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Journal articles on the topic 'Essentialist feminism'
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1
Pandey, Renu. "Locating Savitribai Phule’s Feminism in the Trajectory of Global Feminist Thought." Indian Historical Review 46, no. 1 (June 2019): 86–105. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0376983619856480.
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Initially, the feminist thought was based on Humanist approach, that is, the sameness or essentialist approach of feminism. But recently, gender and feminism have evolved as complicated terms and gender identification as a complicated phenomenon. This is due to the identification of multiple intersectionalities around gender, gender relations and power hierarchies. There are intersections based on age, caste, class, abilities, ethnicity, race, sexuality and other societal divisions. Apart from these societal intersections, intersection can also be sought in the theory of feminism like historical materialist feminisms, postcolonial and anti-racist feminisms, liberal feminism, radical feminisms, sexual difference feminisms, postmodern feminisms, queer feminisms, cyber feminisms, post-human feminisms and most recent choice feminisms and so on. Furthermore, In India, there have been assertions for Dalit/Dalit bahujan/ abrahmini/ Phule-Ambedkarite feminisms. Gender theorists have evolved different approaches to study gender. In addition to the distinction between a biosocial and a strong social constructionist approach, distinctions have been made between essentialist and constructionist approaches. The above theories and approaches present differential understandings of intersections between discourse, embodiment and materiality, and sex and gender. The present article will endeavour to bring out the salient points in the feminist ideology of Savitribai Phule as a crusader for gender justice and will try to locate her feminist ideology in the overall trajectory of global feminist thought. The article suggests that Savitibai’s feminism shows characteristics of all the three waves of feminism.
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Davidson, Joyce, and Mick Smith. "Wittgenstein and Irigaray: Gender and Philosophy in a Language (Game) of Difference." Hypatia 14, no. 2 (1999): 72–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1999.tb01240.x.
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Drawing Wittgenstein's and Irigaray's philosophies into conversation might help resolve certain misunderstandings that have so far hampered both the reception of Irigaray's work and the development of feminist praxis in general. A Wittgensteinian reading of Irigaray can furnish an anti-essentialist conception of “woman” that retains the theoretical and political specificity feminism requires while dispelling charges that Irigaray's attempt to delineate a “feminine” language is either groundlessly Utopian or entails a biological essentialism.
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Sekulic, Nada. "Identity, sex and 'women's writing' in French poststructural feminism." Sociologija 52, no. 3 (2010): 237–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/soc1003237s.
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The paper discusses political implications of the feminist revision of psychoanalysis in the works of major representatives of 1970s French poststructuralism, and their current significance. The influence and modifications of Lacan's interpretation of imaginary structure of the Ego and linguistic structure of the unconscious on explanations of the relations between gender and identity developed by Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and H?l?ne Cixous are examined. French poststructuralist feminism, developing in the 1970s, was the second major current in French feminism of the times, different from and in a way opposed to Simone de Beauvoir's approach. While de Beauvoir explores 'women's condition' determined by social and historical circumstances, French feminists of poststructuralist persuasion engage with problems of unconscious psychological structuring of feminine identity, women's psychosexuality, theoretical implications of gendered visions of reality, especially in philosophy, semiology and psychology, as well as opening up new discursive possibilities of women's and feminine self-expression through 'women's writing'. Political implications of their approach have remained controversial to this day. These authors have been criticized for dislocating women's activism into the sphere of language and theory, as well as for reasserting the concept of women's nature. Debates over whether we need the concept of women's nature - and if yes, what kind - and over the relation between theory and political activism, have resulted in the split between the so-called 'essentialist' and 'anti-essentialist' approaches in feminist theory, and the subsequent division into American (non-essentialist) and French (partly labeled as essentialist) strands. The division is an oversimplification and overlooks concrete historical circumstances that produced the divergence between 'materialist' and 'linguistic' currents in France.
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Williams, Cristan. "The ontological woman: A history of deauthentication, dehumanization, and violence." Sociological Review 68, no. 4 (July 2020): 718–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038026120938292.
