In a rare Chicago appearance, radical feminist philosopher and author Mary Daly will speak at Mountain Moving Coffeehouse for Womyn & Children on Saturday, June 24 at 7:30 p.m. Daly has recently returned from a speaking tour in Europe, and is currently embroiled in a legal battle with Boston College, where she has taught for 30 years, over issues of her academic freedom.
Daly's eminence as a feminist philosopher is unparallelled. She holds a total of seven university degrees, including three doctorates ( in religion, theology, and philosophy ) . She is the author of the radical feminist classic Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, a brilliant, stark analysis and denunciation of patriarchy. She followed Gyn/Ecology with Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy, and Webster's First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language. Her works have not only been highly influential, they have also represented her own evolution in thinking, what Daly has called a "Lust for Metamorphosis." Daly's most recent book is Quintessence ... Realizing the Archaic Future: A Radical, Elemental Feminist Manifesto.
Daly's radical feminist philosophy is, she says, "about the harmony and integrity of the universe," in contrast to the deadly thinking of patriarchy. In feminist philosophy, she sees links with both ancient philosophy and with the New Physics. "There is a cosmic concert in the universe, calling all be-ing to awaken to that harmony of the universe." The backlash against women and minorities that is happening now is a backlash "against all life," she says. In this context, Daly believes that feminism is "profoundly ecological."
The impact of Daly's work has been enormous. In July, Penn State Press will publish Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly, a collection of essays addressing various aspects of Daly's work by prominent feminist philosophers, edited by Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Marilyn Frye. This critical work is part of a general series called "Rereading the Canon," consisting of feminist interpretations of important thinkers. Previous volumes in the series have included such notables as Plato, Descartes, Sartre, Foucault, Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah Arendt, and Simone de Beauvoir.
Daly has often been a subject of controversy, not only for her views but also for putting her feminist philosophy into practice. As many women professors have noted, mixed-gender classes in feminist subject matter produce a very different atmosphere from the atmosphere of a class that consists entirely of women. Daly has always contended that having male students in feminist classes "affects the quality of the conversation, and slows women down." So her policy has been to teach feminist philosophy and feminist theory in classes that are for women students only. ( She teaches male students individually. ) This has been something of a problem for her during her 30 years of teaching at Boston College, a Jesuit-run institution.
Daly was fired from Boston College in 1969, after the publication of her first book, The Church and the Second Sex. Thousands of students protested her firing in demonstrations that lasted four months. As a result, the college was forced to reinstate her, with tenure. "I learned a lot from that experience," she says. Daly has been accused of "refusing to teach male students," but ironically, she taught only males at at that time, because Boston College's College of Arts and Sciences did not admit women until the following year. "I never refused to teach boys," she says. "I taught only boys till 1970." Through the years, the outspoken author of Beyond God the Father continued to encounter difficulties from the Catholic college's administration, but she had always weathered these storms.
Then, in September 1998, a member of Boston College's chapter of the Young Republicans insisted on being admitted to one of Daly's women-only classes. He didn't have the prerequisites to take the course, but Daly arranged to teach him privately. He never showed up for instruction. That December, the Center for Individual Rights ( CIR ) , a well-funded rightwing law firm that has been targeting radical feminists, informed Boston College that they had taken the student as a client and that Daly had violated Title 9.
Daly asked to take a leave of absence in the spring semester rather than be forced to accept this student into her women-only class. ( The student has since graduated, and was hired to work for Dan Quayle. ) An academic vice president at the college attempted to force her to retire at the end of that leave, and to sign an agreement with a gag clause that would prevent her from speaking freely to the media. Daly refused. Boston College then announced that Daly had retired, and alternatively, that she had resigned.
"They disappeared me from the catalog," she says, so students could not even sign up for courses with her. And they took away her office.
Consequently, Daly is suing Boston College for breach of tenure, denial of academic freedom, and denial of due process. She and her lesbian feminist attorney, Gretchen Van Ness, are hoping the case will come to trial by this December. A Mary Daly Defense Fund has been created to offset her legal expenses.
Daly says that while she has not changed, the times have. "Now there is incredible backlash and rightwing pressure. Bookstores are closing. In academia, women studies, gay and lesbian studies, all minority studies, all radical studies, are under attack." Also, a recent papal encyclical has increased pressure from the Vatican on Catholic institutions—including the relatively "progressive" Boston College—mandating that all professors of theology take an oath of faith.
"Quintessence is about the extremity of these times—the silencing, the stifling, of radical feminists and minorities that is emblematic of the times we are living in," says Daly. She also cites the dangers of genetic mutation, bioengineering, and what she terms the "monoculture." And she charges that universities are now engaged in producing "intellectual clones."
It seems quite appropriate that Daly will be speaking in Chicago at Mountain Moving Coffeehouse, which in turn has been surviving attacks for its policy as a women-only space. This year the coffeehouse is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and is the oldest continuously run women-only space in the world.
The title of Daly's talk will be "Overcoming the Silencing of Women in Universities."
Mountain Moving Coffeehouse is located at the Ebenezer Lutheran Church, 1650 W. Foster. It is a womyn-only space, and is drug and alcohol free. All womyn-born-womyn are welcome. Showtime is 7:30 p.m., Saturday, June 24, ( 312 ) 409-0276.
