Mary Daly
Daly c. 1970
Born(1928-10-16)October 16, 1928
Schenectady, New York, US
DiedJanuary 3, 2010(2010-01-03) (aged 81)
Gardner, Massachusetts, US
Academic background
Alma mater
Influences
Academic work
Discipline
School or traditionRadical feminism
InstitutionsBoston College
Doctoral studentsJanice Raymond
Main interests
Notable works
  • Beyond God the Father (1973)
  • Gyn/Ecology (1978)
Influenced

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",[3] 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.[3][4][5]

Early life and education

Mary Daly was born in Schenectady, New York, on October 16, 1928.[3] She was an only child. Her mother was a homemaker and her father, a traveling salesman.[6] Daly was raised in a Catholic environment; both her parents were Irish Catholics and Daly attended Catholic schools as a girl.[7] Early in her childhood, Daly had mystical experiences in which she felt the presence of divinity in nature.[6]

Before obtaining her two doctorates in sacred theology and philosophy from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the College of Saint Rose, her Master of Arts degree in English from the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in religion from Saint Mary's College.

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.[8]

In 1998, a discrimination claim against the college by two male students was backed by the Center for Individual Rights, a conservative advocacy group. Following further reprimand, Daly absented herself from classes rather than admit the male students.[9] 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.[10]

A confidential out-of-court settlement was reached. The college maintains that Daly had agreed to retire from her faculty position,[11] while others assert she was forced out.[12][13] Daly maintained that Boston College wronged her students by depriving her of her right to teach freely to only female students.[14] 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.[15]

Daly died on January 3, 2010,[16] 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.[17] 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[18] (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.[17]

Daly's Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy[19] (1984) and Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language[20] (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".[21]

Daly's work continues to influence feminism and feminist theology,[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.[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.[21][22]

Gyn/Ecology

Daly linked "female energy" or her term gyn/ecology to the essential life-creating condition of the female spirit/body.[23]

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."[24]

Audre Lorde expressed concern over Gyn/Ecology, citing homogenizing tendencies, and a refusal to acknowledge the "herstory and myth" of women of color.[25] The letter,[26] 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."[22]

Daly's reply letter to Lorde,[27] dated four and a half months later, was found in 2003 in Lorde's files after she died.[28] 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.[29]

Papers

After her death, Daly's papers were contributed to the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History at Smith College.[30][31][32]

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,[33][34][35] of which premises are called by Ellen Willis “antithetical” to those of radical feminism.[36]

Julie Kubala states that Gyn/Ecology’s “essentialist conception of gender is explicitly transphobic and implicitly racist.”[37]

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.[38]

Views

On religion

At the beginning of her career, Daly had been a practising Roman Catholic.[3]

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,[39][40] 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".[41] In 1975, she characterized herself as a "post-Christian feminist".[40]

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.[42] After all, her Catholic upbringing and education as well as her views on the church are what sparked her career and later work. 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.[43]

Daly's subsequent work was influenced by Wicca, though she rejected the characterization of her theology as being "Wiccan".[44]

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.[45][46] 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.[47] 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.[48] 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.[49]

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.[50] She wrote that women and men were created equal.[51]

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.[52]

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."[53]

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."[54]

On transgender persons

See also: Feminist views on transgender topics

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."[55] "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."[56] "The surgeons and hormone therapists of the transsexual kingdom . . . can be said to produce feminine persons. They cannot produce women."[57]

Daly was the dissertation advisor to Janice Raymond, whose dissertation was published in 1979 as The Transsexual Empire.[58]

Bibliography

Books

Articles

Theses/dissertations

Translations

Mary Daly's book, The Church and the Second Sex, was translated by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang in Korean and published by Women's News Press in 1997.[59]

Mary Daly's book, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation, was translated by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang in Korea and published by Ewha Women's University in 1996.[60]

