18. Coed versus Separatist Feminism
The separatist feminism of today seems to have originated in the first early discussion groups following the advent of the current wave. Contrary to popular belief, not all men of that time declared feminism to be ludicrous or dangerous, and a few husbands and boyfriends seemed interested in the subject.
The problem, as the women saw it, was, firstly, that they as women had been encouraged to sit back and devalue their own opinions, especially when men spoke, whereas men had been taught to turn rhetoric into a showoffy game; so in coed discussion groups, the men dominated the floor too much. Women had yet to even begin exploring their passivity and overcome it. Nor did an atmosphere where men were speaking more to impress than to express easily permit anyone to share personal experiences and vivid feelings.
Secondly, feminism at that time was much more geared towards changing women, with changes in men postulated as necessary only to the degree that would free women to do that changing (and it took awhile before anyone realized just how much that was going to have to be). The topic, then, was women: who women were, who women could be, who women should be (and according to whom), what they could do, and so forth. After a couple of meetings where opinionated men had more to say about that than the women did, the women stopped inviting them.
Thirdly, since the effect of sexism is to polarize the experiences of women and men, any good consciousness-
raising program would have to set time for each sex to meet separately and discuss their viewpoint, developing a sense of identity which, as is the case for all victims of categorical oppression, requires bonding and recognition of the factor which they have in common for which they are oppressed, getting a feel for how it occurs, how it makes them react, and so on. Since the particulars of sexism are not the same for men (even sissies) and women, reasoned many women, men should go work on their own problems, if they feel the need, but women's groups are for women to talk with women about women's concerns.
Finally, women at that time tended to see men's ideas, concerns, priorities, and so on as being by definition those of patriarchal society. Some felt that, perhaps by being victims of their corrupting power, men suffered dehumanization, but at any rate men were certainly in power and could change things if they so desired; all that remained was for women to get them to do so, by friendly tactics or otherwise. Others felt that there were some basic, fundamental differences between the sexes, and that men were doing all that they were doing because they were men.
This last concept, that men created and now consciously maintain patriarchy of our own free will because we are men, is what I am going to call militant separatism, as a specific philosophy that promotes separatist feminism as a practice.
I am also going to call it a few other things.
* * *
"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore, and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex.
It is now possible to reproduce without the aid of males (or, for that matter, females) and to produce only females. We must begin immediately to do so. The male is a biological accident: the y (male) gene is an incomplete x (female) gene, that is, has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion...
SCUM [Society for Cutting Up Men] will kill all men who are not in the Men's Auxiliary of SCUM. Men in the Men's Auxiliary are those men who are working diligently to eliminate themselves, men who, regardless of their motives, do good, men who are playing ball with SCUM...
Men who are rational...won't kick or struggle or raise a distressing fuss, but will just sit back, relax, enjoy the show, and ride the waves to their demise."
-- Valerie Solanis, SCUM Manifesto 1
Valerie Solanis has been dehumanized into symbol. She is used as an example of feminism-gone-overboard, crazed women's-libber paranoia, and so forth, and I am about to make use of her myself for her symbolic aspect; still, I have always been fascinated by the somewhat sinister mystery of the person who did this writing.
Valerie Solanis was primarily an avant-garde screen actress, professionally. She was 24 in l971 when her Manifesto was published. The vividly worded document is as good a description of patriarchy as I've ever read, and her observations are sharp as she slices through faÁades with supple phrases. Strangely enough, Valerie Solanis seems to have disappeared into oblivion around l969 amidst attempted murder charges and psychiatric hospitalization: she shot pop-artist Andy Warhol, with whom she had a working relationship, saying enigmatically that she had to because he had too much control over her life; and when she chose not to let a court-appointed lawyer speak for her in court, the judge decided she was crazy and had her committed.
