‘And she might be. She might also be a peerless theologian for all I know. But the few extracts of her work I’ve seen reflect a grasp of theory’

I mean theology, not theory

Absolutely, even had she never mentioned any of her anti-trans theories, you can logically deduce them from more or less any part of her work. If you call yourself a quintessentialist, then yes, I would have thought you’d consider most groups of people to be inherently flawed or even diseased in some way. In fact, the only group of people she claimed not to have any strong feelings about are men, where she says she doesn’t really care about them, almost like patriarchy is something disembodied and separate from men, generated by women. Her reaction to Audre Lorde, also, makes it seem like she thought Lorde was attacking her for some irrational, arbitrary reason.

I think, also, that if she was a man, people would not immediately assume she believed all she wrote. I mean, the little I’ve seen reads like a Fox News conspiracy theorist. And I don’t know about you, but whenever I see one of those, I tend to think either that they’re very cynical and providing some kind of theatre, or that their strings are being pulled by someone very cynical and providing theatre – if you’ve seen Sidney Lumet’s 1976 movie Network you’ll know what I mean. Yet, someone like Daly comes along with a bunch of conspiracy theories, and we automatically assume she must be really sincere about it. I mean, she’s a woman, of course she writes mystical quasi-fascist ravings, since that’s the quintessence of women, to do that.

And she might be. She might also be a peerless theologian for all I know. But the few extracts of her work I’ve seen reflect a grasp of theory equal of Richard Dawkins (i.e. someone who doesn’t know or care about it), or a frightened teenager (i.e., the intended audience). Then there’s her response to Lorde, again:

“Gyn/Ecology is not a compendium of goddesses. Rather, it focuses primarily on myths and symbols which were direct sources of christian myth.”

You know, Christianity, that religion that originated in Ethiopia, most of whose holy book records the writings of various Middle-Eastern tribes and which involved a guy from Bethlehem getting nailed to a plank of wood up Mount Sinai.

As the recipient of a PhD in theology, she would have known better, so it’s unconscionable for her to write that nonsense. In fact, that whole branch of women’s studies is incredibly exploitative and I’d say even misogynistic. University is a place you go for education in a subject which is chosen according to various criteria, either it’s your best subject, or you’re planning a career in it… what that branch of women’s studies does is offer degrees in being quintessentially a woman. It’s exploitative of young women who have been abused or live in fear of abuse, whether real or abstract. Without that kind of pseudo-academic crap, they might become exposed to actual academic writers and get a degree in something that’s not intellectually and morally bankrupt.

It also weakens the feminist cause considerably, especially if we’re going up against people with degrees in actual academic subjects – philosophy, science, literature, sociology, psychology… – who have detailed knowledge of their field as well as a set of well-developped intellectual skills.

On these grounds alone, I’m not willing to get even remotely warm and fuzzy about Daly’s ‘contributions to feminism’, how interesting her writings are in a fringe kind of way, or how sincere she was about it. For a start, I don’t even believe a grown women with several PhDs could possibly honestly believe all the stuff she spouted. I think her main benefit to the feminist cause is as a cautionary example, and that’s before you even start to feel any solidarity towards any of the groups of people she preached hatred of.

It’s way too easy, and way too tempting to forgive a lot of unforgivable stuff when someone dies – even though countless less well-known female academics in all kinds of fields will have made a greater contribution and will die unknown. That’s because most academic work isn’t sensational, and doesn’t make for a good fight on the internet. It’s slow, detailed, and tedious to anyone not in the field.

That whole groups of people with women’s studies degrees and presumably wide knowledge of the subject were shocked to find out she was a little transphobic after reading a whole lot of her work illustrates a great deal of what I’ve said here, either there’s an initial set of beliefs that’s a little flawed – and that’s okay, no one’s going to scream at an eighteen-year-old for being wrong – or there’s something a little fascist about the mainstream feminist establishment that allows Mary Daly to seem like a loveable crank with a lot of good points to make. Or else we’re unwilling to grant a woman that essential part of the academic process, criticism. Or we’re willing to believe that she was, you know, a little hormonal (quintessentially speaking).

Whichever it is, I’d call Daly a symptom before I’d call her anything else.

Well spotted, most people don’t notice. Then again, how many have actually *read* “My Struggle”? Yet it’s one of the more influential Utopian political philosophy books of the 20th century.

Not in a good way.

I was quite impressed by Beyond God the Father, I thought it was the most compelling critique of patriarchal religion I ever read, and from a completely different angle than others.

Daly’s transphobia seemed pretty apparent from the get go to me. It flowed directly from her whole hearted belief in essentialism, which didn’t really exist in BGTF but was cemented by the time she wrote Pure Lust. This is why essentialism is such a dangerous belief-once you accept it you must either lead yourself naturally to transphobia(trans women are still men and men need gendercide) or face an obvious contradiction.

She addressed the Open Letter in Amazon Grace. It seems she didn’t try to right her philosophy until it was far too late.

It seems to me one must do with Day what Daly herself did with Aquinas. That is first admit that she was just a person and a very flawed one and not a saint and not ‘enlightened’ and doesn’t have all the answers. Then admit she was very smart and had some very very good ideas, ones that lead to other ideas. As with all philosphy, read Daly and extract the good from the bad and especially spending time dissecting and criticising the bad. This is something bell hooks is really good in cult crit. Some of Daly’s bad deserves serious academic critique while some of it is so hateful and frankly dumb and mean one shouldn’t bother;not that you can ignore it but there you just have to say “this is just fucked up and I cant even say anything valuable about it”.

Daly, of course, would approve heartily while, no doubt, tossing in a heaping helping of terms like “mutilated”, “agents of the patriarchy” and “maggots”.

She sounded like the writer of bad horror screenplays, half the time. Only more frightening, because bad horror screenplays tend not to be so prescriptive.

There!

Forgive me for wanting to protect you, forgive me for being a gentleman and opening the door for your, forgive me for allowing you to make me “weaker,” forgive me for holding you to a higher standard you sometimes view as “oppression.”

She sounded like the writer of bad horror screenplays, half the time. Only more frightening, because bad horror screenplays tend not to be so prescriptive.