Mary Daly

Template:Short description Template:Other people Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox academic Mary Daly (October 16, 1928 – January 3, 2010) was an American radical feminist philosopher and theologian. Daly, who described herself as a "radical lesbian feminist",<ref name="fox">Template:Cite news</ref> taught at the Jesuit-run Boston College for 33 years. Once a practicing Roman Catholic, she had disavowed Christianity by the early 1970s. Daly retired from Boston College in 1999, after violating university policy by refusing to allow male students in her advanced women's studies classes. She allowed male students in her introductory class and privately tutored those who wanted to take advanced classes.<ref name="fox" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life and education

Mary Daly was born in Schenectady, New York, on October 16, 1928.<ref name="fox" /> She was an only child. Her mother was a homemaker and her father, a traveling salesman.<ref name="Smith" /> Daly was raised in a Catholic environment; both her parents were Irish Catholics and Daly attended Catholic schools as a girl.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Early in her childhood, Daly had mystical experiences which she later described as her feeling the presence of divinity in nature.<ref name="Smith">Template:Cite web Template:Cc-notice</ref>

Daly received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the College of Saint Rose in 1950,<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref> and a Master of Arts degree in English from the Catholic University of America. She earned a PhD in religion from Saint Mary's College in 1953.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She later earned two additional doctorates in sacred theology and philosophy from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.<ref name=":0" />

Career

Daly taught classes at Boston College from 1967 to 1999, including courses in theology, feminist ethics, and patriarchy.

Daly was first threatened with dismissal when, following the publication of her first book, The Church and the Second Sex (1968), she was issued a terminal (fixed-length) contract. As a result of support from the (then all-male) student body and the general public, however, Daly was ultimately granted tenure.

Daly's refusal to admit male students to some of her classes at Boston College also resulted in disciplinary action. While Daly argued that their presence inhibited class discussion, Boston College took the view that her actions were in violation of title IX of federal law requiring the college to ensure that no person was excluded from an education program on the basis of sex, and of the university's own non-discrimination policy insisting that all courses be open to both male and female students.

In 1989, Daly became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1998, a discrimination claim against the college by two male students was backed by the Center for Individual Rights, a libertarian advocacy group. Following further reprimand, Daly absented herself from classes rather than admit the male students.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Boston College removed her tenure rights, citing a verbal agreement by Daly to retire. She brought suit against the college disputing violation of her tenure rights and claimed she was forced out against her will, but her request for an injunction was denied by Middlesex Superior Court Judge Martha Sosman.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

A confidential out-of-court settlement was reached. The college maintains that Daly had agreed to retire from her faculty position,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> while others assert she was forced out.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Daly maintained that Boston College wronged her students by depriving her of her right to teach freely to only female students.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She documented her account of the events in the 2006 book, Amazon Grace: Recalling the Courage to Sin Big.

Daly protested the commencement speech of Condoleezza Rice at Boston College, and she spoke on campuses around the United States as well as internationally.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Daly died on January 3, 2010,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> in Gardner, Massachusetts.

Works

Daly published a number of works, and is perhaps best known for her second book, Beyond God the Father (1973). Beyond God the Father is the last book in which Daly really considers God a substantive subject. She laid out her systematic theology, following Paul Tillich's example.<ref name=Riswold>Template:Cite book</ref> Often regarded as a foundational work in feminist theology, Beyond God the Father is her attempt to explain and overcome androcentrism in Western religion, and it is notable for its playful writing style and its attempt to rehabilitate "God-talk" for the women's liberation movement by critically building on the writing of existentialist theologians such as Paul Tillich and Martin Buber. While the former increasingly characterized her writing, she soon abandoned the latter.

In Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> (1978), Daly argues that men throughout history have sought to oppress women. In this book she moves beyond her previous thoughts on the history of patriarchy to the focus on the actual practices that, in her view, perpetuate patriarchy, which she calls a religion.<ref name=Riswold />

Daly's Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> (1984) and Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language<ref>Template:Cite book Template:ISBN</ref> (1987) introduce and explore an alternative language to explain the process of exorcism and ecstasy. In Wickedary Daly provides definitions as well as chants that she says can be used by women to free themselves from patriarchal oppression. She also explores the labels that she says patriarchal society places on women to prolong what she sees as male domination of society. Daly said it is the role of women to unveil the liberatory nature of labels such as "Hag", "Witch", and "Lunatic".<ref name=Ruether>Template:Cite book</ref>

Daly's work continues to influence feminism and feminist theology,Template:Citation needed as well as the developing concept of biophilia as an alternative and challenge to social necrophilia. She was an ethical vegetarian and animal rights activist. Gyn/Ecology, Pure Lust, and Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary all endorse anti-vivisection and anti-fur positions.Template:Citation needed Daly was a member of the advisory board of Feminists For Animal Rights, a group which is now defunct.

