From <@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU:owner-anthro-l@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU> Fri Mar 31 04:54:49 1995 Received: from UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu (ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu [128.205.2.1]) by Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (8.6.10/8.6.10) with SMTP id EAA26520 for ; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 04:54:41 -0600 Message-Id: <199503311054.EAA26520@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> X-Provider: NeoSoft, Inc.: Internet Service Provider (713) 684-5969 Received: from UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU by UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 6521; Fri, 31 Mar 95 05:45:02 EST Received: from UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UBVM) by UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 8162; Fri, 31 Mar 1995 04:27:59 -0500 Date: Fri, 31 Mar 1995 17:26:38 +0800 Reply-To: Dave Rindos Sender: General Anthropology Bulletin Board From: Dave Rindos Subject: Re: isms [WARNING: LONG!] To: Multiple recipients of list ANTHRO-L Status: RO On Tue, 28 Mar 1995, Hugh Jarvis wrote: > To be honest, I fail to see where the bulk of the discussion is going > in this whole thread. Is this a word war, or an anthropological > discussion. Are we learning from this, or just collecting points? > Just my one point three cents (Canadian currency) ... Hmmm.... seems we are on the same currency here, too! And I too have been a bit bothered/baffled by the apparent barring and grilling at your otherwise lovely Pub. Yet, at the same time, it has been an exceedingly useful discussion, at least to me. But of that, more later. First, let me get the necessary stuff out of the way: I have long considered myself a feminist (if to agree with the aims and methods is permit one to adopt the label, though I have usually been somewhat cirumspect in the term I would apply to myself, largely for fear of giving offense). In fact I'm probably fairly radical (two quick examples: I believe situations exist in which it is fully legit for women in academia to choose to associate solely among themselves ["exclude males"]; I have no problems with affirmative action ["discriminatory"] programmes). In brief, I believe (for good anthropological reasons) that a woman's experience of the social world is, and must be, different to a male's. Going further, it is difficult for any male to understand a woman's social experience, and this problem is made worse by the fact that the same sort of socialisation experiences will colour any communications regarding these experiences by women to men. But so what? Is this not a problem we experience continually in our discipline? Finally, those women who would call themselves feminists share yet another culture, that of feminism itself. This is, at least to some extent, separate from their shared experiences as women, witness the women (even here) who have refused the name. So, starting from this point, it strikes me that, with a few (notable) exceptions, the major problem thus far has been that we have neglected the CULTURAL aspects of feminism in our discussions of it. Instead, there's been a lot of preaching and of anecdotes (fair enuf), but precious little "contextualisation." It srikes me that feminism, AS PRACTICED by real people, fundamentally involves a shared, living, culture; this involves a social environment in which actions occur and in which values and behaviour are given meaning and interpreted. Here, I found Ruby Rohrlich's mention of 'homosociality' to be a particularly significant, indeed striking, contribution by pointing me to this general, very anthropological, observation. Therefore, the greatest error, in my eyes, in much of the discussion has involved confusing *individual* humans, and their *specific* *acts* [whether as feminists, or elsewise] with feminism.culture (the real societies in which women experience their feminism) and feminism.ideology (those aspects of shared belief systems characteristic of the cultures). Here, I see a reification of feminism, and a simultaneous, and to my mind unfortunate, tendency towards dehumanisation of those people (especially women) who have described themselves as feminists. Is it not possible that feminism.culture, like any any cultural lineage, has diversity [fem.cult.*], disagreement and contradiction in it? Clearly, feminism.ideology is neither static nor complete, nor should we expect it to be fully shared -- parts of the belief system are common, but not all. We might also assume that that certain cultural aspects will corrolate with certain belief variants. And is it also not likely that feminists, as human beings, are perfectly capable of acting in a manner which, to most outside observers, seems to be contradictory to the general belief structure of feminism itself? Further, is hypocracy, or self-interest, or plain old fashioned error, or even nastiness, somehow to be eradicated in a human simply by the calling of ones' self a feminist? And why should an error made by a person called 'feminist' be seen as some sort of proof that feminism.