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Trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) make use of an ethical, moralistic framework to support specific rhetoric and behavior. Taken together, these form a self-referential ideology that functions to protect an essentialist ontology, which reliably harms cisgender, transgender, and feminist communities. Through an examination of the historical record of US radical feminist and TERF discourses, including first-hand accounts, this article considers how the ontological framework that inspires TERF rhetoric and behavior has functioned as a cycle of moral fulfillment, even as it necessitates the eradication of trans bodies. The article analyzes how TERF morality, rhetoric, and action construct social forms through a sexed binary by relying on an appeal to the natural, which serves to objectify ontological embodiment. It also foregrounds the different historical and contemporary positionalities of trans-exclusionary and trans-inclusive radical feminisms, and concludes with a reminder of the complementary attributes of trans feminism and radical feminism that are evidenced by decades of cooperation.
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LECK, RALPH. "ANTI-ESSENTIALIST FEMINISM VERSUS MISOGYNIST SEXOLOGY INFIN DE SIECLEVIENNA." Modern Intellectual History 9, no. 1 (March 13, 2012): 33–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s147924431100045x.
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As the foundational contributions of thefin de sièclesexual science movement to research on sexuality continue to be fleshed out, new avenues of understanding this important movement will continue to emerge. This essay uncovers the explosive intersection of early sexual science and strains of first-wave feminism in Vienna and charts the emergence of anti-essentialist feminism from this intersection. The first section offers an interpretation of how the discipline of sexual science emerged from medical criminology and how these origins contributed to the misogynist inflection of early sexology. The essay then chronicles the intersection of first-wave feminism and this misogynist sexual science. The central argument is that feminists’ encounters with sexual science dialectically produced an anti-essentialist variant of feminism. This microscopic interpretation of historical context, it will be argued, provides a new vista from which to view the larger tableau of modern European, especially Austrian, intellectual history.
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Groenhout, Ruth E. "Essentialist Challenges to Liberal Feminism." Social Theory and Practice 28, no. 1 (2002): 51–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract20022812.
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Wiberg Pedersen, Else Marie. "Contradictions, Contextuality, and Conceptuality: Why Is It that Luther Is Not a Feminist?" Religions 11, no. 2 (February 10, 2020): 81. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel11020081.
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It is the aim of this article to constructively discuss some of the feminist critique that has been raised against the sixteenth century reformer, Martin Luther, and concomitantly to demonstrate the complexity, and primarily liberal aspects, of his view of women. At its outset, the article points to the fact that there are many different types of feminism, the biggest difference existing between constructivist and essentialist feminisms. Having placed myself as a constructivist feminist with a prophetic-liberating perspective, I ponder how feminism as an -ism can again earn the respect it seems to have lost in the wider academia. I suggest that feminists nuance their use of strong concepts when assessing historical texts, viewing the assessed texts against the backdrop of their historical context, and that feminists stop romanticizing the Middle Ages as a golden age for women. In this vein, I point to the problem that many feminists make unsubstantiated and counterfactual statements based on co-readings of different strands of Protestantism, and that they often uncritically repeat these statements. I problematize, first, the psycho-historian Lyndal Roper’s claim that Luther should have held some of the most misogynist formulations known, which is absurd against the backdrop of the misogyny found in the centuries before Luther, especially in medieval texts by the Dominicans /the Scholastics. Second, the claims of feminist theologian Rosemary R. Ruether’s that Luther, like Calvin, worsened the status of women, which are counterfactual.
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Missaggia, Juliana. "IN DEFENSE OF FEMINIST PHENOMENOLOGY: LIVED BODY, FACTICITY AND THE PROBLEM OF ESSENTIALISM." Revista Ideação 1, no. 42 (December 17, 2020): 272. http://dx.doi.org/10.13102/ideac.v1i42.5483.
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The aim of this paper is to present an overview of the main themes and concepts cultivated in the intersection between phenomenology and feminism, as well as to introduce some of the authors whose research has impacted the field. To that effect, I first analyze the seminal works which helped consolidate the discipline that would come to be known as “feminist phenomenology”, focusing next on relevant notions to the topic at hand, such as the concepts of lived body and facticity. In doing so, I intend to show that, even though phenomenology itself may have been charged with engendering essentialist arguments, the possibility of further non-essentialist unfolding within a phenomenological framework can contribute a great deal to the solution to a number of laborious, yet central deadlocks currently plaguing feminism as a theory as much as a political movement.
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Bailey, Cathryn. "Embracing the Icon: The Feminist Potential of the Trans Bodhisattva, Kuan Yin." Hypatia 24, no. 3 (December 2008): 178–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2009.01051.x.