I've searched carefully and still have not been able to locate any articles that say whether she's still locked up and tranquilized, serving time, or living quietly at home; nor have I been able to find any interviews or new writings to indicate her continued participation in movement activities or theory development. Even her publisher, Olympia Press, seems to have vanished into the twilight zone, leaving no traces in the library's files, and although excerpts from it keep cropping up in feminist literature and the drawers of women's centers, locating a complete manifesto is incredibly difficult.
By now, Valerie Solanis would be 40, and the feminism of fifteen years ago has come a long way (in some ways catching up with her, since virtually no one else in l969 was as complete in comprehensive analysis and condemnation of patriarchy), leaving me wondering how her own thinking might have grown since SCUM Manifesto. I wonder if she still equates maleness with masculinity and patriarchy?
At any rate, she did so in l969, and I've chosen her as an example of militant separatism not only because she fascinates me but because she is such a good representative symbol, illuminating in her writings a couple of important and inescapable ramifications of militant separatism that other separatists often leave shrouded in darkness.
The most immediate conclusion of militant separatism is that men, being patriarchal by biological destiny, are not going to change, cannot change, and should not be expected to. Yet the existence of patriarchs would always endanger women even if they were no longer successfully oppressed by them. It might be possible for women to conquer the men, or to render them somehow incapable of oppression, but Solanis is being the most practical when she suggests killing the men: the danger would be eliminated, and the loss of unchangeable patriarchs would not be much of a loss.
Any militant separatists who merely propose separate nations and expect biologically patriarchal men to cease being a threat just because they are elsewhere are not dealing with reality as they define it. Nor can militant separatism claim to be a coherent philosophy by avoiding men and the issue of men, because, avoided or not, the men will still be out there, and, avoided or not, the question of what civic-minded, responsible, militant separatist women are going to do about them is implied by the condemnation of their death-dealing, misogynistic behavior. In fact, to dwell on the horrible man-crimes and man-ways without proposing any solution at all is most likely to generate only nihilistic depressions and feelings of apathetic powerlessness.
Less direct but definitely implied in the judgemental assertions of blame and guilt in militant separatism is the antagonism of civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking women towards anyone who helps maintain patriarchal ways. They are the Enemy. Solanis recognizes logistical problems when she visualizes the world's supply of women rising up to eliminate the male sex, having no illusions about the lack of militant separatist unanimity among her own gender:
"The conflict, therefore, is not between females and males, but between SCUM -- dominant, secure, self-confident, nasty, violent, selfish, independent, proud, thrill-seeking arrogant females, who consider themselves fit to rule the universe, who have free-wheeled to the limits of this 'society' and are ready to wheel on to something far beyond what it has to offer -- and nice, passive, accepting, 'cultivated', polite, dignified, subdued, dependent, scared, mindless, insecure, approval- seeking Daddy's Girls, who can't cope with the unknown, who want to continue to wallow in the sewer that is, at least, familiar, who want to hang back with the apes, who feel secure only with Big Daddy standing by, with a big strong man to lean on and with a fat, hairy face in the White House, who are too cowardly to face up to the hideous reality of what a man is, what Daddy is, who have cast their lot with the swine , who have adapted themselves to animalism, feel superficially comfortable with it and know no other way of 'life', who have reduced their minds, thoughts, and sights to the male level, who, lacking sense, imagination, and wit can only have value in a male 'society', who can have a place in the sun, or, rather, in the slime, only as soothers, ego boosters, relaxers, and breeders, who are dismissed as inconsequents by other females, who project their deficiencies, their maleness, onto all females and see the female as a worm." (1)
Hmm! Like I said, she fascinates me! But fascination or no, I have to disagree. Ideas, not people, are the enemy as I see it; people are the victims of a cultural system which tends to make them perpetrators as well, but not deliberate ones. And blame, judgement, and guilt are patriarchal constructs feminists would best steer away from. I therefore think militant separatist concepts are poisonous to the ideals of radical feminism, based as they are upon these patriarchal forms of thought and values, and of course being quite sexist themselves.