* (the larger set of culture and belief) is somehow wanting or improper? This business of cultures, belief systems, and individual people has to be kept at least somewhat clear, or the analysis will suffer and lead to errors in interpretation. I think some of my recent experiences (the old line of mine about doing field work on Power and Prestige in Australian Academia :{) ) are likely highly relevant to this discussion, as the discussion here on the list has been to my professional understanding of them. Briefly, I accepted an offer to take up a position in Australia because of the excitment I felt about the really important archaeology to be done here (a position I still maintain, even in the face of all that has happened). I felt that moving into a department with a very strong feminist perspective was a nice bonus. As a gay man, I am all too familiar with the difficult problems faced in any work setting -- the double binds in which one continually finds oneself, and the ever-present feeling of being on one's guard. I believed, perhaps improperly, that a social environment in which feminist thought was seen as normative would offer me some personal protection (sort of tolerance at one remove, as it were). As things developed, however, it was not to be all that simple. As I spent more time in my new setting, and especially once I became head of department, it began to appear that the culture of feminism was sitting (to my mind most uncomforably) next to an academic culture of intolerance (for lack of a better term). Clearly, some men were less than comfortable in the department. This was reflected in enrolments and well as the nature of some of the complaints made to me. Interestingly, however, I found more complaints to be coming from women (thought, I guess that could also be explained merely as a statistical inevietability; I haven't yet run the X-sq :{) ). I found the women's complaints in particular (as I slowly came to credit the complaints with consistency, if not at first believability), both confusing and upsetting. The contradictions became especially troubling given the existance of very serious allegations regarding the existance of a pattern of lesbian sexual approaches and involvements, and consequent victimisation and rewards. >From my point of view of the time, I obviously believed that power-contaminated lesbian relationships with students would be prohibited by feminism.ideology, and I acted on that basis. Right now I am not so sure, and indeed much data to hand now seems to go against this assumption. It may well be a fact that dealing with improper lesbian (as opposed to heterosexual) relationships lies outside of the sphere of feminist analysis, at least as currently developed and enforced within the DOING of feminism (that is, within feminism.culture). This would seem plausible for good internal, *cultural*, reasons -- the need to maintain solidarity within the feminism.culture community makes it difficult to develop effective cultural sanctions against other women. I would stress, however, that even if this hypothesis is true, feminism's apparent inability to deal with such matters is not, from by present point of view, a reason to critise feminism at all, either at the cultural or the belief-system levels. It is not as if feminism seeks to be the universal solution to all social problems. Fully in keeping with the general dual-cultural model for events as they unfolded in my department, my original attempts to deal with the situation internally were met with evasion and silence. Then, very interestingly, I began to find myself subjected to ridicule and shunning behaviour. This seems significant in pointing to the shared, cultural nature of ALL norms in that Department (those two cultures which I could not, personally, see as compatable at the *.ideology level). To speak in terms of the obvious, a culture MUST "police" itself to maintain consistency and harmony (even if that harmony is seen by some as anything but), and for me to even raise such issues was to destablise a functioning system. Belief systems, of course, do not have this characteristic -- when an individual stops believing, they are no longer beholden to it; sanctions are not needed. At that particular, early, point of time, however, I do not think that feminist culture was involved in any sense in what the students and myself were going through. It was merely the department acting as it always had acted in such situations -- remove the destabilising influence and return to business as usual. This could occur either by effective removal or by changes in the behaviour of the one causing the destabilisiation. The latter did not occur. In the second phase of response, the social sanctions were increased. This appeared to be precipitated by my first attempt to bring 'outside' forces into play by invoking University Dispute Resolution Proceedings. The response I got was fascinating in the extreme. I was told, bluntly, that "there is no dispute." Then it was said to me "you merely have to learn to obey." I saw no point in invoking proceedings at that point given that without shared recognition of the EXISTANCE of a dispute, resolution is quite besides the point. Again, this supports the notion of cultural norms governing the perception: there WAS no dispute in the eyes of some, I was merely acting as a threat to an established set of shared norms (but this was in that other part of the local culture, the part I earlier called academic.culture.intolerance). That I saw these norms to be conflicting with other norms from feminism, was quite besides the point -- again, the cultural sphere interprets the ideology, gives it meaning and provides the social environment in which actions occur and in which values and behaviour are given meaning and interpreted. That *I*, or students, might have seen the local culture [fem.