharactersin many non-dominantor outsidercultures.Onethen sees any particular"world"withthesedouble edges and sees absurdityin them and so inhabitsoneself differently. Giventhat latinsare constructedin Anglo "worlds"as stereotypically intense-intensity being a centralcharacteristicof at least one of the anglo stereotypesof latins-and giventhat manylatins, myselfincluded, are genuinelyintense,I can say to myself "I am intense"and take a hold of the doublemeaning.And furthermore,I canbe stereotypically intenseor be the real thing and, if you are Anglo, you do not know when I am which becauseI am Latin-American.As Latin-American I am an ambiguousbeing, a two-imagedself: I can see that gringos see me as stereotypicallyintensebecauseI am, as a Latin-American,

constructed that way but I may or may not intentionally animate the

stereotypeor the realthingknowingthatyou maynot 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 double 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 attributes that are incompatible with one or more of the attributes of the other self: for example being playful and being unplayful. To the extent 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 attributeis personality or charactercentral, 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 persons 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 confusion 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 experienceof 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, someone 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 HansGeorg 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 contest, 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 loving 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 roleplaying, the person who is a participant in the game has a fixed conception 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 travelleris a conqueror, an imperialist. Huizinga, in his classsic book on play, interprets Western civilization as play. That is an in15

hypatia terestingthingfor ThirdWorldpeopleto thinkabout.Westerncivilization has beeninterpretedby a whitewesternmanas playin the agonistic senseof play.Huizingareviewswesternlaw, art,andmanyotheraspects of westerncultureand sees agon in all of them. Agonisticplayfulness leadsthose who attemptto travelto another"world"withthis attitude to failure.Agonistictravellersfail consistentlyin theirattemptto travel becausewhat they do is to try to conquerthe other "world." The attemptis not an attemptto try to erasethe other"world." Thatis what assimilationis all about. Assimilationis the destructionof other people's "worlds." So, the agonisticattitude,the playful attitudegiven westernman'sconstructionof playfulness,is not a healthy,loving attitude to have in travellingacross "worlds." Notice that given the agonisticattitudeone cannottravelacross "worlds," thoughone can kill other "worlds"with it. So for peoplewho are interestedin crossing racialand ethnicboundaries,an arrogantwesternman'sconstruction of playfulnessis deadly.One cannotcrossthe boundarieswith it. One needs to give up such an attitudeif one wants to travel. So then, whatis the loving playfulnessthat I have in mind?Let me begin with one example:We are by the riverbank. The riveris very, very low. Almost dry. Bits of waterhere and there. Little pools with a few trout hidingunderthe 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 breakit and run towardthe piecesto seethe colors.Theyarebeautiful.I laughandbring the pieces back to you and you are doing the same with your pieces. We keepon crashingstonesfor hours,anxiousto see the beautifulnew colors. We areplaying.Theplayfulnessof our activitydoesnot presuppose that thereis somethinglike "crashingstones" that is a particular form of play with its own rules. Ratherthe attitude that carriesus throughtheactivity,a playful attitude,turnsthe activityintoplay. Our activityhas no rules, thoughit is certainlyintentionalactivityand we both understandwhat we are doing. The playfulnessthat gives meaning to our activityincludesuncertainty,but in this casethe uncertainty is an opennessto surprise.This is a particularmetaphysicalattitude that does not expectthe worldto be neatlypackaged,ruly. Rulesmay fail to explainwhat we are doing. We are not self-important,we are not fixed in particularconstructionsof ourselves,whichis partof saying 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 worriedabout competence.We are not weddedto a particular way of doing things. Whileplayful we have not abandonedourselves to, nor arewe stuckin, anyparticular"world."We aretherecreatively. 16

maria lugones We are not passive. Playfulnessis, in part, an opennessto beinga fool, whichis a combinationof not worryingabout competence,not beingself-important, not taking norms as sacredand finding ambiguityand double edges a source of wisdom and delight. So, positively, the playful attitude involves opennessto surprise, opennessto being a fool, opennessto self-constructionor reconstruction and to constructionor reconstructionof the "worlds"we inhabit playfully.Negatively,playfulnessis characterizedby uncertainty,lack of self-importance,absenceof rules or a not taking rules as sacred, a not worryingaboutcompetenceand a lack of abandonmentto a particularconstructionof oneself, othersand one's relationto them. In attemptingto take a hold of oneself and of one's relationto others in a particular"world," one may study, examineand come to understandoneself. One may then see whatthe possibilitiesfor play are for the beingone is in that "world." One may even decideto inhabitthat self fully in order to understandit better and find its creative possibilities.All of this is just self-reflectionand it is quite different fromresigningor abandoningoneselfto the particularconstructionof oneself that one is attemptingto take a hold of.

Conclusion Thereare "worlds" we enter at our own risk, "worlds"that have agon, conquest,and arroganceas the main ingredientsin theirethos. These are "worlds" that we enter out of necessityand which would be foolish to enterplayfullyin eitherthe agonisticsenseor in my sense. In such "worlds" we are not playful. But thereare "worlds"that we can travelto lovinglyand travelling to themis partof loving at least some of theirinhabitants.The reason why I thinkthat travellingto someone's"world"is a way of identifying with themis becauseby travellingto their "world"we can understand whatit is to be themand whatit is to be ourselvesin theireyes. Onlywhenwe havetravelledto eachother's"worlds"arewe fullysubjects to each other (I agree with Hegel that self-recognitionrequires other subjects,but I disagreewith his claimthat it requirestensionor hostility). Knowingother women's "worlds" is part of knowing them and knowingthem is part of loving them. Notice that the knowingcan be donein greateror lesserdepth,as canthe loving.Also noticethattravelling to another's"world" is not the same as becomingintimatewith them. Intimacyis constitutedin partby a verydeep knowledgeof the otherself and "world"travellingis only partof havingthis knowledge. 17

hypatia Also notice that some people, in particularthose who are outsidersto the mainstream,can be knownonly to the extentthat they are known in several "worlds" and as "world"-travellers. Withoutknowingthe other's"world,"one does not knowthe other, andwithoutknowingthe otherone is reallyalonein the other'spresence becausethe other is only dimly presentto one. Throughtravellingto otherpeople's"worlds"we discoverthatthere are "worlds" in whichthose who are the victimsof arrogantperception are reallysubjects,livelybeings,resistors,constructorsof visions even though in the mainstreamconstructionthey are animatedonly by the arrogantperceiverand are pliable, foldable, file-awayable, classifiable. I always imagine the Aristotelianslave as pliable and foldableat night or after he or she cannotwork anymore(whenhe or she dies as a tool). Aristotletells us nothingaboutthe slaveapartfrom the master.We know the slave only throughthe master.The slave is a tool of the master.Afterworkinghourshe or she is foldedandplaced in a drawertill the nextmorning.My motherwasapparentto me mostly as a victimof arrogantperception.I wasloyalto the arrogantperceiver's constructionof her and thus disloyalto her in assumingthat she was exhaustedby that construction.I was unwillingto be like her and thoughtthat identifyingwithher, seeingmyselfin hernecessitatedthat I becomelikeher. I waswrongbothin assumingthat shewas exhausted by the arrogantperceiver'sconstructionof her and in my understanding of identification,though I was not wrong in thinkingthat identificationwaspartof lovingandthatit involvedin partmy seeingmyself in her. I came to realizethroughtravellingto her "world" that she is not foldableand pliable,that she is not exhaustedby the mainstream argentinianpatriarchalconstructionof her. I cameto realizethat there are "worlds" in which she shines as a creativebeing. Seeing myself in her throughtravellingto her "world" has meant seeing how different from her I am in her "world." and identificationthrough So, in recommending"world"-travelling "world"-travellingas part of loving other women, I am suggesting disloyaltyto arrogantperceivers,includingthe arrogantperceiverin ourselves,and to theirconstructionsof women. In revealingagonistic playfulnessas incompatiblewith "world"-travelling,I am revealing both its affinity with imperialismand arrogantperceptionand its incompatibilitywith loving and loving perception.

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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.

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wasan Egyptianwomanphilosopher, Hypatia(Hy-pay-sha) mathematician,and astronomerwho lived in Alexandria from her birthin about 370 A.D. until her deathin 415. Shewastheleaderof theNeoplatonicSchoolin Alexandria andwas famousas an eloquentand inspiringteacher.The journalHypatiais namedin honorof this foresister.Her name remindsus that althoughmany of us are the first womenphilosophersin our schools,we are not, afterall, the first in history. Hypatia has its roots in the Society for Women in Philosophy,manyof whosemembershavefor yearsenvidevotedto feministphilosophy. sioneda regularpublication Hypatiais the realizationof that vision;it is intendedto andcommunicate manydifferentkindsof feminist encourage philosophizing.

Hypatia(ISSN0887-5367)is publishedby Hypatia,Inc., a taxexemptcorporation,which for statementsexpressedby authors.Hypatiawill publishtwo assumesno responsibility ratesfor 1986-87are: issuesin 1986,andthreeissuesin eachsuccessiveyear.Subscription Institutions,$40/year;Individuals,$20/year. Foreignordersadd postage:$5/year to Canada,Mexicoand overseassurface;$10/yearto overseasairmail.Singlecopieswill be A 40%discountis availableon bulkorders and$10(individuals). sold for $20(institutions) for classroomuse or bookstoresales. Life-timesubscriptionsare availableto donor subscribersfor $400. to the Editor,Hypatia,Southern Addressall editorialand businesscorrespondence IL 62026-1437.Noticeof nonreceiptof IllinoisUniversityat Edwardsville, Edwardsville, an issuemustbe sent withinfour weeksafter receiptof subsequentissue. Pleasenotify us of any changeof address;the Post Office does not forwardthirdclass mail. Copyright© 1987by Hypatia,Inc. All rightsreserved. Hypatia was first published in 1983 as a Special Issue of Women's Studies International

as vol. Forum,by PergamonPress.Thefirstthreeissuesof Hypatiaappearedrespectively 6, no. 6; vol. 7, no. 5; and vol. 8, no. 3 of Women's Studies International Forum. They

are availableas back issues from PergamonPress, MaxwellHouse, FairviewPark, Elmsford,NY 10523.

mary b. mahowald Sex-Role Stereotypes in Medicine I argue for compatibility between feminism and medicine by developing a model of the physician-other relationship which is essentially egalitarian. This entails rejection of (a) a paternalisticmodel which reinforces 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-otherrelationship, by stressing 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 regarded 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 temporarily 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. Permanent inequality is based on unchanging differences such as sexual identity or skin color, and therefore the goal may be to maintain inegalitarian 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 ranking 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 suggest 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.

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hypatla an average of eight years (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 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 generalthe 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 circumvent the expressed wishes of the patient. In addition to the inegalitarian relationship generally sustained between 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 professionals (Dimond 1983, 207). Why this may not be the case will be explained 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 physician/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.

Commonstereotypicfeatures During the past five years I have had bimonthly classes with third 22

mary b. mahowald and fourthyearmedicalstudentswho arespendinga two monthclinical rotationin the obstetric/gynecologicalserviceof a women'shospital. The proportionof women in these groupsof studentsis ratherhigh, since our average enrollmentof female students approaches50%. Typically,I begin a session by solicitingfrom studentstheir sense of what is unique about this specialty as comparedwith others. The featuresnoted are obvious but significant:most patientsare healthy, and an additionalhealthypatient,the newborn,is the usual resultof obstetriccare. Another featureconsistentlymentionedis that all the patientsarewomen,whilemostdoctors(still)aremen.Oncethisfeature of the specialtyis introduced,I ask studentsto indicatequalitieswhich are frequentlystereotypicallyattributedto womenor mendistinctively (allowingthat the attributionis often inaccuratefor real individuals of eithersex). The traitssuggestedarepredictable:men areaggressive, womenarepassive;menarestrong,womenareweak;womenaredependent, men are independent;women are emotional, men are rational. I then ask the studentsto outline the traits stereotypicallyattributed to physiciansandpatients.Not surprisingly, thesecorrespondwiththose assignedto men and women. Advertenceto the stereotypictraitsproposedby my medicalstudents is preliminaryto theirrecognitionthat theseare commonlyviewednot only as opposite to, but also as excluding,the correspondingtrait in the otherpartnerof the relationship.Thus, to the extentthat a woman is (perceivedas) affective or emotional, she is (perceivedas) lacking rationality;and to the extentthat a man is (perceived)aggressive,he is (perceivedas) not passiveor receptive.Yet all of these featuresmay be used to describethe same personality,man or woman. A specific individualmay be passiveor vulnerablein certainrespects,but strong and aggressivein others. For example,I cannot lift 200 pounds, but I havebeentold that I havea considerablyhighpainthreshold-which makesme strongwhileweak. Womentraditionallyhavebeenimputed to be more emotionallydependentthan men, yet a numberof studies have disclosedthe opposite-e.g., the loss of a spouse is much more devastatingto a man than to a woman (Jacobs and Ostfield 1977, 344-357).Clearlywomenarefullycapableof exercisingintellectualrigor concurrentlywiththeiraffectivity.Dependingon theirtype and degree of illness, patientspossess a similarcapability. In hercross-culturalstudyof sex roles, JeanHumphreyBloch(1973) describesanotherdifferencewhich may be stereotypicallyattributed to men or women:men are "agentic," and womenare "communal." To be agentic is to promote one's own interests,e.g., throughselfto be communalis to proprotection,self-assertion,and self-expansion; mote the interestsof others,even at timesat the expenseof one's own. 23

hypatia The inadequacyof this pair of stereotypesis fairly obvious, both in its applicationto men and women, and in an extendedapplicationto physiciansand their patients. Traditionally,women are perceivedas moreinterestedin home and familythan in themselvesas individuals, or thanin the widercommunityor society;men areperceivedas acting in the interestsof the publicor the widersociety.In bothcases,however, the orientationmay be interpretedas communalratherthan agentic, or possiblyas agenticon behalfof the community.Insofaras the communalinterestsof womenarenarrowlydefinedas embodiedin the family, theymaybe definedas acting"agentically"morethanmen. Similarly, the traditional image of the physician is communal in that it represents an altruistic commitment to the welfare of others. Nonetheless,as PaulStarr(1982)hasrecentlypointedout, the American publichas becomeincreasinglypersuadedthat medicineis more selfservingthan other-serving.Patientstoo may be eitheragenticor communalin theirorientation.Withgood reason,manyareexclusivelyconcernedabouttheirown welfare,but manyapparentlyworrymostabout the impact of their condition on those they love (Gilligan1982). The recentcontroversyovermodelsof moralreasoning,drawnfrom the writingsof LawrenceKohlbergand CarolGilligan,is illuminating with regardto agentic or communaltraits in individuals.Kohlberg (1971) has proposedthree levels of moral reasoning,each comprised of two stages,and proceedingfrompre-moralto maturemoralreasoning. The maturelevel is illustratedby deontologicalargument,i.e., an appealto universalmoralruleswhichgovernthe exerciseof individual rights.Gilliganhas criticizedKohlberg'sresearchas basedexclusively on the experienceof males. Throughher researchon femalesubjects, Gilligan(1982)has developeda countermodelof responsibilityor relationship ratherthan individualrights. My own concernabout these modelsis that eitheror both may be stereotypic.Priorto this critique, Kohlberg'scategorieshad becomestandardlyinvokedin some circles, as applicableto all individuals(Restet al. 1974,491-501).Gilliganhas alreadybeeninterpretedsomewhatstereotypically,and probablyinaccurately,as maintainingthe superiorityof the female model (Saxton 1981,63-6). Froman ethicalstandpoint,whatseemsneededis recognition thatbothmodelsyieldvalidinsightsin moralreasoning,but neither model can be as adequate(or less inadequate)as both.

Modelsof the physician/otherrelationship On the basis of traits stereotypicallyassignedto women, men, patientsanddoctors,certainmodelsof the relationshipsemerge.In assessing these models, however,an importantdifferenceshouldbe 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 improvement 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 permanent conditions, an assumption of inequality between the two necessarily implies that one is permanently inferior to the other. Another construal of the woman-man relationshipwhich 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, "complementarity" describes a fundamentally inegalitarian relationship: woman and patient are similarly passive and vulnerable. "Paternalism" is a term often used to describe the relationship between physician and patient. The meaning of this term is commonly associated with its etymological root (from the Latinpater 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 responsibility for another (Webster 1984). While the father figure is independent, 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 patient's own wishes are overridden through these interventions, the principle that is usually invoked to justify violation of the patient's autonomy is that of beneficence, or at least, non-maleficence. Traditionally, 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 physician and patient to the stereotypicextremesof aggressivityand passivity. Appeal to beneficence under the guise of commitment to the patient's best interests may also reinforce emphasis on the physician's rationality 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 sexual 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 rejected 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 interpretsinformed consent as indispensableto medical interventions (Ramsey 1970), this implies an instrumental role for the physician, which reversesthe 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 defined above. It has also been used to describe a feminist theory which points to biological differences between the sexes as the basis for affirming that women are equal, or superior to men (Lerner 1986, 26). However, if we use the term in accordance with its etymological meaning (from the Latin mater or mother), it means the opposite of paternalism. To mother is to give birth, and/or to nurtureanother 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 welldeveloped 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 proposed 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 patient ought to base assent or dissent to decisions made in a medical setting 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 existential 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 patient vulnerability. 3. Physicians must use their power responsibly to care for the patient. 4. Physicians must have integrity. 5. Physicians must have a healthy regardfor moral ambiguity. Actually, Thomasma's use of the term "conscience" in describing this model is misleading because it suggests a subjectivism which his fuller elaboration does not support. Moreover, since he would allow for a patientconscience 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 conflict? This question cannot be answered on the basis of the physicianconscience 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 concientious 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 relationship 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 physician/other relationship more critically. Although "conscience" suggests a purely subjective basis for decision-making, an enlightened or informed 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 responsibilities, 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 "parentalism."

A parentalistmodel The term parentalism has been proposed in some quarters as a nonsexist 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, according 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, irreplaceable by men. While I share Peterson's concerns, my proposal of the term parentalism 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 society. That narrow notion is one which views parenting as maternally or paternally accomplished by individuals, as taking place merely during the period in which children are chronologically quite young, and 28

mary b. mahowald as normallyonly occurringin a relationshipthat is biologicallyparental or legallyadoptive.Real parenting,and so parentalism,is practiced by many who are not biologicalparents,and in some instancesis not practicedby those who are. It is a behaviorand an attitudethat entails both nurturanceand protectionacrossthe entirespan of life, promotingthe autonomyof the otherevenbeyondthe pointwherethe nurturer'sinterventionsare needed or desirable. Parentingthus construedis both life begettingand life sustaining, with an understandingof life as unfolding and developingtowards fulfillmentof eachindividual'suniquepotential.Onthisaccount,parentalism is a model for all of our humanrelationships,no matterwhat our age, or biologicalor legal tie to one another.Just as my mother parentedme when I was small by doing for me what I could not do for myself (feeding,clothing,etc.), she continuedto parentme by encouragingmy independenceof herthroughmost of my life. In heradvancedage I parentedher by doing for her what she could not do for herself(feeding,clothing,etc.), and also by respectingand encouragas muchas possible.Arewe not all similarlybound ingherindependence to protectothersfrom harmsand to do for themwhatthey cannotdo for themselves,whilerespectingand encouragingtheirautonomy?Obviously,we havedifferentdegreesof obligationsto differentindividuals, dependingon our relationshipand commitmentto them, their need, and our capacityto respond.Moreover,conflictsinevitablyarisebetween our obligationsto differentindividuals.Nonetheless,the parentalist model is useful as a moralideal or paradigmfor addressingthe changingneedsand capacitiesof uniqueindividualswith uniquerelationshipsto one another. A clearadvantageof this modelfor the physician-otherrelationship is its applicabilityto a varietyof disparatemedicalsituations.Consider, for example,the types of diseasewhichJonsen, Sieglerand Winslade have categorizedthroughthe acronymsACURE, CARE and COPE (1982, 16-46).ACURErefersto diseasesthat are acute, critical,unexpected, responsiveto treatment,and easilydiagnosed;e.g., the otherwisehealthyindividualwho contractsbacterialmeningitis.CARErefers to diseasesthat are critical,active, recalcitrant,and eventuallyfatal; e.g., a patientwith cancerin its terminalstages. And COPErefersto diseasesthat arechronic,treatedon an outpatientbasis,withpalliative and efficacious therapies;e.g., a patient with diabetes mellitus or rheumatoidarthritis. In the ACURE situation,theremay scarcelybe time, possibilityor needto checkon the patient'swishesbeforeactingbeneficentlyin her or his behalf, just as one would attemptto rescuea friendfrom sudden danger.Such actions are sometimesconsideredjustifiablypater29

hypatia nalistic. (I agree that they are justifiable, but not that they are paternalistic, so long as the intervention is assumed to accord with the patient's or friend's own wishes.) In the CARE situation, there is a persuasive case for respecting the patient's wishes over those of others, including clinicians. To the extent that this overrides what the physician considers best for the patient, such an intervention may be construed 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 childrentypically 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 parentalisticmodel of the physician-otherrelationship is applicable to all three kinds of situations because it entails ascertaining the degree of protective (paternal) influence that is necessary, while also attempting to maximize expression of autonomy on the part of all those concerned. Indeed this model is applicable more broadly than to the physician-other relationship, to relationships that occur between physicians 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 instrument of the patient, or that s/he is totally superior to the patient. Clearly, for most of their life span, parents and their children are adults. Throughout their lives, just as parents learn from one another, so physicians who subscribe to this model really do learn from their patients, whose rationality is not necessarily distorted but may even be sharpened 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 professionals as well as with their patients. In other words, parentalist physicians 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.

