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

64 WHO STOLE FEMINISM?Minnich. Their reaction, I am ashamed to say, made me restrain myselffrom asking her the questions I badly wanted to ask: Why should wewomen be playing an undignified game of one-upmanship that we arebound to lose? What motivates the revisionist efforts to rewrite Historyor to revise the standards of "greatness" in a manner calculated to give towomen victories and triumphs they never had the opportunities to win?We now have those opportunities. Why can't we move on to the futureand stop wasting energy on resenting (and "rewriting") the past?Many of us who call ourselves feminists are very much aware of thepast indignities and deprivations that have limited women in the arts.Although we deplore the past, we appreciate that the situation haschanged: today, artistically gifted women do have their level playing field.So we reject the call to change the standards of greatness, and we areexploring the more constructive alternatives now open to us, where wejudge our best prospects to lie.Unfortunately, no one is consulting mainstream feminists about thevalue or wisdom of proposals to change standards in order to "valorize"women in the History of art or any other branch of History. If the transformationistscontinue to have their unchecked way in the academy, largenumbers of American students will learn to view the great masterpieces ina doctrinally correct way—to their profound loss. Moreover, the women'smovement loses by being associated with the partisan and resentful antiintellectualismthat is inspiring a gynocentric revisionism in art criticism.In literature, as in the arts, gender feminists have made a sweepingattack on allegedly male conceptions of excellence. As Elaine Marks ofthe University of Wisconsin French department puts it, "We are contestingthe canon and the very concept of canons and masterpieces." 30ProfessorMarks reminds us once again that many gifted women in the pasthave not received due recognition. Good feminist scholarship addressesthis problem and in many cases resurrects reputations that would otherwiseremain overlooked. But gender feminists are not content to stopthere. As transformationist activist Charlotte Bunch declares, "You can'tjust add women and stir." 31According to Bunch, we must attack theproblem at the roots "by transforming a male culture" and by "reconstructingthe world from the standpoint of women." We must, in otherwords, reject the masculinist standards that have placed European maleslike Michelangelo and Shakespeare in the highest ranks and relegatedtheir sisters to oblivion.The gender feminists challenge the very idea of "great art," "greatliterature," and (as we shall presently see) "great science." Talk of "greatness"and "masterpieces" implies a ranking of artists and works, a "hier-