Why might feminism and poststructuralism be described as an uneasy alliance?

This essay will look at what feminism is and then what poststructuralism is. Then I shall look at the links between the two areas.

Feminism can be traced back to the early 19th century. It contains several different theoretical perspectives that are quite often contradictory to each other and can also be looked at in three main ways-empirically, theoretically and politically. Feminism originated from the works of Hegel, Marx and liberal political theory and each of these created a different strand of feminist thought. The path of feminism started in two separate strands. One started with Hegel the German philosopher and the other with liberal political theory. Hegel’s strand produced Existentialist feminism and Marxist feminism. Existentialist feminism is mainly associated with the work of Simone de Beauvoir; this work then went on to influence psychoanalytical feminism that is associated with Freud and more recently Lancan.

Existentialism also produced a strand that is known as New French feminism. New French feminism is associated with Irigaray, Cixous and Kristeva. This in turned created then area of feminism that this essay is concerned with- poststructuralism; this is associated with the work of Foucault, Derrida and Judith Butler. Poststructuralist Feminism has spawned post-feminism and black/colonial feminism. Existentialist feminism also produced Marxist feminism that is linked to Feminist critical theory, which is associated with Benhabib and is also linked to black post/colonial feminism. The other main strand is from Liberal political theory, which leads on to liberal feminist theory and then onto radical feminism which is associated with Andrea Dorking.

One of the main debates within feminism is the Equality versus difference argument. The equality argument states that as rational beings woman are essentially the same as men-and therefore are concerned with reworking what they see as ill-conceived theories and representation of women. From this perspective women are seen as capable of doing what men do, as capable of being ‘men’ and are expected to enter into the world of men.

In the difference argument the emphasis is on the difference between men and women, this is usually associated with radical feminism. These feminists celebrate women’s social and cultural difference and often have a political point of view. This argument seeks to re-conceive the relationship between men and women as ‘different but complementary’. This means that they have to evaluate the difference and dismantle the hierarchy that underlies men and women in western society. Radical feminists also celebrate sexual difference and this has led to some feminists believing that women are ethically better than men are. This is a reversal of traditional gender hierarchy of Western societies.

Another strand of feminism that is associated with the difference argument is one that is part of poststructuralism/postmodernism.

These feminists are not as gynocentric as radical feminists. They believe that there is a difference between men and women but not in the celebratory way that the radicalists believe. This argument is much more critical of the differences and tries to reflect on how these differences are constructed and maintained. It focuses more on social difference rather than sexual difference.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Poststructuralism believes that there isn’t any singular explanation of the things that happen in the world. They believe that there are many reasons for things that happen. They tend to stress the shifting, fragmented nature of meaning (and relatedly power) rather than it’s stability, and reject the idea that a stable relationship exists between an objective social reality and the language used to represent it (structuralism). They also believe that we are always changing. As a person you can be many different things, such as an Aunt, a daughter, a friend and a sister. We are constantly developing and evolving. Poststructuralists also believe that knowledge isn’t neutral but that it is socially constructed. We are subjective so knowledge will always be subjective and never neutral. Poststructuralists also criticise theories that try to explain everything-these are known as meta-narratives.

Poststructuralism is mostly associated with Foucault and Derrida

Foucault was influenced by Nietzsche work on genealogy and described the idea of genealogy as

“ Whereas traditional or ‘total’ history inserts events into grand explanatory systems and linear processes, celebrates great moments and individuals and seeks to document a point of origin, genealogical analysis attempts to establish and preserve the singularity of events, turns away from the spectacular in favour of the discredited, the neglected and a whole range of phenomena which have been denied a history.”

This is also an explanation of poststructuralism.

