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Transcendental Perspective of the Feminist Vantage Point

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Introduction The 2007 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature Doris Lessing, crowned as the ‘epicist of the female experience’ (nobelprize.org) by the Noble Awarding Committee, on August 13, 2001, in her speech at Edinburgh's Consignia Theatre said: "I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed," she told the audience. "The most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no-one protests. "We have many wonderful, clever, powerful women everywhere, but what is happening to men? "Why did this have to be at the cost of men?" (news.bbc.co.uk) Doris Lessing, thus, defended men against what she called the "unthinking and automatic rubbishing" by feminists (news.bbc.co.uk). But Doris Lessing is not only thinker who did this. A growing community of thinkers is being marked with similar concern. We see, to ‘fight back’ (news.bbc.co.uk) of which Lessing was concerned, besides feminist scholarly enterprises, male counter enterprise has already started its journey. ‘At Wagner College in New York, a new discipline named Male Studies has been launched receiving the support of many well-known scholars, including Lionel Tiger, Ph.D., Rutgers University's Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology, and Christina Hoff Sommers, Ph.D., author of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men’ (forbes.com). Besides all innocent grounds resulting birth of new discipline, people love to take it as a reaction against feminist scholarship. Professor Tiger explains, ''A lot of feminist argument is just irritating'' and other reasons why believers say we need this new academic discipline. The culprit, said Tiger, is feminism: “a well-meaning, highly successful, very colorful denigration of maleness as a force, as a phenomenon.” (insidehighered.com). So, Male studies’ proponents “combative tone toward feminism and women’s studies” (insidehighered.com) is very much clear to us. Now, Edward M. Stephens MD, Founder of the Foundation for Male Studies, expressed his worry regarding human race telling: Essential to the survival of the species is the mutual success of both men and women, yet the goal of equal partnership has been lost in the longstanding battle of the sexes. The noble dream of gender equality appears to have fallen victim to an ever-expanding gender divide. (malestudies.org) We, of course, like Edward M. Stephens, cannot want ‘ever expanding gender divide’. Feminist Thinking Trends and ‘Ever Expanding Gender Divide’ The ‘ever expanding gender divide’ of which Stephen is worried would be observed looking at the path the caravan of feminist critical trend has already travelled. Going to observe the ‘longstanding battle of the sexes’ creating hindrances ‘to carry the human species forward as equal partners’ (malestudies.org), we would look with utter astonishment at the Lesbian/Gay Critical School. Lesbianism thought as ‘the most complete form of feminism’ opened up conflict with heterosexual feminists (Barry: 141) Adrienne Rich gave birth of the notion ‘lesbian continuum’, which “designates a wide variety of female behavior, running, for instance, informal mutual help networks set up by women., finally, to sexual relationships” “condemning female heterosexuality as a betrayal of women and their interests, with the implication that women can only achieve integrity through lesbianism” (Barry: 142). And, next, there comes the alarming most arena of Feminism signifying continuous wide expanding gender divide with the advent of Queer theory. “Queer theory rather than being ‘women centered’, like the lesbian feminism, rejects female separatism and instead sees an identity of political and social interests with gay men” (Barry: 143). According to Diana Fuss, as quoted by Peter Barry, this is ‘sexual safety’ and relief from ‘male domination’ (Barry: 144) which caused this affinity among believers of ‘Libertarian Lesbianism’ and gay people. So, this shows the final separation between males and females leaving all hope to live together hand to hand and making life possible on the earth. This is very much threatening to

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