Feministideologies 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 people 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 delineatingdifferent feminist ideologies, and relating these to alternative models of the physician-patient relationship. Preliminarily, however, we need to acknowledge that feminists, whatevertheir political ideology, share the views that (1) women generally occupy a subordinate position to most men in contemporary society, 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 controversial. 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 explanations 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 maintain for individualswho 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 individualswho concur in their rejection of sexism. In that light, a liberal feminism may be characterizedas one which emphasizesindividualliberty, and thus supports the fundamental structure of American society, 31

hypatla withits essentialindividualism.Thatsameemphasisentailsa reformist critiqueof sexualdiscriminationas impedingthe rightsof individual women to achievetheir full potential. The potentialof women, it is claimed,cannotjustifiablybe confinedby legislationbasedon sex-role stereotypes.Applyingthat critiqueto the physician-otherrelationship, the liberalfeministwouldclearlyrejectmedicalpaternalism,as reflecting the legallyreinforcedsocialpaternalismwhichhas keptwomen"in their place" (i.e., at home raisingchildren,dependenton a man), and so stifled their potentialthroughoutmost of history. Wherephysicians are allowedto violatethe autonomyof theirpatients(whetherwomen or men), eventhoughdefendedon groundsthat they thus promotethe patient'sgood, the philosophyof liberalfeminismis flatlycontradicted. But if such a feministis consistentin her or his liberalposition, a patient autonomymodel is not acceptableeither, becauseexclusiveemphasison patientautonomymightconflictwith the liberal'sinsistence on respectfor the autonomyof physicians,a growingnumberof whom are women. I would define radicalfeminismas a reversalof the traditionalsexrole relationship.In critiquingthe male supremacistmodel, it argues for the superiorityof femininevalues, and the importanceof maintainingthose valuesthroughwomen'sclear supportfor one another. Radicalfeminismthus issues a clear challengeto the medicalprofession's dominanceover women'slives, particularlywith regardto their reproductivehealth. Although the critiqueextendsto all aspects of medicineas embodyinga kind of "patriarchalreligion" (Raymond 1982), it specificallyadvocatesefforts to place the care of women's healthentirelyin the handsof womenthemselves.Themodelthusfrankly invoked is maternalism,but a maternalismof which only women aredeemedcapable.Insofaras femininevaluesreplacemasculinevalues in a hierarchicalsystem, medicinemay then be matriarchal. From the standpointof radicalfeminism,health caretakersought primarilyto nurturewomen'sinterests,and women'sinterestsarebest knownby themselves.Maleparticipationin medicalcaremusttherefore be subordinatedto women's dominancein roles of both patientand physician,sincethey possessgreaterexperienceand expertisethanmen withregardto healing.Oneof the mostseriousthreatsto women'sstatus in this regard(also at odds with a liberalfeministapproach)is an increasingincidenceof court ordereddeliveriesby cesareansection for womenwho haddeclinedto undergosurgeryrecommendedfor the sake of the fetus(Annas1982, 16-7,45). Clearlymanyphysiciansagreewith feminist criticismof such court orders; as one (male) obstetrician remarkedto me, surgeryundersuch circumstancesconstitutesassault upon the pregnantwoman. To the extentthat the medicalprofession 32

mary b. mahowald andto refuse supportsthe rightof womento terminatetheirpregnancies medicalprocedures,it invokesa patientautonomymodelwhichis congenialto radicalfeminism.To be consistent,however,radicalfeminists wouldalso haveto supportthe autonomymodelfor femalephysicians, and this providesno help at all in dealingwith physician-otherconflicts in which both partiesare female. Two otherinterpretationsof feminismareassociatedwith a critique of the socio-economicstructurein which we find ourselves,namely, capitalismor individualism.Whilebothof thesearerelatedto the marxist tradition,the "classicalmarxist"approachmaintainsthat the oppressionof womenis secondaryto universaleconomicoppression;in constrast, a socialist feminist theory affirms that the liberationof women is indispensableto economic equality. Either of these views representsa challengeto the inequalitysignifiedby paternalistor maternalistmodelsof the physician-otherrelationship.Both arealso consistent with parentalism.Marx'smotto at the end of the Critiqueof the GothaProgramaexemplifiesthe parentalistattemptto balanceresponse to individualneedswith social contributionsproportionateto the differingtalentsof individuals:"Fromeach accordingto ability,to each accordingto need" (Tucker1972, 388). However,this orientationis obviouslyopposedto the individualisteconomicorientationoften attributedto the Americanmedicalestablishment.Consequently,to the extentthat physicianssubscribeto that orientation,whetherthey hapof eithersocialistor traditionalist pento be womenor men,endorsement marxistfeminismis improbable. It is possible,however,for physiciansto join a critiqueof economic or otherkindsof individualismas occasioningdisparitiesandinequities among groups of people requiringhealth care. Wherethey do so, a correspondingversionof feminismis compatiblewiththeirviewof the physician-otherrelationship.Thatversionof feminismwouldtake account of the different needs, preferencesand abilitiesof individual women and men, thus relying on the principlesof beneficenceand autonomy. It would also have to take account of a principleI have only indirectlydiscussedthroughreferencesto equalityand inequality, namely,justice. The balancingof the principlesof beneficenceand autonomy which is necessaryin situationsof conflict would be accomplishedthroughappealto justice, particularlydistributivejustice, as the principleon whichequitableor fair distributionof goods and servicesmay be determined. In the interestof fairness,the degreeto which one is obligatedto practicebeneficencetowardsa specificindividual,as contrastedwith another,should be calculatedon the basis of the harmsthus avoided and the benefitsthuspromotedamongall of thoseaffected.The degree 33

hypatia to which one is obligated to respect autonomy of one individual as opposed to another should be determined on the basis of the preferences thus fulfilled or denied. In situations of conflict our priority for respecting 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 continuation or discontinuation of her pregnancy (Jaggar 1976). The importance of considerations of distributivejustice to the parentalist model of the physician-other relationship is apparent when we recognize that most parents have more than one child, and most physicians many more than one patient. Since time, expertise, and material resources are surely limited (and probably our psychological or immaterial 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 curtailment 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 interpretation 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 relationshipare compatible, and preferableto the alternatives.Basically, these models entail an emphasis on equality which permits some limitation 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 increaseof advantages for the already advantaged, except in cases where the disadvantaged thus become better 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 subscribesto both principles, the other options mentioned here regarding feminism and the physician-otherrelationship are 34

mary b. mahowald neitherlogicallynor existentiallyacceptable.If one does subscribeto them, one is both feminist and parentalist. Finally, then, I appealto the principleof justice or fairnessas the basis for overcomingthe frustratinginfluenceof sex-rolestereotypes and stereotypicimagesof the physician,the patient,and the relationship betweenthem. Wherejustice is the basis for definingor redefining the physician-otherrelationship,compatibilitybetween medical practice and any ultimatelyjustifiable version of feminism is clear enough. While liberalfeminismappearscompatiblewith the patient autonomymodel, it only reallyis so if we limit the autonomyof the physician, and thus violate the view of justice on which a liberal philosophyis based, namely,equal libertyfor men as well as women. Radicalfeminismis compatiblewith the patientautonomymodelalso (if we ignorethe problemof womenphysicians),but it manifestlycontradictsthe principleof justiceby imputingto all mena secondarystatus 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 socialistfeminism,whichis, as I have alreadysuggested,compatible with the parentalistmodel of the physician-otherrelationship. However, the interpretationon which this version of feminismrests is one whichgives due weightto both beneficenceand autonomy.So construed,justiceis a critical,mediatingprinciplefor addressingconflicts betweenfeminismand 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, particularly 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 occupational 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.

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references Annas, G. 1982. Forced cesareans: The most unkindest cut. Hastings Center Report 12, 16-17 & 45. Ashley, J.A. 1976. Hospitals, paternalism, and the role of the nurse. New York: Teachers' College Press. Aroskar, M. 1980. The fractured image: The public stereotype of nursing and the nurse. In Nursing images and ideals, ed. S. Spicker and S. Gadow. New York: Springer. Bates, B. 1970. Doctor and nurse: Changing roles and relations. New England Journal of Medicine 283: 129-134. Beauvoir, S. de. 1952. The second sex. New York: Bantam. Benjamin, M. and J. Curtis. 1981. Ethics in nursing. New York: Oxford. Bidese, C. and D. Danais. 1982. Physician characteristicsand distribution in the U.S. Chicago: American Medical Association. Bloch, J.H. 1973. Conceptions of sex role: Some cross-cultural and longitudinal perspectives. American Psychologist 28: 64-78. Childress, J. 1983. Who should decide? New York: Oxford. Dimond, E.G. 1983. The future of women physicians. Journal of the American Medical Association 249: 207-8. Gilligan, C. 1982. In a different voice. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Ginzberg, E. and E. Brann. 1980. How the medical student views his profession and its future. Inquiry. Handler, A. 1975. Decennial census data for selected health occupations: United States, 1970. Rockville, Md.: National Center for Health Statistics. Heins, M. 1983. Medicine and motherhood. Journal of the American Medical Association 249: 209-210. Heins, M. et al, 1976. Productivity of women physicians. Journal of the American Medical Association 236: 1961-1964. .1977. Comparison of the productivityof women and men physicians. Journal of the American Medical Association 237: 2514-2517. Illich, I. 1982. Gender. New York: Pantheon Books. Jacobs, S. and A. Ostfield. 1977. An epidemiological review of the mortality of bereavement. Psychosomatic Medicine 39: 344-357. Jaggar, A. 1974. On sexual equality. Ethics 84: 275-292. -. 1976. Abortion and a woman's right to decide. In Women and philosophy, eds. C. Gould and M. Wartofsky. New York: G.P. Putnam and Sons. . 1979. Political philosophies of women's liberation. In 36

mary b. mahowald Philosophy and women, eds. S. Bishop and M. Weinzweig. Belmont, Ca.: Wadsworth Publishing Co. . 1983. Feminist politics and human nature. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allenheld. Jonsen, A., M. Siegler, and W. Winslade. 1982. Clinical ethics. New York: Macmillan Company. Jung, C. 1954. The development of personality. Trans. R. Hull. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Kleinig, J. 1983. Paternalism. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allenheld. Kohlberg, L. 1971. Stages of moral development as a basis for moral education. In Moral education, eds. C. Beck, B. Crittenden and E. Sullivan. Great Britain: University of Toronto Press. Lerner, G. 1986. The creation ofpatriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press. Lesserman, J. 1978. The professional values and expectations of medical students. Journal of Medical Education. Mahowald, M. B. 1976. Feminism: Individualistic or communalistic? Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association: 219-228. ----. 1980. Against paternalism: A developmental view. Philosophy Research Archives 6: 1386. Navarro, V. 1975. Women in health care. International Journal of Health Services 20. Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, state and utopia. New York: Basic Books. Peterson, S.R. 1983. Against parenting. Unpublished manuscript sent to author. Ramsey, P. 1970. Consent as a canon of loyalty. In The patient as person. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ratner, R.S. 1978. Equal employment policy for women: Strategiesfor implementation in the USA, Canada and Western Europe. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Rawls, J. 1971. A theory ofjustice. Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press. Raymond, J. G. 1982. Medicine as patriarchal religion. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 7: 197-216. Reiser, S., A. Dyck, and W. Curran, eds. 1977. Selections from the Hippocratic Corpus. In Ethics in medicine. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Rest, J. et al. 1974. Judging the important issues in moral dilemmas of development. Developmental Psychology 10: 491-501. Ross, W.D. 1930. The right and the good. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Saxton, M. 1981. Are women more moral than men? An interview with psychologist Carol Gilligan. Ms. Dec. 1981: 63-66. 37

hypatia Shelp, E., ed. 1981. Justice and health care. Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co. Starr, P. 1982. The social transformation of American medicine. New York: Basic Books. Thomasma, D. 1983. Beyond medical paternalism and patient autonomy: A model of physician conscience for the physicianpatient relationship. Annals of Internal Medicine. Trebilcot, J. 1975. Sex roles: The argument from nature. Ethics 85: 249-55. Tucker, R., ed. 1972. The Marx-Engels reader. New York: Norton. United States Department of Health and Human Services. 1982. Health United States. Hyattsville, Md.: National Center for Health Statistics. Veatch, R. 1981. A theory of medical ethics. New York: Basic Books. Walzer, M. 1983. Spheres of justice. New York: Basic Books. Weaver, J. 1978. Sexism and racism in the American health care industry: A comparative analysis. International Journal of Health Services 8: 677-700. Webster's New World Dictionary. 1984. New York: Simon and Schuster. Weisstein, N. 1971. Psychology constructs the female. In Women in sexist society, eds. Vivian Gornick and BarbaraMoran. New York: Basic Books.

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judith m. hill Pornographyand Degradation I have taken a Kantianapproachto the issue of pornographyand degradation. My thesis is that by perpetuatingderogatory 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 consequences 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 depersonalized 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, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Suffolk, New York. The proponents of these ordinances have argued that pornography violates the civil rights of women, apparentlya non-Utilitarianargument. However, their argument 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 pornogrpahy are such as to warrantrestrictionsof 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 pornographydegradeswomen. 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.

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hypatla I I propose that we begin with the assumptionthat degradationinvolves, literally,a de-grading.Thispropositionis, I realize,both vague and ambiguous.It is ambiguousbecause"de-grade"maysuggesteither (1) to down-grade,to lowerthe worthof, to de-value,or (2) to assign a lowergradeto, to give a lowerevaluation,to characterizeas of lesser worth. In other words, de-gradationmay be thought to entail either a real loss of worth, or an imputedloss of worth. In eithercase, the proposalis vague, becauseit gives no indicationof the kind of value that must be lost, or imputedto be lost, in order for degradationto take place. The followingexamplessuggesta directionwe mighttake in firming up this proposal. In WilliamStyron'snovel, Sophie's Choice, Sophie mentionsthat although the Nazis routinely shaved the heads of all inmates at Auschwitz,those inmateswho occupiedpositionsof favor were permittedto wearheadscarvesin orderto hidetheir"degradingbaldness." In Emma Goldman'sautobiography,recountinga period of time spentin prison,she describesas "degrading"the prisonersbeingforced to marchin lockstepwhilecarryingbucketsof excrementfromtheir cells to the river. In both thesecases,the writersare describingenvironmentsin which severe physicalabuse was a commonplace.The horrorsof the Nazi death camps are well-known.The plight of workingclass women in prisonsin the late nineteenthand earlytwentiethcenturieswas also appalling:forcedlaborundersweatshopconditions,withinadequatefood, crowdedliving quarters,and no medicalfacilities. Giventhe context of physicalabusein both cases,it is significantthat whatGoldmanand Styron's Sophie focus on as degradingis not any physicalabuse or deprivationat all, but on practicesthe importanceof which (to both practitionerand victim)is largelysymbolic.In both cases, it is a kind of public display of low status which is describedas degrading. Extrapolatingfrom Styronand Goldman,I would suggestthat the de-gradinginvolvedin degradationis a loweringof moral status. A personis not degradedmerelyby losingstatusas presidentof the company or as most valuableplayeror as womanof the year. Degradation is not to be confusedwith declineor defeat. It is not a matterof losing power or prestigeor privilege,but of losing somethingconsiderably more centralto one's personhood.To give this accounta Kantianinterpretation:degradationinvolvesbeingtreatedas thoughone werea meansonly, as though one werenot an end in herself, as though one were somethingless than a person. 40

judith m. hill However, degradationis not simply a matter of being treated as somethingless than a person.If this weretrue, then shavedheadsand forced marcheswould be the least of the degradationsinflictedupon Sophie and Goldman,for in much of the physicaland mentalabuse they sufferedthey weretreatedas less than persons.It is not a sufficient conditionof degradationthat a personbe treatedas something less than a person. I am inclinedto say that it is a necessaryconditionof degradation that a personbe perceived-by herselfor by others-as beingtreated as somethingless than a person.Degradationoccurswith the creation of a publicimpressionthat a personis beingtreatedas somethingless than a person. Thus, baldnesswas degradingwithin the context of Auschwitzbecauseit markedone as a memberof the class that was being treated as sub-human. Forced marches for prisoners doing housekeepingchoresweredegradingbecausetheirsole purposewas to exhibit-for the benefitof the prisonersand the guards,at least-the completesubmissivenessand obedienceof the prisonersand the complete controlof the guards;forcedmarchesservedas a demonstration that the prisonerscould be treatedin whatevermanner,howeverinhuman, that the guardsdesired. In short, degradationis a publicphenomenon.If thereis no perception of a personbeingtreatedas though she werea meansonly, then she is not degraded,althoughshe maybe exploitedor cheatedor abused. For example, considerthe differencebetweenan employerwho underpaysemployees while expressingcontempt for them, and an employer who underpaysemployees while cultivatingan image of benevolentconcern. The former degradesher employees;the latter "merely"cheatsthem. Or, considerthe differencebetweena manwho publiclytreatshis wife as a servant,and a man who treatshis wife as a means only while expressinglove and affection for her. Again, the formerdegradeshis wife; the latter"merely"takesadvantageof her. Althoughdegradationrequiresa publicperceptionof someonebeing treatedas a meansonly, this perceptionneednot be widelyshared: it is often enoughthat the victimperceivesit, i.e., that it be publicin principleonly. On the otherhand, it may be truethat the degradation is more severe if the perceptionis more widespread.To be actually observedin publicbeingtreatedas lessthana personis moredegrading than being subjectedto the same treatmentin private. This suggests,to returnto a questionraisedabove, that degradation involvesa de-gradingin the senseof imputinga lesservalueto, rather than in the sense of lesseningthe value of. Coverttreatmentof a person as a meansonly-a matterof exploitationor abuseratherthan of degradation,if my analysisis correct-implies no convictionon 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 victim 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 person. 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 consideration; 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 being a person, in virtue of having the potential (in theory, at least) for certain kinds of behavior. Consequently, degradation is always morally 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, circumstancesunder which even a self-respectingperson could not reasonablybe expected to object to degradingtreatment-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 manner, 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 ordinances, 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 pleasurein beingraped";(3) presentingwomenas objectsfor "domination, conquest,violation,exploitation,possessionor use." (Shipp1984) It should be noted that AndreaDworkinis of the opinion that, in fact, virtuallyall of what passes for "adult entertainment"falls into one or more of these categories.She points out that, etymologically, pornographyis "the depictionof vile whores";and that after extensive researchon the contentand natureof contemporary"adultentertainment,"she has concludedthat it is still best describedas the depiction of vile whores. "The fact that pornographyis widelybelievedto be 'sexualrepresentation'or 'depictionsof sex' emphasizesonly that the valuationof womenas low whoresis widespreadand that the sexuality of women is perceivedas low and whorishin itself" (Dworkin 1981,201). In short, althoughDworkin'sproposedordinancesdo not mandatecensorshipof sexuallyexplicit,or obscene,material,as such, it is probablyfair to say that she expectsthem to have the effect of eliminatingmost of what is commonlyregardedas pornography. Perhaps for this reason, some critics of the Minneapolisand Indianapolisordinanceshavedrawnthe conclusionthat theseordinances threatenall sexuallyexplicit material. Civil libertarianNat Hentoff (1984),for example,decriedthe ordinancesas endangering"suchworks as...Dr. Zhivago,...Lolita,and of course,bountifulsectionsof the Old Testament."As I understandthe proposedordinances,theywouldnot ban such works;and it is not my intentionin this paperto object to such works as these. Therefore, in order to avoid this sort of misunderstanding,I will elaboratea bit on the Dworkin/MacKinnon definitionof pornography,narrowingin on a genreI shall call Victim Pornography. Victimpornographyis the graphicdepictionof situationsin which womenare degradedby sexualactivity,viz., (a) situationsin whicha womanis treatedby a man (or by anotherwoman)as a meansof obtainingsexualpleasure,whilehe showsno considerationfor herpleasure or desiresor well-being,and (b) situationsin which a woman is not only subjectedto suchtreatment,but suggestsit to the man in the first VictimPornographypresentssuchactivityas enterplace.Furthermore, no is There suggestionthat women should not be treatedas taining. less thanpersons;andoften thereis no hintthat a womanmightdislike such treatment.' I believethat VictimPornographydoes compriseat leasta verylarge part of what passes today for adult entertainment.Dworkinis right in maintainingthatmuchof whatis commonlyregardedas pornography is a celebrationof violenceand exploitation.However,I want to emphasizethat the issue I am addressingis not the moralityof what is commonlyregardedas pornography:I am not concernedhere with 44

judith m. hill materialthat is sexuallyexplicit,or obscene,as such. The focus of my discussionis neitherLady Chatterly'sLovernorPlayboy's"TenCoeds At Home," but Victim Pornography:depictions of women being bound,beaten,raped,mutilated,and, as oftenas not, beggingfor more. It will be my contentionthat VictimPornographydoes degradeall women. Thetruthof thisthesisis not immediatelyobvious.Thefactthatmuch of pornographydepictswomenbegintreatedas meansonly, does not entail that pornographicmaterialitself treatswomen as meansonly. Consequently,since it is degradation,and not depictionsof degradation that we havefoundto be morallyreprehensible,the fact that some pornographicmaterialdepictssituationsin whichwomenare degraded does not entail that this materialis morally reprehensible,nor therefore,that it ought to be censoredor eliminated. To repeatthe conclusiondrawnin Part I: In orderfor degradation to take place, some personmustbe treatedas a meansonly. It will not suffice that a fictional personbe treatedas a meansonly. Therefore, we shouldbe lookingfor waysin whichpornographymightbe responsible for real people being treatedas means only. Thereis some initial plausibilityto the claim that the women who serve as models for Victim Pornography-women who act in pornographicfilms or pose for pornographicmagazines-are treatedas meansonly, by the producersand/or the consumersof pornographic material.Onecan imaginethat the experienceof beingbound, beaten, and raped in front of camera crews or photographersmust be humiliatingat best. Womenare subjectedto this humiliationso that the producersof pornography canmakea profit,andso thatthe patrons of pornographycan havea sexualthrill.In short,the producersof pornographytreattheirmodelsas instrumentsfor makingmoney;patrons of pornographytreat them as instrumentsfor sexual pleasure. However, before concludingthat the women who are filmed and photographedfor VictimPornographyarenecessarilytreatedas means only, we shouldconsiderthe distinctionbetween(a) treatinga person (only) as a means, and (b) treatinga person as a means only. There are many people with whom one has quite limitedrelationthe proprietors ships,e.g., one'steachers,one'spoliticalrepresentatives, of businessesone frequents.If one's relationshipwithsuchpeoplehas not developedbeyond the point whereone avails oneself of the services or goods providedby the other, it may be said that one treats the other(only)as a meansto one's own ends.Thisdoes not, of course, precludethe possibilitythat the user treatsthe providerwith respect, politeness,cordiality.Clearlyit is not relationshipssuch as these that Kantmeantto proscribe.As withanyhumanrelationship,businessrela45