Daly created her own theological anthropology based around the context of what it means to be a woman. She created a thought-praxis that separates the world into the world of false images that create oppression and the world of communion in true being. She labeled these two areas foreground and Background respectively. Daly considered the foreground the realm of patriarchy and the Background the realm of Woman. She argued that the Background is under and behind the surface of the false reality of the foreground. The foreground, for Daly, was a distortion of true being, the paternalistic society in which she said most people live. It has no real energy, but drains the "life energy" of women residing in the Background. In her view, the foreground creates a world of poisons that contaminate natural life. She called the male-centered world of the foreground necrophilic, hating all living things. In contrast, she conceived of the Background as a place where all living things connect.<ref name=Ruether />Template:Sfn

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Daly linked "female energy" or her term gyn/ecology to the essential life-creating condition of the female spirit/body.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

According to Lucy Sargisson, "Daly seeks in Gyn/Ecology (1987) a true, wild, Woman's self, which she perceives to be dormant in women, temporarily pacified by patriarchal systems of domination."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Audre Lorde expressed concern over Gyn/Ecology in an open letter, citing homogenizing tendencies, and a refusal to acknowledge the "herstory and myth" of women of color.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The letter,<ref>Audre Lorde's letter is discussed in Dr. Daly's book, Outercourse.</ref> and Daly's apparent decision not to publicly respond, greatly affected the reception of Daly's work among other feminist theorists, and has been described as a "paradigmatic example of challenges to white feminist theory by feminists of color in the 1980s."Template:Sfn

Daly's reply letter to Lorde,Template:Sfn dated four and a half months later, was found in 2003 in Lorde's files after she died.<ref>Template:Harvnb, esp. pp. 24–26 & nn. 15–16, citing Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde, by Alexis De Veaux (N.Y.: W.W. Norton, 1st ed. 2004) (Template:ISBN).</ref> Daly's reply was followed in a week by a meeting with Lorde at which Daly said, among other things, that Gyn/Ecology was not a compendium of goddesses but limited to "those goddess myths and symbols that were direct sources of Christian myth," but whether this was accepted by Lorde was unknown at the time.<ref>See Template:Harvnb ("week" per pp. 24 & 23).</ref>

Papers

After her death, Daly's papers were contributed to the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History at Smith College.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Perspectives on Daly's work

Although Daly described herself as a radical feminist, other theorists such as Alice Echols, Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth V. Spelman situated her thinking in cultural feminism,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> of which premises are called by Ellen Willis “antithetical” to those of radical feminism.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Julie Kubala states that Gyn/Ecology’s “essentialist conception of gender is explicitly transphobic and implicitly racist.”<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Wanda Warren Berry, Purushottama Bilimoria, Debra Campbell, Molly Dragiewicz, Marilyn Frye, Frances Gray, Hayes Hampton, Sarah Lucia Hoagland, Amber L. Katherine, AnaLouise Keating, Anne-Marrie Korte, Maria Lugones, Geraldine Moane, Sheilagh A. Mogford, Renuka Sharma, Laurel C. Schneider, and Marja Suhonen published their considered analyses of Daly's works and philosophy in Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly, Penn State University Press, 2000.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Views

On religion

At the beginning of her career, Daly had been a practicing Roman Catholic.<ref name="fox"/>

In The Church and the Second Sex, Daly argued that religion and equality between women and men are not mutually exclusive. In her early works she sought to change religion and create an equal place for women in Catholicism by calling the church out on injustice and insisting on change. In the course of her writings her view of religion changed. She repudiated the Christian faith and regarded organized religion as inherently oppressive toward women by the time she wrote Beyond God and Father,Template:Sfn<ref name="Hedrick 2013, p. 461">Template:Cite journal</ref> stating that "woman's asking for equality in the church would be comparable to a black person's demanding equality in the Ku Klux Klan".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1975, she characterized herself as a "post-Christian feminist".<ref name="Hedrick 2013, p. 461"/>

Daly believed God to be an anti-feminist way of thinking. "If God is male then the male is God. How can a feminist worship a male God? The unholy trinity of rape, genocide and war are a result of the patriarchal society".

