On Tue, 15 Apr 1997, Tanya Wood wrote:
> To Micheal Levy,
> I lectured on The Female Man last sumester. The reactions varied wildly
> from stunned shock (mostly young men- I don't really think the book is
> adressed to men actually, although having them read something that is not
> adressed to them (which women have to do all the time) is in itself
> useful), to absolute hostility (mostly, interestingly,
> from young women), with the occassional enthusiastic responce (about 5
> out of a class of 90).The novels violence (although Russ- rather
> disingenuiously I feel, argues that it is not violent).
The hostility that young men feel towards such texts isn't surprising,
of course. I agree with you that The Female Man really isn't addressed
to men and that it's undoubtedly good for men to have to deal with
being the other once in a while--I can still remember how strange it
was for me to read the book in my early twenties. That women feel
hostility toward The Female Man, however, and for that matter toward many
60-80s feminists texts, is both disturbing and fascinating. One of my
students told me that this is a Generation-X thing and that I couldn't expect
to understand it. (This was the first time that I am aware of that I was ever
the victim of verbal age-ism. Strange experience.) She saw current student
hostility or at best disinterest towards feminism as similar to student
attitudes towards Vietnam. Interestingly enough she saw the generational gap
as much more important than the gender gap.
>
> This doesn't mean I think that the book isn't worth teaching, at all.
> Exposing people to ideas that they instictively dislike can be productive
> and can force them to think of things that had previously never occurred
> to them. The book is provacative- a sort of guerrilla attack on people's
> dearly held assumptions.
This is an important point, I think. It's hard to differentiate sometimes
between a lack of understanding and not wanting to understand something
that makes you uncomfortable.
It also refuses to be reduced to a
> coherent narrative and many students dislike having to actually pierce
> together what is going on, and work at reading.I am extremely unimpressed
> by this argument for removing it from book lists.
You're right, of course. This reminds me of the snit my 9 year old threw
last week when I told her she was too old to need someone to cut up her
chicken for her and that she needed to learn to do it herself.
>
> I found it very useful as an
> introduction to post-modernism. I also found tying it to its
> time one way of dealing with it. There is no doubt that it is anchored to
> the state of things in the 1970's. But as this was the time when feminism
> first forced its way into SF(among other things), I can't see this time
> boundedness as making the book
> irrelevant. As the book itself states, when it is no longer
> relevant, then its task will be completed. I think its very relevant in
> these neo-con times, but many may disagree....
>
> Tanya.
Yes, you're right, but tell this to a room full of female college students
who insist that they themselves have never been victimized by sexism and
never will be.
Mike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:01 PDT