County Fire Department fireman reading the area of censorship (except in Canada, "Contemporary politically correct femin- Playboy at the stationhouse, FFE's brief but FFE/Canada has only just been ism" is not only not "the only kind that on the winning side was thought by many formed). It has been the feminist groups plays any role in public policy," its mar- to be decisive to the decision of the Mr. Sheaffer hasn't noticed: not just FFE, ginal role is rapidly diminishing. District Court: Los Angeles NOW was on but the Feminist Anti-Censorship Task the other side. But two other chapters of Force (the first such group, which fought Notes NOW in California cheered the decision, censorship ordinances in the early to mid- and several prominent members of NOW 1980s and then disbanded until 1992), and 1. Lydia Sargent, "Introduction," in Women and associated themselves with the FFE brief. the Working Group on Women, Censor- Revolution, Lydia Sargent, ed. (Boston: South End Press, 1981) p. xxix. So you see, Mr. Sheaffer, some of the ship and "Pornography" of the National 2. David L. Kirp, Mark G. Yudof, and Marlene "rational feminists" that you can't find are Coalition Against Censorship, who are Strong Franks, Gender Justice (Chicago and actually operating within the "largest fem- prevailing. Academe is another matter, but London: University of Chicago Press, 1986). 3. Barbara Deckard, ed., The Women's Move- inist organization" and are influencing its the same feminist groups I am speaking of ment: Political, Socioeconomic, and Psychological positions. are speaking out against "hate speech" Issues (New York, Evanston, San Francisco, The fact is that the cultural feminists rules, and I predict that the heyday of London: Harper & Row, 1975). 4. From my copy of the text. with whom Mr. Sheaffer and I disagree unquestioned funding of the cultural fem- 5. Bill Holland, "Feminists, NOW Blast Sex- have not been able to influence policy in inist agenda on campus is already over. Crime Bill" Billboard March 7, 1992, p. 6.

FI Interview Eleanor Smeal on Present and Future Eleanor ("Ellie") Smeal is one of the best-known figures in the modern movement for women's equality, gaining a reputa- tion as a political strategist and grass-roots organizer. She served three terms as president of the National Organization for Women, increasing its membership sixfold and transforming it into the nation's preeminent feminist organization. In 1987 she co-founded and became president of the Feminist Majority and Feminist Majority Foundation, which recruits feminists to run for public office and advocates gender balance laws for state and city boards and commissions. This interview was conducted by Timothy J. Madigan.—EDs.

REE INQUIRY: How do you respond They have to say it's those radical femi- Fto people who say this is a "post-fem- nists they don't like, because they know inist" era? doggone well that a huge portion of peo- ELEANOR SMEAL: We never had a ple believe in women's equality. Frankly, feminist era. If you look at a feminist era I think if you just ask the question, "Do as one in which woman have achieved you believe in equality?" the number of equality, we're obviously a long way people who would answer "Yes" would away from it. The whole "post-feminist" go way up. Yet, that is the most difficult rhetoric is more or less wishful thinking feminist issue, the fight for equality. on the part of those who saw the sixties as FI: One of the main tasks of FI is to a feminist era, and who are trying to write critique claims of organized religion. I the women's movement out of the future. wonder if you can talk a bit about the But the women's movement is very much ways in which organized religions cur- alive and isn't about to go away. rently are helping or hindering the femi- FI: The word feminism itself is often nist movement. tagged with the word radical in front of it. SMEAL: Some of the largest religious SMEAL: I think this is wonderful, be- movements are fighting equality. The cause those who do that know that femi- Catholic church is fighting the ordination nism has a tremendously large following, of women priests and increasing women's rights issues. Many Protestant denomina- really larger than any other subdivision leadership roles within the church. It is tions have accepted women in the clergy, like liberal or conservative, and certainly also, of course, leading the anti-abortion although not with open arms—many larger than most religious denominations. forces, which is one of the major women's women find they can become ordained