Foucault was interested in the link between sexuality and power. Foucault criticised Freud’s psychoanalysis saying that it was not the first to link the problems of sexuality, and he has also criticised Marx as well saying that his concepts were only a development of David Ricardo’s work. This is because Foucault like most poststructuralists is very critical of any view that is an explanation of everything. In Foucaults' view psychoanalysis grew from “ the institutionalisation of confessional procedures”. In the ‘The History of Sexuality; Volume one: an introduction.’ It talks of how Foucaults' views on sexuality were that sexuality is a positive production of power, and that in his view we have only had sexuality since the 18th century. This is when priests would start to ask about the intentions of sexual act rather than just ask about the act itself. Foucault also believed that the discourse on sexuality was psychoanalysis. Foucault was against Wilhelm Reich’s ‘repressive hypothesis’ this was put forward by the Frankfurt school. This generally believed that the onset of capitalism caused us to repress our sexuality. In Foucaults’ book ‘The History of Sexuality’ there is an attack on this hypothesis stating that there was an explosion of discourses about sexuality in areas such as medicine and psychiatry. (Sarup, 1988)

His main objection to the repressive hypothesis was the idea that power was a negative conception and limitation.

“ Sexuality is not a natural reality but the product of a system of discourses and practices which form part of the intensifying surveillance and control of the individual. Foucault suggests that liberation is a form of servitude, since our apparently ‘natural’ sexuality is in fact a product of power” (Sarup, 1988)

Foucaults work was strongly influenced by his beliefs on power Foucault believes that the individual was made up by an intersection of discourses. Also his early work was more concerned with language but his later work was more concerned with power and how power relations make up the individual. Nietzsche was the one who first focused and philosophised on power. And he did have a great influence on Foucault. It was however Foucault that looked at the relations between power and knowledge. Power had previously been looked at as a negative thing (to have power is to say no) but Foucalut disagreed with that view. Power now operates through new modes of activity rather than through the limitations of existing ones. Power cannot be owned and does not come from the state and individuals do not own power. Instead, Foucault proposes that power is not a commodity but a network with threads extending everywhere. To study power you need to look at point of application of power rather than intention. (Sarup, 1988)

“He wants us to shift our attentions from questions such as ‘Who has power?’ or ‘What intentions or aims do power holders have? To the process by which subjects are constituted as effects of power” (Sarup, 1988)

He believes that power produces reality and that we cannot exercise power without knowledge so they are linked.

Other poststructuralists such as Derrida developed a concept called deconstruction. It is a way of theorising the world in order to make us see that what we believe as essential is actually socially constructed. He was also influenced by the work of de Saussure’s codes and saw them as an endless play of difference.

Lyotard embraced the incredulity towards meta-narratives. Lyotards work on post modernity was very influential in sociology and philosophy (Heartfield, 1997).

Feminism also tends to criticise meta-narratives such as liberalism Marxism and philosophy because they fail to recognise sexual difference as an aspect of human existence. There is the idea that knowledge is neutral. Feminists disagree with this and believe knowledge to be bias and gender specific. Knowledge they believe is different for everyone and is not more or less true to the person who has it. Feminist poststructural theory has however had some criticism from other feminists who claim that it undermines the feminist cause. They say that it does this by saying that meta-narratives are important to the theory and so is the idea of knowing that their truth is the correct one. For example to argue that patriarchy is unjust can only be done if they know it to be true and not just true for them.

Another area where the Feminism and poststructuralism overlap is in subjectivity.

Poststructuralism criticises the idea of a core human identity and instead sees the reasoning subject as not unified but as a discursively produced process. This goes back to what was written earlier on the idea that we are all just an intersection of discourses. Feminists believe that the individuals of most Western philosophy are male and exclude feminine qualities.

“In keeping with its scepticism about there being a foundation to human sociality, post-modern feminism perceives the modernist account of the unified (rational) subject, which supposedly is what distinguishes a universal ‘human’ nature, as being in practice modern, European and male.” (Beasley, 1999)

Power, language and knowledge work to define women as the Other-or so some feminists believe. They also believe that women are not a homogenous group but should be viewed as a group of people who can be very different.