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 Imperative; 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 returnto 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 persons deserving of respect and consideration, as though their pain and humiliation were amusing or boring. Indeed, it is probably true that most producersof Victim Pornography do treat their models in this way. However, this is not a necessary feature of the production of pornography, 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 unpleasantaspects of her job as unpleasant aspects, ratherthan as opportunities for leering; treating the models as people doing a job for pay, rather than as so much meat. A producer 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 Victim Pornography that the models be degraded. Certainly it may happen, and often does happen; and certainly it is morally reprehensible when it happens. But pornography, even Victim Pornography, can surely be produced without degradation to the models2; and therefore the potential for degradation to models is not a reason to end the produc46

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 consideration 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 only. Even a superficial look around the working world will reveal junior executives and adjunct college faculty being treated as less than persons 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, instruments of pleasure for patrons of pornography. However, although it may follow that the patrons of pornography treat the models in pornographic 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 pornography 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 degradingto them. It becomes apparent that any sort of degradation attaching to pornography will not occur on the personal level suggested by the hypotheses we have just considered. However, we have not yet considered the hypothesis that the pornography industry degrades women as a class rather than this or that individual woman. The pornography industry regularlypublishes material which, speaking conservatively, tends to contribute to the perpetuationof 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 pur47

hypatia pose otherthancasualsexualintercourse.Manypiecesof pornography depict all female charactersin such negativeways. Of coursepornographyis fiction,anddoesnot purportto be anything other than fiction. However, fiction is not supposedto be devoid of all factual truth; indeed, fiction should contain truthsabout human nature, about motivation, about power, and so on. Consequently, althoughpornographicmaterialmay make no claim to be describing actualstatesof affairs, we mightsay that it offers a perspectiveon the actualnatureof womankind.The perspectiveoffered by VictimPornographyis that, in general,womenare narcissistic,masochistic,and not fully persons in the moral sense. I wouldnot suggestthat it is the intentionof pornographersto convey the messagethat all women may be, or should be, or like to be treated as less than persons. This is almost surely false. Most pornographersare not at all interestedin influencingbehavior,or in conveying universaltruths; their intention is to titillate. Nevertheless, becausepornographytrades in stereotypes,shunningany careful or seriouscharacterdevelopment(by its very nature;this is what makes it bad literature),andbecausethe stereotypesthattitillate(at least,that titillatethe patronsof VictimPornography)are derogatoryones-the nymphomaniac,the masochist,the mindlessplaymate-much of Victim Pornographysupportsthe idea that all women fall into one or anotherof these categories,whetheror not this is its intention.The genre of Victim Pornography,taken as a whole, implies that most womenare mindless,masochisticnymphomaniacs.That is to say, this wouldbe the logicalconclusionto drawon the basisof the characterization offered in Victim Pornography.3 The point I want to make here is not that Victim Pornographyis responsiblefor negative attitudes and/or violent behavior toward women.If pornographywereeliminatedfromthe culture,therewould probablybe no discerniblechangein beliefsabout,or attitudestowards women, unless many of its spiritual cognates were eliminated simultaneously.Conversely,if all aspectsof the traditionof treating womenas less than personsexceptpornographywereeliminated,pornographywould become more or less innocuous, would be difficult to take seriously.In otherwords,I am inclinedto be quiteconservative in estimatingthe degreeof potentialpornographyhas, in and of itself, to actuallyplantthe seedsof derogatorybeliefsabout, and subsequent violent behaviortoward, womankind.Pornographyonly contributes to the nurtureof the plant. Again, the point is not that VictimPornographyhas negativeconsequencesfor women. The point is that Victim Pornographycontains implicationsthat defamewomankind.The perspectiveon women of48

judith m. hill feredby VictimPornographyis not only derogatory,it is false. Most women are not mindless,masochisticnymphomaniacs.Most women do not enjoy being beaten and raped. Most women do not want, or expect,to be treatedas less thanpersonsby theirsexualpartners.(This mayseemso obviousthatit shouldnot haveto 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 pornographyindustryroutinelypublishesmaterial that supportsthis viewof womankind.The pornographyindustrydoes not carethatthisviewis false.Thisis whatsells,to the tuneof $7 billion a year. In short, the pornographyindustryis quite willingto defame womankindfor the sake of makinga profit. In so doing,the pornographyindustrydegradeswomankind.It treats the class of womenas nothingmorethan a meansto its own financial ends. It treats the class of women as though such a smearingof its reputation is unimportant, trivial. In other words, pornography degradeswomen becauseit treatsthem as membersof a class which has no honorand is not entitledto respect.The pornographyindustry treatswomen as though the truth about their naturemay be ignored or distortedwith impunity.The point is not that pornographymay incite men to rape women. The point is that the pornographyindustry blithelyperpetuatesderogatorymyths, blithelylies, about the nature of women, for its own financialgain. In publishingVictimPornography,the pornographyindustrytreats women, as a class, as less than persons.In my view, this is sufficient to supportthe claimthat VictimPornographyis morallyobjectionable, A word about the legal implicationsof this analysis: The anti-pornography ordinancesproposedin IndianapolisandMinthat the sale of pornographybe viewedas a violation neapolissuggest of women's civil rights. I think this is more promisingthan the old approachof objectingto pornographyon groundsof obscenity.The championsof free speechcharacterizeall obscenitylaws as attempts to curtailthe free exchangeof ideas simplybecausethe most sensitive membersof societyare offended by them. Howeverabsurdit may be to characterizeVictimPornographyas an exchangeof ideas, the civil libertariansdo not seemlikelyto relinquishthis positionanytimesoon. The approachtaken by MacKinnonand Dworkinhas the advantage of not lendingitself to this interpretation.Even a cursoryreadingof theirdefensewill show that they are not bluestockingsimposingtheir personalsubjectivestandardsof decencyon the rest of society. Furthermore, treatingpornographyas a violationof civilrightsrather 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 censorship 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 simply avoid it, is hardly appropriate. Violations of civil rights are not corrected 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 discriminatorypractice 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 consequences of pornography: its success depends on the plausibility of the claim that when pornography is offered for sale, the result is a significant negative influence on people's beliefs about women, and a subsequent 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 consequences 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 approach would not have to rely on controversial empirical studies concerning 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 statement 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;4an individualwho was defamed 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.7Historically, 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 establishingthat Victim Pornography does indeed imply that women are generally masochistic nymphomaniacs. 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 content 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 implication that this is the nature of womankind, and therefore of all individual 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 openly 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 depersonalized 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, degradation should be taken seriously not only because it involves treating people 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.

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notes 1. I shouldacknowledgethat men as well as womencan be, and sometimesare, portrayedin pornographicmaterialas beingdegraded.Nevertheless,we woulddo well to keep in mind a few significantdifferencesbetweenpornographythat portraysmen as degraded,and pornographythatprotrayswomenas degraded:(1) Materialin which men are the victimsof sexuallyaggressivewomenis the exceptionratherthanthe rule; (2) Verylittle else in the culturereinforcesthe idea of men beingdegradedby women; and (3) The victimizedmenand aggressivewomenin suchmaterialareusuallydepicted as homosexual,and thereforenot "really"menand not "really"women,respectively, by the standardsof the materialitself; thus, it is still quasi-womenwho are victimized and pseudo-menwho are victimizers. 2. I am not suggesting,of course,that womenwho participatein makingVictim Pornography are less degraded than other women by the sale of pornography, but only

that they are not necessarilydegradedin their role as models. 3. A wordabouttheimportanceof context.If we livedin a culturein whichnothing supportedthe idea that womenare less than full persons,I mightbe morereluctantto say that VictimPornographyhas implicationsconcerningthe natureof womankind.If nothingin the culturesupportedthe idea that womenmay be treatedas thoughthey werenot endsin themselves,I mightbe willingto say that VictimPornographyis pure fantasy,no more to be takenseriously-no moreto be generalizedfrom-than a cartoon that portrayscats as indiscriminate that portraysauto eaters,or an advertisement mechanicsas good naturedand helpful,or a storythatportraysmenas enjoyingabuse. But the fact is that thereare manyfacets of our culturethat tend to supportthe view that womenlike to be abused.Muchof popularmusicromanticizessuchrelationships; advertisements tacitlygive them a stampof approvalby describingabuseas the norm for the attractiveupper-middleclass familynext door, or by givingit a slightlyexotic flavor;some religiousdogmaopenlyprescribestreatingwomenas less thanpersons.In light of this tradition,VictimPornographycannotbe easilydismissedas merefantasy, withno implicationsconcerningthe natureof women.VictimPornographycontributes to the traditionof viewingwomenas less than full persons,whateverthe intentionof its authors. 4. Byersv. Martin,2 Colo.605,25 Am.Rep.755(1875);Welshv. TribunePublishing Co., 83 Mich. 661, 57 N.W. 562 (1890). 5. Woffordv. Meeks, 129Ala. 349, 30 So. 625 (1900);Palmerleev. Notage, 119 Minn. 351, 138N.W. 312 (1912);Prosserv. Callis, 117 Ind. 105, 19 N.E. 735 (1888). 6. Bornmannv. StarCo., 174N.Y. 212, 66 N.E. 723 (1903).Contra:Kassowitzv. SentinelCo., 226 Wis. 468, 227 N.W. 177 (1938). 7. Hardyv. Williamson,86 Ga. 551, 12 S.E. 874 (1891).

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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.

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victoria davion Do Good Feminists Compete? In this paperI argueagainstthe view widelyheld amongfeminists that nurturingand competitionare incompatible.I also explorethe followingtwo more specificobjectionsagainstcompetition:(1) competitionsare "mini-wars"whichencouragehatred;(2) whilenot "miniwars,"competitionsfostera war-likementality.Underlyingtheseobjectionsis the fear that too stronga senseof self makeswarlikelyby severingconnectionwith others. I arguethat becausepatriarchyencourageswomento havetoo littlesenseof self, somecompetitionmay 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, Marcia 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-likementality. These assumptions about the nature of competition merit some careful exHypatiavol. 2, no. 2 (Summer1987). © by VictoriaDavion.

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hypatla aminationwhich they have not yet received.In this paper I attempt to contributetoward such an examination.This projectwill include a discussionof what I believe are some positive aspectsof competition, as well as a close look at the two objectionsstated above. My examinationof theseobjectionswill includean analysisof theirorigin. Morespecifically,I believethat these objectionsare basedon a belief that competitionfosters a strong sense of self and that the development of a strong sense of self causes a loss of a sense of connection with others, the loss of whichis necessaryfor war and detrimentalto nurturing.Hence I believethat the fear of competitioncan ultimately be linkedwith the view that a strongsense of self is a bad thing. The view that a strongsense of self can lead to a war-likementalityis impliedin the workof SaraRuddick,whichI shalldiscuss.I suggestthat althoughtoo stronga senseof self may be a bad thing, too little is not good either. Even if it is true that too stronga sense of self can lead to a war-likementality,this isn't likely to be a generalproblemfor womenraisedunderpatriarchy.Womentendto havethe oppositeproblem, too little sense of self. This isn't surprising,as women are encouragedto put the interestsof othersaboveour own constantly.I suggestthatperhapscompetitioncanbe helpfulin the reachingof a healthy balancebetweena sense of oneself and a feeling of connectionwith others. The subjectof competitionis thereforeimportantbecauseit raisestheseinterestingand importantissuesabout connectionand difference, which have been receivinga great deal of attentionamong feminist thinkers. The first project is to define "competition." This turns out to be a ratherdifficulttask.The O.E.D. providesseveraldefinitions:(1) "Action of endeavoringto gainwhatanotherendeavorsto gainat the same time." (2) "A contestfor the aquisitionof something;a matchto determine relativeexcellence." (3) "A trial of ability in order to decide superiorityof fitness of a numberof candidates."A few comments on thesedefinitionsarein order.Noticethatnone of themsay anything aboutthe type of activity,but ratherfocus on the purposeof engaging in it. This suggeststhat any numberof activitiescan be competitions of some sort. And so the definitionsareratherabstract.Questionsneed to be asked about what activitythe matchitself consistsin as well as what it is the contestantsare attemptingto win. It may turn out that certainkindsof competitiveactivitiesare okay whileothersare objectionable.A relatedterm,"competitor,"is definedin the followingway: (1) "One who engagesin a competition."(2) "One who seeks an object in rivalrywith others also seekingit." (3) "One associatedwith anotherseekingthe sameor commonobject, an associateor partner." It is interestingthat two seeminglyopposite definitionsoccur in the 56

victoria davion O.E.D. for this word. Someonewho seeksan objectin rivalryagainst anotherand someoneseekingthe sameobject, a partner.Thesedefinitions appearto be contradictory,but they are the key to certaininsightsaboutthe natureof competition,or at leastcertainkindsof competition. Does it make sense to define two individualsboth as rivals and partners?I will now show exampleswherethis does in fact seem to be thecase.Theseexamplesforma subgroupof competitiveactivities. Onesuchexampleis tennis.The firstthingwhichis obviousbutworth mentioningis that one cannotplaytennisalone.A partneris necessary. Furthermore,the partnershould be someoneyou trust for she is the one who must be reliedupon to tell you whenthe ball is in and when it is out. (Here I am not thinkingof professionaltennis wherethere is a referee).If the opponentwantsto cheatin a privategame she can probablyget away with this. But if she is fair, she will not cheat even if it is to her advantageto do so. This is a good exercisein being fair to others and makingsure that they get what they deserve.Here we have a case in whichtwo people are competingto win. Howeverthey must also cooperatewith each other in order for the competitionto be possible. Togetherthey make it possibleto have the experienceof playingthe game. Hence, whilethey are opponentsin one sense, they are partnersin another. This involvestrust, a sense of fairness,and even a friendlyattitudeamong the players. Learningto acceptdisappointmentis an importantaspectof human development.And this, alongwithlearningto be fair, canbe developed from participatingin certainkinds of competition.Also when one is competingone learnshow to respondquicklyundera certainpressure withoutgettingtoo upset if thingsdon't work out. Here we can look for a link betweenthe activitiesof competingand nurturing.If some typesof competitioncanteachone certainadmirableor usefulqualities, then part of nurturingsomeonemay be to encouragethem to engage in competition,and even to competewith them yourself. To nurture someoneis literallyto help them grow. Teachingsomeone admirable traits is a part of this process. I arguethat certainkinds of competition, particularlythe type that encouragespeople to be partnersand opponentsat the same time, are not at all incompatiblewith caringa greatdeal for others.Althoughas individualswe often have different goals, we also at the same time have many of the same ones, and by cooperatingwe can fulfillmanyof these.I believecompetitioncanteach this. Peopleneedto learnthattheycan both be partnersandhavesome differentgoals as well. I will now examinewhatI take to be the two majorobjectionsmany feministshave againstcompetition.As I stated before, these are (1) that competitionsare themselves"mini-wars"and (2) that competi57

hypatia tion fostersa war-likementalityratherthana nurturingone. I willbegin with the first objection.The sort of competitionthat I have discussed thus far, tennis, is mainly a one-on-onesport. It is an exampleof a competitionin whichthe competitorsare workingtowarda common and yet separategoal. Team sportscan be seen in this light also. The opponentslearn to cooperatewith each other in orderto follow the rules and play the game. Like war, these games have more than one playeron eachteam, and playersworktogetherto beatthe otherteam. So far this soundsquitea bit like war. But we alreadysee one essential difference:thosewho are fightinga warcertainlydo not cooperatewith the other side in orderto fight the war. In a game when the rulesare not followed, someonestops things, but this doesn't necessarilyhappen in a war. Eventhoughthereare supposedto be rulesof war, they do not have to be obeyed as the rules of team sports must. Another similaritybetweenteam sportsand waris that often people on opposing teams form allianceswith teammatesand a dislike for members of differentteams. Similarly,in a warthose fightingon oppositesides form a hatredfor theiropponents.Givingout propagandaagainstthe enemiesin orderto make them seem horribleis a tactic often used in time of war. If soldiersbegin to sympathizewith the enemy, the war effort is endangered.The more hostilitytowardthe enemythe better. Althoughthis can happen,in team sportsit needn't. Hatingthe opponent is not necessaryto one's ability to be an effective player. This makes sense becausebeing an effective playerdoesn't call for killing or severelydamagingotherplayers.Therearesomegamesthataremore violent than others, and perhapsit would be best to eliminatethese, but it is certainlynot the case that all team sportsare violent. Part of the reasontheseloyaltiesto certainteamsare formedis the culturesurroundingthe game, yet there may be ways to stop this. For example, playersand teams could constantlybe rotatedso that these alliances do not form. Hatredof one's opponentis not a necessarycomponent of team sportswhileit is necessaryin war. Anotherimportantdistinction betweencompetitionsand war is that in many games people do not only competeto win. The experienceof playingthe game itself is often consideredvaluable.Althoughthis may be the case in warfare as well, as some soldiersview the experienceof combatas valuablein itself, this seemsto be sadisticand unfortunate,whileto enjoy playing a game for the experienceof playingit does not in itself seem wrong or unfortunate.Hence we see anotherimportantdifferencebetween certainkindsof competitionand war. Finallyit shouldbe noticedthat in a war,opponentswantthe othersideto be no good at fighting.They have a stakein the otherteam'sbeingbad at this. This isn't, however, trueof all competitions.If I am goingto engagein a competitivesport58

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 competitions are themselves like "mini-wars." It is true that in both sporting events and wars we have so called "winners" and "losers," but having "winners" and "losers" is a similarity that masks very great differences 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 second 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 contributingto war?" Yudkin thinks we are. She claims that because women have not participated in many of the competitive institutions of patriarchywe are in a privileged 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 competition" (1984, 263). The fear here may be that we sever the connection between people when we compete with them. And this is why competition is seen as contributing toward war. In order to eliminate all competition we would have to eliminate any kind of recognition to individuals for jobs well-done. For any kind of recognition can be said to foster competitive attitudes in individuals. Is the answer then, simply, 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 recognition. If we stop recognizing achievement we will have made a great error, 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 warlike mentality and some recent work being done on both the subjects 59

hypatla of women'sethicsand mothering.I turnnow to an examinationof this link. To recognizesomeoneis to singlethem out. Perhapsit is this singling out whichbotherscertainfeministsand is at the root of the claim that competitionfosters a war-likementality.To single someone out is to emphasizecertaindifferencesbetweenher and other people. It is a processwhich focuses on differenceratherthan sameness.How does this link up with war? In her article, "PreservativeLove And MilitaryDestruction:SomeReflectionson MotheringandPeace,"Sara Ruddick(1984b)arguesthat maternalthinkingis opposedto violence. She states "Non-violenceis a constitutiveprincipleof maternalthinking." Accordingto Ruddick,womenhold certaindifferentvaluesthan men, and womenhave a differentstyle of thinkingthan men do. She callsthe maternalstyleof thinking"concreteness."Thisstyle"respects complexity,connection,particularityand ambiguity."People thinking in thisway are "lessconcernedwithclaimingrights,moreconcerned with sharing responsibilities.They do not value independenceand autonomyoverconnectionandthe restraintsof caring."Shecontrasts this with anotherstyle of thinkingwhichshe calls "abstraction."She says: "I am convincedthat a certainstyle of thinking-a tendencyto abstract-is connectedto warfare."This style "refersto a clusterof interrelateddispositionsto simplify,dissociate,generalize,and sharply define." It is this style which she associateswith men. The ability to abstractis seen as connectedto warfarebecausewhen something is abstract, it becomes less human. In war the enemy becomes an abstractentityratherthan a realgroupof living, sufferinghumanbeings. Thereforethe abilityto differentiatesharplybetweenself andother is necessaryin war, whilea sensethat the enemyis similaror the same as oneself, a sense of connectionwith the enemy, is damagingto the war effort. Therefore, Ruddick argues, the style of thinking characteristicof women is not conduciveto warfare,while the style of thinkingcharacterizedby men is. With Ruddick'sanalysisin mindwe can now returnto the question of competitionin generalandthe relatedquestionof recognition.When we competewith others,we engagein the sort of activitythat Ruddick would associatewith the abstractstyle of thinking. We feel a sharp distinctionbetweenself and other. We certainlydon't view theirwinning as in any way the same as our winning.Hence the competitors can be saidto havestrongsenseof self. Also, the recognitionthat competitionfostersonce againbringsout differenceratherthan sameness of individuals.If havinga sharplydefinedsenseof self contributesto a war-likementality,thentheremaybe a reasonfor avoidingactivities which encouragethese traits. On the other hand, perhapsactivities 60

victoria davion which emphasize connection should be encouraged. The conclusion is that competition should be avoided. In "The Answer Is Matriarchy" a similarconclusion is reached. The authors state that "Under capitalism mothers are faced with a dilemma. They can force their children to conform 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 competition are made. Again, the fear seems to be that competition is opposed 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 achievementsof others, vicariously. There is nothing at all wrong with feeling good about the achievementsof others. This is certainlyan admirabletrait 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 experienceswhich attempting 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. Ruddick comes close to recognizing this, but then she backs off. In "Maternal 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 Ruddick 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 successfully raise a small child in need of total care from others it is indeed 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 patriarchy, 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 inhabitants but ratherwith 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 engaging 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 correctly. What is needed is a balance between a sense of oneself and a sense of connection. I have suggested that certain kinds of competition 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 working 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 connection 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 underliethe objections to competition I have discussed. I think that this must be done before any kind of intelligent deci62

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 matriarchy. 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. Preservativelove and military destruction: Some Reflections on mothering and peace. In Mothering, ed. Joyce Trebilcot. New Jersey: Rowman And Allenheld. Woolf, Virginia. 1938. Three guineas. New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Yudkin, Marcia. 1984. Reflections on Woolf's Three guineas. In Women and men's wars, ed. Judith Stiehm. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

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susan wendell A (Qualified) Defense of Liberal Feminism Liberalfeminismis not committedto a numberof philosophical positions for whichit is frequentlycriticized,includingabstractindividualism,certainindividualistic approachesto moralityandsociety,valuandthetraditional overthephysical/emotional, ing themental/rational liberalway of drawingthe line betweenthe publicand the private. Moreover,liberalfeminism'sclearestpoliticalcommitments, including equalityof opportunity,are importantto women'sliberationand not withthegoalsof socialistandradicalfeminism. necessarily incompatible

Introduction Because I am committedto socialism,I do not thinkof myself as a liberalfeminist and would not defend liberal feminismwithout importantqualifications.On the otherhand, I wantto defendcertain aspectsof liberalfeminismbecauseI am also committedto sometraditionalliberalprinciples,suchas equalopportunityfor self-development anda modifiedversionof Mill'sprincipleof liberty,andto manyliberal feministreforms.In addition,I hopethatmy defenseof liberalfeminism will helpto demonstratethat feminismhas out-grownthe politicaltraditions from whichit emerged,and that traditionalpoliticalcategories are no longer very useful for understandingthe similaritiesand differencesamong feministanalyses,strategiesand goals.