Spring 1995 21 cannot find a parish or congregation to clear there is a big taxpayer's revolt, I think that same scenario is present lead. Orthodox Jews have still excluded us which the right wing is using to its advan- today, where so many feminists and peo- from the rabbinate, and fundamentalist tage. What's fueling this whole conserva- ple in general are afraid to speak out on, Muslims are still fighting over whether tive movement are the bad economic for example, the Roman Catholic church's women must wear the veil. Estimates run times. opposition to abortion or woman's equali- into the thousands as to how many women Incidentally, feminists abroad tell us ty. Not speaking out is costing us dearly. in Islamic countries have been killed for what's fueling the fundamentalist move- For example, there's a terrible silence in not wearing it. ment, for example in Muslim countries, is our progressive forces on pedophilia with- FI: Is your organization in touch with poverty. The biggest followers of funda- in the priesthood. Here's a church that feminists in Muslim countries? mentalism are men who have lost jobs and says it has the moral answers for teenage SMEAL: Yes. We've been particularly who see no light at the end of the tunnel. girls, and yet has a gigantic moral scandal interested in the veil issue, since it sym- They're being promised salvation when within its ranks. bolizes the subjugation of women. In they can't cope in this world. They see FI: I suspect that such reports are Algeria women have been killed even feminism as part of the modern world that nonetheless having a major impact on though moderates are still in control of the is cheating them. The modern woman has people within the church. government. We've also been very active been made the scapegoat for the failed SMEAL: It's the biggest scandal since in the Taslima Nasreen case. We led a economy. the Reformation, and the biggest chal- picket of the Bangladesh embassy and FI: In the , as more lenge to date to the church's moral author- were told that that demonstration influ- women enter the workforce, there be- ity. Note the church's hypocrisy on homo- enced the decision to release her. comes a sense of increased competition sexuality: a priest who died in a gay sauna FI: What about the recent Cairo con- between men and women for jobs. in Ireland was given the last rites by two ference on population (see p. 36) and the SMEAL: For the men who have failed other priests who were there. But all that attempts of religious groups to have their to compete we've become the whipping got was a little blurb in the Pittsburgh Post views prevail? person. A little bit of that can be seen in Gazette. Such incidents make a mockery SMEAL: It's encouraging that the the Rush Limbaugh phenomenon, the of what the church is teaching, and church Vatican's attempt to forge an alliance with laughing guy who bashes feminists and authorities need to address the issue much the Muslims failed. At the end the Vatican gays and anybody he thinks is not "nor- more vigorously. Newt Gingrich is now only had four countries voting with it. The mal." It's not necessarily low-income peo- talking about orphanages and foster care document that came out of the conference ple who participate in these attacks. It's a run by churches. How can the church do is a testimony to the strength of the femi- way for threatened men to feel important. that when it has a major pedophilia prob- nist movement worldwide, because it FI: You've written about the different lem? What politician would point this highlighted the need to increase women's strategies used by Susan B. Anthony and out? I can guarantee you that if there were rights if we're ever to stabilize the popula- in combatting scandals like this among the feminist tion of the world. organized religion. How are they relevant leadership, we'd be out of business. FI: What are your reflections on the today? FI: What are your views regarding recent congressional and state elections in SMEAL: Stanton believed that church- reforming existing religions, with non- the United States and how they will affect es—in that time primarily the Protestant sexist language and female clergy? Are the drive for a feminist majority? ones—were determined to keep women in some of these institutions patriarchal by SMEAL: It is a disaster for a lot of their place. And that unless you changed their nature? women's issues, especially abortion. the notion of women's place in the Bible, SMEAL: One questions if such changes Forty-seven right-to-lifers are now esti- you couldn't achieve equality. That's why go to the very heart of theology. The lan- mated to be in the Senate, and in the she spent a great deal of her later life writ- guage of mysticism has a lot of sexual House twenty-nine pro-choicers were ing The Women's Bible, reinterpretating allusions. The fight is much more vigor- defeated by pro-lifers. I estimate we lost the Bible to show that it was essentially ous than most would have thought. about forty seats in the House and quite a rewritten to argue for woman's inequality. I'd estimate that most of the women in few in the Senate. It's a very serious set- She felt that if you didn't fight woman's theological training are feminists. Even back, especially considering the weakness inequality in the church, you couldn't most nuns are now predominantly femi- of the current presidency. achieve equality in the greater society. nist—I saw that report in a right-to-life On the other hand, I believe Congress Susan B. Anthony thought it was dan- publication! There is no question that the is lagging behind the rest of the nation in gerous to take on too many opponents— women religionists are a different breed supporting women's rights. Maybe this she thought temperance was important for than the men. will create the momentum for more woman's equality. She didn't see that that FI: Molleen Matsumura, our associate change. could be slowing up women's drive for the editor, has a sixteen-year-old daughter I don't think we've seen the end of vote. Anti-temperance forces were behind who, when she heard I was going to be political change in this country. In fact, I the anti-woman's vote movement. They interviewing you, wanted me to ask you think we're in a very turbulent time. We were afraid that if women got the vote this: "What do today's young feminists don't know yet how it's going to end. It's they would outlaw liquor. need to do to continue the movement's