“Overly unified conceptions of power and the subjects of power within feminism are regarded [by Poststructuralist feminists] as being dangerously authoritarian because they repress/exclude the possibility that oppression is not the same for all women, that women are not all the same. Accordingly, post-modern feminists assert that Universalist assumptions could ironically produce in feminism a repetition of the very procedures of oppression feminism hopes to undermine. Their concern here is that making assumptions about Women as a group (regarding them all as the same) simply replaces the singular authority of Western ‘man’ as the universal standard in traditional thought with another (feminine) controlling norm, against which some women are bound to be marginalised” (Beasley, 1999).

Feminists believe that there should not be the privileging of man over women but not because of any characteristics that women have.

“ There is nothing that is essential to the category ‘women’ in post-modern thought: it has no intrinsic qualities (no given content) that can be the subject of feminism” (Beasley, 1999).

It can then be said that poststructural feminism is a threat to feminism as feminism fights the causes for women who are identified as being sexually different. Poststructural feminists look at identity politics with scorn. They believe that women shouldn’t take what has traditionally been defined as feminine qualities and that we should abandon the idea of a sexual or gender based identity.

Judith Butler is a feminist that has drawn on Foucaults’ work. She has argued that gender is a subject of performances. We learn how to be a woman. We are not born with our feminine qualities. She has also developed the queer theory. This emphasises that subjectivity is merely a performance, an on-going process through which the subject comes into being. This means that any subjectivity is an effect of discourse denying any fixed qualities that might unite women.

“How…could women organise together and develop new positive identities if there were no essence of womanhood on the basis of which women could come together in the spirit of sisterhood?” (Weedon, 1997).

This quote shows how some feminists disagree on Butler’s work and think it can be detrimental to the work of feminism.

Derrida is another major influence on feminist poststructuralism. Many feminists believe that feminist politics should be focusing on deconstruction, so that they can change the traditional stereotyping of women. Derrida emphasises that meaning is set up through series of binary oppositions, with one of the pair being superior or more positive than the other is. This can be applied to man/women with man being the superior and women being the Other and therefore dependant on the man for power. Derrida wants to see the deconstruction of the cultural and linguistic assumptions regarding the inevitability of forms of power with the aim of opening up alternative possibilities. Cixous takes the idea of binary opposition further by commenting that women is always the Other. Active/passive, culture/nature, strong/weak, all the first ones of these pairs represent the man and is meant to be the ‘norm’ from which the second part deviates.

Lastly there are some poststructural feminists that draw upon psychoanalysis and the work of Lacan. Lacan talks about how the ‘self’ may be understood through linguistic terms and semiotics. He argues that the individual only comes into being through the acquisition of language, where the individual can be differentiated from an other. Kristeva developed Lacan’s theory by saying that the ‘self’ only comes into being when we are separated from our mother and locate ourselves under the ‘rule of the father’ (patriarchy or as she called it phallocracy). Kirsteva argues that women need to place themselves in the part of society that challenges the existing symbolic order.

Feminist poststructuralism is divided into two main strands one that is associated with Foucault and the other which is associated with Derrida and Lacan. Feminism and poststructuralism are ‘an uneasy alliance’ especially when it comes to the work of Foucault. His idea that subjectivity is a product of discourse is not liked by feminists as it denies women the ability to argue against patriarchy. It denies this because Foucauldian theory says that everything is true if you hold knowledge. For example if you believe patriarchy to be a good thing this is true and if you believe it to be a bad thing this is also true because we are all constructed by separate discourses.

Feminists who don’t agree with poststructuralism criticise it because it can lead to pluralism, relativism and individualist politics. There are many problems between poststructuralism and feminism but they complement each other and many feminists such as Irigaray Butler use it to help theorise feminism.

Bibliography

BEASLEY, C. (1999) ‘ More on the menu: postmodernist/poststructuralist influences’ What Is Feminism? An Introduction to Feminist Theory. London: Sage. pp81-100.