WhatIs LiberalFeminism? If it is true that feminismno longerfits comfortablyinto the traditional politicalcategories,it is somewhatartificialto be talkingabout liberalfeminism.Liberalfeminismis an historicaltraditionthat grew out of liberalism,as can be seen very clearly in the work of such feministsas MaryWollstonecraftand John StuartMill, but feminists who took principlesfrom that traditionhave developedanalysesand goals that go far beyond those of 18th and 19th Century liberal feminists,and manyfeministswho havegoals and strategiesidentified as liberalfeministby such writersas Jaggarand Struhl(1978),Eisenstein(1981)andScheman(1983)rejectmajorcomponentsof traditional liberalism.Forthesereasons,insteadof tryingto defineliberalfeminism Hypatiavol. 2, no. 2 (Summer1987). © By SusanWendell.

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hypatia precisely, I will give a brief description of the political commitments most clearly identifiable as liberal feminist and then focus on the allegedly 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 redistribution 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 subject later.) The liberal feminist tradition, like most other feminist traditions, 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 education 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 tradition 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 individualistic approaches to morality and society, valuing the mental/rational 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 commitments: to the promotion of women's greater recognition and selfvalue as individuals, to equality of opportunity, to the promotion of equal education for girls and boys, to ending sex prejudice and defacto discrimination, to equality of legal rights, and to the use of education as a major tool of social reform, are important to women's liberation and not necessarily incompatible with the goals of socialist and radical feminism. 66

susan wendell LiberalFeminismand AbstractIndividualism In "Individualismandthe Objectsof Psychology,"NaomiScheman describesthe individualistassumptionsof "the ideologyof liberalindividualism"in this way: Thus, it is supposedto be a naturalfact about human beings, and hence a constrainton any possible social theory,that, no matterhow socialour developmentmay be, we exist essentially as separate individuals-with wants, preferences, needs, abilities, pleasures, and pains-and any social orderhas to begin by respecting theseas attachingto us determinately andsingly,as a way of respectingus. Classicalliberalsocial theory gets off the ground with the observationthat individualsso defined are in need of being enticed-or threatened-into enduring and stableassociationwithone another.(Scheman1983,231) In Feminist Politics and Human Nature, Alison Jaggar characterizes

abstractindividualismthus:

The assumptionin this case is that humanindividuals areontologicallypriorto society;in otherwords,human individualsare the basicconstituentsout of whichsocial groupsarecomposed.Logicallyif not empirically,human individualscould exist outside a social context; their essentialcharacteristics,their needs and interests,their capacitiesand desires,are given independentlyof their social contextand are not createdor even fundamentally alteredby that context.Thismetaphysicalassumption is sometimescalledabstractindividualismbecauseit conceivesof humanindividualsin abstractionfromanysocial circumstances.(Jaggar1983, 28, 29)2 As I interpretScheman,she is assertingthata componentof abstract individualismis the assumptionthat human beings do not, by our nature,desiresociety for its own sake. Thus, we "need to be enticed or threatenedinto enduringand stableassociation."Thisis not clearly part of Jaggar'sconceptionof abstractindividualism,but in another passageshedoescriticize"theliberalassumptionthathumanindividuals are essentiallysolitary,with needsand intereststhat are separatefrom if not in oppositionto those of other individuals"(Jaggar1983, 40). includesthe assumpJaggarseemsto holdthatabstractindividualism tion thathumanbeings'most importantcharacteristics, includingsome 67

hypatla importantneeds, interests,capacitiesand desires, are not caused by the societyin whichwe developedas childrenor live as adults.Scheman makesit clearthat she thinksabstractindividualismdoes not denythat our developmentis social. By this I assumeshe means that abstract individualismcan acknowledgethat the needs,interests,capacitiesand desireswhich each individualhas are, at least in part, caused by the societyin whichs/he develops.Jaggardoes not appearto concedethis muchto abstractindividualism,sinceshe says it assumes,amongother things, that individuals' "essential characteristics . . . are given in-

dependentlyof their social context and are not createdor even fundamentallyalteredby that context" (see passagequotedabove). Later she says: "If we rejectabstractindividualismand supposeinsteadthat humandesiresand interestare sociallyconstituted,then we can expect that the membersof any society are likely to learnto want just those things that the society provides" (Jaggar 1983,43). Schemanand Jaggarseem to agreethat abstractindividualismincludesthe assumptionthat humanindividualscan be conceivedof outside a socialcontextbecausetheircharacteristics, includingtheirneeds, desiresand capacities,can be adequatelydescribedwithoutreference to theirsocialcontext.Note thatthis assumptiondiffersfromthe claim that our social context does not cause our most importantcharacteristics, and it does not implythat claim. Societymightcauseus to have that areneithersociallydefinednor dependenton manycharacteristics in us. Nor does this assumptionimply for their continuation society thatwe do not desiresocietyas partof ournature,sincewe mightdesire associationwith other individualswithout desiringa particularkind of associationthat couldonly be describedby referenceto a socialcontext, e.g. we mightall wantto be membersof some humangroup.The assumptionthatindividualscan be conceivedof and adequatelydescribed without referenceto our social context does, however,imply that our social positionsand relationshipsare not essentialcharacteristics of people, that we can be understoodand identifiedapartfrom them. How is this abstract individualism, distilled from Jaggar and Scheman'sdescriptions,relatedto liberalfeminism?Schemanseems, in the followingpassage,to believethatliberalfeminismhas somecommitmentto abstractindividualismas she has describedit, andthat this commitmenthas politicalimplicationsthat arethreateningto the status quo but also wrong-headed. The feararisesfroma recognitionof the fact that men havebeenfreeto imaginethemselvesas self-definingonly because women have held the intimate social world together,in partby seeingourselvesas inseparablefrom 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 reserved for men is, I think, a real one. There is every reason to react with alarm to the prospect of a world filled with self-actualizing persons pulling 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 developedurging 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. Ultimately, 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 attempt to apply liberal principlesof political equality and individualliberty 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 commitment to the same conception of human nature. According to Jaggar, this conception includes not only abstract individualismbut "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 implied by other positions they adopt. Jaggar says that the liberal principles of political equality and individual liberty are derived from a view of human nature which includes abstractindividualism, 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 committed 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 equality 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 characteristicsor 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 beings. 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 selfdevelopment (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 prov70

susan wendell en correlationbetweenmembershipin one of the groups on the one hand and, on the other hand, capacityto participatein government, to exercisepolitical rightsand to make decisionsthat protectthe interestsof oneself and others.All of these alternativejustificationsare compatible with the assertion that there are no characteristicsor capacitiesthatall humanbeingsshare.Indeed,theyarecompatiblewith the view that manyof the importantcharacteristicsof individualsare createdby theirsocietiesand/or manifestedin theirsocialrelationships. It mightbe maintainedthat the only philosophicaljustificationfor politicalfreedomor individuallibertyis some view that all, or at least most, human beings can best decide for themselveshow to develop themselvesor accomplishtheirown well-being.Thisview seemsto imply Jaggar'sversionof abstractindividualism,becauseit impliesthat societycould not affect individualsso profoundlythat they wouldnot be their own best guardians,e.g. by causingthem to want thingsthat make them unhappyor givingthem persistentfalse beliefs about the consequencesof certaindecisions.However,liberalscan and frequently do concedethat humanbeingsare often bad at ensuringour own wellbeing or development,but arguethat since historyseems to indicate that we are even worse at ensuringother people's, the best arrangement is individuallibertywith the limitationthat one does not harm others or interferewith their similarliberty. Incidentally,one does not haveto holdthatthereis no objectivebasis for criticizingpeople's values and ways of life (withinthe limitation thattheydo not violatethe rightsof others)in orderto defendindividual liberty. Jaggaris wrong when she says: Individualsare entitledto set their own ends and, so long as they do not violatethe rightsof others,thereare in principleno limits to what they may want to do or believethey oughtto do. In principle,therefore,liberals are committedto the belief that individualsare fulfilled wheneverthey are doing what they have decidedfreely to do howeverunpleasant,degradingor wrongthis may appearto someone else. (Jaggar1983, 174) Onecan hold(as J.S. Milldid)thatthereis an objectivebasisfor criticizing people'schoices,persuadingthemto live in certainways, and even teachingthem certainvalues at a young age, but that it is wrong to interferewith the conductof the lives of adultsso long as they are not harmingothers. I may well believethat I knowfor certainwhatis best for you and that I should underno circumstancesforce you to do it or preventyou from choosingsomethingI know is bad for you. This commitmentto non-interference may be basedon the politicalconcern 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 convinced 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 characteristics of individuals, including capacities and needs, are entirely socially constructed or determined by their social context, then what basis could there be for protectingthe individual in and from society? If society entirely constructs the individual, then society cannot violate the individual, 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 individuals, especially capacities or needs, are not entirely socially constructed. Yet surely this latter view of human nature is not abstract individualism, 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 important 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 suppressnew 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 conditions 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 examples 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 interests3and 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 Jaggar 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 people's important characteristics, including their capacities and desires, are shaped by the society in which they are raised (pp. 141-144). Indeed, he states that we cannot know what the natural differences between 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 characteristicsof 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 frameworkoffered 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 exerciseof agency, that is, through the exerciseof 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 transformation of the natural world. On this view, each human being 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 selfrealization than any other. Thus, there are no grounds for making differences in gender the basis for differential rights to self-realization. The equal rights of women and men are thus grounded in the nature of human agency 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 government 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 equality among her goals. She also says that free choice is necessary to selfdevelopment, 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 sayingthat self-developmentis groundedin socialinteractionand in work, Gould implicitlyrejectsthe view that societydoes not create andthe viewthat individualscan be adeour importantcharacteristics, quatelydescribedwithoutreferenceto our socialcontext.Furthermore, she wouldnot hold that humanbeingsdo not by naturedesiresociety, becausethatwouldimplythatwe do not desirethe conditionsnecessary for our self-development,whichshe saysinclude"the full development of bothindividuality and community"(Gould1983,17).Thus,she does not hold any of the componentsof abstractindividualismas Jaggar and Schemandescribeit. Both Mill and Gouldillustratethe possibility of a commitmentto liberalprinciplesof equalityand libertywhichis not based upon beliefs about human nature which include abstract individualism.

PracticalFormsof Individualism Since liberalideals of politicalequalityand individuallibertyneed not be derivedfrom a view of humannaturethat includesabstractindividualismand do not implysuch a view, I see no reasonto attribute a beliefin abstractindividualismto liberalfeministsunlesstheyexpress such a belief or it is impliedby other positionsthey adopt. But does liberal feminism promote a kind of practicalindividualism,an individualisticapproachto livinglike that ascribedto it by Schemanin the passagequoted above, in which individualsare too absorbedby theirown "self-actualization"to careaboutor take any responsibility for other people's happiness? Scheman'sdescriptionis, I think, a caricatureof both the human potential movement and liberal feminism's commitment to individualism.A commitmentto the value of individualsand theirselfdevelopment,or evento the ethicalpriorityof individualsovergroups, does not commitone to narcissismor egoismor to the beliefthat one's own most importantcharacteristics are somehowindependentof one's with other relationships people. Indeed, liberalshave long defended libertyand equalitypartlyon the basisof theirbenefitsto humanrelationships.Oneof MaryWollstonecraft's([1833]1967)majorarguments for women'seducationand opportunityto developas independentindividualswas that, with these benefits, womenwould be betterwives and mothers.In TheSubjectionof Women,Mill(1870,66-70, 170-174) arguedthat some of the worstconsequencesof inequalitybetweenthe sexeswerein the damagedone to people'srelationshipsandthe potential unrealizedin them,especiallythe relationshipsbetweenwomenand men and those amongmen. Ms. magazine,whichis veryrepresentative of modern liberal feminism, contains a large proportionof articles 75

hypatla which focus on relationships,discussingthe damagedone to them by inequalityand presentingproposalsfor makingthemmoreegalitarian. (See Ms. Vol XII.) The liberalfeministtraditionhardlysupportsthe narrowsort of individualismattributedto it by Scheman. What, then, is the contentof liberalfeminism'sindividualism?Central to liberal feminismis the assertionthat women are valuablein themselves,as individualhuman beings, and not just as sources of pleasureandprovidersof servicesfor men and children.Note that one can believe this and also consistentlybelievethat all or many of the most valuablecharacteristicsof all individuals,includingwomen, are created and manifestedin their relationshipswith others, but that women'srelationshipshaveplacedtoo muchemphasison theirpleasing and taking care of others and not enough on their engagingin equal or reciprocalinteractions. In her critiqueof liberalfeminism, The RadicalFutureof Liberal Feminism, Zillah Eisensteinmakes a similar observationabout the function of individualismin feministtheory: Individualism positsthe importanceof self-sovereignty and independenceas a universalclaimand thereforecan be usedto justify women'sindependencefrom men.... Feminism uses the individualisticstance against men becausemeninhibitwomen'sself andcollectivedevelopment;it need not extendthis vision to premisewomen's isolation from one another. In other words, the liberal conceptionof an individualwith rightsand of women's independencefrom men are importantcontributionsto feministtheory. The points must be distinguishedfrom the ideology of liberal individualismthat posits the isolated, competitiveindividual.(Eisenstein1981, 154) The possibilityof women's coming to value ourselvesmore as individualswith needs and desiresof our own and less as nurturersand sourcesof pleasureto othersraisesthe spectreof women'sbecoming "selfish." This is not, I think, becauseselfishnesswould necessarily result, but becausepresentrelationsin our cultureare built so firmly on the assumptionthat men will indulgein certainkindsof emotional and practicalselfishnessand women will aspireto pleasingmen and actingout the role of selflessnurturer.5Insofaras women'sidentities and interestsaresubordinatedto the familyandtheirrelationshipswith men, menareable(andencouraged)to avoidtakingequalresponsibility for childcare,houseworkand other forms of servicework, and for maintainingemotionalrelationships.Thus, it may be difficult for us to imaginea woman'sgivingup the selflessrole withoutimaginingher 76

susan wendell exchangingit for the selfish one, but that is not the only possibility. A womanmay acceptdoing hershareof nurturingand givingpleasure but refuse to do more than her share. Such a changeappearsselfish and uncaringonly if we assumethat men are incapableof responding by takinggreaterresponsibilityfor theirown and theirchildren'snurturanceand emotionallife, i.e. for doing their share. The possibility that women might no longer identify ourselves primarilyas nurturers,sourcesof pleasureand maintainersof relationships is verythreateningto the presentdivisionof labourand responsibility. This might accountfor the strongresistanceliberalfeminists have alwaysencountered(from men and women)when they attempt to applyliberalprinciplesof libertyand equalityto women,evenwhere men have adoptedthese principlesfor themselves.The hopeful prospectthis possibilitypresents-of wideningthe sphereof one's identity, interestandresponsibility andof valuingone's own experienceas highly as that of others-may also accountfor liberalfeminism'spopularity amongNorthAmericanwomen,sinceliberalfeminismputsa greatdeal of emphasison women'svalueas individuals.This hypothesisis an interestingalternativeto the theorythat liberalfeminismis morepopular in North Americathan socialist or radical feminismbecause of its greaterapparentcompatibilitywith capitalistideology. One mightthink (as Jaggar[1983, 193-194]does) that sincemodern liberalfeminismadvocatesequalityof opportunityit is committedto a meritocratic modelof societyanda competitiveformof individualism, in whicheach of us is pittedagainstthe othersin strivingfor our own narrow self-interest.Although it is probablytrue that some liberal feministshold these three commitmentsas a package, and although it hasbeentiedto themhistorically,equalityof opportunityis a broadly applicable political goal that is not necessarilyattached to either meritocracyor competition. Equalityof opportunityis a promisingsolutionto a certainkind of problemof distribution.Whendesirefor somethingexceedsthe supply of it and needis not an appropriatecriterion,or not appropriatelythe sole criterion,for sharingit, equalityof opportunitymaybe an excellent solution.This sortof problemdoes not ariseonly in capitalistor other competitiveeconomicsystems.Some thingscannotand othersshould not be distributedequally, or even on the basis of need, such as the job of surgeonor the use of electronmicroscopesor the finestmusical instruments.Any societyis likelyto confrontthis kindof distribution problem,and equalityof opportunityis a way of ensuringthat those who arecapableof doinga job wellor makingverygood use of a scarce resourcewillbe chosento do so. Thereneedbe no competitioninvolved, sincedistributioncan be basedon demonstratinga certainlevelof pro77

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 resourcesdistributedby 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 doctors, 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 opportunity can be a political goal which appears safely reformist and turns out to have rather radical implications. I will returnto 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.

Mindover Body, Reason over Emotion? Liberal feminists are often criticized for adopting mainstream, malebiased 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 likely 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 assumptions 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 emotional 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 activitiescan be, and has been, criticized on two bases. First, one might argue that it is artificial and inaccurate to divide human faculties and many human activities in this way, that reason and emotion, mind and body are so intermingled and integrated in most human activitiesthat such a division is rarelyapplicable 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 Jaggar 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 over79

hypatia wheliningevidenceof women'sequal,if not superior,mentalcapacities. Thus, evenif one accepts(as Mill essentiallydoes) or fails to challenge this traditionalsystem of values, one is not committedto devaluing women'straditionalwork or the skilledlabourof most workingpeople. Of course,mostwomenandmanymenalso performmanyrelatively unskilledtasks (suchas washingfloors and collectinggarbage),and in this value systemsuch tasks are not valuedin themselves,although they may be valued for their necessaryresults. Notice that this view does not implythatpeoplewho performa lot of unskilledlabourshould be valuedless thanthose who do not, nor thatthey shouldbe paidless, nor even that they should have to do this work, since someone who holdsthis view mightalso thinkthat unskilledlabourshouldbe phased out whereverpossible(withoutputtingpeople out of work)or shared equallyby everyone. Wheredo liberalfeministsstandamongall thesepossiblepositions? One thing is certain: ever since Mill there have been many liberal feministsinsistinguponthe valueof women'sworkin the home.Recently in Canada,liberalfeministshavebeen prominentamongthose calling for pensions for homemakersand reform of the marriageand divorcelaws to acknowledgethe financialcontributionto the family of women'sworkat home. Clearly,not all liberalfeministsacceptthe de-valuingof women's traditionalwork. However, it is not clear on the basis of these facts alone whetherthey acceptthe generalsystem of values we have been discussing. Fortunately,other evidence is available.In theirconcernto eliminatesex-roleconditioningin childraisingand educationand to stop the stereotypingof adults, liberal feministshave neithersimplystrivento raise girls more as boys have been raised nor simply assertedthat women have traditionallymale characteristics.Theyhave also strivento give boys some of the advantages of girls' traditionalupbringing,notablypermissionto have and expresstenderand vulnerableemotionsand encouragementto behave in nurturingwaystowardsothers,andtheyhaveaffirmedthe legitimacy of men'shavingtraditionallyfemalecharacteristics, especiallyemotional expressivenessand competencein houseworkandcaringfor children.1 Theirtakingthis positionon sex rolesshowsthat manyliberalfeminists recognizethat thereare virtuesin both traditionallyfemaleand tradiandit also showsthattheydo not de-value tionallymalecharacteristics, the emotionsor women'straditionallabourto anythinglike the degree that the culturein generalhas de-valuedthem. Some liberalfeministsdenigratehousework,childcareand manyof women's traditionalactivities and characteristics,and want only a chance to succeedin a traditionallymale arena of activity. For that matter,some Marxistand radicalfeministshave similarattitudesand 80

susan wendell ambitions.Thisis perfectlyunderstandable whenwe considerhow many womendo traditionalwork becausethey had little or no choice, how easy it is to becometrappedin it, and how little recognitionor reward it usuallyreceives.We do not have to attributetheir point of view to the value-systemof the liberaltradition,but even if we do attribute it to that, it is clearthat manyotherliberalfeministshavenot just accepted that value system but have challengedit. Liberalfeminists'concernto eliminatesex discriminationand gain equalityof opportunityfor womento engagein traditionallymaleactivities need not arise from a belief that these activitiesare likely to be more fulfillingfor everyonethan traditionallyfemale activities.It frequentlyarisesfromthe beliefthat peopleshould, as far as possible, get to do the workthey wantto do and are capableof doing, and that no one should have to settle for work s/he is not challengedby or dislikesdoing. As Mill (1870, 186) said, "If there is anythingvitally importantto the happinessof humanbeings,it is thattheyshouldrelish their habitualpursuit."