* PLUS acad.cult.intoler] as inherently contradictory is quite besides the point. Living cultures adapt well to contradictions, and ideology, as I shall note below, can be exceedingly flexible in terms of manipulation of symbols. Again, in keeping with analysis in terms of the purely local culture, this 'dressing down' done to me occurred publicly, in the hall of the Department, in fact. Social sanctions to be effective, must become public and known. Interestingly, I had earlier witnessed similar events, such as the time several months earlier when a male student was shouted at in the hall by a faculty member: "Don't you ever again threaten me with physical violence." As Head, I had to refer this complaint to higher authorities and the student eventually left school. While I had no evidence that the claim being made by the faculty member was untrue (save the word of the student, which did strike me as, minimally, believable), I was already becoming suspicious enough that I made it clear in my reports that whatever had happened with the student behind closed doors had not been witnessed by me. But, we should note, in both of these cases, the overall OBJECTIVE of the sanctions was local; they were oriented towards maintaining the status quo within the Department. Clearly, to even query is to raise the possiblity of contradiction. But, of far greater importance, it is also to make a claim on the cultural inheritance potentially to be implemented within that cultural setting. In some of my earlier theoretical papers I have spoken of two foci, or analytical approaches, to understanding cultural evolution -- CS1, which might be oversimplified as "adapation" and CS2, which then becomes equally oversimplified as "symbolism." I have always tried to stress the INTERRELATIONSHIPS that must exist between these, and have always felt that symbolism, per se, is neither meaningless nor is it (as some Cultural Selections, such as Dunnel would have) a "random" process. Instead, the very FACT of seriation, for example, seems to imply that even things as seemingly meaningless as ceramic styles are tied to important cultural process at other levels. In what I was beginning to experience, I gained a new insight into this process: control over the right of individuals to PARTICIPATE in the further evolution of the system is what REALLY is at stake. Power and symbolism are the same (something that certainly is well understood in the discpline as a whole. That I might worry about it in the context of a neo-darwinian theory might strike many as odd, but probably little more). I would now hold, strongly, that these sorts of events just described (and many more could be added) had nothing to do with the feminist aspects of the local departmental culture, and that it would be an error to make that claim. At that time, however, I made that very error and believed the comment on "learning to obey" to be the most Patriarchial advice I had received in a work situation in my whole professional life (but gay men DO tend to adopt a strongly feminist perspective on the centrality of Patriarchy in their understandings and analyses of social problems ). I think a lot of the negative anecdotes which have been recently posted have taken a similar point of view -- that showing a self-described feminist behave in a manner that reflects a feminist analysis of the kind of poor behaviour to be expect on the part of MEN, somehow "disproves" feminism. The irony, of course, IS delicious, but is the analysis sound? I think not, as I will show below. The next phase in terms of the interaction of the two local cultures with myself and the larger institutional setting occurred when I began to involve higher levels of administration by bringing aspects of the local culture to visibility, and especially when I involved it in local decision-making. Here, for the first time, we first begin to see academic and feminist culture and belief systems being invoked at the symbolic level. At the end of my year as head of department I put in, at his request, a full report to my supervisor (this, for reasons which appear consistent with later developments, has totally disappared from university files). Then, early the next year, I formally opposed an internal hiring (primarily on the grounds that the candidate to be hired had been decided upon even before the job announcment was made). Shortly thereafter, the other three faculty in the department, but not the person now back in the Headship, sent spontaneous complaints to this supervisor (likely consistent with the nature of the local academic.culture, one of these persons was an ex-lover of the Head, the second was the current husband of that person, and the third had said to me he had come to the department with "eyes open" and "when told to jump, I only ask how high"). If we view my behavour fundamentally as a threat to the local academic.culture, then these letters might be expected to take a certain form. This they do, even in their basic form. The salutation is in the form Dear [title/surname], and I am referred to consistently as "Dr Rindos." The complaints all invoke strong value- and symbol- laden academic arguments. To give but a few examples: that I was subverting democratic departmental processes, interfering with good research and teaching, harming the heritage mission by lack of sensitivity to aboriginal concerns, causing students to become disruptive, not carrying my part of the work load, disloyality, and similar charges. That the claims are nonsense is quite besides the point, of course. What is important is that that values of academia [academic.ideology] is being invoked to make the point that my membership in the local culture is undesirable. If survival in the local environment is a CS1 phenomon, then CS2 notions are