MIM NOTES No. 190 July 15, 1999 Pseudo-feminist icon stomps on science by MC45 In testimony to the stinking pile that is Amerikan pseudo-feminism Mary Daly, renowned author of Gyn/Ecology, has resigned her teaching position at Boston College rather than consent to teach men. The anti-science hysteria that defines pseudo-feminism is such that a pillar of this supposedly liberating ideology would rather stop teaching her brand of so-called feminism than deal with its implications in practice. According to the New York Times, Daly has barred men from her classes since the 1970s. A judge recently ruled that this practice is not legal; Daly is retiring in response to the ruling. The Times reported that Daly was trying to prevent men from interfering with "the dynamic" of her classes. MIM cares about what Daly and other pseudo-feminists do because they claim to oppose gender oppression, and in doing so they steer people away from the correct line. Gender oppression under patriarchy is the enemy of wimmin who want an equal place in government and land-ownership, of men whose sexuality is appropriated through imprisonment and forced labor, and of children who are privately owned by their parents and forced to live according to priorities not of their choosing. We disagree fiercely with Daly when we insist that the wide-reaching patriarchal enemy will only be dismantled through direct materialist analysis and opposition. Such analysis is not served by attempts to restrict its formers on the basis of their biology. As the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist scientists before us, MIM believes that any individual of any class, nation or gender can grasp the political theory and practice of the international proletariat. Communists make group analyses first for the purposes of identifying those people in whose interests we will work: the exploited and superexploited international proletariat. Secondly, we seek those groups of people that will most likely be won to these interests. In the imperialist countries this includes the youth, oppressed nations, and prisoners. Science tells us first that the "dynamic" of a First World University classroom does not fundamentally change between the time the classroom holds only wimmin and the moment a man walks in the door. We take Daly's "dynamic" to mean social relations. In most any Amerikan college classroom the social relations are best described by those who acknowledge that the majority in the room are gender oppressors. We include First World wimmin as gender oppressors because they have taken on the role of gender aristocracy. The labor aristocracy is compensated handsomely for its allegiance to class and national hierarchy. The gender aristocracy is paid for its support of patriarchy with contraceptives tested on Third World people, with the legal authority to put oppressed nation men in prison, and with the right to own children. Separatist organizing is not a dividing-line question for MIM. Our party accepts as members people from all social groups provided they agree with the three main points listed on page two of MIM Notes, and democratic centralism on all other questions. We organize in this way because we understand through history that Marxist science has done more to eliminate oppression than any other theory of organizing, and we are organized to end oppression. But we would include in the United Front organizations that excluded men but had with the correct revolutionary anti- imperialist line. Those people claiming feminism who do not want to work in mixed- sex organizations should ask themselves whether they are following the quickest path to end all oppression, as patriarchy will not be dissolved in a bubble. We will need to talk with the separatists who want to organize themselves along Marxist-Leninist-Maoist lines. Those wimmin or men who want sex separatism for its own sake are derailing genuine feminism and the struggle to end oppression overall. Source: New York Times 30 May, 1999. Section A. Note: MIM has not reviewed Daly's work, but would welcome a review submission. For MIM reviews of Daly's sisters-in-arms, see the gender section of MIM's online bookstore at http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/bookstore/offbooks.html or order a copy of MIM Theory 2&3: Gender and Revolutionary Feminism (special double issue -- 200 pp.) for $6 from the address on page 2.