References

  1. ^ Hoagland & Frye 2010[page needed]
  2. ^ Pinn, Anthony B. (1999). "Religion and America's Problem Child: Notes on Pauli Murray's Theological Development". Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 15 (1): 21–39. JSTOR 25002350.
  3. ^ a b c d Fox, Margalit (January 7, 2010). "Mary Daly, a Leader in Feminist Theology, Dies at 81". The New York Times.
  4. ^ "Feminist BC theology professor Mary Daly dies". Boston Herald. Associated Press. January 6, 2010. Retrieved January 13, 2010.
  5. ^ Madsen, Catherine (Fall 2000). "The Thin Thread of Conversation: An Interview with Mary Daly". Cross Currents. Retrieved January 13, 2010.
  6. ^ a b "Collection: Mary Daly papers | Smith College Finding Aids". Retrieved May 12, 2020.  This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY 3.0 license.
  7. ^ Bindel, Julie (January 27, 2010). "Mary Daly obituary: Radical US theologian and the world's first feminist philosopher". The Guardian. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  8. ^ "Who we are: Associates". The Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press. Retrieved June 21, 2017.
  9. ^ Seele, Michael (March 4, 1999). "Daly's Absence Prompts Cancellations". The Boston College Chronicle. Vol. 7, no. 12. Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College. ISSN 2637-3696. Archived from the original on November 19, 2014.
  10. ^ Sullivan, Mark (May 28, 1999). "Judge Denies Daly's Bid for Injunction". The Boston College Chronicle. Vol. 7, no. 18. Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College. ISSN 2637-3696. Archived from the original on November 19, 2014.
  11. ^ Boston College Office of Public Affairs (February 15, 2001). "Mary Daly Ends Suit, Agrees to Retire". The Boston College Chronicle. Vol. 9, no. 11. Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College. ISSN 2637-3696. Archived from the original on March 6, 2015.
  12. ^ Pippin, Tina (2009). "Mary Daley". In Queen II, Edward L.; Prothero, Stephen R.; Shattuck, Jr., Gardiner H. (eds.). Encyclopedia of American Religious History. Vol. 3 (3d ed.). New York: Facts on File. p. 326. ISBN 978-0-8160-6660-5. Retrieved August 25, 2011.
  13. ^ Thistlethwaite, Susan Brooks (January 5, 2010). "Mary Daly's 'Courage to Sin Big'". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 20, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2011.
  14. ^ Kettle, Martin (February 27, 1999). "Unholy row as feminist lecturer bars men". The Guardian.
  15. ^ Elton, Catherine (May 9, 2006). "Efforts mount against BC's Rice invitation". The Boston Globe.
  16. ^ Fox, Thomas C. (January 4, 2010). "Mary Daly, radical feminist theologian, dead at 81". National Catholic Reporter. Archived from the original on January 12, 2012.
  17. ^ a b Riswold, Caryn D. (2007). Two Reformers. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-59752-826-9.
  18. ^ Daly, Mary (1978). Gyn/ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. LCCN 78053790. OL 4741812M.
  19. ^ Daly, Mary (1984). Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-1504-9. LCCN 83071944.
  20. ^ Daly, Mary (1987). Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language. Beacon Press. LCCN 87001133. ISBN 978-0-8070-6706-2, 9780807067338
  21. ^ a b Ruether, Rosemary Radford (1998). Women and Redemption: A Theological History. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. pp. 218–9. ISBN 0-8006-2947-7.
  22. ^ a b Hoagland & Frye 2010, pp. 60, 267.
  23. ^ Alcoff, Linda (1991). "The Problem of Speaking for Others". Cultural Critique (20): 5–32. doi:10.2307/1354221. JSTOR 1354221.
  24. ^ Sargisson, Lucy (1996). Contemporary feminist utopianism. Routledge. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-41-514175-8.
  25. ^ Audre, Lorde (1984). An Open Letter to Mary Daly. Berkeley: Crossing Press. pp. 66–71.
  26. ^ Audre Lorde's letter is discussed in Dr. Daly's book, Outercourse.
  27. ^ Daly 2006, pp. 25–26.
  28. ^ Daly 2006, pp. 22–26, 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) (ISBN 0-393-01954-3, 0-393-32935-6).
  29. ^ See Daly 2006, p. 23 ("week" per pp. 24 & 23).
  30. ^ "Noteworthy Acquisitions" (PDF). Friends of the Smith Libraries Newsletter. Northampton, Massachusetts: Friends of the Smith Libraries. October 1, 2009. p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 30, 2016. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
  31. ^ Culpepper, Emily Erwin (2012). "Introduction [to section on Mary Daly]". Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 28 (2): 89–90. doi:10.2979/jfemistudreli.28.2.89. Project MUSE 490248.
  32. ^ Rycenga, Jennifer; Barufaldi, Linda, eds. (2017). "Acknowledgements". The Mary Daly Reader. New York: New York University Press. p. xxi. ISBN 978-1-4798-7776-8.
