Postmodern feminism

Postmodern feminism is an approach to feminist theory that incorporates postmodern and post-structuralist theory. The largest departure from other branches of feminism is the argument that sex is itself constructed through language. The most notable proponent of this argument is Judith Butler, in her 1990 book, "Gender Trouble", which draws on, and critiques the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan. Butler criticises the distinction drawn by previous feminisms between (biological) sex and (socially constructed) gender. Butler's argument is that this does not allow for a sufficient criticism of essentialism: although feminists have recognized that gender is not naturally given but socially constructed, they have nonetheless tended to assume that gender is always constructed in the same way. This argument leads to the conclusion that there is no single cause for women's subordination, and no single approach towards dealing with the issue. This has led to criticism of postmodern feminism for offering no clear path to action. Butler herself rejects the term "postmodernism" as too vague to be meaningful. [Judith Butler, "Contingent Foundations" in Seyla Benhabib et al., "Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange" (New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 35-58]

French feminism from the 1970 until now, with the psychoanalytic theory writers Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray has forged specific routes in postmodern feminism and in feminist psychoanalysis. Although postmodernism resists characterization, it is possible to identify certain themes or orientations that postmodern feminists share. Mary Joe Frug suggested that one "principle" of postmodernism is that human experience is located "inescapably within language." Power is exercised not only through direct coercion, but also through the way in which language shapes and restricts our reality. However, because language is always open to re-interpretation, it can also be used to resist this shaping and restriction, and so is a potentially fruitful site of political struggle.

Frug's second postmodern principle is that sex is not something natural, nor is it something completely determinate and definable. Rather, sex is part of a system of meaning, produced by language. Frug argues that "cultural mechanisms ... encode the female body with meanings," and that these cultural mechanisms then go on explain these meanings "by an appeal to the 'natural' differences between the sexes, differences that the rules themselves help to produce." [Mary Joe Frug, "A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto (An Unfinished Draft)," "Harvard Law Review", Vol. 105, No. 5. (Mar., 1992), pp. 1045-1075, at p. 1049.] Rejecting the idea of a natural basis to sexual difference allows us to see that it is always susceptible to new interpretations. Like other systems of meaning, it is less like a cage, and more like a tool: it constrains but never completely determines what one can do with it.

References

Bibliography

*Susan H. Williams and David C. Williams "A Feminist Theory of Malebashing" published in "Michigan Journal of Gender & Law", 4 Mich. J. Gender & L. 35 (1996)

See also

* Cyborg feminism
* Individualist feminism
* Standpoint feminism
* Judith Butler
* Donna Haraway
* Luce Irigaray
* Julia Kristeva