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I explore how the Buddhist icon Kuan Yin is emerging as a point of identification for trans people and has the potential to resolve a tension within feminism. As a figure that slips past the male/female binary, Kuan Yin explodes the dichotomy between universal and particular in a way that captures the pragmatist and feminist emphasis on doing justice to concrete, particular lives without becoming stuck in an essentialist quagmire.
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Jon, Ihnji. "Reframing postmodern planning with feminist social theory: Toward “anti-essentialist norms”." Planning Theory 19, no. 2 (May 29, 2019): 147–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1473095219851214.
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This article is concerned with the current developments in planning theory literature, with regard to its extensive focus on flexibility and process. When emphasizing the open-endedness and procedural validity of planning, planning theorists do not seem to consider ethical considerations about the results of planning outcomes. This is understandable given that postmodernism and its ardent defense of “open-endedness” is often considered to contradict any prescriptive nuances. However, I argue that normativity of planning is possible within the postmodern paradigm and that postmodern concepts and theoretical standpoints can propose a basis for normativity. To demonstrate this, I adopt the works of political theorists who have addressed normativity and political solidarity within the postmodern paradigm (anti-essentialist, anti-Cartesian), most of whom are inspired by the future paths of feminism. To be clear, what I refer as “feminism” is about not only defending the status of women as a legal category, but also how to construct political solidarity against inequalities—without essentialist categorizations or a priori conceptualizations. Using the ideas of Young (second-/third-wave feminism), Laclau and Mouffe (post-Marxism), Mouffe (post-Marxism/third-wave feminism), and Butler (third-wave feminism/body politics), I outline what could be considered “anti-essentialist norms.” Based on these norms, a planner can judge which people and whose voices—which social groups or “serial collectives”—should be prioritized and heard first, in order to promote a more inclusive and just urban space. The three anti-essentialist norms that I propose are (1) taking into account the historicity of social relations, (2) having a modest attitude toward what we claim as the representation of “the public,” and (3) recognizing a human interdependency that leads to pursuing future-orientedness in a political project.
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Smart, Carol. "Law, Feminism and Sexuality: From Essence to Ethics?" Canadian journal of law and society 9, no. 01 (1994): 15–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0829320100003495.
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AbstractThis paper explores current thinking on the meanings of sex, gender and sexuality and on the relationship between each of these concepts. It suggests that whilst feminist theory has adopted a social constructionist view of gender and, to a lesser extent, sexuality, it has left sex to the conceptual domain of biology. It has also prioritised gender over sexuality conceptually. These issues are explored in the specific area of sexuality and law where it is argued that recent theoretical developments on sex and sexuality within poststructuralist thought have, as yet, failed to influence the dominant understanding of heterosexual relations. Arguably in the field of law and sexuality, feminism has remained wedded to a notion of binary sex and identity politics. The paper then works through two specific instances, namely rape and S/M sexual practice, to identify some of the problems associated with the latter approach. Ultimately it raises questions about whether a poststructuralist politics imbued with feminist ethics might provide us with less essentialist models of masculine/male and feminine/female sexuality without either abandoning feminist political action or falling into a new sexual conservatism.
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Noyé, Sophie. "Materialist and queer feminism in France: Politics of Counter-Hegemony = Féminisme matérialiste et queer en France: Politiques contre-hégémoniques." REVISTA DE HISTORIOGRAFÍA (RevHisto) 31 (September 23, 2019): 163. http://dx.doi.org/10.20318/revhisto.2019.4878.
