Foreword
Dale Spender
Theorising is something that men do - so they say: the
contributions in this volume suggest otherwise. Theories are also
something male theorists have used to justify numerous forms of
oppression: the contributions in this book suggest that theories can
also be used in the interest of liberation. So， from the outset we
confront a problem. While both sexes may have been making theories
for as far back as we can trace， only one sex is seen as the theorists，
one sex has its theories accepted as legitimate， only one sex owns the
realm of theory.
This is not surprising: only one sex controls information in our
society. Totalitarian regimes are in a position to put forward their
own version of the facts， and to suppress alternative - subversive -
versions. And patriarchy is a totalitarian regime. It is the dictatorship
of the male. It can put forward its version of the facts and erase
alternatives: it can even insist that its propaganda is the truth . This is
why highly political theories formulated by men which legitimate
inequalities of sex， race， and class， can be judged to be neutral， while
theories put forward by those who are not men can be judged to be
political and subversive. The dictatorship of men makes up not just
the theories but the values attached to them and it attaches far more
value to its own.
This is why for women one of the central issues in theories for
liberation is who controls the channels of communication， who is it
who decides what we know?
Given that women have been around for quite as long as men， it is
little short of astonishing to recognise that while we are surrounded -
or even inundated - by books by men about their theories (including
their theories of women) one would be hard-pressed to stock even a
small shelf with books containing the theories of women. Even the
shelves of the British Library are much as Virginia Woolf described
them almost 60 years ago: the place abounds with books by men while
the women - the minor literary or intellectual figures - are hidden
from view more often than not off the premises and in the depots.
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