Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and some thoughts on apostasy

by Cliopatria

I've been meaning to post about the death of renowned feminist (and later, anti-feminist) historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, who died last week at the age of 65. Her obit in the Chronicle of Higher Ed is here.

It's been a hard couple of years; so many renowned feminists have died in the past 24 months: Dworkin, Butler, Friedan; most, like Fox-Genovese, died far too young. Of course, the feminist blogosphere has devoted rather less attention to the passing of the last of these. We are always hardest on former allies who apostasize, after all, whether that apostasy leads them to the left or, as in Fox-Genovese's case, over to the Catholic Right.

Like Frederica Mathews-Green, Fox-Genovese began her career as a secular feminist. Her work on slave and white women in the antebellum south was universally praised. Perhaps more importantly, she helped establish one of America's very first doctoral programs in Women's Studies at Emory University, where she remained as professor until her death.

In later years, however, she and her husband became serious, conservative Catholics. She became, like Christina Hoff Summers, a very public anti-feminist, rejecting her old positions and celebrating a radically different world view, grounded in her own sincere conversion.

Her passing was marked by the right; read this touching memorial from Robert George at National Review.

Apostasy is a funny thing, especially for those of us who make our living in the world of ideas, religion, or politics. The history of the academy is littered with examples of men and women who achieved a sterling reputation linked to one set of ideological principles which they later repudiated. Some move from left to right (think of the David Horowitzes of the world); others move from right to left (think of Barry Goldwater, or the"evolution" of certain Supreme Court justices.) This evolution or apostasy is usually accompanied by shrill cries of disappointment and betrayal by those who feel abandoned, and an effusive welcome from the former enemies whom one has now joined. Friendships are often severed in the process, though in Fox-Genovese's case, that seems to have happily not been true.

All sides in an ideological battle like to welcome adult converts. Both left and right, feminists and anti-feminists, tend to flatter themselves with the notion that wisdom and maturity will invariably lead discerning folks to their particular position. It's immensely satisfying to construct a narrative of personal growth that suggests that one could be one thing when one was young and coltish, but become something else once one"really understood how the world works." Those who join our battle late in life, particularly when they have switched sides after a period of reflection, are often more celebrated than the" cradle believers." Ideologues on left and right love the idea that someone has"tried out the other side" and"evolved" to seeing things our way.
Some of us demonize our ideological opponents, but most of us tend to think of them as well-intentioned and misinformed rather than genuinely malicious."If only they really understood as we understand", we say to ourselves,"they'd come round." When on occasion they do, abandoning their old beliefs for new ones, we rejoice. In the same way, when a former ally leaves us for"the dark side" (be it traditional Catholicism or secular feminism), we lament their"fall". We assume that they were"tempted", or underwent some sort of psychic trauma from which they couldn't recover. We tend to pathologize apostasy when it takes a colleague in the struggle away from us, because most of us can't accept a legitimate intellectual or spiritual reason why a fellow soldier in the culture war would switch sides.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese was an important American historian, and an important figure in the Women's Studies movement. That in her later years she turned her back on many of her earlier positions is not evidence that those positions were flawed, immature or inadequate. But by the same token, her transformation into a Catholic traditionalist doesn't vitiate the importance of her earlier work, and it doesn't diminish the obligation of those of us who share the commitments she abandoned to thank her for her service and to celebrate her life.

comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:

Ralph E. Luker - 1/11/2007

Jeff, I don't want to be misunderstood. It wasn't simply that my telephone call went unanswered. My telephone was blocked. I accepted that as definitive indication that the Fox-Gens didn't care to hear from me again and that that was their prerogative. Now that I think about it, the telephone may have been blocked because I declined to publish an article she had asked for in The Journal of The Historical Society. It was and is a personal matter and doesn't influence my professional opinion about the quality of their work -- which is quite high.

Jeff Vanke - 1/11/2007

And Betsey didn't answer all my emails.... Ralph, that doesn't matter. She was a superlatively busy woman, and long challenged by her health. If the American intelligentsia had more people who could both dish it out and take it like Betsey could, it would be a far more liberal milieu, and far healthier, than it is now.

Hugo Schwyzer - 1/11/2007

Ralph, I was responding to David's general point, not specifically the Fox-Genovese situation. Sorry.

Ralph E. Luker - 1/10/2007

Ooooh, I disagree with that, too, Hugo. Betsey and Gene never claimed that they were abandoned by Marxists -- they clearly repudiated their Marxism, while maintaining their friendships with some of their Marxist friends. I never heard them whine about being abandoned. They were always tough-minded and willing to take losses -- an expected part of life. They undoubtedly would have seen some merit in Zell Miller that I just fail to see -- but I have more respect for them than I do for Zell, who's done more than anyone to damage the two-party system in Georgia.

Hugo Schwyzer - 1/10/2007

Thanks, Ralph; you knew them far better than I did, and I defer to your own sense of how they evolved and changed.

Of course, one classic ruse of the apostate is to claim (think of another Georgian, Zell Miller) that they haven't actually apostasized, but rather been abandoned. It's a defense against intellectual inconsistency, and it's a tiresome one.

David Lion Salmanson - 1/10/2007

Ditto some of Ralph's points. My understanding is that Dr. Fox-Genovese never repudiated he early take. Rather, she thought modern individualistic feminism betrayed her vision of feminism as a critique of capitalism.

Ralph E. Luker - 1/10/2007

Hugo, Thanks for this post -- especially because it suggests some things with which I largely disagree. The first is your point about the persistance of friendships in spite of ideological differences. I was happy to read Paula Gordon's tribute to Betsey. Friendship _could_ persist in spite of disagreement. The unpleasant fact is, however, that the landscape -- in history and women's studies -- is littered with the Genoveses' broken relationships with others in their fields. In my own case, for example, the relationship (perhaps never a friendship) was simply and firmly ended by them -- no explanation asked or received. My experience replicates that of many dozens of others. There were friendships that persisted to the end, a treasured inner-circle of those who a part of it, and those of us who were not never knew why one was included and excluded. I knew that I was excluded when my telephone call was blocked. I never bothered to ask why.
But the other thing I'd say is that I think it's wrong to refer to Betsey as an anti-feminist. I have no doubt that she believed that she remained true to what is essential to feminism -- that it didn't _define_ who she was and others trivialized it by the way they defined it.
What is consistent in Betsey's and Gene's positions throughout their lives is that individualistic liberalism or possessive individualism was always the enemy. They were consistently critical of individualistic capitalism -- even in their conservative last days. Betsey no doubt believed that a conservative Catholicism was a sounder basis for the critique of individualistic capitalism. And her critique of American feminism grew out of her own sense that it was wrongly rooted in American individualism. Abortion rights, for example, simply and superficially claimed that the decision to abort a child was an individual perogative -- utterly heedless of social and communal obligation.
I always respected Gene's and Betsey's positions -- but it was never so clear to me that I am a liberal as when I was in their presence and under attack.