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Abstract: This article questions the relationship between materialist feminism and queer movement in France. It addresses the pluralization of feminist emancipation in France since the mid-1990s in light of the conflict between materialist and queer feminisms, which started as the queer theory was developed in France in the nineties. The starting point is the hypothesis that the link between these two political theoretic discourses is possible since it actually takes places in the current “queer-feminist” movement’s activist practices. The article argues that this combination is meaningful and deserves to be better theorized because it carries with it a radical message of inclusiveness. The alliance of the two approaches questions the definition of the feminist subject, and especially the formulation of a political unity that is not essentialist. The article analyses the extent to which the counter-hegemonic approach provides with tools to answer this issue.Key words: Materialist feminism, queer movement, feminist subject, Politics of Counter-Hegemony.Résumé: Cet article interroge le rapport entre le féminisme matérialiste et le mouvement queer en France. Il envisage la pluralisation des formes d’émancipation féministe en France depuis le milieu des années 1990 à la lumière de la controverse entre les féminismes matérialiste et queer, qui a comencé quand la théorie queer s’est développée en France dans les années 1990. Mon hypothèse initiale postule que le rapprochement entre ces deux visions théorico-politiques est possible car il se pratique concrètement dans les mouvements queer-féministes actuels. Cet article affirme que cette articulation est pertinente et mérite ainsi d’être théorisée davantage car elle propose une forme d’inclusivité radicale. L’alliance entre ces deux courants questionne en effet la définition du sujet féministe, et, en particulier, une unité politique qui soit non essentialiste. Cet article analyse dans quelle mesure la stratégie contre-hégémonique donne des outils intéressants pour répondre à cet enjeu.Mots-clés: Féminisme matérialiste, mouvement queer, sujet féministe, contre-hégémonie.
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Mcnay, Lois. "The Foucauldian Body and the Exclusion of Experience." Hypatia 6, no. 3 (1991): 125–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1991.tb00259.x.
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This paper considers the advantages of incorporating Foucault's anti-essentialist theory of the body into feminist explanations of women's oppression. There are also problems in that Foucault neglects to examine the gendered character of the body and reproduces a sexism endemic in “gender neutral” social theory. The Foucauldian body is essentially passive resulting in a limited account of identity and agency. This conflicts with an aim of feminism: to rediscover and revalue the experiences of women.
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Richardson, Lizzie. "Feminist geographies of digital work." Progress in Human Geography 42, no. 2 (November 14, 2016): 244–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309132516677177.
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Feminist thought challenges essentialist and normative categorizations of ‘work’. Therefore, feminism provides a critical lens on ‘working space’ as a theoretical and empirical focus for digital geographies. Digital technologies extend and intensify working activity, rendering the boundaries of the workplace emergent. Such emergence heightens the ambivalence of working experience: the possibilities for affirmation and/or negation through work. A digital geography is put forward through feminist theorizations of the ambivalence of intimacy. The emergent properties of working with digital technologies create space through the intimacies of postwork places where bodies and machines feel the possibilities of being ‘at’ work.
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Yamada, Ryūsaku. "Feminism in Radical Democracy and Japanese Political Theory: Mouffe, Pateman, Young, and “Essentialism”." Comparative Political Theory 1, no. 1 (June 16, 2021): 8–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/26669773-01010003.
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Abstract This paper examines feminist arguments in radical democracy and Japanese responses to them. Although feminist insights are significant intellectual sources of radical democracy, recent political theorists have tended to exclusively consider radical democracy as agonistic pluralism. The radical democratic thinker Chantal Mouffe, who is very popular among Japanese political theorists and philosophers, criticizes the “essentialist” tendency of two feminist political theorists, namely Carole Pateman and Iris Marion Young. First this paper examines Mouffe’s critique of the two theorists. Second, it evaluates the relevance of Mouffe’s criticism of Pateman and Young by reconsidering their ideas on democracy and citizenship. Third, it engages the works of a few Japanese political theorists who respond to the issue of essentialism and points out the problems involved in the introduction of radical democracy in Japan and in Japanese feminist political theory. Finally, this paper concludes that we are still in the early stages of introducing and absorbing foreign feminist political theories into Japan as opposed to developing original Japanese feminist political theory to share with the world.
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Foster, Emma. "Ecofeminism revisited: critical insights on contemporary environmental governance." Feminist Theory 22, no. 2 (February 7, 2021): 190–205. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1464700120988639.
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Echoing other articles in this special issue, this article re-evaluates a collection of feminist works that fell out of fashion as a consequence of academic feminism embracing poststructuralist and postmodernist trends. In line with fellow contributors, the article critically reflects upon the unsympathetic reading of feminisms considered to be essentialising and universalistic, in order to re-evaluate, in my case, ecofeminism. As an introduction, I reflect on my own perhaps unfair rejection of ecofeminism as a doctoral researcher and early career academic who, in critiquing 1990s international environmental governance, sought to problematise the essentialist premise on which it appeared to be based. The article thereafter challenges this well-rehearsed critique by carefully revisiting a sample of ecofeminist work produced between the late 1970s and the early 1990s. In an effort to avoid wholesale abandonment of the wealth of feminist theory often labelled as second wave, or the rendering of feminisms of the past as redundant as feminist theory changes over time, this article re-reads the work of ecofeminists, such as Starhawk, Susan Griffin and Vandana Shiva, to demonstrate their contemporary relevance. In so doing, the article argues that a contemporary re-reading of ecofeminism offers insights allowing for a radical rethinking of contemporary environmental governance.
