ABSTRACT
Thus, although I find it very useful for Andrew Ross, in “No Question of Silence,” to remind us that men intersect with feminism not only discursively but also “in the workplace, bar, or, pace Godard, in the bedroom,” I find his strict separation between “theoretical men” and “men-in-practice,” despite the charm of these italicized categories, to be a serious practical and theoretical error. Interestingly, in “Demonstrating Sexual Difference” he works very hard to overcome that division, rather dramatically pointing out the very real social consequences of a static and oppositional construction of sexual difference, but in “No Question of Silence” he feels placed on the defensive and the division is affirmed again; that he relegates discussion of “men-in-practice” to a few sentences merely confirms the traditional hierarchism of this split. As I write about men and feminism now, I cannot help but think of a series of socially constituted engagements with feminism:
1. Early in 1986, my department, considering offering a senior position to a feminist, was presented with a summary of reviews of her books. We were informed (by a person advocating her appointment) that reviews from feminist journals had been omitted “since they would all automatically be positive.” Thus we were urged to appoint a feminist at the same time as feminism itself was marked as nonscholarly, uncritical, and illegitimate. It would have been counterproductive to take issue with this unacceptable double message during the meeting (though I did afterwards), since the important thing was to support the appointment. But the claim about feminist reviewing was simply inaccurate. In the early days of the contemporary feminist movement, there was a political and intellectual need for reviewers to emphasize advocacy, but feminist reviewing has been as critical as any other kind since about 1975, the year, as it happens, that Signs was founded.
