Re: [-empyre-] [empyre] producers and consumers

[<magesm@mindspring.com>]

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 03:23:24 -0500 Eryk Salvaggio <eryk@maine.rr.com> wrote:
 
> What strikes me about the value of the net is
> the possibility of 
> becoming completely androgynous. I think
> net.androgyny would be the key 
> liberating factor- look at entities like NN,
> who, in her initial 
> incarnation, was completely genderless, and
> may, still, be a man or 
> woman. 


I would question the value of ?complete androgyny? except as a dialectical
tool, whether it is on the net or elsewhere.  First, there is a bit of a
lexical problem, as andro=male; typically referring to a woman who looks
like/becomes a man.  Feminism is difficult to discuss in any forum, because of
the male hegemony embedded in the language itself.  To paraphrase bell hooks,
this kind of language keeps men at the center of the discussion.  

Further, it seems to me that (in general) feminism is problematic in exactly
this fashion; frequently the goal seems to be to attain androgyny?in a sense,
for women to become more male. I frequently wonder if this is the best path.
Could feminism somehow bypass these Western masculine power structures
entirely?  Is there an opportunity to operate outside the White Male
Capitalist Patriarchy?  It would seem that the net, with its (albeit waning)
egalitarian architecture, would be THE forum for this type of movement.

It is also interesting that this discussion has been male-dominated.

Michael