Mary Daly
Encyclopedia
Mary Daly was an American
radical feminist
philosopher
, academic, and theologian
. Daly, who described herself as a "radical lesbian feminist", taught at Boston College
, a Jesuit-run institution, for 33 years. Daly retired 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.
and philosophy
from the University of Fribourg
, Switzerland
, she received her B.A.
in English
from The College of Saint Rose
, her M.A. in English from The Catholic University of America
, and a doctorate in religion from Saint Mary's College
.
, 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 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 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. 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.
A confidential out-of-court settlement was reached. The college maintains that Daly had agreed to retire from her faculty position, while others assert she was forced out. Daly maintained that Boston College wronged her students by depriving her of her right to teach freely to only female students. 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.
’s example. 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.
Daly’s Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978) 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.
Daly’s Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy (1984) and Webster’s First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (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”.
Daly's work continues to influence feminism and feminist theology
, 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 Webster's First New Intergalactic Wickedary all endorse anti-vivisection
and anti-fur
positions. 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 dualistic 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.
expressed concern over Gyn/Ecology, citing homogenizing tendencies, and a refusal to acknowledge the "herstory
and myth" of women of color. The letter, 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."
Daly's reply letter to Lorde, dated 4½ months later, was found in 2003 in Lorde's files after she died. Daly's reply was followed in a week by a meeting with Lorde at which Ms. 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 Ms. Lorde was unknown at the time.
In an 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."
Later in the interview, she said, "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."
Daly was also the dissertation advisor to Janice Raymond
, whose dissertation, published in 1979 as The Transsexual Empire, is critical of transsexualism
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
radical feminist
Radical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
philosopher
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, academic, and theologian
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
. Daly, who described herself as a "radical lesbian feminist", taught at Boston College
Boston College
Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...
, a Jesuit-run institution, for 33 years. Daly retired in 1999, after violating university policy by refusing to allow male students in her advanced women's studies
Women's studies
Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
classes. She allowed male students in her introductory class and privately tutored those who wanted to take advanced classes.
Education
Before obtaining her two doctorates in sacred theologyDoctor of Sacred Theology
The Doctor of Sacred Theology is the final theological degree in the pontifical university system of the Catholic Church....
and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
from the University of Fribourg
University of Fribourg
The University of Fribourg is a university in the city of Fribourg, Switzerland.The roots of the University can be traced back to 1582, when the notable Jesuit Peter Canisius founded the Collège Saint-Michel in the City of Fribourg. In 1763, an Academy of law was founded by the state of Frobourg...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, she received her B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
from The College of Saint Rose
The College of Saint Rose
The College of Saint Rose is a private, independent, coeducational college in Albany, New York, founded in 1920 by the Sisters of Saint Joseph. The College enrolls a total of approximately 5,000 students ....
, her M.A. in English from The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...
, and a doctorate in religion from Saint Mary's College
Saint Mary's College (Indiana)
Saint Mary's College is a private Catholic liberal arts college founded in 1844 by the Sisters of the Holy Cross. It is located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community northeast of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States — as are the University of Notre Dame and Holy...
.
Career
Daly taught classes at Boston College from 1967 to 1999, including courses in theology, feminist ethicsEthics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, and patriarchy
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
.
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 contract
Contract
A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...
. 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
Title IX
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a United States law, enacted on June 23, 1972, that amended Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 2002 it was renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, in honor of its principal author Congresswoman Mink, but is most...
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 1998, a discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
claim against the college by two male students was backed by the Center for Individual Rights
Center for Individual Rights
The Center for Individual Rights is a non-profit public interest law firm in the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the firm is "dedicated to the defense of individual liberties against the increasingly aggressive and unchecked authority of federal and state governments." The Center is...
, a conservative advocacy group. Following further reprimand, Daly absented herself from classes rather than admit the male students. Boston College removed her tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
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
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
was denied by Middlesex Superior Court Judge Martha Sosman.
A confidential out-of-court settlement was reached. The college maintains that Daly had agreed to retire from her faculty position, while others assert she was forced out. Daly maintained that Boston College wronged her students by depriving her of her right to teach freely to only female students. 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
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
at Boston College, and she spoke on campuses around the United States as well as internationally.
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 TillichPaul Tillich
Paul Johannes Tillich was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century...
’s example. Often regarded as a foundational work in feminist theology, Beyond God the Father is her attempt to explain and overcome androcentrism
Androcentrism
Androcentrism is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing male human beings or the masculine point of view at the center of one's view of the world and its culture and history...
in Western religion
Western religion
The term Western religion refers to religions that originated within Western culture, and are thus which historically, culturally, and theologically distinct from the Eastern religions...
, 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
Martin Buber
Martin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship....
. While the former increasingly characterized her writing, she soon abandoned the latter.
Daly’s Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978) 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.
Daly’s Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy (1984) and Webster’s First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (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”.
Daly's work continues to influence feminism and feminist theology
Feminist theology
Feminist theology is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and New Thought, to reconsider the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of those religions from a feminist perspective...