"If I were a man, I would strenuously object to the assumption that women have any moral or spiritual superiority as a class, or that men share some brute insensitivity as a class. This is male chauvinism in reverse; it is female sexism. It is, in fact, female chauvinism, and those who preach or practice it seem to me to be corrupting our movement for equality and inviting a backlash...
A similar female chauvinism perverted -- and aborted -- the first wave of women's revolution in America. What began as a struggle for equality ended with the notion that women as a class were purer and morally superior...[they] rationalized their isolation from society into a moral virtue...instead of going on to restructure society to make equality possible.
That's the job we are doing now, after nearly fifty years when women stood still, or went backwards, as the pendulum has swung from feminism to female chauvinism to the feminine mystique...[so] instead of changing our situation, I think female chauvinism will exacerbate the old conflicts which caused the pendulum swings in the first place."
-- Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life 2
Admittedly, it becomes a bit of a tightrope for many women; there aren't many men who cherish the same dream of a total end to those old concepts and all that's based on them...and if a woman starts to wonder if she's still dependent on male approval, rationalizing the lack of male feminists, applauding male conciliatory half-measures, and so on, you can see where she might feel more committed as a feminist by angrily observing that "The men are against us; we are the ones doing this". It's a short step from this generalized truth to a sexist prejudice; answering the question I raised repeatedly in the beginning of this book --why is this so? -- is probably not possible for her without access to the male experience (directly or through the testimony of males), and if she shrugs and decides, in essence, that "it is so because they are men", she has fallen into the female chauvinist trap.
The sexist media combines with the often-noticed female chauvinism of separatist feminism to make separatists their own worst enemy: making use of radical feminism's female-only image and seizing on the old female fears of reputation, the media portrays feminism as inherently anti-male, implies that feminism is just a euphemism for lesbianism, and insinuates that that alone explains away female dissatisfaction with the sexist status quo. As a result, many potential female allies who don't like sexism nervously declare that they aren't feminists, encouraging people to think of feminists as irrational dissidents with no base of support,...and men certainly are not encouraged to listen.
In conclusion, I declare proponents of separatism of this type to be sexists, not feminists as I understand and would define the term, although often wise and relatively enlightened sexists who do resent the patriarchal status quo and see most of the problems traditional forms of sexism have caused...yet sexist they are, and, in the long run, trying to destroy the state built on sexism while constantly manifesting sexism in another form is like trying to get the water out of a leaky canoe by drilling drainage holes in its hull.
* * *
Of the four basic rationale arguments for separatist feminism, I find the third to be the most compelling. For all the reasons that have led to special groups and consciousness-raising sessions for black feminists, who meet separately at times to discuss problems particular to their situation, and for lesbian feminists to do likewise, so will it always be necessary for feminist women to meet as women. For that matter, there may be good reasons for occasional meetings of men in the movement, as our number grows. The point is, there must also be meetings for full-coalition feminist-community sharing and listening and validating, and serious men, however rare in the movement, represent the concerns of nearly half the human race, as well as functioning as diplomats from the other side of the wall that sexism places between the genders.
Committed radical feminism needs men as participants in the transformation from patriarchy to the envisioned free society of cooperating equals if that world is going to be a coed world, and men abandoning patriarchal patterns of living and thinking to become feminists are going to need feminist social support just like any other new converts to the cause.
I do understand the reluctance of many feminists to place female energies at the disposal of anyone but other women, lest they end up providing nurturance and sustenance to men in the same old ways which have resulted only in encouraging a sort of male vampirism; and I do think that reaching out to the main body of men should be the concern of male liberationists, as our primary role in the movement (yes, I will "tell my brothers", as the Amazon sentinel advised, and, in many daily ways, I do). My concern is that a strictly male movement existing for the purpose of setting men free, of fulfilling and validating ourselves from internal criteria, runs the very high risk of becoming anti-female -- you've seen the anger in portions of my own narrative, and you can no doubt imagine how easily women could be held to blame by men if the whole mess were not being studied in the light of women's own testimony -- and, just as militant separatism on the part of liberationist women is ultimately destructive to women's purposes, so would an all-male movement to liberate men swiftly become only one more patriarchal reprisal movement such as men have brought forth for their supposed betterment all throughout history. The same energies can be tapped for either form, making use of the same male anger.
