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Setting the Record Lesbian
Jun. 7th, 2012 05:08 pmI have been reading May Daly's Gyn/Ecology. I know it is terribly cissupremacist, but I understand it's helped other womyn heal from trauma, so it might help me too.
A few people, Zoe Brain for one, have picked out Mary Daly's comments about the "Dionysian solution" to argue that Daly was arguing for a "final solution" and the mass murder of the male sex. She was not.
Daly dissects the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy in western thought, arguing that womyn cannot win freedom by choosing Dionysian though over Apollonian thought, because these are two sides of the same male-supremacist ideology. She writes:
I thin it's clear, from the context, that Daly opposes the Dionysian Solution. She isn't advocating the extermination of the male sex, she is trying to prevent the extermination of female selves.
Of course, she immediately follows with another anti-trans screed. X(
Seems like she's just fine with the extermination of trans female selves, as long as non-trans ones are spared. But it's much harder to defend feminism for some womyn when you don't defend bodily autonomy for all womyn.
Not to pick on Zoe Brain, but she quotes, and in my opinion misquotes, Mary Daly here: http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2010/01/charitable-view-of-mary-daily.html and here: http://womenborntranssexual.com/2012/06/06/radfem-fantasies-and-follies/#comment-13563
A few people, Zoe Brain for one, have picked out Mary Daly's comments about the "Dionysian solution" to argue that Daly was arguing for a "final solution" and the mass murder of the male sex. She was not.
Daly dissects the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy in western thought, arguing that womyn cannot win freedom by choosing Dionysian though over Apollonian thought, because these are two sides of the same male-supremacist ideology. She writes:
To Dionysus was attributed the ability to shatter cognitive boundaries in women, that is, the capacity to drive women mad - which he did whenever possible. Madness is the only ecstasy offered to women by the Dionysian "Way." While the supermasculine Apollo overtly oppresses/destroys with his contrived boundaries/hierarchies/rules/roles, the feminine Dionysus blurs the senses, seduces, confuses his victims - drugging them into complicity, offering them his "heart" as a love potion that poisons. ...
The Dionysian solution for women, which is violation of our own Hag-ocratic boundaries, is The Final Solution. To succumb to this seductive invitation is to become incorporated into the Mystical Body of Maledom, that is, to become "living" dead women, forever pumping our own blood into the Heavenly Head, giving head to the Holy Host, losing our heads. The demonic power of Dionysian deception hinges on this invitation to incorporation/assimilation, resulting in inability to draw our own lines. To accept this invitation is to become unhinged, dismembered. Refusal is essential to the process of the Self's re-membering, re-fusing.
I thin it's clear, from the context, that Daly opposes the Dionysian Solution. She isn't advocating the extermination of the male sex, she is trying to prevent the extermination of female selves.
Of course, she immediately follows with another anti-trans screed. X(
Seems like she's just fine with the extermination of trans female selves, as long as non-trans ones are spared. But it's much harder to defend feminism for some womyn when you don't defend bodily autonomy for all womyn.
Not to pick on Zoe Brain, but she quotes, and in my opinion misquotes, Mary Daly here: http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2010/01/charitable-view-of-mary-daily.html and here: http://womenborntranssexual.com/2012/06/06/radfem-fantasies-and-follies/#comment-13563
