From chapter 2 of Outercourse, pp. 47–49.
From chapter 2 of Outercourse, pp. 47–49.
Patriarchy 1: society manufactured and controlled by males: FATHERLAND; society in which every legitimated institution is entirely in the hands of males and a few selected henchwomen; society characterized by oppression, repression, depression, narcissism, cruelty, racism, classism, ageism, objectification, sadomasochism, necrophilia; joyless society, ruled by Godfather, Son and Company; society fixated on proliferation, propagation, procreation, and bent on the destruction of all Life 2: the prevailing religion of the entire planet whose essential message is necrophilia.
—Wickedary, pp. 87–88
This brief excerpt from the autobiographical Outercourse is significant for two reasons. First is the powerful effect on Daly of her “Dream of Green”—a vibrant living green. She had this dream decades before any environmental movement or her own articulation of Elemental Reality. The excerpt is also significant given the structural blocks that stopped women from philosophizing and studying philosophy formally in the 1940s and 1950s. The explicit nature of these prohibitions, and the double-bind created when one of Daly’s master’s thesis readers said she didn’t have a “philosophical habitus,” set the context for readers who, in a contemporary world (of at least tokenistic inclusion), might not comprehend (or even find credible) the severity of the sexism that she faced.
—Editors
After I graduated from college [ . . . ], [i]nstead of simply amassing courses and credits I accumulated degrees. This was difficult to do in view of the fact that I had absolutely no money and no connections. It was also the case that I knew I had absolutely no choice. It was evident to me that my survival—my very life—depended upon climbing my way “up” the academic ladder by the exercise of my brain. As a secretary or high school teacher in Schenectady I would have perished of alienation and despair.
I knew that it was imperative that I go away to graduate school, but this decision was not easy. Since my father had died, my mother had only me, and there was very little money. The parish priest told me that I should stay at home with my mother and work in Schenectady. I knew in my core that he was wrong. Although he made me feel confused and guilty by giving bad advice—bad in every sense of the word—I had no choice but to go. My mother’s understanding and generous spirit were, as always, extraordinary.
My survival instinct was clear and certain. I had had some experience with jobs when still in high school, so I knew what the odds would be against someone Odd like me if I stayed in Schenectady. [ . . . ]
So, after obtaining the B.A. I determined to get a master’s degree in philosophy. However, there were serious obstacles thrown in my way by the system, which I still did not understand as patriarchy. (How could I? The word was never used by anyone in 1950—nor was the word sexism.) The only respectable university available to me as an inhabitant of the spiritual, intellectual, and economic catholic ghetto was The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., which offered me a full-tuition scholarship. The hitch was that one could have a scholarship for the M.A. only in the field in which she/he had majored as an undergraduate. I mention this tedious detail because it was one more thwarting of my Quest to study philosophy. Rather than not go to graduate school at all I took the scholarship and got my M.A. in English, taking philosophy courses on the side.
Here I was once again in a coeducational environment. I experienced a lifting of the weight that I had felt at Saint Rose, which I Now understand as the heaviness of the subliminal broken Promise, the shattered dream. I didn’t have to notice that feeling of inexplicable nostalgia. Catholic University was exhilarating in its own way. I was beginning to get a real taste of the intellectual life.
The other students in the graduate program in English were good companions. There was a complex wittiness about them that I liked. Of course, “the boys” became aware of my Feminist views (which couldn’t be identified precisely as “Feminist” in that era) and hated these ideas. When my closest friend there, Ann Walsh, announced that she was getting married I agreed to be her “maid of honor” but was secretly appalled.
During that first year at Catholic University I had an extraordinary dream one night. I had spent tedious hours that afternoon and evening engaged in the arduous task of translating passages from Middle English into modern English. When I finally went to bed that night my brains were fried. It had definitely not been an invigorating experience. However, I fell into a deep sleep and I dreamt of something that was of absolute importance to me. There are no words that can convey the content exactly. I have always remembered it as “The Dream of Green.” I dreamt of Green—Elemental Green. When I woke up, the message was clear—clear as Be-Dazzling Green. It was: “Study philosophy!” It was saying: “This tedious stuff is not what you should be doing with your life. Do what you were born to do. Focus on philosophy!”
It is possible that The Dream of Green was triggered by something in the Middle English texts I was reading, some of which were mystical and Elemental. It could have been connected with the fourteenth-century poems Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl. But what mattered was its absolutely thunderous message. Of course, the problem remained: How could I, with no money?
During my second year in that program I wrote my master’s dissertation in the field of literary theory.1 It was an analysis of the theory of John Crowe Ransom. I chose that area despite unwritten rules that no master’s dissertation should be done in it. It was generally reserved for doctoral work. I argued and fought to do this, because it was as close to working in philosophy as I could get. Moreover, the professor who taught literary theory was James Craig La Drière. We didn’t communicate well personally, but he was a great teacher. From him I began really to learn to think. I could not then realize that his excellence was in large measure contingent upon male privilege.2 The fact was that in comparison to him the Sisters who had taught me in college were limited and limiting—competent and committed though they were. I could not yet understand that this was one more manifestation of the tragedy of the broken Promise. The comparison was unfair, but the fact was that this privileged male professor who was at best indifferent to me was my first outstanding exemplar of a teacher who was a sophisticated scholar and systematic thinker.
Professor La Drière was my M.A. dissertation director. One priest professor, a W. J. Rooney, who was a reader, was especially discouraging. He complained that my dissertation showed a lack of a “philosophical habitus.” I wasn’t quite sure what such a habitus was, but I was determined to find out. The priest’s criticism was cruel, since what I really wanted to study was philosophy anyway, and his institution was preventing me from doing so. However, it stung me into an even fiercer determination to obtain a doctorate in philosophy and to be a philosopher.
I think it was at about this time that I decided to destroy all of my poetry. I judged it to be “flabby” and lacking the rigor of a “philosophical habitus.” This was a somewhat dramatic act, but I really decided that if I were ever to write lyrically/poetically again, my work would be strong and absolutely precise. It would be philosophically poetic.