This is why I chose to use the terms feminism and feminist rather than create a new construct that wouldn't imply female -- after all, I would probably sound much less audacious and pretentious stating, for example, that suchand- such is inimical to the concept of being a good sex role revolutionary, rather than use words which imply that only a female has authority to speak on the subject -- but until and unless a significant number of feminists begin calling what they are doing by a term that reflects its advantage to both sexes, I find it necessary to accede to the contemporary names given to the movement and its participants.
I do, however, recommend the use of some term to distinguish nonseparatist radical feminism from separatist, and to avoid the cumbersomeness of "sexually integrated feminism", I have made use of the term coed feminism for the purposes of this book.
The time has come for coed feminism. I think the women of the movement have had plenty of time to gain confidence and develop a sense of identity and direction unobstructed by male shepherding and guidance, and, at this point, they should be securely accessible for communication with any serious male brave enough to enter into their realm; when the meetings are for feminists -- those opposed to patriarchy and sexism -- male feminists should be welcome there.
* * *
Consider the gears that are going to have to mesh in order for men to join the feminist movement in a personal way. Many women of the movement are not particularly fond of having men in their immediate presence, even if they don't hold men personally responsible for the world's problems. How are such women going to react to men wanting to join in, to ask desegregation of formerly female-only strongholds of the committed?
At present, the organizations that welcome men into their midst tend, on the local level, to contain all the revolutionary fervor of the NAACP.
I don't necessarily mean that pejoratively, since moderates and mainstream organizations perform an important function by bringing yesterday's radical ideas into the everyday lives of everyday people who live a long way from the ideological fringes of society. The problem is, if you were to take a male totally fed up with the circumstances of his life in patriarchal society, and take a female who has absolutely had it with hers, the only point where you will find a common viewpoint that identifies their problems as being in fact the same Problem is on the radical edge of feminism, where feminists deal with the deep, all-encompassing philosophies of the movement's analyses. The woman who is just begining to stop saying "I'm not a feminist, but..." and wants to explore matters in more detail might be ideally suited for the environment of one of the moderate-type groups, but the man who is beginnning to really see personal advantages for himself in the proposed changes that those "women's libbers" are always talking about just isn't likely to find what he needs by joining in and trying to take part in the local chapter of NOW.
To some extent, this spells out the need for us -- men who have already reached a comprehension of the Problem -- to reach out and teach, and make ourselves socially visible; this is obviously where we should concentrate our feminist energies.
But it also indicates that it is at the radical, not the moderate feminist level that going coed and bridging gaps makes the most sense.
Ponder for a moment the possibility of a fellow meeting with the women of radical feminist collectives and the writers and publishers of incisive feminist theory, feminist communes, Dianic Wiccean covens, and so forth -- the small core groups of radical women likely to be found in nearly every decent-sized community if one knows where to look -- and sharing views towards the potential for coed theory in the course of conversations on a regular basis. Who would be most antagonistic to the idea?
What about lesbian-feminists? After all, much of the initiative for separatism seems to have come from radical lesbian-feminists, and certainly the image of militant separatism is that of "castrating man-hating dykes"...is there a lot of reality behind this image?
Perhaps at one time there was more truth to this than there seems to be now. The well-publicized anti-male phase of militant-separatist ascendancy marked the beginnings of the 70's, and was to an extent part of women needing to develop their own conceptual space and find out who they were in a state dissociated from men altogether. Yet, even then, I think, the lesbian-feminist antipathy towards men as individual people, solely on the basis of their sex, was exaggerated by the press.