being used to make judgements about my literal "fitness" as a member of that culture. Keeping with this interpretation, it is instructive to note that the letters also raise the issue of the writer's desire to leave the university and go elsewhere if the problem is not resolved. Interestingly, however, all three letters contain other phrases, very much in passing, which possibly point to other, less savoury, norms also being brought into play. Terms such as "idosyncracies," "personal behaviour," "personal pecularities," and "unusual 'behavour traits'." It seems a plausible case might be made that these, tantalisingly obscure, references might represent a covert invocation of homophobia, something which is to become relatively clearly stated only much later in the story. This, of course, is totally in keeping with the general academic norm of tolerance in such matters: when it's time to fire a woman from a job, these days you certainly do not ADMIT to doing it because of her sex. Now we get to the point in the story where feminism.* seems to enter the texts. All of these are written by the woman who is heading the Department, and against whom complaints have been raised by female students and others, including myself, to higher administration and the Equity office. As a result, I had been moved with three females students to another department and a formal review of conditions in our original department was initiated. At this point in time, the larger academic institution has become aware of complaints and is beginning to act upon them. The threat to the local departmental culture, of course, is now becoming intense. Shortly after the three supposedly confidential letters were sent to the [male] supervisor, they were forwarded by the [female] head of department to the [female] Head of Personnel. The salutation here reads "Dear [first name]". Consistency in salutation is quite strking with this author, who in numerous confidential memoranda and complaints tends to use the form "Dear [first name]" when the recipient is female and "Dear [title] [surname]" when writing to males [in some cases leaving out the "Dear" bit]. Equally interesting, the author here simply signs her name, and below is typed [first name] [last name] -- no titles of any sort are used for herself. The content, likewise, seems to invoke fairly potetent feminist symbols regarding the kind of behaviour to be expected from men, and the kind of protective response one should expect from women: "Please find enclosed copies of letters by other members of this department sent to [title/surname] on the subject of Dr Rindos. They are for **your information only**, as I think it may help you towards a full picture of the situation. ***The authors explicity do not want Dr Rindos to view these letters*** as (with good reason) they fear his vindictiveness, which they are happy to see visited on me alone, which I suppose is fair enough. They have each agreed that I might send you a copy of these letters, stressing that they are in confidence." Apparently, the "argument" made here was sufficienty convincing, in and of itself, that a special file was created for these letters. Many more letters and other documents were later added. Hence, they did not come to light until Freedom of Information processes forced their release (this long after I had been fired). Was a covert notion of masculinity being invoked by this business of 'fear' and 'vindictiveness'? (Some support for this is given by the charges of sexual harssment brought against me, over one year later, by three women in that department; ditto for the 'pornography mongering' charges brought against me on the SOLE basis of a verbal report from an unnamed person. It was almost as if they had to make me into a 'real' man ). Some months later the Head sent a pair of memoranda to the Chief Executive of the University. These were in response to a memo denying a request for a new position to replace me in that department. The Administrator involved wrote to the Head of Department that I was a teacher of archaelogy "and must be regarded as such, even if you are unable to work with him." Again, matters of content and style indicate a covert invocation of feminism.* in her reply to the [female] CEO of the University. The first one, on the subject of staffing, directly responds to the memorandum just cited, paying particular attention to a sentence in which it is made clear that I was removed from her department because she had been unable to "get along" with me. This was vigorously denied, of course. But, interestingly, de-personalising phrases such as "the Rindos situation" and "the Rindos position" are also common. Departmental solidarity is invoked by mentioning the other letters of complaint, which are also used to prove that "nobody" would "get along" with me. The claim is then made "it is only because I initiated steps to try and improve Dr Rindos's performance that he, apparently successfully, tried to turn this into a matter of personal conflict." An inference is then made that the [male] administrator has taken sides with me, and it states that he has renegged on his promise to create a new position. The letter, very interestingly, then turns to a seemingly unrelated matter -- the recent successes of a part-time female faculty member in her department (the woman who had earlier been the Head's lover). The author then seems to state that the new position is already ear-marked for this person: "She would be an obvious front-runner for a new full-time position." It then ends with what I would read as both a plea and a threat to issues of