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Twine, Richard. "Intersectional disgust? Animals and (eco)feminism." Feminism & Psychology 20, no. 3 (August 2010): 397–406. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959353510368284.
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This paper explores tensions between feminisms on the issue of nonhuman animals. The possibility of a posthuman or more-than-human account of intersectionality is explored through the retelling of an encounter with a feminist academic colleague and her experience of disgust toward a book I was carrying (Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations, Adams and Donovan, 1995). I argue that such disgust responses can be read as the affective embodiment of unacknowledged human/animal hierarchy and act to impede intersectional theory and politics. Moreover this disgust response is paradigmatic of a certain feminist disavowal of ecofeminism misread as a stereotypical representation of essentialist thinking. Reversing this I argue that it is humanist disgust rather than ecofeminism that may be seen as ‘out of date’ especially when one appreciates how the more-than-human have come to occupy a significant place in both feminist work and the broader humanities and social sciences. In conclusion the paper claims that feminist engagement with nonhuman animals is entirely consistent with its multi-faceted interrogation of dualist ontology, and, whilst the ethics of this engagement may be complex, it is no longer tenable for feminist work to exclude nonhuman animals from its understanding of sociality, politics or ethics.
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Narayan, Uma. "Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of Cultural Essentialism." Hypatia 13, no. 2 (1998): 86–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1998.tb01227.x.
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Drawing parallels between gender essentialism and cultural essentialism, I point to some common features of essentialist pictures of culture. 1 argue that cultural essentialism is detrimental to feminist agendas and suggest strategies for its avoidance, Contending that some forms of cultural relativism buy into essentialist notions of culture, I argue that postcolonial feminists need to be cautious about essentialist contrasts between “Western” and “Third World” cultures.
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Barker, Drucilla K. "Dualisms, Discourse, and Development." Hypatia 13, no. 3 (1998): 83–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1998.tb01371.x.
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This essay reviews a body of literature on feminism, development, and knowledge construction. This literature rejects essentialist constructions of women, challenges the universality of the Western scientific method, and creates a discursive space for reconstructing the dualisms embedded in the modem worldview. It suggests that an understanding of knowledge systems other than the modem one can aid us in constructing epistemologies that result in less dominating ways of producing knowledge.
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Encarnación-Pinedo, Estíbaliz. "Intertextuality in Diane di Prima’s Loba: Religious Discourse and Feminism." Humanities 7, no. 4 (December 16, 2018): 132. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h7040132.
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The last three decades have witnessed a significant increase in the academic interest in the Beat Generation. No longer seen as “know-nothing bohemians” (Podhoretz 1958), scholars have extended the scope of Beat studies, either by generating renewed interest in canonical authors, by expanding the understanding of what Beat means, or by broadening the aesthetic or theoretical lens through which we read Beat writers and poets. Among these, the transnational perspective on Beat writing has sparked careful re-examinations of Beat authors and their works that seek to recognize, among other things, the impact that transnational cultures and literatures have had on Beat writers. Diane di Prima’s long poem Loba (Di Prima 1998), a feminist epic the poet started writing in the early 1970s, draws on a vast array of transnational texts and influences. Most notoriously, di Prima works with mythological and religious texts to revise and challenge the representation of women throughout history. This paper explores di Prima’s particular use of world narratives in light of a feminist poetics and politics of revision. Through the example of “Eve” and the “Virgin Mary”, two of the many female characters whose textual representation is challenged in Loba, the first part of the paper considers di Prima’s use of gnostic and Christian discourses and their impact on her feminist politics of revision. The second part of the paper situates Loba in the specific context of Second-Wave feminism and the rise of Goddess Movement feminist groups. Drawing from the previous analysis, this part reevaluates di Prima’s collection in light of the essentialist debate that analyzes the texts arising from this tradition as naïve and apolitical.
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Demori. "Corporeal Identities, Maternal Artivism: A New Decolonial Approach to the Study of Latin American Women Artists." Arts 8, no. 4 (October 18, 2019): 137. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/arts8040137.