The Publicand The Private- The PornographyIssue One areain whichliberalfeminismhas clearlyexpandedthe outlook of liberalismand improvedupon traditionalliberaltheoryis in drawing the linesbetweenthe publicand privatespheresof life and between legitimateand illegitimateinterferenceby the State. That those lines cannot simplybe drawnat the family, becauseindividualssometimes needthe protectionof the public(or the State)from membersof their own families, has been implicitlyor explicitlyrecognizedby liberal feminists since Mill. As Jaggar (1983, 198-199)points out, liberal feministpracticehas tendedto diminishthe privatesphere,although liberalfeministstend to retaina theoreticalcommitmentto the right to privacy.Anita Allen (1983)arguesthat such a commitmentmay be veryvaluableto women,and I wouldlike to point out herethat a commitmentto privacyand individuallibertydoes not necessarilyplace liberalfeministsin oppositionto other feministson one of the major feministissues of our time-pornography. Jaggarsays: The liberalfeministcommitmentto libertyand the inviolabilityof privatelife placesliberalfeministsamong most other feministsin theiroppositionto restraintson contraception,abortion, homosexuality,etc. The same commitment,however,separatesliberalfeministsfrom most other feministson the issue of pornography .... Pornography presents a special problem for liberal 81

hypatla feministsbecauseof liberalism'shistoriccommitmentto freedomof expressionand the rightto privacy.Liberal feministsmay be 'personally'or 'privately'revoltedor titillated by pornography,but they have no 'political' groundsfor opposingit unlessit can be shown to have a directcausalconnectionwiththe violationof women's rights. (Jaggar 1983, 180) I have arguedelsewhereat length (Wendell1983)that a very good case for restrictingthe displayandavailabilityof pornographythatportraysviolenceandcoercionandthe productionanddistributionof pornographythat is createdwith childrenor by othercoercivemeanscan be madeon the basis of Mill's principleof libertyalone. Mill's principle allows us to interferewith expressionwhen it causesseriousharm to others, providedthat the harmcannot be preventedby acceptable meansotherthanrestrictingthe expression.I do not knowexactlywhat Jaggar means by "a direct causal connectionwith the violation of women'srights,"but eventhoughwe haverelativelylittleinformation now about pornography'seffects on people's behaviour,we can see that unrestrictedproduction,displayand availabilityof pornography causes serious direct harms that cannot be preventedby acceptable means other than placingrestrictionson it. Furthermore,restriction by the Stateis not the only possibleformof oppositionto pornography. Manypeoplecommittedto freedomof expressionpassionatelyhatethe messagesaboutwomen,menand sexualitythatmost (evennon-violent) pornographyconveys, just as they hate many messagesabout other aspectsof life conveyedby popularcultureandthe media,and yet they believethatit is betterto opposesuchmessageswithalternativemessages andwitheducationthatpromotesa criticalattitudetowardpornography than to involve the law. Liberalshave other political commitments besidestheirconcernfor individualfreedom,and they are not usually reluctantto use that freedomto promotetheir own views about how to treat oneself and other people morally.

LiberalFeminism'sPoliticalCommitmentsand Women'sLiberation Womenand individualism I havesaidthatliberalfeminismis committedto promotingwomen's recognitionof their own value as individualsand public and private recognitionof that value by others. I have arguedthat this does not mean that liberalfeminismis encouragingwomen to become selfish, to seek their own interestwithoutconcernfor otherpeople'swelfare. 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 concerned with our value as individuals, we will lose the special moral emphasis on care and responsibility that Carol Gilligan (1982) has identified 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 integrationof the concept of rights and a recognition 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, assertingthe worth of women as individualsat least creates the possibility 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 personal interestbut 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 carries 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 responsibilityfor other women's welfare, we make it difficult for themto find the strengthand skillto take careof themselves.Then the helpersexhaustthemselves,and those they set out to help continue to feel weak and helpless. In political practiceas elsewhere,there is not a simplechoicebetweenbeingselflessand beingselfish. It is possible to respectone's own needsand desireswhilealso takinga keeninterestin otherpeople'sand remainingwillingto makesome sacrifices, if necessary,for them. Learningto strikethis balanceis the basis of co-operation,and for most women, it meansgivingup the moralideal of self-sacrifice.

Equalityof opportunity I havearguedthat equalityof opportunityis not a goal just for competitiveeconomicand social circumstances,and that its politicalimplications depend on the answer to: Opportunityto do what? Interestingly,if one gives some ratherconservativeanswersto this question and advocates, for example, equality of opportunityto gain prestige,power and wealth, one finds that achievingit would require major changesin North Americansocieties, as Jaggarpoints out: In identifyingbarriersto women'sachievement,liberal feministshave become increasinglyaware of 'internal' as wellas 'external'barriers.Theyhaveseenhowthe total environmentof malesupremacyshapeswomen'sperceptions of themselves;moldswomen'sinterests,needsand wants;and limitswomen'sambition,determinationand perseverence.Liberalfeministsconcludethat equalityof opportunityrequiresequalityin children'searly education and environment.(Jaggar1983, 194) I thinkit can be shown,and I havearguedelsewhere(Wendell1976), that creatingeven equalemploymentopportunityfor womenand men requiresgivinggirls and boys the same early educationin the following respects: a) Girls and boys must be given the same (or equallygood) conditions for developingbasic skills and knowledge. b) Girlsand boys mustbe giventhe sameinformationaboutthe jobs and roles availableto them. c) Girls and boys must be given the same (or equallygood) means of acquiringwhateverspecialskillsand knowledgearenecessaryto all the professions. d) Girls and boys must be given the same (or equallygood) conditions for physicaldevelopment. 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 childraising practices, informing young people of their choices and encouraging 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 employment opportunity is ending defacto sex discrimination in higher education, 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 affirmative action programmes. 3 Yet discrimination takes so many forms, some of them quite subtle, and can occur at so many points in a person's career, that it cannot be completely prevented so long as sex prejudice 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 example, 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 responsibility of individual women, in order to create equal employment op85

hypatla portunity. Most of the more general answers we could give to 'opportunity 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 remaking 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 fundamentalchanges in society, and who says, "The primary goal is women gaining power in order to eliminate patriarchyand 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 depend 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 increased masculinization of all society, which would, I think, be unacceptable to most socialist and radical feminists as well as to many liberal feminists. 86

susan wendell Ending sex discriminationand prejudiceare long-term goals that surely 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 responsibility for childcare and housework and the other labour women perform 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 criticized 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 committed 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, recent 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 individual women's lives that were expected of them,'5 but we must appreciate 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 contributions that both the public struggles for legal equality and the recognition 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 improvements 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 situation 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 improvement 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 criminalcode and in the opinions expressedby judges, people begin to re-examineattitudesthey took for granted.18 The law is a publicexpressionof what behaviouris acceptableor unacceptablein a society. For many citizens, unfortunately,it is the standardof morality;few people will condemnactions the law condones. In most matters,the law is a weak tool for forcingpeople to behavein the ways we want them to, but I see the law, and the publicstruggleto reformthe legal system, as powerfulforces for changingconsciousness. Those who fear that obtaininglegal equalitywill fool women into believingthat we arethe socialand economicequalsof men areunderestimatingwomen and, I think, not paying enough attentionto the historicalevidence.Surelyhistoryshowsthat oppressedgroupsdo not tend to be satisfiedwith legal equality,and that obtainingit helps to uncoverthe othersourcesof oppression.Whateverideologicalusesthe dominantgroupscanmakeof legalequality,theyhavehardlysucceeded in convincingeveryonethat the other aspects of oppressionare illusions.19

Educationand reform The majorpurposeof some and the most effective resultof many liberalfeministreformsseemsto be changingwomen'sandmen'sbeliefs and feelingsaboutourselves,otherpeopleand the natureof our interactions with one another. It is, of course, a liberaltraditionto hope to improvesocial and economicconditionsin largepart by educating individuals.Behindthis traditionlies a faith in the moralpotentialof humannature.The reformerwho countson the efficacyof education believesthat whenpeopleknowthe natureand causesof theirown and otherpeople'sunnecessarysuffering,and whentheirabilityto carefor themselvesand othersis cultivated,they will be movedto createa better society. This view of humannatureis very differentfrom the picture,often attributedto liberals,of psychologicallyisolatedindividuals pursuingtheirnarrowself-interest,but it is at least as much a part of the liberaltradition. It is also a view shared, implicitlyor explicitly, by most feminists,whosestrategiesrelyheavilyon the powerof changing people's beliefs and feelings.

Feminist Strategies What are the alternativestrategiesopen to feminists?We can convince womenand men to end our oppressiverelationsor coercethem somehowinto endingthem. Liberalfeministsacceptandevenadvocate a certainamountof coercionby the State, for example,to preventsex discrimination. In practice,in representative democracies,Statecoercion 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 principle 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 conditions 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 attitudes are too numerous to discuss here, but I think anyone familiar with the literature of the women's movement would agree that the attitudes are very strong and widespread among feminsts.20 If coercion of the majority is to be avoided, then changing consciousness is the immediate basis for feminist strategy. We must convince 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 question 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 oppression 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 conditions which perpetuate it inadequate. Furthermore, I am committed to ultimate goals that most liberal feminists would reject, especially ending 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 countries 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

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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 preventing 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 1006American women felt that the organizedmovement 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).

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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. Theproblem 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 Press. Scheman, Naomi. 1983. Individualism and the objects of psychology. 92

susan wendell 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 and freedom of expression. In Pornography and censorship, eds. David Copp and Susan Wendell. Buffalo: Prometheus. Wollstonecraft, Mary. [1833] 1967. A vindication of the rights of woman. New York: Norton.

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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 necessarytruth that we cannot directlyunderstandwhat others say which underlies such a project is exposed as a willful avoidance of the discourse of others typical of masculine styles of communication.

of language begins with the attempt to unify Philosophy to reduce to one formal reality, one logic, or one grammar, language, 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 determined 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.

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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" purposes of empathy and support, but in order to understand what men are saying. Only in this way, can feminist thought engage in conversation 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 arrangementof 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 perceiveddiversityof 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 diversityof "becoming" to the contemplation of essence (Plato Republic 518, c). Mathematics plays its traditional role in this achievement 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 reworked by linguists, phenomenologists, positivists. Perceptions of physical things, always relative, shifting, diverse, are not intelligibleor 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,universalgrammar, 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 structures 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 disregarded, 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 fixable, cannot in themselves be understood or studied without understandingthe specific conceptualizationthey 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 overriding 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 irregularities of poetry or metaphor. The confusion can never be completely cleared away. Logical form is always confounded by a bewildering array of "language games" which in their diversity and contradictions 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 "orthodox" discourse with poetry, patois, dialect. The intelligibilityof 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 meaningful 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 meaning 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 instinctive, 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 idiosyncrasy persists. Wittgenstein himself ponders this mysterious "personality" 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 insignificant 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 omniscience becomes only one identifiable style. The novelist, writing within the "stratification" of discourse, must take up a particularposition "amid the heteroglossia of (his) epoch" (Bakhtin 1981, 300). Furthermore, 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 punctuation of indirect speech and still a reader of an author like Dickens easily recognizes when a different character'sviewpoint is being ironically 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. Positioned, 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 universalobjective 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 uncritically. As instances I might mention: mind, matter, consciousness, knowledge, experience, causality, will, time. I believe all these notions to be inexact and approximate, 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 communicable 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 individual 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 structuresare 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 cannot 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 possible to infer that they see things as I do. Because sense-data are contingently 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 similarity 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 individuals. 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 arbitrarilydivided into a series of "histories," or preceptsmust be abandoned 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 measurementsof 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 objective 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 defend its claim to universality. It must show that the essential relations and structures it discovers are not peculiar to one individual, race, nationality, or culture. This must be done against the obvious fact of diversity 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 distortions inherentwithin any particularperspective. 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 intersubjective 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 immediately saw, that I, the philosophizing "ego," in taking myself as the functioning "I," as ego-pole of transcendental acts and accomplishments, proceeded in one leap and without grounding, that is, illegitimately, to attribute to the mankind in which I find myself the same transformation into functioning transcendental subjectivity 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 "contact with other human beings"; different people who see things in different 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 irreducibledisagreement, there is always "a unification," "brought about" or at least "certain 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 people, 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 con102

andrea nye stitute the world as the "world for all" (1970, 184). For this transcendental "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 unintelligibilityof others' speech becomes in the positivist's argument the absolute inaccessibility of other minds. No longer is it the contradictions in popular opinion that justify disregardingordinary 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 convenient provisio that he "could have been in their shoes" allows the positivist to substitute what he sees for what others are seeing. The scientist, 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. Ordinaryimpressions 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 information at conferences and have no interest in the views of "laymen."12 Husserl makes a similar commitment. The phenomenologist, remov103

hypatia ing himselffrom practicalexperienceto intuitessences,must claimto discoveran objectiveknowledge.Thatis to say, he mustclaimto speak for everyoneand not just for himself.Thosewho are "insane," "irrational," "primitive,""childish,"must not be allowedto confusethe orderlinessof thought.They mustbe understoodnot in termsof their own diverseand philosophicallyincoherentthought, but in terms of the philosopher'sunifiedthought.The "I" of interpersonallanguage, Husserlasserts,musttakeon a newmeaning:it mustdetachitself from the "yous" and "theys" of ordinarydiscourse.Then a languagecan be inventedthat will expressthe thoughtsof the "absolutelyunique, ultimatelyfunctioningego." In eachcaserejectionof the diversityof speechis a rejectionof others' speech.Others'speechis claimedto be unintelligibleandso replaceable by the articulatedunified speechof one authoritarianvoice, whether thatvoiceis of the Platonicschool,the phenomenologist's transcendental ego or the communityof scientists.In all these cases, the practical advantagesof a unifiedlanguagearedubious.Onceunified,or fossilized, in Platonicconceptualtrees, in transformationalgrammar,in the essences,or in the positivist'spropositionalcalculus, phenomenologist's not to performits functionas communicationor even is able language provide evidenceof what that might have been. The philosopherof Plato's dialoguescarrieson a monologuepunctuatedby the admiring assentof his students,but the dialoguetypicallyendson a note of confusion. The studentmay have been intimidatedby Plato's logic to assent, but at the sametime he has not givenup his commonsenseviews. He is shakenand unsure,but Plato's argumenthas givenhim nothing of substanceto substitutefor his naivebeliefs.The positivist'spropositionalcalculusbecomesthe computerprogram,but the printoutis only an artifact until corruptedby a translationinto human speech. The jargon of phenomenologyis unintelligibleto all but professional philosophersand can serve no useful purpose. In no case is there a revolutionin the way people talk, insteadan alternativeto talkingis proposedin the form of an alienatedexchangeaccessibleonly to a few initiates. Nor can the social value of a technicallanguagepurgedof idiosyncrasiesandambiguities,be a sufficientjustificationfor the philosopher's project. When, in a scientificdiscourseunified throughadherenceto modelof clarityandprecision,we achieveaccuracyand, a mathematical consequently, mastery over our terms and our practice, the pure mathematicsof the philosophercan supposedlybe translatedinto the formulaethat will improvehumanlife. At the same time, it is clear that sometechnologicalinnovationis an improvementovernaturalprocesses and some is not. Syntheticclothingthat binds the body is not 104

andrea nye better than cotton; automobiles are an inefficient means of mass transit; food additives cause disease, etc.'3 The mathematical formulae of science cannot express these practical problems, much less make commensurate the conflicting values of profit and public health, production and quality of life. A technical accounting of projected accident rates and costs of improvement of a dangerous product may, for example, 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 conceptual "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 discursive 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 communication, 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 understand what others feel or understand as uniquely their own. Direct communication 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 merchants 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 alternativeto the meaninglessness 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 antiSemitism, and on metaphysical theories of a master race. As meaningless, 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 singlemindedly 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 Circle, 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 reaffirmation of the rationality of western culture ignored this cacaphony. Instead, 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, philosphersbegin 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 existences 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 particularand contingent concerns. Such 106

andrea nye personalconcernscould neverbe expressedor understoodwhentheir names might mean one thing in one person'smouth, and anotherin another's,and whenjudgments,insteadof holdingstill, are retracted and revisedwith bewilderingspeed as we move from one situationto another.An artificialcommunicationmustbe devisedthat will fill the silence where was once the babble of tongues. Otherwise the philosopher'sisolationis intolerable.Onceit has beendecidedthat we beginfrom a solitudein whichwe will not hearwhatothersaresaying, will not allow their words to touch us or move us, and will not take from themtheirtaintedtalk, the projectof the unificationof language opens as the only way in which that solitude can be relieved. Again, the originalposition, that our thoughtsand feelingsare our possessionsand others'their's,establishesthe positionfrom whichrational order is constructedand defended. Once the groundingof discourseis so laid, anycommunication becomesa guardedcommunicain one which is mediated tion, by categoriesand structures openness that channelwhat is to be said into acceptableand bearableidioms. Whatis outsidestructure:"madness,""irrationality,""metaphysics," "childishness,""poetry,"can be legitimatelyignoredor repressed.By a "gentleman'sagreement,"by the establishmentof whatis "correct," the rules for how a thing is to be said successfullyrestrainwhat is to be said, so that no directconfrontationwithanother'sthoughtsor feelings is necessary.5 If Husserl(1970, 184) insistedthat he had neither"willfully" nor "by accident"cut himself off from the humanrace, it was because, for the transcendentalego, the "you's," "we's," "he's" that make up the humanraceno longerexisted.The assertionof the "necessity" of sucha "bracketing"coverthe complexattitudesthatmightmotivate a reductionof othersto "phenomena."The realmotivefor the ascent to the Platonic sun is not the necessarytruth that opinion is unintelligible,that the feelings of others are inaccessible,or that intersubjectivitycan only be achievedby unity, but must be placed back one logical step. The questionis not why, given our solitude,we want to escapeto some artificialparodyof communication,but why we are estrangedin the first place. Possiblereasonsfor such a refusalto hearothers, for such a blindnessto others'situations,arenot hardto reconstruct.To hearsomeone else may be painful and disturbingwhen it involves, as it often must, theiranxietyor anger,especiallywhenit is angeror anxietyfor which we may be responsible.It may also be disturbingin deeperways. To listen is to be in someone'spower. It is to be open to the changesthat hearingmay effect. And that can mean, from a defensiveperspective, a loss of self. Even another'sjoy may be threatening,if we take it as 107

hypatia revealingour own failureand deficiency.In each case historicalstudy may uncoverthe social settingsof such reasoning,and its expression in self-evidentphilosophicaltruth. Biographicaland psychologicalstudiesmay throw furtherlight on familial relations that shape a personalitymore comfortable with alienated separationthan with engagement. Such a withdrawalis discussedby Nancy Chodorow(1978) as one possible mode of preOedipaldevelopment.Theveryyoungchildmustdealwiththe difficult problemof the mother'sdisappearanceand return.This fearedrupture in the child's symbioticunity with the motherengendersfrustration and anxiety.The conflict can be resolvedin differentways. One way, typicalof the woman'sassumptionof identitywith the mother, involvesthe recognitionof the motheras an autonomoussubject,settingthe tone for continuingrelationshipsof mutualityand respect.The masculinereaction, informed by difference, is to gain distanceand autonomyby withdrawinginto a privateworldfromwhichhe canview the motheras a manipulatableor disposableobject.It is not surprising, given Chodorow's analysis of masculinepsychology, that official, authoritariandiscourseis dominatedby men; male dominationgoes deeperthan a consciousco-option of discourse,and can be linkedto conditionsunderwhich an infirmitygeneratedin the socio-psychological male personalityis formed. The possibility of both historical and psychological studies of philosophicaltheorizingsuggeststhat whatis claimedas philosophical necessityconstitutesinstead a differentkind of inevitability.It is inevitablethat a personalityovercomewithfearsof intimacyandengagement with otherswill attemptto constructa substitutediscourse.It is inevitablethatavoidanceof chaoticsocialconflictwillleadto theorizing divorcedfrom reality.At the sametime, the languagespokenby someone who has drawnbackfrom the wordsof othersinto reasonor logic must, like any other language,carrythe marksof its originalintention. Even in the pure authoritariantones of Platonic order, logical positivism, phenomenology,there is a certaintone of insecurity,of defensiveness,of retreatfrom the claimsand complaintsof others. In of ordinaryspeechthat the end it is the assertionof the unintelligibility is intelligible,as a certainkind of speech, as the complex, nuanced, interested,evenpassionate,expressionof a humanposition.Whenthe speech of philosophersis understoodin this way, the project of the unification of language appears in a new light as promptedby a previouslyundertakenalienation.The championof unity must find a new language,not becausethe old was unintelligiblebut becausehe has, at the very beginningof his project,determinednot to hearwhat otherssay. 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 essential 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 Conceptual 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 constantly 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

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hypatia like a hammeror a screwanda screwdriverwhichcan be usedby one person;andthere aretools like a steamshipwhichrequirethe cooperativeactivityof a numberof persons to use" (HillaryPutnam1978, 125).Moreoften it is madeclearthat philosophydoes not tell us "how certainsymbolsare actuallyused" or could be used in practicallife, but is insteada "logicalactivity." e.g., Ayer (1952, 70). 13. For otherexamplessee LewisMumford(1963, 52-53). 14.Cf. Husserl'scomment(1970,189):"Everyself-evidence is thetitleof a problem, withthe sole exceptionof phenomenologicalself-evidence,"withits familiarcombination of insightinto others'blindspots,and blindnessto one's own. 15.Thisencroachment canbe seenin theblurredandshiftinglinebetweengrammar and semantics.Grammar,as the scopeof selectionrestrictions,structuralsemantics,or generativesemanticsexpands,engulfssuccessivelywhat little is left of semanticsas a bruteintrusionof unintegratedcontentinto linguisticstructure.

