Feminism, the vote.

[Kenneth Allen Hyde]

On Wed, 9 Jun 1999, Megan J. Crowhurst wrote:

> On the subject of feminism, I think it's important for an organization
> like GALA to affirm in some positive way some set of feminist
> principles, broadly defined, as part of the organization's general
> orientation, in much the same way that various members expect it to be
> positively stated that work on masculinity and queer issues is to be
> welcomed. [snip]...as I see it, we could say exactly the same about
> the other two areas I just mentioned (and more).

Are we going to do that, though?  If feminism is the *only* political or
ideological stance that we single out and endorse, then we are excluding
others, de facto.  On the other hand, if we inculde a broadly inclusive
statement that endorses and valorizes feminist, masculinist, queer, and
other approaches, then we have to be careful that our statement doesn't
accidentally exclude or neglect anyone.  And in any case, I would argue
strongly that such a statement would not be "feminist", but would rather
belong to some larger ideology that was concerned with social equity
regardless of the demographic feature that was being focused on.

> Endorsing/affirming a set of feminist principles, however defined
> (personally, I like Alice's definition, but others would be possible),
> does not mean that work supported by GALA has to take a feminist
> orientation.

If that is the only set of principles that we endorse, officially, then I
would argue that it does indeed mean that GALA has a feminist orientation.

> And it does not mean that members hAve to identify as feminist, any
> more than affirming a place for work addressing queer issues means
> that members of GALA have to identify as queer.

True, but if someone belongs to a group that overtly and explicitly states
that they are a Queer Theory oriented group, then all members of the group
have to accept that they will be self-identifying as Queer Theory
scholors, if not actually gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or other.

> think about this comparison, it becomes clear that to exclude reference to
> feminism in GALA's statement, as has been suggested, would be to encode a
> specific bias against feminist orientations, and this I would find to be
> unacceptable.

This sounds to me like the old "if it's not required, it's forbidden"
argument.  If we don't make any mention of *any* specific approach to
gender studies, but instead simply say that GALA supports and endorses
research on all aspects of the interaction of gender, sex, and language,
that doesn't mean feminism is excluded, any more than it means that Queer
approaches are excluded.  In fact, it means (at least to my eyes) that any
researcher who is looking carefully at some intersection of language with
any interpretation of gender (sex, socio-gender, sexuality, etc.) would be
welcomed in GALA.  Whereas, if we explicitly mention and endorse only one
or two specific approaches, then the absence of other approaches does
become significant. Why feminism only, and not other approaches?  The lack
of something is not significant until it contrasts with the presence of
something else.

> I've hesitated to express this opinion in this group because I don't
> feel that I have the credentials to do so; my own work does not
> examine issues which are primarily relevant to this group (I am a
> theoretical phonologist who does linguistic fieldwork on Tupi-Guarani
> languages in South America), and I only teach language and gender
> courses occasionally.

Pish and tosh. =)  I'm in a similar position.  I work on theoretical
morpho-syntax (most significantly in Austronesian languages).  I teach
Language and Gender classes, and language and sexuality, but that is not
my primary area of work, at the moment.  Because of my teaching, I (like
you, no doubt) have to keep up with current issues in Language and Gender
and Sexuality, so even without a publication record, I feel that I'm very
current in my knowledge of the field and the issues.  I'm fairly sure that
a large number of the members of this group are in a similar situation.
Really, if we truly want to be inclusive and inter-disciplinary, we need
to accept that members of GALA will probably not be primarily L&G
scholars, but will probably be doing their primary work in other fields.
If we think that a strong career in L&G, with an attendant publication
record, and primary appointment in that branch of academe is necessary in
order to have a voice in GALA, the feminism issue is probably moot.  Most
of us won't even be allowed in the door, so why worry about what labels
await us beyond.

However, my impression, and the reason that I am very enthusiastic about
GALA (and the reason I have no hesitation about sharing my opinions) is
that GALA is not going to be exclusive in the sense I just mentioned, that
it will be truly inter-disciplinary, and that everyone has an equal right
to voice their opinions.

> My committment to this organization and to others which are similar in
> some ways grows specifically out of a personal committment to queer
> and feminist issues.  So, if feminist orientations were not
> specifically welcomed by this organization for all of the reasons I've
> mentioned in these paragraphs, I would feel that there was no place
> for me in this organization.

Hmmm.  Here's a more homely analogy: if I gave a party, and said that
everyone on this list was invited, would you feel that I had not invited
the phonologists and that they would not be welcome?  On the other hand,
if I said that the party was for the list and all the phonologists were
invited, would you feel that I was including the syntacticians and the
pragmatics specialists and the descriptivists, et cetera?  As someone who
has seen similar things happen, I would predict that the phonologists
would feel as welcome as anyone, in the first case; and the
non-phonologists would be calling asking if the party was really
"phonologists only," in the second case.

So, I guess my feeling is that GALA should either extend a broad,
inclusive, and non-specific invitation to prospective members, or it
should extend an exhaustively listed set of specific invitations that also
includes everyone.  But what we should not do is single out one group of
many as the only group to be explicitly mentioned.

May the seas be your solace and the forests a refuge for your spirit,

Cennydd

Kenneth Allen Hyde     |  No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife
Univ. of Delaware      |  between the shoulder blades will seriously
Dept. of Linguistics   |  cramp his style  -- Old Jhereg proverb
kenny at Udel.Edu         |  A mind is a terrible toy to waste! -- Me

//www.ling.udel.edu/hyde/prof/ken.html