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Stemming from Grosfoguel’s decolonial discourse, and particularly his enquiry on how to steer away from the alternative between Eurocentric universalism and third world fundamentalism in the production of knowledge, this article aims to respond to this query in relation to the field of the art produced by Latin American women artists in the past four decades. It does so by investigating the decolonial approach advanced by third world feminism (particularly scholar Chandra Talpade Mohanty) and by rescuing it from—what I reckon to be—a methodological impasse. It proposes to resolve such an issue by reclaiming transnational feminism as a way out from what I see as a fundamentalist and essentialist tactic. Following from a theoretically and methodological introduction, this essay analyzes the practice of Cuban-born artist Marta María Pérez Bravo, specifically looking at the photographic series Para Concebir (1985–1986); it proposes a decolonial reading of her work, which merges third world feminism’s nation-based approach with a transnational outlook, hence giving justice to the migration of goods, ideas, and people that Ella Shohat sees as deeply characterizing the contemporary cultural background. Finally, this article claims that Pérez Bravo’s oeuvre offers the visual articulation of a decolonial strategy, concurrently combining global with local concerns.
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Riggert, Mirja. "Women’s travel writing in the cyberworld – ecofeminist and difference feminist approaches in travel blogs." Feminismo/s, no. 36 (December 3, 2020): 181. http://dx.doi.org/10.14198/2020.36.08.
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This paper intends to track the development of traditional feminist ideas through the analysis of three contemporary travel blogs. These traditional feminist concepts are to be seen in the construction of a collective female identity that enables transnational and transgenerational solidarity: by receiving and transmitting inspiration, shelter and encouragement among female travellers, the narrators in the blogs create a system of female authority. Within this system, female role models as well as maternal figures become points of reference that help to revalue female attributes. This concept shows allusions to the theory of difference feminism as it is presented in the «symbolic order of the mother» by Luisa Muraro. A similar approach of revaluating femininity happens through the orientation towards ‘Mother Nature’. By staging women’s ability to give birth, cultural ecofeminists like Susan Griffin intend to affirm a close bond between women and nature. This representation of an emphasised femininity becomes a central marker in the narratives of the blogs. While this agenda might be designed to counter gendered spaces and the traditional alienation of women within travel discourse, it is problematised by exclusionary and essentialist definitions of femininity that harden engendered binaries like masculinity/femininity or nature/culture.
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Riggert, Mirja. "Women’s travel writing in the cyber-world – ecofeminist and difference feminist approaches in travel blogs." Feminismo/s, no. 36 (December 3, 2020): 181. http://dx.doi.org/10.14198/fem.2020.36.08.
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This paper intends to track the development of traditional feminist ideas through the analysis of three contemporary travel blogs. These traditional feminist concepts are to be seen in the construction of a collective female identity that enables transnational and transgenerational solidarity: by receiving and transmitting inspiration, shelter and encouragement among female travellers, the narrators in the blogs create a system of female authority. Within this system, female role models as well as maternal figures become points of reference that help to revalue female attributes. This concept shows allusions to the theory of difference feminism as it is presented in the «symbolic order of the mother» by Luisa Muraro. A similar approach of revaluating femininity happens through the orientation towards ‘Mother Nature’. By staging women’s ability to give birth, cultural ecofeminists like Susan Griffin intend to affirm a close bond between women and nature. This representation of an emphasised femininity becomes a central marker in the narratives of the blogs. While this agenda might be designed to counter gendered spaces and the traditional alienation of women within travel discourse, it is problematised by exclusionary and essentialist definitions of femininity that harden engendered binaries like masculinity/femininity or nature/culture.
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Cockburn, Cynthia. "The Anti-Essentialist Choice: Nationalism and Feminism in the Interaction between Two Women's Projects." Nations and Nationalism 6, no. 4 (October 2000): 611–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1354-5078.2000.00611.x.
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Serano, Julia. "Autogynephilia: A scientific review, feminist analysis, and alternative ‘embodiment fantasies’ model." Sociological Review 68, no. 4 (July 2020): 763–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038026120934690.
