"Are There Sisters in This Class?": A Response to "Sisterly Critics"

Reading the circumspect "Sisterly Critics," I nevertheless found myself reminded of the opening line of The 18 th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Amending Hegel, [Marx, Karl] remarked that when history repeats itself, as it inevitably does, the first time is great tragedy, the second, wretched farce (Marx 1852, 146). I wonder what genre might best describe the recurring crises over declarations about the birth of a new feminism. Plot unaltered and dialogue scripted, the only potential for innovation are updated cultural references and the identity of who will be cast in the heroine's role of saving feminism from feminists. Whether in the challenge of 1920s "new styled feminists," the 1940s crusade to retrieve Rosie's rivet, the efforts of 1980s "neo-feminists" or the 1990s "dissident feminists," the charge of a feminist cabal imperiling women's well-being, and the subsequent commotion among those accused over how to respond to such opprobrium, has been a periodic drama. Predictability does not diminish our duty to attend encore renditions, but, as I argued in "There are No Victims in This Class," it is critical to view these controversies in light of their own history (Cf. Cott 1987; Banner 1974; Hochschild 1983; Stacey 1983; Rosenfelt and Stacey 1987). Joan Mandle asserts that the writers I classify as "anti-victim feminists" (AVFers) should not be dismissed as anti-feminist, that they have pointed to real worries ("to the extent that [they] address serious concerns," she qualifies), and that their critique of the "victimist" tendencies in feminist theories and practices should be solemnly evaluated and publicly debated. From her experience as an educator and director of a women's studies program, she detects three areas where she believes AVFers are on target--exaggerated claims of women's victimization, emphasizing the personal over the political, and Women's Studies as habitually clannish and unscholarly--and proposes practical ways to begin remedying these problems. Debate is unquestionably vital for feminists, as Mandle implores; but she wants to have it both ways. She vies for an inclusive discussion, without boundaries designating "insiders" and "outsiders," and yet still thinks it is relevant to note, for example, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese's feminist credentials. Why should these outweigh Fox-Genovese's current controversial "definition of and position on feminism"? Adjudicating who deserves feminist membership and who does not, is, in my opinion, immat