Well that was pretty quick. Melissa McEwen at Shakesville posted the late Mary Daly’s popular “origin of the word sin” quote by way of eulogy an early feminist icon. And, despite multiple apologies, promptly got threadjacked by accusations of transphobia. Enough so that another blogger at the site closed comments on the post.
The bone of contention being Daly’s evident transphobia. Which isn’t terribly widely know — little-known enough, for instance, to have caught the generally hyper-inclusive McEwen off guard.
If I have the main 70’s era categories of feminism that would have been current in Daly’s ascendancy she was a gender essentialist and not a gender equalitarian. That essentialism was a pretty big deal and one that, I’m pretty sure, is pretty incompatible with sympathy for the transsexual and transgendered.
Yes, you might argue, perfectly reasonably as many trans people do, that the real “essence” of one’s sex is determined by identity and not chromosomes. But that’s not going to carry a lot of weight with anyone who believes that, say, by its very nature the Y chromosome is irretrievably degenerate or that the planet needs to be “decontaminated” of individuals with that defect.
With that understanding transphobia is 100% consistent with gender essentialism. Racism and genocide would be consistent with antagonism towards gender equalitarianism. To an essentialist like Daly a man using plastic surgery and testosterone suppressing drugs to “pass” as a woman would be as viscerally offensive as a person of color using plastic surgery and melanin-suppressing drugs to “pass” as white would be to David Duke
That said, regardless of her motivation for analyzing the gendered status quo one can still learn from her analysis of its structure and flaws. Enough so to say she was a significant figure in gender politics independent of her essentialism. You might not want to touch most of her proposed solutions with a 10-foot pole, but one can learn from her analysis. And draw one’s own, non-essentialist, non-exclusivist conclusions.
In the seventies, Mary Daly
Submitted by ChrisJ (not verified) on Wed, 2010-01-06 17:03.In the seventies, Mary Daly was a much needed voice on the scene and she wasn’t alone in her essentialism, albeit much more strident and excluding. The literary critical stance, or one very mainstream aspect of it – Anglo-American crit – was very essentialist. Women’s nature was different but essential and should be valued, was the thinking.
Along came the French philosophers, among other factors, and riled up those waters pretty quickly. The turf war in academia probably still isn’t completely over.
Mary Daly added a lot to the conversation back then; we should keep that contribution in mind, acknowledge her conservative religious nature that was so counterproductive, and let her go.
[Lovely way of putting it, Chris. I distinctly remember how harshly essentialist both sides were back then. (And I’ve got some elderly friends from my old church who were on the front lines and are still pretty… deterministic.) Her (philosophic) violence cleared space for a lot of productive work. And, acknowledging that, we can let her go. —fl]
Except some people can’t let
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Wed, 2010-01-06 22:37.Except some people can’t let her go. She lives on in the legacy of her beliefs when separatist-inclined, self-declared radical feminists exclude trans women from women’s health centers, cultural events, etc.
I just spent (wasted?) a chunk of my day dissecting Daly’s actual words – which no one else had apparently done, including all those folks at Shakesville, who got so riled up – and yep, Daly was even more transphobic than she’s being portrayed. She may have also recanted (privately?) late in life.
People are complicated. Hers is a great story. My ex-Catholic, sci-fi-geekish husband loved it.
Also, figleaf, when you linked me earlier (thanks!) you didn’t pick up on what I thought was my key point: that Daly’s notion of idolatry held promise for critically assessing secular feminists’ strategies. Guess that wasn’t clear enough; it might just deserve a post of its own.
[Hi Sungold. I did see that, and I think you’re right. It was a key point that went very well with your in-depth and way better-informed post. But I thought it was a great general point, and I felt less confident with my mastery of the material, so I went with that. I also hope a lot of people clicked through and read the generous, nuanced writeup you gave her in your post.. I’m sorry I didn’t do more to encourage that. —fl]
No need to apologize for
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Thu, 2010-01-07 14:37.No need to apologize for anything in your post; it gave me the idea that I ought to say more about this idea of idolatry, if I get a chance. Right now I’m getting a few too many hits (I think the radfem contingent doesn’t like my second post), so don’t worry about that!
[Sorry if you’re getting stormed, Sungold. Over at Feministe Sady’s personal and heartfelt story of her admiration followed by disappointment with Daly may calm them down. Or at least divert them. —fl]
Actually it’s Sady’s post,
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Thu, 2010-01-07 22:14.Actually it’s Sady’s post, there and on Tiger Beatdown, that’s sending the most traffic to me. Only one radfem so far, who’s been ably countered by several trans and/or genderqueer women. I loved Sady’s post, by the way, and not just because I thought it was remarkable that a few young women are still reading Daly.
Apart from that, I’d feel better if you’d stop saying “sorry”! There’s nothing for you to apologize about here. If the “sorry” is a displaced response to anything else, email would be a better medium.
[Nah, I just felt guilty for not pulling in your idolatry point. Mostly out of laziness. —fl]
Mary Daly’s transphobia
Submitted by makomk (not verified) on Thu, 2010-01-07 06:26.Mary Daly’s transphobia wasn’t exactly that obscure. I mean, it’s mentioned on her Wikipedia article, ffs. The fact that nearly none of the major feminist websites bothered to mention it, or any of the other sites talking about her death, and that so many people – including Melissa McEwen – knew nothing about it says a lot…
(Ooh, a Guardian CiF article with no mention either, despite referring to Gyn/Ecology in the second paragraph. Great.)
