After reading through the majority of this thread I am irritated at myself for not remembering the clear historical lesson that the feminist movement should have learned from the civil rights movement (actually its a lesson that any social movement should learn, because it is so damned obvious.)
The civil rights movement was emobodied by 2 individuals, MLK and Malcolm X. One pushed for equality, the other for supremacy. One moved like water, the other like a rock. One worked, the other didn't.
If you want to change the world, you have to approach it with guile. MLK made it pretty difficult for someone to disagree with what he was saying and maintain that they weren't racist. When I call him water, I mean that he moved slowly, seemingly without force, but was able to erode an incredibly powerful social norm. It didn't happen in his lifetime, and it still isn't done today, but what he started could never be stopped. The same was true of Ghandi.
Malcolm X was a revolutionary. He lacked any subtlety. He was someone that people could easily disagree without and maintain that they weren't racist. I still think he was wrong about many many things. He had a lot of strength, but it was focused, and it was something you could dodge, or repair after his message came home. This is because he compromised his moral authority, which in turn compromised the authority of his message. By calling white people devils he made it impossible for most white people to ever consider his arguments.
Of course there is more to both of these stories than what is mentioned here, but the parrallels are important. When a movement takes an excessively negative tone, and is openly forceful, it will be discredited by the moderates, which are the very people they need to convince. However, when a movement does what Ghandi and MLK did, and recognizes the enormous difficulty of their task, and focuses on bringing to light the injustices while maintaining their own inscrutability, the message is unstoppable.
To think that you can convince someone of something while attacking them is, for lack of a better word, naive. Revolutionaries have their place, no doubt. I can think of a number of situations where the strong actions of individuals changed the course of history for the better. But that's just the first step, and in some ways its the easiest. Past the revolution comes building the infrastructure of a new social norm, and it takes time, patience, and the consistent strength of a glacier.
There are so many people that want to be revolutionaries. Maybe its for the glamour, maybe its for the oppurtunity to get the rhetorical 'slam dunk'. Whatever the reason, few movements in america need the revolutionaries. What they need are the glaciers.
Now, I'm not saying maker was being a revolutionary, I am just saying that the tone brought forward did nothing to bring people to your side. In fact, more than anything it probably alienated people that were on the fence. I've seen this a lot in the feminist movement, and it does nothing to help its cause. In the 70s and the decades before, absolutely, and in the court cases we still see today. But in general argument nothing is gained, and much is possibly lost.
Feminism as a label is about a specific struggle and a philosophical ideal. It is also a goal oriented system with a set goal meeting strategy. As opposed to egalitarianism which as far as I can tell is merely a philosophical ideal but I am more than willing to be proven wrong.
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