Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory

196 Pages·1983·25.872 MB·English

by  Marilyn Frye, Diana Souza

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MAFLILYN
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BY
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1^^ THE CROSSING PRESS Freedom, California
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The Crossing Press Feminist Series
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Copyright©1983 by Marilyn Frye
Cover illustration and designby Diana Souza
Bookdesign by Mary A. Scott
Typesetting by Martha J. Waters
Library ofCongress Catalogingin Publication Data
Frye, Marilyn, 1941-
The politics ofreality.
(The Crossing Press feminist series)
1. Feminism-Addresses, essays, lectures.
I. Title. II. Series.
HQ1154.F78 1983 305.4'2 83-2082
ISBN 0-89594-100-7
ISBN 0-89594-099-X (pbk.)
7
CONTENTS
Preface / vii
Introduction / xi
Essays
MDppression / 1
Sexism
/ 1
The Problem That Has No Name 41
/
In And Out Of Harm's Way: Arrogance And Love 52
/
A Note On Anger 84
/
Some Reflections On Separatism And Power 95
/
^ On Being White: Toward A Feminist Understanding
Of Race And Race Supremacy 110
/
Lesbian Feminism And The Gay Rights Movement:
Another View Of Male Supremacy, Another
Separatism 128
/
To Be And Be Seen: The Politics of Reality ( 152
About The Author 175
/
MM

PREFACE
The main themes of the first three essays in this collection
had taken shape by early 1974, as I began to teach a philos-
ophy course on feminism. They have been central ever
since then to the course I have been teaching at Michigan
State University called "Philosophical Aspects of Feminism."
I want to dedicate this publication of "Oppression" to those
students for whom the experience of "the oppression lecture,"
at the beginning of that course, was something of a Rite of
Passage.
I began making notes toward a paper on separatism prob-
ably as early as 1970, but the connection between a politics
of separation (versus assimilation) and the kind of boundary-
drawing that is intrinsic to definition of words and concepts
grew slowly in my thoughts. The intuition and construction
of that connection was a significant part of the synthesis of
politics and philosophy without which I would have had to
abandon one or the other as meaningless. Since 1977 (during
which year I wrote "Some Reflections on Separatism and
Power") I have been exploring and clarifying for myself what
woman is in the phallocratic semantic systems of language,
myth and ritual and how that helps to explain and maintain
the political subordination (assimilation) of women. As will
be obvious to some readers, this work has been much in-
formed by the work of other women, especially that of Ti-
Grace Atkinson, Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin.
vu
THE POLITICS OF REALITY
viii
As a writer, I began in the academic environment where
one prepares an essay and then goes before an audience and
reads it aloud. Outside academia people sometimes hear
speeches and sometimes encounter someone reading a story
or a poem aloud to an audience, but the oral delivery of essays
is not familiar. These essays are written at least as much for
the ear as for the eye, perhaps more so; I hope they will be
read aloud, both in and out of academic settings.
In most cases, the audience I imagined as I wrote was that
provided by the Society for Women in Philosophy, usually the
Midwestern Division. The women of that Society are a won-
derful audience: attentive and excitable; critical; aestheti-
cally sensitive, philosophically sophisticated and pohtically
conscious; supportive, angry, stubborn, loving and logical.
What more could a writer ask?
. . .
Publication, love and money, of course.
At a time when it wasjust what I needed, Catherine
Nicholson and Harriet Desmoines provided the perfect op-
portunity for pubHcation with their well-named magazine,
Sinister Wisdom, where they cheerfully published what was
too feminist (not to mention too lesbian) for philosophy
journals and too philosophical for lesbian feministjournals.
Though I did not publish a great deal during their years of
editorship, the existence of that magazine was vital to me,
for it meant that whatever I was working on could be pub-
lished. I am indebted to these women for their hearing me
into speech.
Love. A writer could want the intelligent and knowledge-
able collaboration, encouragement and criticism of a devoted
friend and passionate lover. I have had that. And I will make
sure she gets as much as she has given.
Money. I have made a decent living through these years at
the sufferance of both women and men who have, in varying
degrees at various times, yielded to the temptation to think
me utterly mad, even dangerous, and have nonetheless not
tried, at least not concertedly, to drive mc out; of which I
am glad. Some people in the institution in which I work have