She’s also not exactly a minor figure as feminist transphobia goes, it would seem.
[I’m guessing that for most people it wasn’t Daly’s transphobia that was obscure but Daly herself. And when the main thing most people who did know about her knew was that she thought exterminating half the population would be hunky-dory they’re usually going to say “hold on a minute” right there rather interrogating her insensitivity for not wanting FTMs dead with all the cis-men. —fl]
Actually, gender essentialism
Submitted by Red (not verified) on Thu, 2010-01-07 18:02. Actually, gender essentialism is not the only reason that some feminists would ask questions about the idea of changing sex. One thing that is definitely happening is that many people who think transexualism is 100% innate (point under question) and that transition the only option for it, are also very much in favor of the idea that gender roles and stereotypes are all biologically hardwired. But the actual data about transexualim is much murkier than the current theories. We really know very little about what causes it, let alone what can be concluded about non-trans men and women because of it. If biological males raised as girls are studied in groups rather than as a single case study (ei David Reimer) one finds that the majority do not change sex back at puberty (although the numbers are higher than the general population), although most are unhappy with their genitals because of issues with the surgery. Furthermore, I question the assumption that environment and experiences of most of those patients can be summed up by “they were raised female” as if that told the whole story. Other facts that would have to raise some eyebrows is the fact that transgenderism and transsexualism does seem to be more common in gender rigid societies. For example one of the highest rates of MTF transsexualism and the highest for FTM is in the Republic of Iran. A country where gender roles are extremely rigid: Men are expected to be macho and women can’t even leave the house without covering their hair.Homosexuality is considered both a grave sin and capital crime. But if you are transsexual the Islamic Republic-though not necessarily public opinion-considers it merciful to “fix” the medical problem. In another documentary about “sworn virgins” (a form of social FTM transgenderism in the Balkans where females live celibate lives in male roles) where one elderly sworn virgin claimed to have no regrets personally but wouldn’t recommend it to young girls because “the society is more open”.
Although many people today consider feminists who worried that sex changes could become a way of engineering gender/sexual conformity(if you don’t act like a “typical” man/woman we will surgically make you fit the mold), outmoded, one has to wonder if it isn’t happening in some countries like Iran or Thailand with the “Lady Boy” phenomena. Of course, there clearly are cases of transsexuals for whom this surgery seems to be the only shot at a decent life. I don’t deny that part. But I do question the assumptions that we know much about why this is the case, that society and environment never play a role in it happening, and/or that we can conclude much at all about gender in the nontrans population. Other eyebrow raisers include the fact that many transsexual adults and children who are thought to be budding transsexuals are gender rigid in the extreme. As a child of the “Free to Be You And Me” era, I’m not willing to jump on the bandwagon that says this is simply “natural” behavior for the opposite sex of the child. (My experience as a daughter to a 70’s feminist says that all that talk about how girls and boys will reject anything but the most stereotypical pink and blue toys no matter how hard parents try to push gender neutrality, is nonsense. When I first heard about the concept of “girls toys” and “boys toys” in Kindergarten I was annoyed.) And the fact, that the surgery is far from perfect.[I think these are all totally valid questions and you’re right that they could be raised in a feminist context outside of essentialism. And I don’t remember why you were/are up on the intersex community but I do remember your passionate discussion of surgical and hormonal sex-assignment before children are old enough to decide for themselves. And I’m painfully aware of the relationship in Iran and elsewhere with cultural homophobia, the constructed belief that gender is immutable, and the tendency for people to find an “out” in reassignment. Still I’ve got a strong impression trans-community theorists have addressed most or all of them. It would be good to hear their side of it too. Thanks, Red. —fl]
I learned initially about the
Submitted by Red (not verified) on Fri, 2010-01-08 04:43. I learned initially about the prevalence of intersex through a debate about whether or not certain pollutants were increasing its incidence. And I still question the idea of surgically correcting children for even things like a large clitoris, or deciding that boys should be “changed” into girls simply for having a small but perfectly functional penis. But the reason I’m against that isn’t because I think they are all doomed to reject a female gender identity. Because while numbers are hard in this case, a pretty solid majority don’t. (And I don’t see this situation as some pure rarified study on nature vs. nurture, by a long shot, given some of the things that go on medically with these cases!!) I’m against it because so many of these kids have to have surgery after surgery after surgery in different stages at different ages, a lifetime of hormone therapy, and other very serious and profound consequences for life. I also consider the surgeon’s assumptions “easier to dig a hole than build a pole” and their understanding of an acceptable male vs female, to be profoundly sexist. According to these surgeons the total lack of a clitoris, lack of vaginal muscles, and severe scarring are non-issues in a girl, (although large clitorises also seem to warrant correct), but if a boy has a small penis that’s the horror to end all horrors, therefore the hell some of these kids are put through is 100% justified by the preference for the former over the latter. Far from being essentialist these arguments seriously question the price of gender conformity. As for the trans communities answers, I don’t consider them adequate. Partly because we don’t know what causes transsexualism. Secondly because they assume that everyone who isn’t trans is in love with their gender role, or apparently just “ungrateful” for “matching” it.