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

NEW EPISTEMOLOGIES 83lectual program that is a threat to everything he probably believes in:American democracy, liberal education, academic freedom, and the kindof mainstream feminism that has gained women near-equality in Americansociety.Did Goldberg stay long enough to appreciate what an unusual gatheringof academics this was? Was he surprised by an academic audience inwhich the atmosphere of mass agreement and self-congratulation wasalmost total? Did he count the number of times the leading transformationistsadmitted they had no idea what they were doing? Had he any ideaof the number of workshops on thorny topics like "Resistance in theClassroom" or "Anti-Oppression Methods of Teaching"? I wondered whathe would have made of the packed afternoon session on transforming thescience curriculum in which Sandra Harding discussed how science waspart of a discredited "bourgeois" Christian legacy practically indistinguishablefrom imperialism, its cognitive core "tainted by sexism andracism."Richard Bernstein of the New York Times attended the Parsippany conference.When I asked him what he thought of Harding's presentation hesaid that her thesis was absurd: if Western science is repressive and elitistand part of a bourgeois Christian legacy, why are the Japanese and theChinese so good at it? Bernstein, who had spent several years in China asTime magazine's bureau chief, and who has written a wonderful book onChina, told me that throughout the twentieth century Chinese reformershave had great respect for Western science as a progressive force. "Scienceand Democracy" was the slogan of the celebrated May 4th Movementbetween 1915 and 1918. Chinese reformers saw Western science as apowerful weapon against the authoritarianism and superstition that werethe bulwark of the imperial system. Neither Bernstein nor I ventured acriticism of Ms. Harding's views. We were both very much aware that itwould have been exceedingly indecorous for anyone to raise objections.This was a gathering of "connected knowers": hard questions from "separateknowers" were decidedly unwelcome.Ronald Takaki, the Berkeley expert on ethnic studies, was easily themost popular figure at the Parsippany gathering, and not least becausehis presence conferred on the feminist transformation projects the cachetof a multicultural movement. Gender feminists have found it is wise toally themselves with men and women of non-European descent who arecritical of Western culture for its "Eurocentrism." A more general offensiveon Western "Eurocentric" culture (created by and controlled by