female employment "As it is, she has told me that, with no obvious such prospects on the horizon, she will be looking for appointments elsewhere. I think we will all be looking closely at our respective situations in this institution. I repeat, what do we have to do to get recognition around here?" The second memo of this time, again to the CEO, is basically an attack on my ability and peformance. It also follows a similar formula to other letters: Two camps are identified. The one said to be supporting me is [implicitly] male, and individuals are identified using the [title/surname] form. Her support is therefore implicitly described as less powerful and is said to be coming solely from members of her own department and another female, the Head of Personnel who is either identified by that title alone, or by using the [first name/last name] formula. This woman is clearly and repeatedly credited with providing the suggestions and directions which had been used in all dealings with me. Much emphasis, is given to her own efforts to "engage," "discuss," inform," and other such words. That such had not occurred, of course, is not at all relevant to the deeper level of discourse which is occuring here. Solidarity with the Head of Personnel is implied by mention of the 'secret' file in the Personnel division which has been created (and which, of course, would contain the cover letter on 'fear and vindictivness'). Particularly interestingly, a 'thoughtful,' suggestion is here made that I be given medical counselling and "possibly invalided out." But the central claim, repeatedly made, is that I had been unable to deal with the proper criticism brought by my [female/named] supervisor, and that I therefore turned the whole matter into a personal vendetta against both her and her department, in the process finding support from powerful [male/titled] allies. The arguments are, on the face academic, but the subtext seems to carry a large number of other, highly symbolic, overtones. It seems this reflection is begining to get a bit lengthy (to put it mildly), but I think that the fundamental point is now made (even though we are only a very short way into the whole story). CS2 processes, the *symbolic* overtones arising from the choices made by a person in a given situation, can have major effectiveness as a means of controlling access to the means of cultural inheritance. In this, and in keeping with the nature of such processes, their "truth" or "falsity" is never really an issue. Success in this sphere depends solely upon believeablity, and this, in large part, is conditioned by the nature of the *.culture or *.ideology invoked. Here, where we can believe it shared, believability is increased. The hiding of the documents from myself, of course, prevents any possible rejoinder since the charges are unknown. But, this, of course, appears to be done for the higher purpose of preventing powerless complaintants from becoming victimised by the fear-provoking, vindictive, behaviours of an Archtypically Agressive Male. Interestingly, when I first met with the CEO (almost two years later and to be informed I was to be fired by her), she seemed either shocked or surprised (I simply couldn't tell), when I made mention of my [male] lover as one of the reasons I couldn't "simply return to America." Perhaps the transformation of me into a Real Man had by then been long completed, I simply don't know, but other data (of a strictly gossipy nature) supports that interpretation. In any case, I now totally disgaree with my earlier position -- what has happened to the students and myself has nothing to do with feminism per se, though the manner in which it happened throws great light on how the SYMBOLS of feminism, and the CULTURE of feminism can be invoked, just like those of academia, to other ends. From this it should follow that there is simply NO criticism, no less "disproof" of feminism in what hapened to myself and my students, nor should we expect it. After all, how can we "disprove" a culture or a symbol? Can it not be the case that, like the Wizard of Oz, any person can be a Very Good Feminist, but a Not Very Good Human Being, at least in certain ways? Why should we expect the political philosophy associated with a diverse cultural grouping to have some sort of transforming effect on each and every individual in it, and why should it affect each and every action done by them? Clearly, in my experience, more than one set of beliefs, and more than one set of cultural affiliations, were being invoked simultaneously. They were NOT in contradiction, per se, because in the context of the local culture they were never viewed in terms of 'contradiction' at all. Furthermore, any seeming contradictions, such as the ones pointed to by myself or others, could effectively be resolved by proper choice of the symbols to be invoked in reply. And these symbols certainly had effects (CS2) in terms of the further development of the existing culture (CS1). In my case, they were effective in that, at least within the local teaching and scholarly enviornment, access for myself and my students to full participation in the local academic cultural inheritance system has been effectively stopped. Dave, finding some delicious irony in the fact that, despite having been judged to not come up to an institution's "high academic standards," he should now find himsel turning that very experience into grist for his anthropological mill. Maybe they should have fired me for being too compulsively academic? :{) --- Dave Rindos 20 Herdsmans Parade Wembley 6014 WA Ph: (international + ) 61 9 387 6281