(May-July 2003): I wrote this paper for the inaugural issue of the journal, Feminist Theory (which appeared in 2000), and in response to the pre-publicity asking for submissions on the question of what counts as feminist theory (among others). It was sent to three reviewers, two of whom argued against publishing it. The third recommended publication despite some disagreements she had with it, but the majority prevailed and I received a letter telling me my paper had been rejected. I wrote a reply to the letter and to the readers’ reports, pointing out a number of problems with the reasons given for the rejection.
When the first issue of the journal appeared, the editorial referred approvingly to ‘feminist theory in all its many and diverse forms’, and contained the following statement: ‘We intend this journal to be … a place where all shades of feminist opinion can be aired … we neither wish to impose any form of theoretical orthodoxy nor any single definition of what counts as feminist theory. This theoretical heterodoxy is central to our project’ (Griffin et al, 2000: 5). In the light of the rejection of my paper and the inadequacy of the reasons given, this statement rang somewhat hollow. It sounded to me like an example of what Herbert Marcuse referred to as ‘repressive tolerance’ (Marcuse, 1969), the claim to be all-inclusive and accepting that functions to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator of irrelevance. As Marcuse pointed out, demands for tolerance can be demands for political quiescence, demands to refrain from criticising and opposing the structural causes of injustice and oppression (male supremacy in the case of feminism). I also knew that the journal’s claims to tolerance were untrue. They had rejected my paper and they presumably had the same rejection rate as other academic journals, hence they were clearly applying some criteria of acceptance and rejection. So I wrote a short piece called ‘Pure Tolerance Revisited’. It was published in the third issue of the journal.
References
Griffin, Gabrielle, Hennessy, Rosemary, Jackson, Stevi and Roseneil, Sasha (2000) ‘Editorial’ Feminist Theory 1(1): 5-9
Marcuse, Herbert (1969) ‘Repressive Tolerance’, in Wolff, Moore Jr and Marcuse, 1971
Wolff, Robert Paul, Moore Jr, Barrington and Marcuse, Herbert (1971) A Critique of Pure Tolerance London: Jonathan Cape
Click here for the full paper
Click here for the readers’ reviews and my reply
Click here for ‘Pure Tolerance Revisited’