APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy

Symposium: Intra-Feminist Criticism and the "Rules of Engagement"

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Introduction: Intra-Feminist Criticism and the "Rules of Engagement"

Ann Garry
California State University, Los Angeles

Both the substance and the manner of conflicts and criticism among feminists have engaged feminist philosophers frequently in recent decades. Sometimes the conflicts concern methods or types of philosophical approach, for example, modern or postmodern, or the possibility and value of analytical feminism. At other times the issues concern style, venue, a "demand for relevance," other political or lifestyle differences, and so on. Although these discussions sometimes start after one feminist has criticized another in a way that has received public attention, the issues considered always go far beyond a particular controversy. Such discussions have taken place, for example, on electronic lists, at regional meetings of groups such as the Society of Women in Philosophy (SWIP), in essays in anthologies and journals, and on panels sponsored by the APA Committee on the Status of Women and published here in the Newsletter.1

Two workshops featuring panel discussions on intra-feminist criticism were held during 1999-2000. Bat-Ami Bar On led the first at the Feminist Ethics Revisited conference, hosted by the University of South Florida in October 1999. That workshop featured very short informal presentations by a number of feminist philosophers from several generations and valuable free-flowing conversation. The second took place at the Pacific Division of the APA in Albuquerque in April 2000, organized by the Society for Analytical Feminism (SAF) and co-sponsored by SAF and SWIP. The speakers were Marilyn Frye, Ann Garry, Naomi Scheman, and Naomi Zack, with Garry also serving as Chair. Martha Nussbaum was invited to be a panelist, but was unable to attend. Papers from all invited panelists are included in this symposium.

The authors address questions that one would expect as well as expand the discussion in fruitful philosophical ways. Are there any special "rules of engagement" that apply to feminist philosophers that do not apply to others engaged in intellectual exchanges? If so, why is this the case and what are the "rules"? What does the use of this military phrase in a feminist discussion mean anyway? If there are no special rules for feminists, what virtues should any critic exemplify? What special obligations and commitments do feminists have to the field of feminist philosophy and feminist intellectual communities more generally? What epistemological and value assumptions do we make when we take a point of view from which to critique another and when we see ourselves and our experiences as normative? What does it mean to have respect and self-respect, to be fair, and to examine the meaning and status of a commitment to rationality and reasoned debate?

Naomi Zack believes that the same set of rules should apply to all intellectual criticism and that the problems we face as critics are general moral problems and require the development of intellectual virtues. She proposes an anarchic ideal of the critic (and the philosopher) as auteur. Although she believes no subject matter or approach should be prescribed, Zack advocates some ground rules for critics: first, that a critic respect the context in which an author has chosen to work, and, second, that the critic forget about the author's gender or ethnicity, unless she has made it the subject of her work.

Marilyn Frye emphasizes her concern with disengagement among feminists-for example, critique in which we distance ourselves as "good feminists" from the others (too radical, too likely to lose their jobs) and writing that fails to engage or even acknowledge the feminist forbearers and contexts of our work. Frye advocates a sustained and generous published critique that constructs and maintains the feminist genealogy of feminist thought.

Ann Garry, in the guise of Ms. Feminist Philosopher Manners, offers suggestions for behavior that exemplify respect and fair treatment among feminist philosophers and other intellectuals.

Martha Nussbaum argues that respect and self-respect imply that feminists speak candidly and expose our true positions to others for reasoned critique. She explains what she personally has tried to do to make feminist philosophy available to the public outside the academy, to show respect and concern for the seriousness of feminist issues, and at the same time to evaluate feminist philosophers as wrong or misguided when she believes they are.

Naomi Scheman, in an epistemologically oriented essay, argues that Nussbaum has not taken her account of the openness and vulnerability of reason far enough. Scheman advocates that we remain suspicious of our own confidence in our views, assumptions, and feelings about what is reasonable and that we examine how we make choices about which challenges to our beliefs to take seriously. Through examples she illustrates the difficulties in balancing our openness to reasonable argument with our own conceptions of reasonableness when it is precisely the conceptions and standards of reasonableness that others call into question.
We hope that readers will consider the essays in this symposium a springboard for their own thinking about these and related issues. We look forward to responses.

Note

1. See, for example, the essays by Sally Haslanger, Virginia Held and Naomi Scheman in the symposium, "Doing Philosophy as a Feminist," APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy 91:1 (1992), 112-120.

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2