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 abstractobjects. Oxford: Blackwell. Kramarae, Chris. 1981. Women and men speaking. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Mumford, Lewis. 1963. Technicsand civilization. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. Plato. 1961. The collected dialogues. Ed. Edith Hamilton and Hunt110

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.

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julien s. murphy The Look in Sartre and Rich Therelevanceof Sartre'stheoryof "thelook" for feministphilosophy is evaluatedthroughjuxtapositionof his analysis with images of women'soppressionin Rich'searlypoetry.A theoryof liberationthat recognizestheexistentialdimensionsof women'ssituationsis presented. Followingtracesof feministvisionin Rich'srecentworkchallengesthe categoryof "woman"whichlies at the root of the sexism.

Crucial to feministtheory is an understandingof the oppression we experienceas women in patriarchalsociety. The category "woman," whichdooms us to sexistoppression,is a category,which, none of us can entirelyescape. "Woman"is also a categorythat none of us can denyif we areto understandour livesin patriarchy.We make even the most liberatingof choices in the midst of sexist constraint. No matterhow we shape ourselves,we live in a society in which we are seen by others as women. The oppressionwe experienceis so ever presentthat any feminist theoryneedsclearand concreteinsightsinto its structure.As feminist philosophers,moreover,we are immersedin oppressioneven as we theorizeabout it. A phenomenologicalapproachto the natureof sexist oppressioncan revealthe lived situationby which the oppression of womenis maintainedthroughdailyactsthat manifestan oppressive kindof seeing.Enlighteningviewson the experienceof oppressioncan be found in the phenomenologicalwork, Being and Nothingnessby Jean Paul Sartre,especiallySartre'stheoryof "the look." Although Sartredoes not addresssexistoppressionandhas only the barestsketch of a theory of liberation,his theory of "the look" is integralto a feminist phenomenologicalanalysis of oppression and liberation. Withoutintendingto, Sartrehas providedus witha particularlyuseful descriptionof women'sexperienceof devaluationin a worldwheremen are dominant. The relevanceof Sartre'stheory of "the look" for feministphilosophywill be shownby juxtapositionof his analysiswith imagesof women'soppressionin the earlywork of a feministpoetAdrienneRich-tracking the developmentof women'sconsciousness througha phenomenological style.By movingthroughthe Sartreanlook Hypatiavol. 2, no. 2 (Summer1987). © By JulienS. Murphy.

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hypatla and beyondto imagesof liberatingvision amongwomenin Rich'srecent works, TheDreamof a CommonLanguage,A WildPatienceHas TakenMe ThisFar, and YourNativeLand, YourLife, we can develop an incisiveanalysisof the movementout of oppression:thatmovement in whichwe are not born women,mustrecognizeourselvesas women, and needbe womenno longer(Beauvoir1952,249;Wittig1981,47-54). Themovementbeyondoppressionrequiresneweyesfor the oppressor andthe oppressed.Sartre(1974,229)writesof the oppressor:"In order for the oppressorto get a clear view of an unjustifiablesituation, it is not enoughto look at it honestly,he must also changethe structure of his eyes." Sartre'sclaimthat the oppressormust "changethe structure of his eyes" implies that one must choose those actions which radicallydisruptthe presentsystemof judgingand call into question how one is to be in the future.Rich (1979, 35) writesof women'sproject as oppressed:"The act of looking-back,of seeingwith fresheyes, of enteringanothertextfroma newcriticaldirection-is for women-an act of survival."The act of examiningour lives anew is presentedby Richas centralto the realizationof our freedom.Yet, preciselybecause new ways of seeing are needed by both oppressorand oppresed,we find ourselvesin a problematicsituation:How can we "look back" with "fresheyes"whenevenour backwardglanceis shapedby the look of the oppressor?Feminismand feministphilosophyexist not outside, but in the midstof, patriarchy,givingriseto the perplexingdilemma: If we are seen as belonging to that group of individuals having "women'seyes," throughlooks that blind our vision in advanceand againstourwill, how canwe claimto see with "fresheyes?"Whatfresh views of ourselvescan we develop-without illusion-while existing within societieswhich assertemphaticallythat we are less than men?

I. Distance, Desire, and Destructionin "TheLook" Analysis of our oppressionin patriarchybegins with an examination of how we are seen as "women." Our awarenessof fallingunder the construct"woman" often occursin individualencountersin daily in demonstrating sociallife. Theworkof SartreandRichis instrumental the lived situationof the look, and the ways in whichthis oppressive kind of seeing effect a fundamentaldifferencein our existence.The movementof oppressionbeginswith the look of the oppressor,a look whosedistance,desire,and destructionframethe contextfor our lives. The look of the oppressoris, as MarilynFrye (1983, 66-72)points out, centeredaroundarrogance.Indeed,from a Sartreanperspective, the look of the other can rob us of our possibilities,alienateus from ourselvesand 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 devastatingthat it reduces us, at a glance, to powerlessness, to the status of a thing. The recognition 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 objects 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, experiences 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 competition, as illustrated by Sartre's all male examples of spy and warfare 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 (Sartre 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 objectification 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 postalclerks, 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 establishedby the looker in order to be saved from objectification. The looker creates distance by entering 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 directedtoward women. Rich (1975, 124) writes of the conjunctionof distanceand desire,"How manymen havetouchedme withtheireyes / morehotly than they later touched me with their lips." Distanceand desirecan worktogetherto reducewomenin the eyes of mento objectsfor violation. In a discussionof desire, Sartre(1953, 258) writesof desirefor women much in the way that one would desirean inanimateobject. He can "desirea womanin the world,standingneara table,lyingnaked on a bed, or seatedat my side." Eventhe mostcasualinstanceof desire assumesthe violationof womenin Sartre'swork.He writesof "absentmindeddesire," by referencingwhen one "undressesa woman with his look." Sucha metaphorsuggestsactionat a distance-undressing a woman with one's eyes-reflects the presumedall-encompassing power of the oppressor'sgaze. The alienationthat the looked at experiencesthroughthe desireof the looker is found in the poetryof Rich (1975, 227): "I am tryingto imaginehow it feels to you / to want a woman/ tryingto hallucinate desirecenteredin a cock / focusedlike a burningglass, desirewithout discrimination:to want a woman like a fix." The destructivenatureof the look lies in its capacityto annihilate the freedomof the individualwho is looked at. The desireof the look is inevitablylinked to an act of destruction.Sartre(1953, 756, 757) claimsthat the desiringlook alwaysseeksthe destructionof its object. In the suddennessof the look, "I experiencea subtlealienationof all of my possibilities(Sartre1953, 258). Rich (1975, 186) states, "You look at me like an emergency."To be seen as an "emergency,"is to experienceoneself in the look of anotheras a thing to be controlled, stopped,extinguished.The destructiveaspectof oppressiveseeingconstitutesa viewof womenthatpresupposesourextinctionas autonomous beingsand disconnectsus from an arrayof possibilitieswe fashionfor ourselves.The look directedtowardwomenwithinpatriarchydistances womenfrompositionsof power,focuseson womenas objectsof male sexual desire, and seeks the destructionof women as free subjects.

II. The Eyes of the Group Whenthe look is analyzedin termsof groupsof individualsof unequalpowerthe complexityof the movementout of oppressionbecomes evident. Collectiveawarenessof a sharedsocial situationbringswith it a shift in perceptionsuch that the group looked at need no longer view itself underthe guise of limitingsocial constructs.Our recognition of the look of oppressiveseeingis accompaniedby the possibility that we need not be women, that our eyes need not be shapedby 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 manipulation 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 circumstancesand 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 individuals seen as "women" becomes an Us-object in which each member of the Us-object shares in common the awarenessof being looked 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 outside 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 outward, 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 primarily through the eyes of the others. In bad faith, we may attempt to ignore the historical and political context of the constructs created by the Third. We may even deny the restriction of choice that such constructs impose on our lives. Or we can reject the constructs entirely and avoid bad faith by authenticallyclaiming responsibilityfor 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 meaningless. Any attempt to disassociate ourselves from our historical situation 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 being seen as "women." It is only from acting within our historical situation, 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 circumstances. 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 committment 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 vampires, / 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 situa118

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 increasingly 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.FeministVision 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 patriarchalgaze. 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 oppressor. 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 "Phantasia 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 climbing, 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 assemble 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 stretcheslanguage across these barrierstrying 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 somewherejust outside theframe / of all this, trying to see. " The family differences between women emerge in the distance between a daughterin-law and her mother-in-law in "Mother-in-Law" (1981a, 31), with the mother-in-law asking "tell me something true, " and the daughterin-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 GreenglassRosenberg 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 friendships 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 differences 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 consciousness 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 patriarchymoves us to new ground. As Rich (1978, 75) writes, "No one who survives to speak / new language, has avoided 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 requiredto 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 situations. 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'sVoice 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 becoming / 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 liberation by thinking through connections common to diverse forms of oppressions, interweavingsexism, racism, heterosexism, anti-semitisminto 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 suffering, 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 cannot 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 confront "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

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notes Mythanksto JeffnerAllenfor herinsightfulcommentson earlierdraftsof thispaper.

references Beauvoir,Simone de. 1952. The second sex. Trans. H.M. Parshley. New York: Bantam. Frye, Marilyn.1983. In and out of harm'sway: Arroganceand love. In Thepolitics of reality:Essaysinfeminist theory.Trumansburg, New York: The CrossingPress. Rich,Adrienne.1975.Poems:Selectedand new, 1950-1974.New York: Norton. 1978. Thedreamof a commonlanguage.New York:Norton. . 1979. On lies, secretsand silence. New York: Norton. --. 1981a.A wildpatiencehas takenme thisfar, 1978-1981.New York: Norton. -. 1981b. Notes for a magazine:What does separatismmean? Sinister Wisdom18:90. 1986. Yournative land, your life. New York: Norton. ----. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1953. Being and nothingness. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: WashingtonSquarePress. .1974. The Writingsof Jean-PaulSartre,Vol 1. Trans.Richard C. McLeary;eds. MichelConat and MichelRybalka.Evanston, Illinois: NorthwesternUniversityPress. Wittig, Monique. 1981. One is not born a woman. FeministIssues 1 (2): 47-54.

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h.e. baber How Bad Is Rape? I arguethat to be compelledto do routinework is to be gravely harmed.Indeed,thatpink-collarworkis a moreseriousharmto women than rape. My purpose is to urge politically active feminists and feminist organizationsto arrangetheirprioritiesaccordinglyand devotemost of theirresourcesto workingfor the eliminationof sex segregationin employment.

R ape is bad. Thisis uncontroversial.'It is one of the manywrongs committedagainstwomen.Buthow badis rape,moreparticularly,how bad is it vis-a-visothergender-basedoffenses?I shallarguethat while rapeis very bad indeed,the workthat most womenemployedoutside the homearecompelledto do is moreseriouslyharmfulinsofaras doing suchworkdamagesthe most fundamentalinterestsof the victim,what Joel Feinbergcalls"welfareinterests,"whereasrapetypicallydoesnot.2 It may be suggestedthat the very questionof which of these evils is the more seriousis misconceivedinsofar as the harmsthey induce are so differentin characteras to be incommensurable.Nevertheless, for practicalpurposeswe areoften obligedto weighinterestsin diverse goods againstone anotherand to compareharmswhichare very differentin nature.Feinberg'saccountof how we may assessthe relative seriousnessof variousharms,in Harmto Others(1984)andelsewhere, providesa rationalbasis for such comparisonsand for my consideration of the relativeseriousnessof rapeand work. In addition,my comparisonof theseharmsbringsto lighta lacunain Feinberg'sdiscussion which I proposeto fill by providingan accountof the way in which the durationof a harmedstate contributesto its seriousness. WhyRape is Bad Rape is bad becauseit constitutesa seriousharmto the victim. To harma personis to thwart,set back or otherwiseinterferewith his interests. Understoodin this sense, "harm" is not synonymouswith "hurt." We typicallyhave an interestin avoidingchronic,distracting Hypatiavol. 2, no. 2 (Summer1987). © by H.E. Baber.

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hypatia physicalpainandpsychicanguishinsofaras we requirea certaindegree of physicalandemotionalwell-beingto pursueourprojects,hencehurts areoften harmful(e.g. rootcanalwork).Arguably,therearealso harms whichare not hurtful.Ourinterestsextendto statesof affairsbeyond immediateexperience.I have an interest,for example,in my reputation so that if I am slanderedI am harmedeven if I am altogether unawareof whatis beingsaid aboutme. Namescan neverhurtme but they can, even withoutmy knowledge,harmme insofar as I have an interestin others'thinkingwellof me. Harmsarethusto be understood in termsof the interestsor stakesthat personshavein statesof affairs. Virtuallyeveryonehas an interestin avoidinginvoluntarycontact with others, particularlyunwantedcontactswhich are intimateor invasive. Being rapedviolatesthis interesthence, quite apart from any furtherconsequencesit may have for the victimor for others, it constitutesa harm. In addition,peoplehave an interestin not beingused as meremeans for the benefit of others, an interestwhichis violated by rape. Finally, all personscan be presumedto have an interestin going about their businessfree of restrictionand interference.Rape, like othercrimesof violence,thwartsthis interest.Sincerapesets back some of the victim'smost importantinterests,the victimof rapeis in a harmedcondition. Furthermore,the conditionof being raped is a harmfulcondition as well as a harmedconditioninsofaras it has a tendencyto generate furtherharms-anxiety, feelingsof degradationandotherpsychological stateswhichmay interferewith the victim'spursuitof otherprojects. In these respectsrape is no different from other violent crimes. The victim of assaultor robberyis violated and this in and of itself constitutesa harm. In addition, being assaultedor robbedis harmfulinsofar as victimsof assaultand robberytend to suffer from fears and psychologicaltraumasas a resultof theirexperiencewhichmayinterfere with their pursuitof other projects. Now thereis a tendencyto exaggeratethe harmfulnessof rape, that psychologicaltraumasthatsome is, to makemuchof the incapacitating of suffer as a result victims being raped. One motive for such claims is the recognitionthat the harmof rapeper se is often underestimated and hence that, in some quarters,rape is not taken as seriouslyas it oughtto be taken. Rapehas not beentreatedin the sameway as other crimesof violence.A person,whethermaleor female, who is mugged is not asked to produce witnesses,to provide evidence of his good characteror displaybodilyinjuriesas evidenceof his unwillingnessto surrenderhis walletto his assailant.In the past, however,the burden of proof has been placed wrongfullyon the victims of rape to show theirrespectabilityand theirunwillingness,the assumptionbeingthat 126

h.e. baber (heterosexual) rape is merely a sexual act rather than an act of violence and that sex acts can be presumedto be desiredby the participantsunless 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 activity 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 victims 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 RelativeSeriousness 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 interests and our assumption that a person's interests extend beyond immediate 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 impededregardlessof whetherhe suffers as a consequence.Persons have an interestin liberty, for example, and are harmedwhen deprivedof libertyevenif they do notfeel frustratedas a consequence. The advice of stoics has a hollow ring and projectsfor "adjusting" peopleto severelyrestrictiveconditionsstrikemostof us as unacceptable preciselybecausewe recognizethat even if self-cultivationor conditioning can preventus from being hurt or feeling frustratedby the thwartingof our most fundamentalinterests,suchpracticescannotprevent us from being harmed. Intuitively,the seriousnessof a harm is determinedby the importance of the interestwhich is violated within the networkof the victim's interests. Some interestsare more importantthan othersin the sensethatharmto themis likelyto leadto greaterdamage to the whole economy of personal(or as the case may be, community)intereststhanharmto the lesserinterest will do, just as harmto one's heartor brainwill do more damageto one's bodily healththan an "equal degree" of harmto less vital organs.Thus, the interestof a standardpersonin X maybe moreimportantthanhis interest in Y in that it is, in an analogoussense, more "vital" in his whole interestnetworkthan is his interestin Y. A person'swelfareintereststend to be his most vital ones, and also to be equallyvital. (Feinberg1984, 204-5) A person's "welfareinterests"are those which are typicallymost vital in a personalsystemof interests,e.g. interestsin minimallydecent healthandthe absenceof chronicdistractingpain, a tolerableenvironment,economic sufficiency,emotionalstability,the absenceof intolerablestressand minimalpoliticalliberty-all those thingswhich are requiredfor the "standardperson"to pursueany furtherprojects effectively. These are interests in conditions that are generalized meansto a greatvarietyof possiblegoalsandwhosejoint realization,in the absenceof veryspecialcircumstances, is necessaryfor the achievementof more ultimateaims. ... Whenthey areblockedor damaged,a personis very seriously harmed indeed, for in that case his more ultimateaspirationsare defeatedtoo; whereassetbacks to a highergoal do not to the samedegreeinflictdamage on the wholenetworkof his interests.(Feinberg1984,37) Threepoints shouldbe noted here. First, we decidewhichinterests 128

h.e. baber are to count as welfare interestsby reflectingupon the needs and capacitiesof the "standardperson." Some people indeed are more capablethanthe standardperson-and we haveall heardtheirinspirational storiesad nausaum.The standardpersonhowevercannotbe expected to producesaleablepaintingswith a brush held in his mouth if paralyzednorcanthe standardpersonbe expectedto overcomegrinding povertyand grossdiscriminationto achievebrilliantsuccessat the very pinnacleof the corporateladder. Secondly,welfareinterestsareinterestsin havingminimallytolerable amountsof good things,just enoughto enabletheirpossessorto pursue his ulteriorinterests.Empiricalquestionsmay be raisedas to what sort of environmentis "tolerable"to the standardperson,whatdegree of politicallibertyhe needsto pursuehis goals and how muchmaterial securityhe requires.Neverthelessa personwho lives underconditions of extremepolitical oppression,who ever fears the midnightvisit of the secretpolice,or one who spendsmostof histimeandenergyscratching to maintainthe minimalmaterialconditionsfor survivalis effectively blocked from pursuingother ends. Now personshavean interestin havingmoreof goods suchas health, money and politicallibertythan they requirefor the pursuitof their ulteriorinterestssincesuchsurplusgoods area cushionagainstunforeseen reverses.In hardtimes, a middleclass familymay have to cut its entertainmentand clothing budget-a workingclass family however may be reducedto chill penurywhilethe trulypoor are forcedout on to the street.Neverthelessthe interestin havingmoney, healthand the like in excessof the tolerableminimumis not itself a welfareinterest. Finally it should be noted that "welfareinterests,taken together, makea chainthat is no strongerthanits weakestlink." Thereare few, if any tradeoffspossibleamongwelfareinterests:an excessof one good cannotcompensatefor the lackof a minimallytolerablelevelof another. "All the moneyin the worldwon't helpyou if you havea fatal disease, and greatphysicalstrengthwill not compensatefor destitutionor imprisonment" (Feinberg 1984, 57)-nor, one might add, will fringe benefits,companypicnics,impressivetitles or even high pay compensate for dull, demeaningwork in an all but intolerableenvironment. The greatestharmswhichcan come to personsare those which affect theirmost vitalinterests.To maimor cripplea personis to do him a greatharminsofaras one's interestin physicalhealthis a very vital interest,indeed, a welfareinterest. Stealinga sum of money from a rich man is less harmfulthan stealingthe same sum of money from a pauperinsofar as deprivinga person of his means of survivalsets back a welfareinterestwhereasdepletinghis excess funds does not. Now in lightof theseconsiderationsit shouldbe 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 pursue 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 interest 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 severelytraumatized that they incur long-term, severe psychological injury and are rendered incapable of pursuing other projects. For the standard person however, for whom sexuality is a peripheral matter on which relativelylittle hangs,3being 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 permanentlyincapacitated 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,interestsand 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 innumerable projects and plans for the future. Intuitively death is always a bad thing, though it is disputed whether it is a harm, but clearly untimely 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 personis enslaved.He is treatedas a meretool for the pursuit of his master'sprojectsand deprivedof the time and resourcesto pursue his own. Each of these misfortunesis worsethan rape. And the list could be continued. Notice that all of the harmedconditionsdescribedare not merely painfulor traumaticbutchronicratherthanepisodic.Theyoccupylarge chunksof persons'histories-or, in the caseof untimelydeath,actually obliteratelargesegmentsof theirprojectedhistories.To thisextentsuch harmedconditionsinterferemore with the pursuitof other projects which are conduciveto persons' well-beingthan does rape. Now it is not entirelyclearfrom Feinberg'sdiscussionhow the temporal extent of harms figure into calculations of their relative seriousness. Feinberg (1984, 45ff.) suggests that transitory hurts, whetherphysicalor mental,do not harmthe interestsof the standard person, for whom the absence of pain is not a focal aim, whereas chronic, distractingpain and emotionalinstabilityset back persons' most vital interestsinsofaras they precludethem from pursuingtheir goals and projects. Nevertheless, intense pain, however transitory, may be allencompassingand completelydistractingfor the extentof its duration. It is not entirelyclearfrom Feinberg'sdiscussionhoweverwhy, given his account of interestsand harms, we should not be forced to concludethat some transitoryhurtsare harmsnot becausethey violatean interestin not being hurt but becausethey precludethe victim from pursuingother interests,albeit for a very short time. Indeed,it is not clear why we should not be compelledto regardsome very transitory pains, traumasand inconveniencesas set-backsto welfareinterests.If we agreethatbeingimprisonedfor a numberof yearsimpedesa welfare interestinsofaras it precludesthe prisonerfrom pursuinghis ulterior interestswhile imprisoned,why should we not say that being locked in the bathroomfor twentyminutesis a harmof equal, if not greater magnitude,though of shorterduration?After all, whilelocked in the bathroom,I am, if anything,in a worsepositionto pursuemy ulterior intereststhan I should be if I were in prison. Intuitivelyhoweverthe durationof a harmedstate figuresimportantlyin assessmentsof its seriousness.Beinglockedin the bathroom for twentyminutesis not, we think, a greatharmof shortduration-it is simply a trivialharminsofar as it makes no significantdifference to the victim'stotal life plan. Being imprisonedfor severalyears, on the contrary, does make an important difference to the victim's biography:all otherthingsbeingequalit precludeshim from realizing a great numberof aims that he should otherwisehave 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

