Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

26 WHO STOLE FEMINISM?ist male had just shot and killed fourteen women students at the Universityof Montreal: "What I saw in the incident in Montreal was the actingout of what I experience discursively every day of my life and particularlyat this institution." 18Ms. Jardine 's claim sets a standard of sisterly empathythat not many can hope to match, but her exquisite sensibility isparadigmatic for the New Feminist.Popular books advertising motifs of humiliation, subordination, andmale backlash bolster the doctrine of a bifurcated society in which womenare trapped in the sex/gender system. The feminists who write thesebooks speak of the sex/gender system as a "lens" that reveals the world ina new way, giving them a new perspective on society and making themauthorities on what facts to "see," to stress, and to deplore.Virginia Held, a philosophy professor at the City University of NewYork, reported on the feminist conviction that feminist philosophers arethe initiators of an intellectual revolution comparable to those of "Copernicus,Darwin, and Freud." 19Indeed, as Held points out, "some feministsthink the latest revolution will be even more profound." According toHeld, the sex/gender system is the controlling insight of this feministrevolution. Ms. Held tells us of the impact that the discovery of the sex/gender system has had on feminist theory: "Now that the sex/gendersystem has become visible to us, we can see it everywhere." 20Indeed, most feminist philosophers are "sex/gender feminists," andmost do "see it everywhere." Held describes the "intellectually gripping"effect of the new perspective. I confess I sometimes envy Held and hersister gender feminists for the excitement they experience from seeing theworld through the lens of sexual politics. On the other hand, I believethat how these feminist theorists regard American society is more a matterof temperament than a matter of insight into social reality. The belief thatAmerican women are living in thrall to men seems to suit some womenmore than others. I have found that it does not suit me.Anyone reading contemporary feminist literature will find a genre ofwriting concerned with personal outrage. Professor Kathryn Allen Rabuzziof Syracuse University opens her book Motherself by recounting thisincident:As I was walking down a sleazy section of Second Avenue in NewYork City a few years ago, a voice suddenly intruded on my consciousness:"Hey Mama, spare change?" The words outraged me. . . .Although I had by then been a mother for many years, never till thatmoment had I seen myself as "Mama" in such an impersonal, exter-