Daly eventually gave up on theology, believing it to be hopelessly patriarchal, and she turned her efforts towards philosophical feminism. She saw the Catholic Church as fundamentally corrupt, but it still had some value to her, as was evidenced by her love for her copy of Summa Theologica in her later days.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Despite her abandonment of the subject, Daly's work opened the door for many more feminist theologians after her. Even when she moved on from the study of religion her ideas remained and inspired many of her contemporaries.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Daly's subsequent work was influenced by Wicca, though she rejected the characterization of her theology as being "Wiccan".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

On feminism

In Gyn/Ecology (1978), she criticized the "Equal Rights" feminist framework. Many feminist thinkers consider the choice to use an "equality" lens (also known as an "equity" or "equality" framework) a distinctive mark of politically liberal, rather than politically radical or postmodern, feminisms.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Daly's argument was that the equality framework serves to distract women from the radical goal of altering or abolishing patriarchy as a whole, directing them instead towards gaining reforms within the existing system.<ref name="Daly 1991">Template:Cite book</ref> According to Daly, such reforms leave women vulnerable because, though they grant nominal legal equality with men, the larger structures of patriarchy are left intact, and the later repeal of reforms is always possible.Template:Sfn She also argued that the "equality" framework de-centers women from feminist thought when it encourages women to assimilate into male-dominated movements or institutions.Template:Sfn

On men

In The Church and the Second Sex, Daly argued for the equality between the sexes and stated that the church must acknowledge the importance of equality between men and women.<ref>Template:Harvnb: "Daly's first work, The Church and The Second Sex, was written in a Roman Catholic context. She argues for equality between men and women. The church must acknowledge the importance of striving for equality, otherwise it will look as if Christianity is an enemy of human progress. At the end of the 1960s, Daly argued for the fundamental equality of women and men in theological terms. She looks at Thomas Aquinas's concepts of woman and soul."</ref> She wrote that women and men were created equal.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In Gyn/Ecology (1978), Daly claimed that male culture was the direct, evil opposite of female nature, and that the ultimate purpose of men was death of both women and nature. Daly contrasted women's life-giving powers with men's death-dealing powers.

In Beyond God the Father (1973), she still believed that equality was important but argued more in terms of sexual difference than sexual equality.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In a 1999 interview with What Is Enlightenment? magazine, Daly said, "I don't think about men. I really don't care about them. I'm concerned with women's capacities, which have been infinitely diminished under patriarchy. Not that they've disappeared, but they've been made subliminal. I'm concerned with women enlarging our capacities, actualizing them. So that takes all my energy."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Later in the interview when asked about her opinion on Sally Miller Gearhart's proposal that "the proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race", she said, "I think it's not a bad idea at all. If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males."Template:Sfn

On transgender persons

Template:See also In Gyn/Ecology, Daly asserted her view of transgender persons, writing, "Today the Frankenstein phenomenon is omnipresent . . . in . . . phallocratic technology. . . . Transsexualism is an example of male surgical siring which invades the female world with substitutes."<ref>Daly, Mary, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, pbk. [1st printing? printing of [19]90?] 1978 & 1990 (prob. all content except New Intergalactic Introduction 1978 & prob. New Intergalactic Introduction 1990) (Template:ISBN)), pp. 70–71 (page break within ellipsis between sentences) (New Intergalactic Introduction is separate from Introduction: The Metapatriarchal Journey of Exorcism and Ecstasy).</ref> "Transsexualism, which Janice Raymond has shown to be essentially a male problem, is an attempt to change males into females, whereas in fact no male can assume female chromosomes and life history/experience."Template:Sfn "The surgeons and hormone therapists of the transsexual kingdom . . . can be said to produce feminine persons. They cannot produce women."<ref>Template:Harvnb (n. 60 (at end) omitted).</ref>

Daly was the dissertation advisor to Janice Raymond, whose dissertation was published in 1979 as The Transsexual Empire.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Bibliography

Books

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Articles

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Theses/dissertations

• Natural Knowledge of God in the Philosophy of Jacques Maritain. Officium Libri Catholici, 1966. Template:OCLC
• The Problem of Speculative Theology. Thomist Press. 1965. OCLC (4 records)

Translations

Mary Daly's book, The Church and the Second Sex, was translated by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang into Korean and published by Women's News Press in 1997.<ref>Gyohoe-wa Je 2yi Seong (교회와 제 2의 성). Mary Daly Jieum, Hwang Hye-Sook Omgim (메리 데일리 지음 황혜숙 옮김). Seoul: Women's News Press (도서출판 여성신문사), 1997. ISBN 8985554255, 9788985554251.</ref>

Mary Daly's book, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation, was translated by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang into Korean and published by Ewha Women's University in 1996.<ref>Hanamin Abeoji-reul Neomeoseo: Yeoseong-deulyi Habang-chelhak-eul Hyanghayeo (하나님 아버지를 넘어서: 여성들의 해방철학을 향하여). Mary Daly Jieum, Hwang Hye-Sook Yeokkeum (메리 데일리 지음, 황혜숙 엮음). Seoul: Ewha Women's University Press (이화여자대학교 출판부), 1996. ISBN 9788973003037. 9788973003037.</ref>

Further reading

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External links

• Mary Daly papers at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections
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