largechunkof his life has been blankedout and most likely his total life history will be poorer for it. Imprisonmentimpedesa welfareinterestinsofar as it deprivesthe prisonerof the minimalamountof libertyrequisitefor the pursuitof a greatmanyof his ulteriorinterests.Furthermore,the deprivationof libertyimposeduponthe prisoner,like otherharmsto welfareinterests, cannot be truly compensatedby an abundanceof other goods. Even the lavishbanquetsand luxuriousaccommodationsimaginedby selfproclaimedadvocatesof law and order who deplorethe "soft treatment" of offenders could not compensatefor the restrictionof individuallibertyimposedupon prisoners.Furthermore,benefits conferredafterthe prisoner'sreleasecannottrulycompensatehim either. A personwho hasbeenfalselyimprisonedmaybe "compensated"after a fashionwitha monetarysettlementbut we all recognizethatthis does not really set things right: he has, after all, lost that many years off of his life andas a consequencehe willneverachievea greatmanythings that he would otherwisehave achieved. We mightcaptureour intuitionsabout the role that the durationof theirseriousnessin the followingway: harmedstatesplayin determining Typically,people's focal aims are, as it were, timeless.Some people, indeed, may have the ambitionto accomplishcertainfeats at certain times of their lives, e.g. to make a million by age thirty, but in most cases the objects of our desiresare not temporallytaggedand timing is not, in the strictsense, essentialto theirrealization.I can no longer though I still can make a million. Of make-a-million-by-age-thirty courseI would preferto have the millionsoonerratherthan later. If, however,my aim is merelyto make a million at some time or other I can afford to sit tight. Though the circumstances that prevail at some

timesmaybe moreconduciveto the achievementof my goal thanthose whichprevailat othertimes, it is not essentialto the realizationof my ambitionthat it occur at any specialtime. My aim is not essentially time-bound. Becausemost of persons' focal aims are not time-bound,persons by and largecan afford to sit tight. Barringthe occasionalMan from Porlock, our interestsare not seriouslyset backby transitorypainsor otherrelativelyshort-liveddistractions.A momentarytwingemayprevent me from startingto writemy paperat 12:05.No matter:I shall startit at 12:06,and the delayis unlikelyto haveany significanteffect on my total opus. My interestis in producinga certainbody of work duringmy lifetimeand this interestis sufficientlyrobustto withstand a good many temporaryset-backs.Nevertheless,while most people's 132

h.e. baber interestsare relativelyrobust,insofaras they arenot time-bound,they are not impregnable.Long-termor chronicdistractionscan seriously impedeeventhose interestswhicharenot time-bound.If I suffer from chronic,distractingpainor emotionalinstabilityfor a numberof years I may neverwrite my paperor realizemany of my other ambitions. Art is long but life, alas, is short. Now when it comes to assessingthe relativeseriousnessof various harmswe considerthemwithrespectto theirtendencyto interferewith our typically"timeless"aims. The most seriousharmsarethose which interferewiththe greatestnumberof interestsfor the longesttime,those whicharemost likelyto preventus fromeverachievingour goals. The greatestharms,those whichdamagewelfareinterests,therefore,bring about harmedstates which are chronicratherthan episodic.

Workingis worse than being raped On this accountbeing obligedto work is, for many people, a very seriousharmindeedinsofaras workis chronic:it occupiesa largepart of the worker'swakinglife for a long time.Forthe fortunatefew, work in and of itself contributesto the worker's well-being. For many workers,however,work providesfew satisfactions.For the least fortunate,whosejobs aredull, routineand regimented,workprovidesno satisfactionswhatsoeverand the time devotedto work preventsthem from pursuingany other projectswhich might be conduciveto their well-being. As a matterof fact womenfiguredisproportionately thoughnot exclusivelyin this group. Discriminationis not only unfair-and this in itself constitutesa harm-it is harmfulinsofar as many women as a result of discriminatoryemploymentpracticesare compelledto take very unpleasant,underpaid,dead-endjobs and, as a consequence,to spend a substantialpart of their wakinglives at tedious, regimented, mind-killingtoil. A greatmanymen haveequallyappallingjobs. I suggest howeverthat anyone,whethermaleor female,who spendsa good deal of time at suchworkis in a moreseriouslyharmedstatethan one who is raped. Women howeverhave an additionalgrievanceinsofar as suchjobs fall disproportionately to themas a consequenceof unfair employmentpractices. A few hoursor evena weekof typingstatisticsor operatinga switchboard, howeverunpleasant,may not be seriouslyharmful.For most women in the workforce, however, such unpleasantnessoccupies a substantialpartof theirwakinghoursfor years.Currentlymostwomen can look forwardto spendingthe greaterpart of theiradultlives typing, hash-slinging,cashieringor assemblingsmall fiddlymechanisms. 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 cannot 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 pursuit 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 deprivesthe 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 important 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 emotionally 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 integrityas intellectualbeings. 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. Secondly, while rapists clearly harm their victims it is not so clear that employers, particularly if they have not engaged in unfair hiring practices, 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 havenot arguedthat beingcompelledto do unpleasantwork is a wrongbut only that it is a harm, and a graveone. To be harmed is not necessarilyto be wronged,nor do personshave a rightabsolute not to be harmedin any way. It may be, in some cases, that the advancementof the interestsof others outweighsthe harm that comes to the victimso that, on balance,the harmto the victimdoes not constitutean injusticeor a wrong.As consumers,all of us, menandwomen alike, havean interestin retainingwomenas a sourceof cheapclerical and servicework. It may be that, on balance, this outweighsthe interestof women as potentialworkersin not being exploited-though I doubt it. If this is so then the exploitationof women in these positions is not a wrong. It is, nevertheless,a harm. Secondly,on Feinberg'saccount,naturaldisasters-and not merely personswho omit to aid victims-cause great harm. More generally, to be in a harmedstate is not necessarilyto be harmedby some moral agent. To suggestthat workersare seriouslyharmedby the workthey do is not to say thattheiremployersareharmingthem. Indeed,it seems that most supervisors,managersand ownersof businessesare rather like carriersof harmfuldiseases:they are causallyresponsiblefor persons' comingto harm, but we should not want to say that they harm anyone. Thirdly,mostwomenin the pink-collarsectorarecompelledto work: the myththat most womenenterthe workforceto get out of the house and make pin money has long been exploded. Now intuitionsabout whatconstitutescoerciondiffer radically.Some suggest,for example, that a woman who cannot display bruisesor wounds as evidenceof a desperatestrugglehas not really been forced to have sex with her assailant.I howevergo withthe commonsensicalmeaningof coercion, withoutpretendingto knowthe analysis.Onthis accounta womanwith a knife to her throat is forced to engage in sexual intercourseand a woman with no other adequatemeansof supportfor herselfand her familyis forcedto work.An exceptionalpersonindeedmaypullherself up by the bootstraps;the standardperson howevercannot. Fourthly, a growing sociological literature on women in the workforce,observation,and personalexperienceall suggestthat the work most women do is every bit as harmfulas I have suggested.A "phenomenology"of womensworkis beyondthe scope of this paper, and beyondmy competenceas an analyticphilosopher.Evenif I should succeedin conveyingthe dull miseryof the workingday, the stressat other times, knowingthat anotherday of work is gettingcloser, and beyondthis, the knowledgethat thereis no way out, it would not be entirelyto the point. As Feinbergnotes, except for Epicureans,for whom the absenceof pain is a focal aim, neitherphysicalpain nor 135

hypatla psychicanguishis in and of itself a harm:they are harmsonly insofar as they impedethe agent's interests.It is not the miseryof working per se but the extent to which most work precludesone's pursuitof other ends whichmakeswork the graveharmthat it is. Even if many workersavoid the hurt, all endurethe harminsofar as their interests are impededand their lives are impoverished. Finally,I recognizethat manymenareforcedto do demeaning,dull, often dangerouswork. Again, this is hardlya criticismof my case. I grant that men are harmedin the most seriousway by being forced into such drudgery.My suggestionis merelythat a person, whether male or female, who spendsa good deal of time doing such work is in a more seriouslyharmedstate than one who is raped.Rape is bad, indeed, very bad. But being a keypunchoperatoris worse. I recognizethat this conclusionwill be met withconsiderablehostility. Beyond the harmthat rapistsinflict upon their victims, rape is a powerfulsymbol of the oppressionwomen suffer and thus naturally arousesthe wrathandindignationof virtuallyall womenwho areaware of their situation.Still, to the vast numbersof singleparentswho are unableto providea minimallydecentstandardof livingfor theirfamilies on the wages paid for "women's work," to all women who do pink collarwork, and to all who recognizethat they are in dangerof being compelledto take such work-and virtuallyall of us are in dangerthe shift of emphasisby some feministorganizationsfrom activities gearedto end sex discriminationin employmentto a range of other projectsis extremelyirritating.

WhyRapeis Consideredthe SupremeEvil-a postscript In light of the fact (whichshouldbe apparentto all reasonablepeople) that spendingthe betterpartof one's wakinghoursover a period of yearsat boring, regimentedwork is worsethan beingthe victimof violent crime,one wonderswhy it is so often assumedthat rapeis the supremeevil. Two conjecturescome to mind. First, it is generallyassumedthat women are largelyincapableof dealingwith dangeror physicalviolence.Sincerapeis a crimeagainst womenprimarily,giventhis assumption,it wouldfollowthatmostrape victimswouldbe moretraumatizedthanvictimsof otherviolentcrimes. This is an insult to women:it is incumbentupon us to show that we are as macho as anyone! Secondly, women are traditionallyviewed primarilyin connection with concernswhich centeraroundtheir sexuality-in terms of their rolesas lovers,wivesandmothers.Becausewomenareseenin thisway, it is commonlyassumedthat they have a greaterstakein matterscon136

h.e. baber cerningsexualityin the broadestsensethan do men. So, for example, all issuesconcerningreproductionarethoughtof as "women'sissues" despitethe recognitionby all but the most primitivepeoplesthat men play an essentialrole in the reproductiveprocess. Indeed, it is often assumedthat womenhavemoreof a stakein sexualmattersthan they do in any other concerns. Giventhese assumptionsit would follow that any violationof sexual integritywould be extremelyharmfulto women. Arguablyif rape is consideredamongthe gravestof harmsit is largelybecausewomen are regardedas beings whose welfareis tied up most intimatelywith sexualconcernsand relationships,personsto whomothermatters,such as intellectualstimulationand professionalachievement,are relatively peripheral. Most women take strong exceptionto being regardedas "sex objects." Whatis often thoughtto be objectionableaboutthis role is the suggestionof passivity,the implicationthat one is an object whichis used for sexual purposesratherthan a subject of sexual experience. But thereis somethingeven more objectionableabout the idea of being a "sex object," namelythe suggestionthat one is primarilya sexual being, a person whose most importantinterestsare connectedto the genital area and the reproductivesystem and with roles that are tied up with one's sexuality. I suggestthat the primaryreasonwhy rapeis regardedas one of the most seriousharmsthatcan befalla womanis preciselybecausewomen areregardedas sex objects,beingswho havelittleof valuebeyondtheir sexuality.FurtherI suggestthat womenwho wouldregardbeingraped as the supremeviolationand humiliationareimplicitlybuyinginto this view. If these are indeedthe reasonswhy rapeis seen as supremelyharmful to women, as I suggestthey are, then it follows that the suggestion that rape is the worst harmthat can befall a womanis a consequence of sexistassumptionsaboutthe characterandinterestsof women.Rape, like all other crimesof violence, constitutesa seriousharmto the victim. Nevertheless,I havesuggestedthat to considerit the most serious of all harmsis no less sexist than to considerit no harm at all.

notes 1. Everyone agreesthat rape is bad. The controversyconcerns the criteriafor counting an act as an instance of rape in the first place, including the relevance of the victim's

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hypatia prior sexual conduct, and the trustworthiness of victims' testimony. The recent reopening 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 confusing 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 particular, 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 disingenuous 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 primarilywith matters which are quite separate and not much affected by sexual activities, whether voluntary or involuntary. 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. Imagine, 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 circumstances 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.

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comment/reply luisa muraro On Conflicts and Differences Among Women JanaSawickiusesthe workand methodsof Foucaultto explorethe possibilityof a politicsof difference.I arguethat Foucaultmay help us overcomesome formsof dogmatisminheritedfrommen'spolitical philosophyof the past, but Foucaultis otherwiseuseless, or worse: misleading.BecauseSawickipresentsa politics of diversityamong womenregardlessof, and independentfrom, a politicsof sexualdifference,I believeFoucaultis misleading.

1 .Jana Sawicki'scontribution,"Foucault and Feminism: Towarda Politicsof Difference"(1986),illustratesthe advantagesand the disadvantagesa woman may expect when using ideas elaborated by men to reason about herself and the world. Likemyselfandotherwomen,JanaSawickicallsfor politicsin which the diversityamongwomenwouldnot hinderus, but, on the contrary, would be a sourcefor creativechange.She turnsto Foucaultin order to lay out "the basicfeaturesof a politicsof difference."She then applies the resultsof her researchto a matterthat divides feministsin the United States. Accordingto Sawicki,we can use Foucault'swork to our own purpose, despite the androcentrismof his writings. I can see one advantageof Sawicki'sreferringto Foucault:she finds in his writingsthe theoreticalmeansto fight the dogmatismthat some feministpositionshaveassimilatedfromthe politicalandphilosophical tradition. There is no doubt that a woman who reads Foucaultwill reasonabout powerin a muchmore sophisticatedway than a woman who has only Marx or Locke in mind. However, I think the advantages stop there. Foucaultcan free us from old dogmaticideas. However,the problem we havedoesn'tstem from old dogmaticideas. It stemsfromthe fact that we lack a social form for our relationships.In fact, the relationshipsbetweenwomen in patriarchalsocietieshave been ruled by an externalauthority-a man's authority.

Hypatiavol. 2, no. 2 (Summer1987). © By Luisa Muraro.

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hypatla The disadvantageof usingFoucaultfor a politicsof differenceis obviouswhenSawickiarrivesat a politicswheredifferencesamongwomen are consideredwithout referenceto sexual difference. We know that only a politics of sexualdifferencegives or can give meaningto our diversities;otherwise,the differencesamongwomen, white or women of color, old or young, educatedor not, only result from men's desires. If this is true, and our historytells us it is, then the first thing requiredfrom us by the conflictsborn from diversityamong women is that we proceed furtherahead in sexual differencepolitics. Here Foucaultis of no use whatsoever:he may even be misleading. In this, I agreewith Rosi Braidotti(1985)and Rada Ivekovic(1986). The philosopherswho thought about differencehave no thought on sexual difference. Whenreasoningon societyandits radicaltransformations,Foucault takes into accountrelationsbetweenmen and men, betweenmen and women, but not the relations between women and women. These, however,are our main sourcesof knowledgeand strengthwith which to changesociety. The questionis not androcentrism,but how to proceed in order to know the given reality. 2. JanaSawickiwantsto illustratethe valueand also the limitations of Foucault'spoliticsof difference.Herillustrationof its valueis clear, whilethatof its limitationsis not. Shewritesthata politicsof difference among women "need not lapse into a form of pluralismin which anythinggoes" (p. 35). All right,but:is it herethat she sees his limitation and then moves away from Foucault? If so, the real dangerSawickipoints out, the dangerof lapsinginto a meaninglessfeministpluralism,doesn'tdependon an intrinsiclimitation of Foucault'swork. It dependson the use she intendsto make of such work. Sawickialso writes:"in a feministpoliticsof difference,theoryand moraljudgements would be geared to specific contexts" (emphasis mine). Here we are far from Foucaultwhose thought does not take moraljudgementsinto account.Couldthis be his limitation?Is reasoning withoutresortingto moraljudgementsa limitation?It isn't to me. I cannot think of a way of adaptingFoucaultto the problemthat Sawicki,like myself and otherwomen, is tackling.The fact that there areconflictsamongwomen,had Foucaultbeenawareof it, wasneither a problemto him, nor a possible means to change anything. ThereforeSawicki'sattemptto use Foucaultin orderto solve the problemof differenceamongwomen,inevitablyresultsin hernow making this problemin Foucault'sthought commonplace. 140

luisa muraro 3. If we want our diversitiesto becomea sourceof creativechange, we must go ahead, we must bore deeperinto the politics of sexual difference. We will furtherthispolitics,at the levelof practiceandtheory,when social relationshipsbetweenwomenhave "a dimensionof verticality" (this expression,but not the idea, I found in Simone Weil). The dimensionof horizontality,madepossibleby feminism,allowed us to appreciateour belongingto the femininegenderin the forms of sisterhood,of togetherness,of solidarity,etc. Verticalitywill enable us to find in the femininegenderthe sourceof our humanvalue and a measurefor what we are as individualsas well. Both thesedimensionsarenecessaryfor a socialexistenceof the sexual difference. The feminine difference does not exist if a woman doesn'tthinkherselfas descendingfroma femininebeginning,whatever the meansthroughwhichthis relationshipis signified.But it has to be signified. In the relationshipsbetweenwomen, the dimensionof verticalityis still weakor lacking.Thereforeour politicsof differenceis also weak. WhenSawickirefersto Foucaultin orderto elaboratethoughtsof her own and to tacklea problemof women'spolitics,she endowshim withgreatauthority.The referenceto an authoris not a neutralaction. The sex of the personwho makesthe referenceand the sex of the person referredto link togetherand producea meaningfulcombination which bears on the text and its purport. A woman, Jana Sawicki, referringto a man, MichelFoucault, in orderto solve a problemconcerningrelationshipsbetweenwomen,indirectlytells about the lack of social authorityof the feminineorigin and, therefore,about the weaknessof a politicsof sexualdifference.

references Braidotti,Rosi. 1985. Modellidi dissonanza:donne e/in filosofia. In Le donne e i segni, ed. PatriziaMagli. Urbino (Italia):II lavoro editoriale. Ivekovic, Rada. 1986. Destin du sujet dit "faible" et critique du "devenirfemme." Zagreb(Yugoslavia):manuscript. Sawicki,Jana. 1986.FoucaultandFeminism:Towarda politicsof difference. Hypatia 1 (2): 23-36.

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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 currentlyexist 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 reconsideration 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 concerningwomen'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 demanded (and still demands) reproductive rights, an end to sexual objectification 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 separatedisciplinein 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.