22 FREE INQUIRY work of expanding women's identities the-minute technology, while we're still gasp of the traditionalists. and opportunities?" pounding away on fifteen-year-old com- SMEAL: I'm not that sanguine. I've SMEAL: The first thing to do is become puters. seen far too much ability to slow down involved in the movement. I hope they SMEAL: The problem here is money. progress. We should have made far more don't sit on the sidelines while history is Established interests are funding the fun- gains than we have by now. We are still being made—the women's movement damentalists. It's not that they're popu- debating issues, like abortion rights, that will influence our culture more than any lar—they're funded. Let's remember, this should have been settled years ago. other movement. election was not run on religious or social If anything, it's because of the power If we could figure out how to organize issues, but fear of crime, illegal immi- of television and mass communication more efficiently and effectively, we would grants, and not being prosperous. What that it might be even easier to manipulate reach equality. Our structures come from gives them the appearance of popularity is mass hysteria and emotions negatively. the turn of the century and need to change their ability to communicate effectively to This is not a time for us to think, "Well, to work in modern times. their minority audience. They have re- they'll be defeated, it's only a matter of FI: Your answer applies to the human- sources we don't. It is tragic that the time." It could be more than forty years ist movement as well. It strikes us as very money interests have bet on old, reac- from now, you know. That's why we'd ironic that the forces advocating a back- tionary forces. better organize and work even harder than ward-thinking message are using up-to- FI: We have to hope that this is the last ever!

ally began. The German critical theorists, Feminism and Modernity especially Habermas, argue against this notion because they think that modernity is still to come; it is a horizon toward which we are moving, like some kind of Rosi Braidotti utopia. The French critical philosophers, on the other hand—especially Foucault, n this article, I will defend a feminist Deleuze, and Lyotard—argue that moder- Ipostmodernist, anti-relativist stand- nity is a philosophical and political point. This position rests on the assump- notion that started in the eighteenth cen- tion, which I shall outline presently, of the tury with the humanist project of the historical decline of the classical view of Enlightenment and has exhausted its his- the human subject. It also supports an torical function. alternative vision of human subjectivity as I find myself much closer to the French a complex, multi-layered phenomenon, way of assessing the question of moderni- more akin to a process than a substantial ty. I believe that the central notions that entity, more like an event than an essence. animated the Enlightenment project, espe- This is what I call "nomadic subjectivity." cially the belief in the fundamental rea- What is at stake in feminist postmod- sonableness of the human being, the uni- ernist, anti-relativist theory is the redefin- versal usefulness of reason, and the liber- ition of our understanding of human sub- ating powers of education and science— jectivity. It means that feminist experi- all of these humanist notions have been ences have been elaborated in such a way rudely shaken and contradicted by the as to be able to produce ideas that have a events of modern history. More specifical- more general range of application than ly, I am thinking of phenomena such as "What is at stake in feminist before. I feel very committed to the task of colonialism and European fascism, which postmodernist, anti-relativist theory is the elaborating a feminist epistemological and are marked by episodes of genocide and redefinition of our understanding of ethical position that is suitable to modern- industrial-scale exploitation. human subjectivity" ity, i.e.: the end of this millennium. Even closer to us, confronted by episodes of "rational" violence such as it Rosi Braidotti is professor of Women's Modernity indicates an intellectual was displayed in Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Studies at the University of Utrecht, The and ethical standpoint, not a specific date; the gulag archipelago, Vietnam, and Netherlands. She was born in Italy, raised as a matter of fact modernity remains Cambodia, not to speak of the systematic in Australia, and educated in Paris. She is chronologically open insofar as historians destruction of the tropical rain forests and the author of Nomadic Subjects (Colum- and philosophers alike do not seem to the events of Bosnia Herzegovina—and bia University Press, 1994). agree as to when, if ever, modernity actu- this list is unfortunately open, of course—

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