  33. ^ Echols, Alice (1983). "Cultural Feminism: Feminist Capitalism and the Anti-Pornography Movement". Social Text (7): 34–53. doi:10.2307/466453. ISSN 0164-2472.
  34. ^ Alcoff, Linda (April 1988). "Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 13 (3): 405–436. doi:10.1086/494426. ISSN 0097-9740.
  35. ^ Spelman, Elizabeth V. (1988). "Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought". philpapers.org.
  36. ^ Willis, Ellen (1984). "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism". Social Text (9/10): 91–118. doi:10.2307/466537. ISSN 0164-2472.
  37. ^ Kubala, Julie (2020). "Teaching "Bad Feminism": Mary Daly and the Legacy of '70s Lesbian-Feminism". Feminist Formations. 32 (1): 117–136. ISSN 2151-7371.
  38. ^ Hoagland, Sarah Lucia; Frye, Marilyn (2010). Feminist interpretations of Mary Daly. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-04393-7.
  39. ^ Hoagland & Frye 2010, p. 114.
  40. ^ a b Hedrick, Elizabeth (2013). "The Early Career of Mary Daly: A Retrospective". Feminist Studies. 39 (2): 461. doi:10.1353/fem.2013.0043. ISSN 2153-3873. JSTOR 23719057. S2CID 245662899.
  41. ^ King, Nicholas (1998). Whispers of liberation: Feminist perspectives on the New Testament. New York: Paulist Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-80-913816-6.
  42. ^ Plaskow, Judith (2012). "Lessons from Mary Daly". Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 28 (2): 100–104. doi:10.2979/jfemistudreli.28.2.100. S2CID 145241123. Project MUSE 490379.
  43. ^ Hunt, Mary E. (May 2014). "Pure Complexity: Mary Daly's Catholic Legacy". Feminist Theology. 22 (3): 219–228. doi:10.1177/0966735014522565.
  44. ^ Hedrick, Elizabeth (2013). "The Early Career of Mary Daly: A Retrospective". Feminist Studies. 39 (2): 457–483. doi:10.1353/fem.2013.0043. JSTOR 23719057. S2CID 245662899.
  45. ^ Morley, Luise (1995). Maynard, Mary; Purvis, June (eds.). HeteroSexual Politics. Taylor & Francis. In terms of the well-established triad of definitions of feminist theory (radical, socialist, and liberal), the equality discourse is firmly located within liberal, reformist ideology.
  46. ^ "Liberal Feminism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved March 19, 2017. Equity feminism is a form of classical-liberal or libertarian feminism that holds that feminism's political role is simply to ensure that everyone's, including women's, right against coercive interference is respected (Sommers 1994, 22). Wendy McElroy, an equity feminist writes: "I've always maintained that the only reason I call myself a feminist is because of [the] gov[ernment]. By which I mean, if the government (or an anarchist defense assoc[iation]) acknowledged the full equal rights of women without paternalistic protection or oppression, I would stop writing about women's issues" (McElroy 1998c)."
  47. ^ Daly, Mary (1991) [1978]. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. 375–376.
  48. ^ Daly 1991, pp. 375–376.
  49. ^ Daly 1991, pp. 374–377.
  50. ^ Hoagland & Frye 2010, p. 114: "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."
  51. ^ Castro, Ginette (1990). American feminism: a contemporary history. New York: New York University Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-81-471435-5. Mary Daly asserted that woman is equal to man from her origin, for God created her as a perfect being in His own image... Mary Daly gives an egalitarian reinterpretation of the Creation myth
  52. ^ Hoagland, Sarah Lucia; Frye, Marilyn (2000). Feminist interpretations of Mary Daly. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-27-102018-1. In her second feminist work, Beyond God and Father (1973), Daly continues to criticize the essentialist concept of woman. She still sees equality between the sexes as an important goal, even though women's autonomy is primary. However, she no loner thinks in terms of equality, but rather in terms of difference, and she describes her position as radical feminism.
  53. ^ Bridle, Susan (Fall–Winter 1999). "No Man's Land" (PDF). What Is Enlightenment?. No. 16. p. 38. ISSN 1080-3432. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  54. ^ Bridle 1999, pp. 125–126.
  55. ^ 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) (ISBN 0-8070-1413-3)), pp. 70–71 (page break within ellipsis between sentences) (New Intergalactic Introduction is separate from Introduction: The Metapatriarchal Journey of Exorcism and Ecstasy).
  56. ^ Daly 1991, p. 238 n..
  57. ^ Daly 1991, p. 68 (n. 60 (at end) omitted).
  58. ^ Highleyman, Liz (January 7, 2010). "Feminist theologian Mary Daly dies". The Bay Area Reporter. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
  59. ^ 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.
  60. ^ 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.

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