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hypatla HarryBrod, in "The New Men's Studies,"believes"men's studies is essentialto fulfillingthe feministprojectwhich underlieswomen's studies, and that feminist scholarshipcannot reach its fullest, most radicalpotentialwithout the additionof men's studies." This is an importantclaim whichneeds to be examined.How does Brod define the feministprojectwhichunderlieswomen'sstudies?And whatis the radicalpotentialthat the addition of men's studieswould foster? Broddefinesthe feministprojectas one "focusingon genderrather than simplyon women." He statesthat "it is this expandedtotalistic vision of women'sstudiesas the studyof gender,requiringa re-vision of the entirecurriculum ratherthansimplythe additionof insightsabout women, which bringsthe need for men's study into focus" (p. 186). And the radicalpotentialthat men's studieswould foster may take a backseat to the theoreticaljustificationfor its existence,or so it would seemwhenhe saysthe "needto motivatementowardsfeministpolitical change"is not a "primaryconcern"of his, thoughit is a "valid" consideration(p. 180). Whathappensto the radicalpotentialof feminismwhenthe feminist project which underlieswomen's studies is conceived as one which focuseson gender?Of course,this may remainto be seen. Brodis correct to providea historicalperspectiveto the issue of genderstudies, andhe is correctto suggestthatwomen'sstudieshasalreadybeenstudying genderrolesof men andwomen.Thusone maywonder,if women's studiesis studyinggenderpresently,why men's studiesprogramsneed to be institutedand funded.Malesand femaleswho are feministshave beenstudyingthe perspectivesof women'sandmen'sexperiences.Brod says that "it is this expandedtotalisticvision of women's studies as the studyof gender,requiringa re-visionof the entirecurriculumrather than simplythe additionof insightsabout women, which bringsthe need for men's study into focus" (p. 186). But feministsnever conceivedof women'sstudiesas an addendumto the canon but as a revision of the canon of knowledgeto reflectthe historicalsociopolitical context of men's and women'slives. By referringat this point to the feministprojectas an addendum,Brodprovidesa basis for reconceptionalizingwomen'sstudiesas genderstudies,whichshouldbe studies by men and women, but this seems slightlyinaccurate,narrowsthe definitionof women'sstudies,anddepoliticizesthe grassrootsfeminism underlyingwomen's studies. Brod'sfocuson genderscholarshipallowshimto makea logicalclaim that "the project of gender scholarship mandates a particular concep-

tion of men's studies" (p. 186). He explains: "This conception is groundedin an increasinglysustainedunderstandingand an increas144

mary libertin is thatin falselygeneralizinglyemergingconviction.Theunderstanding ing man as 'male' to man as 'human' we have, to our great loss, obliteratedthe specificitiesof both women'sand men'slives. The convictionis thatthe onlywayto depowerthe pseudo-universality of generic 'man' is to study man as particular,ratherthan as pseudo-generic" (p. 186). Brod seems to be turningthe tables aroundon the issue of 'man' used generically.Yet when he calls for a focus on man as particular,is he referringto menas individualsor to the gender?Thequestion of specificityand generalityis indeedimportantto currentfeminist scholarship,wheremoreaccuracyis foundin delineatingthe age, class, physicalability, sexual orientation,region, religion, ethnicity,class, race, occupationratherthan in generalizingabout all of these areas. In this way feministscan collect and analyzethe interrelatedfactors in patriarchalsociety'soppressionof people throughsystemsand institutionsandits effectsuponus all. Feminismis thusmorethana white, upper middle class agenda for improvement. But as CaroleVanceandAnn Snitowexplain,"if carelessgeneralization about women'sexperienceis dangerousand mystifying,so too is avoidanceof generalizationin the beliefthat eachwoman'sexperience is so uniqueand conditionedby multiplesocial influencesthat larger patternsare impossibleto discern,that to attemptto generalizeis to do violenceto individualexperience"(1984,133).In addition,theyraise questionsaboutthe theoryof construction.Theysuggestthat feminists workingon sexuality"must confrontthe dialecticbetweenspecificity and generalizationand endureits ongoingtension"(p. 133, emphasis added). Not only do I agreewith them in this area of study, but I also find the dialecticbetweenspecificityand generalizationa necessarytension in all areas of women's studies. I would extendtheir warningto our presentsituation.Thereis a dialecticbetweenthe specificand general, one which Brod omits from his discussionof how genderstudiesrequiresus "to studyman as particular,ratherthan as pseudo-generic." ElaineShowalter,usingthe modelof ShirleyandEdwinArdenerwhich showsthat "womenconstitutea mutedgroup,the boundariesof whose cultureand realityoverlap,but arenot whollycontainedby, the dominant (male)group" (1981, 199) suggeststhat there is a "wild zone" of women'sexperience-a place "off-limits"to men-and vice-versa. But the men's zone of experiencewhichis alien to women is "within the circleof the dominantstructureandthus accessibleto or structured by language" (p. 200). This area of men's experiencesneeds to be studiedfrom a feministperspective,but it will requiremorethanwhat Brod proposesin his study of men as particular.Brod seemsto have 145

hypatia ignoredthe differencesbetweenmen and women studiedas groups, whereinthe differencebetween"dominant"and "muted" exists for individualsand for the groups. The main contradictionin Brod's position is that he wants men's studiesto be the studyof "man as particular"(p. 186)whilehe would define women's studies as "genderstudies." He therebyignoresthe markednessof the two groups(man/woman)whichfavorsman. And he also seemsto ignorethe mannerin whichthat markednessaffects the study of individuals.The need for more than just a collectionof data about individualsis essential. And when men and women are studiedas individuals,as Brod states, is he not basing his reasoning on an anatomicalor biologicaldistinction,whichcomes veryclose to the same distinctionwhichessentialistshold? Does he hold an essentialistpositionwhichhe undercutselsewherein the paper?As the French theoristHeleneCixousstates, "thereare some men who do not repres theirfemininity,somewomenwho, moreor less strongly,inscribetheir masculinity"(1985, 81). She avoids the "confusion man/masculine, woman/feminine" by connectingthe "political economy" and the "libidinaleconomy"and by referringto individualsas bisexual(1986, 81). She defines "bisexuality"as that "with whicheverysubject,who is not shut up inside the spuriousPhallocentricPerformingTheater, sets up his or her erotic universe.Bisexuality-that is to say the location withinoneself of the presenceof both sexes, evidentand insistent in differentways accordingto the individual,the nonexclusionof differenceor of a sex" (1986, 84-85). In any case, Brod'sreasoningis circular(studyingmen as particular will give us informationabout men as particular).It is also contradictory. He claims to agree with "this expandedtotalistic vision of women's

studiesas the study of gender,requiringa re-visionof the entirecurriculumratherthansimplythe additionsof insightsaboutwomen,which bringsthe needfor men'sstudiesinto focus" yet his insightsaboutmen in particularwill not seemto get past individualinsightsof men. And theseinsightshe claimsareneededas additionsto the insightsof women. He says "the study of men as particular,i.e., men's studies, is a necessarycomponentof the feministclaimto universal,and not merely compensatory,truth" (p. 187). His position is illogicaland unfair. Feministsare workingtowardchangeand are not claiminguniversal truth. Genderstudiesis morethan a collectionof insightsfrom all individuals,whetheror not they are feminist. Thepresentationof his lengthy"etymologyof the conceptof 'gender' in its currentusage" (p. 180), woven into a discussionof the essentialist and non-essentialisttheoriesof identity,thus warrantsanother 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 logically 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 between 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 nonfeminists, those who believe in actively changing the patriarchalsystem 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 individuals 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 individual'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 nonessentialist 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 (rememberthe ERA) and that their primarygoals were legal as they related to economic opportunity and discrimination. In addition, I would contend that more academics working in women's studies sup147

hypatla portedthesefeministgoals, ratherthanbeingantagonistictowardthem. It may be convenientfor Brodto assessthe historyof genderas he does, but we shouldkeepin mindthat evenif we grantthe abovewedge betweenacademicsand feminists,"the loss of a positedessentialself [which]posed a particularproblem[the above] for feministtheory" (p. 181) posed more of a problem for those who were opposed to feministtheory, for they werelockedinto conventionand used essentialist argumentsagainstfeministtheory. I also find Brod's following passage, found after his above remark,a bit curiousand inaccurate: In addition, it should be noted that the non-essentialist theoryof the self was alwaysconsistentlyrejectedfrom one specificfeministquarter.Therewas alwaysa strain of radicalfeministtheorywhichheld that observeddifferencesbetweenwomen and men were [his emphasis] rootedin differentinherentessences,and some held further that these differences should be celebrated, not minimizedor negated.Those who followed this school of thoughtcouldneverfullyacceptall the talk of "roles" whichcouldand shouldsimplybe "unlearned"(p. 181). If Brodis referringto lesbianswhenhe refersto the actionsof the above "specificfeministquarter"who constitute"a strainof radicalfeminist theory," I wonderwhy he omits the word. I also questionthe veracity of his claim about this namelessgroup. I know radicallesbianswho worshippeda mothergoddessand who also believed,as does Cixous now, that all people are bisexualand who lived amiablywith heterosexualmen. Eventhosemostradicalin the namelessquarterwho preferred to separatethemselvesas much as possible from men would not agreethat roles could "simplybe 'unlearned'."I find Brod'sdescription of peoplewho mostsimply"celebrated,not minimizedor negated" the idea of inherentessencesmost characteristicof non-feminists,such as Phyllis Schlafly. In any case Brod connectsthe above "conflict betweenfeminism's critiqueof sexismgeneratedby its empiricalsocial theory, based on the non-essentialistsex role modeland its critiqueof sexismgenerated by its normative political theory, based on the essentialist selfdevelopmentmodel" to "two entirelydifferentstandardsof justice" (p. 182).I cannotagreethata "normativepoliticaltheoryof feminism" is/was cast in an essentialisttheoryof self. Nor can I agreethat there are two standardsof justice that can be neatly linked to the essentialist/non-essentialistpositions, as Brod does. There is not a clear either/or exclusionin the positions. One cannot link only distributive 148

mary libertin justiceto the non-essentialistpositionand non-distributiveor personal justice with the essentialistposition. TheproblemsBrodseesarecastin dichotomousterms:man/woman; feminists in the academy/outside the academy; essentialist/nondistributive/non-distributive essentialist;individual/society; justice.Differentlevelsof questionsand problemsare linkedtogetherillogically. If you are a feminist teachingin a women's studies programin an AmericanUniversityyou probablybelievein a non-essentialistnotion of distributivejusticeand find yourselflookingacrossa theoreticalgap at the radicalpoliticalarmof feminism,accordingto Brod!I disagreethis characterization mayoccurand maybe quiteimportantto discuss, but it is usedto suggesteithertheoreticalproblemsof women'sstudies programsor a splitbetweenfeministsoutsideandinsidewomen'sstudies programs,whichis highlyexaggerated.Men'sstudiesis introducedinto the discussionas if it were a solution to problemsin the women's movement.This is not the case. Surelygenderratherthan biologicalsex is the focus of much study in the 1980's;biologicaldistinctionsbetweenmale and femaleare not equivalentto the social distinctionsbetweenmasculineand feminine. But ratherthan make a distinctionbetweennon-feministswho speak as if they were essentialists(women should be ladies/women-men should be men) and feministswho speak as if they were essentialists (women have a core women's identity), Brod ignores non-feminists altogetherand makesa readerof his paperfeel muchmoresplintering (theoretical)among feministsthan actuallyexists. He says "the purposeof men's studiesis to fill the gap [of studies thataresorelylacking]."Thereis no gap. It is my contentionthatthese studies(of men as particularindividuals)can be made(andhave been made)withinwomen'sstudiesprograms,by womenand men who are feminists.In other words, there is no logical theoreticaljustification for the creationof additionalmen's studiesprogramswihinwomen's studiesprograms.To suggestthat the creationof men's studiesprogramswouldallow "thestatusof men [to be] equallybroughtinto question" so that man is not "the assumed norm, women always ...

the

'other"'(p. 187)is to forgetthatwomenandmenhavealreadybrought the status of men into question and, even more, to forget that the historicalassumednormsabout the statusof men and womenrequire political action as well as study for equalityto occur. Brod tries to counterthe possibilitythat men's studiescan develop "in directionsinimicalto feminism"(p. 190).It is also truethatlasting changewill requirethe cooperationof men. It is for this reasonthat feministsshould encouragemen to become feministsand 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 program, 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 departmentsand programs" should have the "decisionmaking 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 programs 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 patriarchalinstitutions. Why should women's studies departmentsencourage 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 strongly 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 problems 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 contribute 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 alternative to the dominant world view, it is still accurate to describe this alternative as a representationof reality from the standpoint of women. ... Women's standpoint offers a perspective on reality that is accessible 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 preconvention condensed version of a paper read in earlierforms at the WesternSocial 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 quotation 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.

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references Ardener, Edwin. 1977. Belief and the problem of women. In Perceiving women, ed. Shirley Ardener. New York: J.M. Dent. Beauvoir, Simone de. 1984. France: Feminism-Alive, well, and in constant 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. Reprintedin Writingsof 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.

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comment/reply harry brod Does Manning Men's Studies Emasculate Women's Studies? Defends"TheNewMen'sStudies:FromFeministTheoryto Gender Scholarship" (Hypatia2:1, Winter1987)againstwhatis arguedareMary Libertin'smisreadings.Theargumentfor men'sstudiesis logicallyinin women's dependentof thoughrelatedto thedebateaboutessentialism studies.Men'sstudiesstudiesmenin andas particulargroups.Intellectual shouldnot be equatedwith institutionalautonomy.The feminist study of men shouldbe supportedby feministscholars.

attributemost of Mary Libertin'sdisagreementswith what I she thinksmy articlesays to her thinkingit says more and otherthan it does. MaryLibertinoffersas a criticismthe observationthatthe "case for men's studiesdoes not logicallydependupon the debate" regarding essentialism/non-essentialism.But I never presentedone as a logical deductionfrom the other. I wrote only that a reconstruction of this debate would be illuminatingbecausesome reasons favoring men's studieswerealreadyimplicitlypresentand acceptedin the trend towardsgenderstudieswhichin part emergesfrom it. She statesas a criticism: "One cannot link only distributivejustice to the nonessentialistposition and non-distributiveor personaljustice with the essentialist position. . . . Different levels of questions and problems

are linkedtogetherillogically." But this was my point-I specifically deniedthe existenceof suchcorrespondences andanyrelationsof logical entailmentbetweentheselevels. I wrote:"whilerecognizingthat these distinctionscannotbe collapsedinto one another,therearenonetheless conceptualaffinities." Many of Libertin'scriticismsof my account of aspects of gender scholarshipseem to me to assumebroaderclaims on my part than I make, as if I wereclaimingto have writtena completeand definitive Hypatiavol. 2, no. 2 (Summer1987). © By HarryBrod.

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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 essentialism/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 supposed "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 arrayof authoritiesmarshalled 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 describedin these terms. Libertin'smode of analysis here is unfortunately 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 con154

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 unaddressed. 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 question of whether I favored Asian Studies being an independent department, 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 perspectives 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 startingat 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," Libertin'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 further 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 commitments. 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 makesthis more of a reactionthan a considered response.Onrereadingit seemsmoredefensiveandcombativethanI findideal.However, I can do no betterat present.I preferto let it standratherthan fail to respond.

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the forum candace watson Celibacy and Its Implications For Autonomy This paperconnectscelibacyto autonomy,whichis derivedfrom economic,emotional,andsexualself-determination. Althoughsociety attemptsto controlanddefinewomen'ssexuality,the celibatewoman who masturbatescan retrieveher sexualitywithoutthe massivesocial whicharenecessaryfor economicandemotionalliberarearrangements tion. Becausemasturbation is accessibleandsingular,sexualautonomy is availableto a womanwho choosescelibacy,regardlessof the other exigenciesin her life, as illustratedin the exampleherefrom popular literature.

W omen's autonomy must necessarily derive from our economic, emotional, and sexual self-determination.The degree to whichcircumstanceand cultureinterveneto shapeour economic,emotional, and sexualdestiniesis whatfeministsunderstandand articulate as "the personalis political," and is preciselywhat makesautonomy anythingbut a personalchoice. In both the economicand emotional arenas personalautonomyis overwhelminglycontingenton massive social rearrangement.But in the sexual realm woman's selfdeterminationis accessibleand most nearlyattainable,especiallyif she is celibateand hercelibacyincludesmasturbation.Whilecelibacyneed not includeand certainlydoes not implymasturbation,this discussion will assumethe choiceto masturbate-a choicewhichdoes not in any event stand in contradictionto the literal meaningof "celibacy"or the celibate celibacyas it is commonlypracticed.Throughmasturbation, womancan celebrateher sexualityapartfrom the aspectsof its social expression,as in this examplefrom popularliterature: In those morningsI began to touch myself. I felt what was at firsta shapelessyearningin my body, and I learned to bring it to life. I would reach betweenmy legs, Hypatiavol. 2, no. 2 (Summer1987). © By CandaceWatson.

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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 awakening 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 experiences 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 renderthe pleasure of orgasm altogether irretrievable. While our culture ties our eroticism to heterosexual intercourse and reproduction, we can recall our sexuality 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 assistant 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 reproductiverights. 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 Crossing Press, forthcoming 1988), as well as special issues of severalscholarly journals on various aspects of men's studies. He is a frequent lecturer and men's movement activist, and is currently the National Spokesperson 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 assistantprofessor of philosophy at George Mason University. 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 primarilyin 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, paternalism, 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 deconstruction. 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 Pornography and Censorship, Prometheus Books, 1983. She has published articles on discrimination, equality of opportunity and pornography, and is currently writing about responsibility and women's oppression.

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announcements Call for Contributions: TheAPA Committeeon the Statusof Womenis pleasedto announce publicationof the Feminismand PhilosophyNewsletter.The purpose of the Newsletteris to provideinformationabout recentwork in the area of feministphilosophy,listing new publications,and providing book reviews. It will include discussions of how to integrate or "mainstream"this materialinto traditionalphilosophycourses.It will also provide a forum for discussing the status of women in the profession.

The editorinvitescontributionsto the Newsletter.We areinterested in literatureoverviews,book reviews,suggestionsfor curriculumrevisionsor transformations,discussionsof feministpedagogicalmethods, and so on. It is our intentionthat the Newsletterserveas a resource both for feministphilosophersand for colleagueswhosemaininterests have not been in the area of feministphilosophy. Manuscripts,proposals,suggestions,and all othercommunications and inquiriesshouldbe addressedto: NancyTuana,Editor,Arts and Humanities,JO 31, The Universityof Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75083-0688. SWIPNewsletter:Announcementsor itemsfor the SWIPNewsletter for 1987-88shouldbe sentto the Editor,MarilynFriedman,2550Yeager Road, Apt. 20-11, West Lafayette, IN 47906. Ph. (317) 463-7825. A Gay and Lesbian Caucus is now being organized within the AmericanPhilosophicalAssociation.The purposeof this caucuswill be both to foster the philosophicalstudyof gay and lesbanissuesand to give a distinctvoice to gay and lesbianconcernswithinthe Association. For more information,contact: Prof. John Pugh, Department of Philosophy, John CarrollUniversity,Union Heights, OH 44118. 1987Index/Directoryof Women'sMedia,containinglistingsfor 525 women'speriodicals,as well as women'spresses,publishers,newsservices, radio-TV,film groups, book stores, and more, is availablefor $12.00 from: Women'sInstitutefor Freedomof the Press, 3306 Ross Place, N.W., Washington,D.C. 20008, (202) 966-7783. Hypatia T-Shirts:T-Shirtsfeaturingthe image from the cover of Hypatiaare availablein variouscolor/fabric/sizecombinations.Write to the Hypatiaoffice for details:Hypatia,Box 1437,SIUE, Edwardsville, 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 sustain a "Republic of Letters," in which women are both citizens and sovereigns. To that end, we shall commemorate 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 reached 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, fictional 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, Departmentof 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 responsibilitieswill include frequent sections of Introduction to Philosophy, ABD in Philosophy required prior to application, Ph.D. preferred. Experience preferred. Some summer 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 application: 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 2:1, p. 120. Barrett, Nancy S. 1984. The welfare trap. Unpublished manuscript. Brown, Carol. 1981. Mothers, fathers, and children: From private to public patriarchy. In Women and revolution, ed. Lydia Sargent. Boston: South End Press. Fraser, Nancy. 1985a. Michel Foucault: A "Young Conservative"? Ethics 96:165-184. . 1985b. What's critical about criticaltheory? The case of Habermas and Gender. New German Critique 35:97-131. Errata: The Editor regrets that the name of one of our Associate Editors, Joyce Trebilcot, Washington University, St. Louis, was inadvertently deleted from the list of Associate Editors in Hypatia 2:1.

163

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Antigone's Dile;mma:A Problem in Political Membership,by Women Philosophers in the Ancient Greek Valerie..LHarto'f#i; Donning the Mantle, by KathleenWider,.How Many :Does It Take to Make aJoke: Sexist Humor and /rongwithit, byMeerrieBergmann,The Politics of SelfA FeministPerspective byDiaa T. Meyers,Preparing The Way for a Feminist Praxis, by)Andrea Nye, Romantic Love, Altrui, and Self-Respectb Kathr..Pauly Morgan, Oppressioani ai] RLesistane:Fry'sPittics an:dReality, by ClaudiaCard,

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Jolume l, Numter 2, Fall 1986 )od and S:xualit": edited by Ann Ferguson ' eminist Questions, byAnn Soi andSex'ualty: ' a Politics of Dificault ad Fmi. .-..Toward mnaSai-k Female Friendship:ContraChodorow tein, by?Jantie.i Raymod, Woman: Revealed or by Cyihia A. 'Freelani

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ics and.i'Politics, by CherylH.Cohen,Femin-iimand O)'Brienvs. Beauvoir,byReyesLazaro, Possess:ive netFarrell-Smith,: The Future of Mothering::::: Repnchnologyand Feminist Theory, by As!-iDonchin, rninist Choose a?Marriage-Like tions hip?, by ':and $:20/insti. Editor, Hypatia, Back issues each: $10/indiv. SIUE-Edwardsville,IL 62026-1437

submission guidelines Hypatia solicits papers on all topics in feminist philosophy. We will regularlypublish general issues as well as special issues on a single topic, or comprising the proceedings of a conference in feminist philosophy. All papers should conform to Hypatia style using the Author/Date system of citing references (see the Chicago Manual of Style). Papers should be submitted in duplicate with the author's name on the title page only for the anonymous reviewing process. The Forum, edited by Maria Lugones, publishes short papers (2-3 pages) on a designatedtopic, in order to furtherdialogue within feminist philosophy. Papers on the topic of Women and Poverty should be submitted by November 1, 1987, for inclusion in the next general issue. Papers are also invited for that issue on the continuing topic of Celibacy. Papers should be sent to: Maria Lugones, Box Y, Valdez, New Mexico, 87580. The Book Review section will publish reviews of publications in feminist philosophy. To propose publications for review, or to contribute book reviews, query the Book Review Editor: Jeffner Allen, Department of Philosophy, SUNY Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13901.

Special Issues History of Women in Philosophy, edited by Linda Lopez McAlister. We are seeking papers on any aspect of the history of women in philosophy, from the ancient period to the twentieth century, e.g., feminist analyses of the works of women philosophers; expository, biographical and bibliographical pieces; discussions of ways to "mainstream" the works of women philosophers into history of philosophy curricula; assessments of the contributions of women to philosophy; items for an Archives section. All materials should conform to Hypatia style, and be submitted in duplicate to: Linda Lopez McAlister, Women's Studies Program, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620. Deadline for papers: September 15, 1987. Papers for general submission and all other correspondence concerning Hypatia should be addressed to: Margaret A. Simons, Editor, Hypatia, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL 62026-1437.

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