, as well as the developing concept of biophilia
Biophilia Hypothesis
The biophilia hypothesis suggests that there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems. Edward O. Wilson introduced and popularized the hypothesis in his book entitled Biophilia.- Love of living systems :...
as an alternative and challenge to social necrophilia. She was an ethical vegetarian
Ethics of eating meat
In many societies, controversy and debate have arisen over the ethics of eating animals. Ethical objections are generally divided into opposition to the act of killing in general, and opposition to certain agricultural practices surrounding the production of meat...
and animal rights
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...
activist. Gyn/Ecology, Pure Lust, and Webster's First New Intergalactic Wickedary all endorse anti-vivisection
Animal testing
Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. Worldwide it is estimated that the number of vertebrate animals—from zebrafish to non-human primates—ranges from the tens of millions to more than 100 million...
and anti-fur
Fur clothing
Fur clothing is clothing made of the fur of animals. Fur is one of the oldest forms of clothing; thought to have been widely used as hominids first expanded outside of Africa. Some view fur as luxurious and warm; others reject it due to moral beliefs...
positions. 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 dualistic 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.
Gyn/Ecology
Audre LordeAudre Lorde
Audre Lorde was a Caribbean-American writer, poet and activist.-Life:...
expressed concern over Gyn/Ecology, citing homogenizing tendencies, and a refusal to acknowledge the "herstory
Herstory
Herstory is history written from a feminist perspective, emphasizing the role of women, or told from a woman's point of view. Ii is a neologism coined in the late 1960s as part of a feminist critique of conventional historiography...
and myth" of women of color. The letter, 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."
Daly's reply letter to Lorde, dated 4½ months later, was found in 2003 in Lorde's files after she died. Daly's reply was followed in a week by a meeting with Lorde at which Ms. 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 Ms. Lorde was unknown at the time.
Views on men
She argued against sexual equality, believing that women ought to govern men; Daly advocated a reversal of sociopolitical power between the sexes.In an interview with What Is Enlightenment?
What Is Enlightenment? (magazine)
EnlightenNext is an international magazine devoted to spirituality, culture, and the growing integral movement, published quarterly by EnlightenNext, a nonprofit organization. The magazine, which first appeared in 1992, was founded and is still guided by Andrew Cohen, an American guru of...
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."
Later in the interview, she said, "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."
Views on transsexualism
In Gyn/Ecology, Daly asserted her negative view of transsexual people, 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." "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." "The surgeons and hormone therapists of the transsexual kingdom . . . can be said to produce feminine persons. They cannot produce women."Daly was also the dissertation advisor to Janice Raymond
Janice Raymond
Janice G. Raymond is a longtime feminist activist against violence, sexual exploitation and the "medical abuse" of cissexual women, as well as for her writings and activism against transsexualism...
, whose dissertation, published in 1979 as The Transsexual Empire, is critical of transsexualism
Transsexualism
Transsexualism is an individual's identification with a gender inconsistent or not culturally associated with their biological sex. Simply put, it defines a person whose biological birth sex conflicts with their psychological gender...
.
Books
- The Church and the Second Sex. Harper & Row, 1968.
- Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation. Beacon Press, 1973. ISBN 0807027685
- Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Beacon Press, 1978. ISBN 0807015105
- Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy. Beacon Press, 1984. ISBN 0807015040
- Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language, Conjured in Cahoots with Jane Caputi (with Jane Caputi and Sudie Rakusin). Beacon Press, 1987. ISBN 0807067067
- Outercourse: The Bedazzling Voyage, Containing Recollections from My Logbook of a Radical Feminist Philosopher. HarperSanFrancisco, 1992. ISBN 0062501941
- Quintessence... Realizing the Archaic Future: A Radical Elemental Feminist Manifesto. Beacon Press, 1998. ISBN 0807067903
- Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big. Palgrave Macmillan, 1st ed. Jan. 2006. ISBN 1403968535
Articles
- The Spiritual Dimension of Women's Liberation. In Notes From The Third Year: Women's Liberation, 1971.
- A Call for the Castration of Sexist Religion. In The Unitarian Universalist Christian 27 (Autumn/Winter 1972), pp. 23–37.
- God Is A Verb. In Ms., (Dec., 1974), pp. 58–62, 96-98.
- Prelude to the First Passage. In Feminist Studies, vol. 4, no. 3 (Oct., 1978), pp. 81–86. Text is from Gyn/Ecology (book), at the time not yet published.
- Sin Big. In The New Yorker (Feb 26 & Mar 4, 1996), pp. 76–84.
Theses/Dissertations
- Natural Knowledge of God in the Philosophy of Jacques Maritain. Officium Libri Catholici, 1966.
- The Problem of Speculative Theology. Thomist Press. 1965. OCLC (4 records)
External links
- Bibliography, Feminist Theory Website, by Kristin Switala et al., hosted at Center for Digital Discourse and Culture (CDDC), Virginia Tech University (bibliography includes many articles)
- New York University website re "Wickedary"
- Mary Daly on the GLBTQ encyclopedia (biography)
- Interview with Mary Daly on KDVS, April 5 2006
- "Mary Daly." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.