Pynchon fans/good

[Henry M]

Diana -

I'm glad that the first days of Women's Studies courses were so, 
shall we say, bipartisan. But am I the only one on the list who has 
been burnt repeatedly by comparatively less thoughtful, knee-jerk 
partisans? Am I the only one that has found the party-line of many 
movements to be an open declaration of war? 

Why is generalization towards PCism bad, towards feminists 
(you may not believe this, but I am a feminist/humanist) and women bad, 
but "all men are oppressor/rapists" OK? 
I know that you don't espouse these views, but can you honestly tell me 
that you haven't seen them in mainstream "feminist" literature and 
heard them vented by upset women and the pc men who feel their pain?

On 31 Oct 96 at 9:51, Diana York Blaine wrote:

> Yes, I was a tad shocked by the men/bad, women/good dichotomy--is
> that really a feminist credo?  Sheesh.  I always thought I was a
> man--including up through graduate school in all those Pynchon
> seminars where I was the only woman.  I was there because I wanted
> to be, but I did notice a divergence in our responses to the
> representations of dead women, which seemed to abound in DeLillo,
> Pynchon, etc. and I began sadly to realize that I wasn't one of the
> boys.  But before I became a card-carrying feminist I had to learn
> that feminist theory regards gender constructions as the constraint
> to be analyzed--constructions affecting men and women both.  In fact
> in some ways I think men clearly have it worse--note the earlier
> post about men dying younger and their lives being dangerous: this
> could have come straight from the first day lecture in my Women's
> Studies courses, but it came from someone who feels alienated by
> feminist agendas! A real misunderstanding is afoot; I am glad to
> hear about it. Diana

Keep Cool, but care. -- TRP
http://www.nicom.com/~gravity