Oh sanil, please don't imagine others to be so naive! I agree --
binaries are not bad in themselves; limiting struggles to attacking them
won't save anyone from power. Nor will attacking stereotypes save us
from oppression! But that doesn't mean that people shouldn't protest
when such devices of language are used in such a way (intentionally or
not) that silences others. That is not politically prudish or
theoretically half-baked as you put it. If there is a wife-beater saying
interesting things about public issues, theoretically yes, one cannot
devalue this person's insights by simply calling up the offensive
actions. But if the kinds of power fantasies made possible in and
through wife-beating are carried into the public by this person -- in
ideas, in action, and language -- that is not permissible. I am need not
be bothered, as a public person, whether the person who posts offensive
stuff is saintly in personal life, or a fiend, as long as he/she keeps
off behaviour that passivises others.
But then, unfortunately, as a lot of (not-so-theoretically-naive) feminist
scholarship has discovered, one's behaviour in the private and domestic
spheres does colour one's public positions -- both in empirical research
and in social theory -- the economic man,for instance, altruistic at home,
competitive outside, has been criticised threadbare by feminists. As
someone straddling domestic and public spheres, I feel I have been greatly
empowered by the feminist insight that the domestic and the private are as
saturated with power as the public. So I would remain quite suspicious of
wifebeaters who are saintly in public, whatever the theory-makers say.
Was also amused to see that the ways in which buddhijeevi men tell 'us'
(I mean, the 'us' that Arunima was referring to) indirectly to shut up.
Either it is 'lack of humour'/'lack of a sense of irony', or it 'lack of
theoretical sophistication'. Well what is that, 'censorship', or
'moderation'?
With Arunima, I too defend the 'we' pronoun. All this convinces me that
'we' need 'we , not just theoretical correctness.
Devika
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