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It is generally accepted within psychology and among trans health providers that transgender people who transition do so because they have a gender identity that is incongruent with their birth-assigned sex, and distinct from their sexual orientation. In contradiction to this standard model, the theory of autogynephilia posits that transgender women’s female gender identities and transitions are merely a by-product of their sexual orientations. While subsequent research has yielded numerous lines of evidence that, taken together, disprove the theory, autogynephilia is still often touted by anti-transgender groups, including trans-exclusionary feminists. Here, I provide an updated overview of the scientific case against autogynephilia. Following that, I will forward an alternative ‘embodiment fantasies’ model that explains all the available findings better than autogynephilia theory, and which is more consistent with contemporary thinking regarding gender and sexual diversity. I will also demonstrate how autogynephilia theory relies on essentialist, heteronormative, and male-centric presumptions about women and LGBTQ+ people, and as such, it is inconsistent with basic tenets of feminism.
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Omeragić, Merima. "THE MOTHERHOOD CONTINENT AS A WRITING SPACE IN THE WORKS OF JASMINA TEŠANOVIĆ." Folia linguistica et litteraria XII, no. 34 (April 2021): 119–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.31902/fll.34.2021.7.
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The phenomenon of motherhood is a challenging focus for research in the feminist literary theory/critique. The motherhood continent as a controversial point of contention in the society has become (or remains) a polemicized field between the traditionalism, critical, essentialist feminism and epistemology. Advocating for the deconstruction of social postulates of patriarchy starts with a revision of the positive connotations of motherhood, demonization of abortion/birth control, and the right to birth self-determination. In the struggle for power and control at the waning of matriarchy, the androcentric order established the purpose, model and objectives of motherhood. The examination in this work destabilizes elements of motherhood in A Women's Book, The Mermaids, Matrimonium, and Nefertiti Was Here. The objective of this work is to deconstruct the concept of motherhood that is present in our paternal/patriarchal traditions by denouncing the harmful and deeply rooted stereotypes. Simultaneously the work exposes and highlights the need for affirmation of authentic feminine legacy, elucidates aspects of the mother daughter relationship, and promotes the accomplishments of regional literature. In this scientific approach to the phenomenon of motherhood, the work makes use of such theoretical concepts as: ideology of intensive motherhood, creation of body language and women's writing, motherly instinct, maternal ideology, matriarchy and mythology, the black continent, identification with the mother, as well as the mother-daughter relationship, the child's belonging, motherhood and non-motherhood and abortion-birth sterility. The inclusion of these themes in the narratives is an indicative question of the subjective affirmative experience of motherhood, where we find transcendental impulses for generating women's language and creation, which juxtapose ideological norms, intensity of motherhood and achieve autonomy in literary creation.
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Jones, Charlotte, and Jen Slater. "The toilet debate: Stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women’s protected spaces’." Sociological Review 68, no. 4 (July 2020): 834–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038026120934697.
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As one of the few explicitly gender-separated spaces, the toilet has become a prominent site of conflict and a focal point for ‘gender-critical’ feminism. In this article we draw upon an AHRC-funded project, Around the Toilet, to reflect upon and critique trans-exclusionary and trans-hostile narratives of toilet spaces. Such narratives include ciscentric, heteronormative and gender essentialist positions within toilet research and activism which, for example, equate certain actions and bodily functions (such as menstruation) to a particular gender, decry the need for all-gender toilets, and cast suspicion upon the intentions of trans women in public toilet spaces. These include explicitly transmisogynist discourses perpetuated largely by those calling themselves ‘gender-critical’ feminists, but also extend to national media, right-wing populist discourses and beyond. We use Around the Toilet data to argue that access to safe and comfortable toilets plays a fundamental role in making trans lives possible. Furthermore, we contend that – whether naive, ignorant or explicitly transphobic – trans-exclusionary positions do little to improve toilet access for the majority, instead putting trans people, and others with visible markers of gender difference, at a greater risk of violence, and participating in the dangerous homogenisation of womanhood.
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Cannamela, Danila. "“I am an atypical mother”: Motherhood and maternal language in Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto’s poetry." Forum Italicum: A Journal of Italian Studies 55, no. 1 (February 14, 2021): 85–108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0014585821991848.