Martha Shelley (Notes of a Radical Lesbian) once said, "Men have oppressed us, and like most oppressors, they hate the oppressed and fear their wrath. Watch a white man walking in Harlem and you will see what I mean. Look at the face of a man who has accidentally wandered into a Lesbian bar." Speaking for herself, however, she added, "I do not mean to condemn all males. I have found some beautiful, loving men among the revolutionaries, among the hippies, and the male homosexuals." 3
I am convinced that the cultural notion that lesbians are man-haters is just another convenient sexist stereotype. Lesbians have many reasons to hate patriarchy and perhaps find militant separatist philosophy an easy step to make; yet, although they have not so many reasons for trusting men, I think the day will come when lesbian feminists and male (including heterosexual male) feminists will work comfortably and proudly together.
It is for serious movement men to make it plain that we are sincere in our support and respect for the right of people to pursue their personal lives and sexual preferences, that an attempt to create a healthy heterosexuality does not imply condemnation of other alternatives, that our criticism is and will be reserved for dehumanizing aspects of sexuality.
I myself first came into contact with lesbians (first time knowing that I was in contact with lesbians, that is) in a context where they tended to take it for granted that I was not straight, and while I had no trouble getting along, I remember wondering if they would reject me or cease to trust me if I "came out". Talk about a switch! Anyway, I have since that time had a number of lesbian friends, predominantly since moving to New York, and found them to be really nice people. I will attest to the fact that there are indeed some man-hating lesbians -- I've met a few of them -- but as far as I can tell being lesbian isn't a good predictor of that (heterosexual women can be extremely hateful, too).
I guess lesbians have had to earn the trust and respect of their heterosexual sisters, themselves:
"Feminists who thought the lesbians were not there [in the movement] for legitimate reasons and would soon leave are disillusioned by now. Conservative elements in the movement are stilll trying to keep the lesbians in the closet by saying lesbianism is not important and at the same time, too dangerous to deal with."
-- Sidney Abbott / Barbara Love, "Is Women's Liberation a Lesbian Plot?" 4 (1971)
"Certainly many of us are ardent feminists. Equally certainly many of the women's rights groups shun and fear Lesbians because of the 'brand' they fear they will receive. It comes as no surprise whatever to the Lesbian civil-rights worker to find that she is, among some of these brave women's groups, once again persona non grata."
-- Gene Damon, "The Least of These" 5 (1970)
I think coalition is possible. It may not be easy, but the history of feminism seems to be a history of successful gap-bridging, leading formerly divided factions into a state of communcation that creates understandings and a sense of a common bond. Besides being possible, I think coalition is necessary if the movement is to move onward -- the time has come for feminism to construct around a sexually integrated theory of sexual liberation.
No one ever said it was going to be easy. But I, too, have known pain. I can understand. And I care.
* * *
During my childhood and teen years, at odds with sexist pressures and ideas about who I should be, the voice of the sisterhood of feminism sustained me, telling me that I was not the only person to have rebellious thoughts on the subject of sex roles and a person's right to be different. Particularly, since I was an omnivorous and voracious bookworm, the writings of the women's liberation touched me and helped me, eventually, to make correlations and comparisons and develop a feminist consciousness from my own perspective.
True, few of these women's writings concerned themselves with the full effects of sexism on men, which was, and still is, predominantly uncharted territory. But this is only as it should be: as I would not seek to write a comprehensive book on how sexist molding and restriction affects women, neither would I expect the women of the movement to write the complete book on the implications of sexism and the patriarchal norm for men.
What the women helped me grasp was the abstract concept of sexism, and from that boost I was able to begin putting the rest of it together. It is this abstraction, with all its dividing and polarizing, with all its ramifications and social structures and manifestations, which creates our problems.
Now, as an isolated and occasionally lonely social critic, I look at the phenomenon of feminist women's political closeness and I want in *. All my life I've enjoyed participating in worthwhile companionship, and being shut out from a lot of that has hurt; but to know that there are activists who share my most fervent commitments and beliefs about society, who recognize the same Enemy and seek its destruction, yet to find that often I am regarded by them as a nonparticipant (if not Enemy) is infuriating. When I come to feminist colloquia to join in, I think I should be heard and criticized on the basis of my views and contributions, not hissed and dismissed after a cursory glance establishes my gender. I'd imagine most liberationist women can easily imagine if not recall how it feels to be isolated, cut off from anyone who doesn't accept the teachings of patriarchal society as gospel; you must know how that feels! Must I be banned to that forever?
* I am now a student of women's studies at SUNY at Old Westbury (NY), and for the time being, I am being made to feel very welcome in feminist society! In general, I've observed that big-city feminists are much more ready to include interested males.
=====================================
I want to sit among you and hear, in person and in detail, the voices of my sisters. I want to learn from you and share with you, to be a part of this community of conscious and wise people who are my equals (I never denied being vain!).
Soon, more and more brothers will appear -- I think the time is ripe -- and together, in microcosm, we will be able to look upon the world we are trying to build.
* * *
I would like to think that most of today' committed feminists no longer feel that there is anything intrinsically antifeminist about men that would prevent the phenomenon of feminism from becoming a coed one. I like to think that most of the visionary women think of the ideal non-sexist world as a coed one, and that, logically speaking, there should at some point be brothers working with them towards that ideal.
Coed feminism is in no way inherently dilute. Its theoretical rationale derives from the purest rejection of sexist polarization, as its foundation. That coed-feminist starting point has been expressed by many, but seldom with the meticulous clarity of Elizabeth Janeway:
"If we limit ourselves to what we know for sure about innate psychological differences between the sexes we can go no further than to say that their existence is an unresolvable hypothesis. What we can say besides is that there is little need to believe that men and women are born with psychological differences built into their brains because the workings of society and culture, by themselves, are perfectly capable of producing all the differences we know so well, and in my opinion they have." 6
* * *
There is still one final question that remains to be answered -- what shall I call myself? Even though I have been referring to myself throughout this book as a feminist in my own right, the verdict of the Amazon's court has not yet been reached. Meanwhile, I need a name for what I am about and what I am doing, and as I have said, it must stress my alignment with what the women are doing.
Actually, that one is not a difficult one to solve. The phrase coed feminist should very honestly say "pseudofeminist" or "coopted feminist" to women who cannot see room for males in the movement, and it will say "men's auxiliary" to the ones who see males as useful only in peripheral and supporting roles. It should function in a similar manner to the term "coeducational student" from which it was borrowed, taking on whatever connotations it implies to whoever hears it. Meanwhile, for myself and any others who see matters as I do, it says what it means. For all of these reasons, I choose to use the complete, more precise, more qualified phrase. It's only fitting.
* * *
I have been testifying to a courtroom of Amazons. There are and have been and will be many arguments about "equal liberation for men" and so on but Amazons, of course, would not be concerned with what is or is not in the best interests of men. In listening to me make my case, therefore, some may find strange my departure from the wisdom of traditional men's-libber approaches in dealing with such women: I did not try to derive all of these male concerns from an initial pro-woman line, in other words from what is in the best interests of women.
On the other hand, by beginning with a selfish personal assessment of patriarchy from a male viewpoint and deriving the same conclusions as radical feminism, I think I made my point.
Furthermore, I may have finally brought to an end all those nasty questions about "whose side am I really on?" which someone always insists on asking.
If so, it's about time! I'm tired of being deprived of any socially recognizable sense of identity and I want it understood that I am on my own damn side! Unlike Sir Galahad rescuing the damsel from the monster about to victimize her, I was staked out to be one of its victims. In fact, when I was still unaware of what it was that I was up against, I swore that if I ever figured out who (or what) was responsible for what I was going through, there was going to be some score-settling. Frankly, this book feels like a weapon in my hands, and I'm inclined to dispense some terrible and fiery justice of my own.
I am finished. I came unto you all with a story to tell, a picture to paint, and now I ask you to match it with what you see and what you know and see for yourselves to what extent the testimony of the Amazon's brother furnishes the missing piece to the puzzle.
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