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In her debut book Dolore minimo, Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto engages in a reflection on motherhood to recount an autobiographical story of gender self-determination and male to female transition. This article explores Vivinetto’s poetry as the retelling of transformative moments in two mother–daughter relationships, which generate a reshaping of life and language. In the book, these two storylines intersect, blur, and even overlap, creating a poetic discourse in which the maternal acts simultaneously as powerful catalyzer and producer of meanings. In discussing how, in Dolore minimo, the relationship of two atypical mothers becomes the creative site of a new possible symbolic order, my analysis engages an atypical approach: it reads Vivinetto’s queer representation of motherhood via the theorization developed by the women of Diotima—including, in particular, Luisa Muraro, Chiara Zamboni, Diana Sartori, and Ida Dominijanni. These feminist thinkers have been generally criticized for reinforcing binary understandings of sex and gender, based on an essentialist view of the category of woman. Yet, what if the feminism forwarded by Diotima, by positioning the feminine as a creative producer and first-person narrator of change, could still offer a productive avenue for dialogue? The article begins with a discussion of Diotima’s key theorizations, which lays the groundwork for interpreting the maternal poetics of Dolore minimo. The subsequent sections examine in more depth how Vivinetto’s poetry has reinvented the figure of the mother as a teacher and learner of new words, and how, through this reinvention, she has crafted a maternal language that knits together new relations of contiguity and change. Ultimately, by redeploying the figure of the mother beyond cisgender norms, Vivinetto’s poetry is revealing the inexhaustible vitality of this character.
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Stone, Alison. "Feminist Criticisms and Reinterpretations of Hegel." Hegel Bulletin 23, no. 1-2 (January 2002): 93–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0263523200007928.
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In 1970, the Italian feminist Carla Lonzi published her now-classic polemic urging women to “spit on Hegel”. Disregarding her advice, many subsequent feminist theorists and philosophers have engaged substantially with Hegel's thought, and a wide variety of feminist readings of Hegel have sprung up. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of these different feminist criticisms and interpretations of Hegel. In introducing these various interpretations, I will show how they reflect a range of divergent feminist approaches to the history of philosophy as a whole. My aim is not only to describe but also to evaluate these approaches, with respect to their capacity to generate insightful and productive readings of Hegel's philosophy. I shall argue that what I will call the “essentialist” feminist approach to Hegel is the most fruitful, doing most to illuminate the contours of his thought and to open up new and creative ways of reading his works.To anticipate, in surveying the various feminist interpretations of Hegel, I will classify them as reflecting four different types of feminist approach to the history of philosophy. The first, “extensionist” approach draws upon the history of philosophy for conceptual resources to understand and explain women's social situation. The second approach is more critical, tracing the pervasiveness of “masculinist” assumptions and biases in the history of philosophy. To call views “masculinist” is to say that they uphold systematic and hierarchical contrasts between masculinity and femininity, contrasts which need not be explicit but may be sustained through contrasts between other ostensibly neutral concepts which actually have tacit gender connotations. This critical approach generates an overwhelmingly negative picture of the philosophical tradition. The third, “essentialist” approach complicates this picture, recovering and highlighting the strands within historical texts which revalorise concepts or items that are given feminine connotations. These often overlooked strands oppose the dominant masculinist tendencies in texts by assigning equal importance and value to “symbolically feminine” concepts. However, proponents of the fourth, “deconstructive” approach object that essentialist readings of philosophical texts accept and reinforce patterns of gender symbolism which feminists ought to challenge. Deconstructive feminists seek to expose and exacerbate the instability within these patterns of gender symbolism by tracing how philosophical texts continuously undermine the gender contrasts present within them.
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Earles, Jennifer. "The Poetics of Coming Out and Being Out: Feminist Activism in Cis Lesbian and Trans Women’s Poetic Narratives." Humanities 8, no. 3 (July 6, 2019): 122. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h8030122.
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While coming out or the telling of sexual selves for LGBTQ+ people is often seen as the final step toward living a free and healthy life, lesbians who also identify as feminists embark on a life-long journey in which the plot ebbs and flows around activism and mobilization. Their goal is not only to come out, but to be out. Both cisgender radical-lesbian feminists and trans feminists consider coming out as not only crucial for the realization of self, but also an important tactic for taking up space and intervening in a heteronormative world. But, while the original theories of radical feminism advocated a fierce anti-essentialism, some contemporary radical feminists continue to focus on biology and questions like “what is a woman?” I hope to refocus the question to ask: how are narrative audiences, discursive forms of text, and spaces important for feminists as they realize lesbian or trans identities and communities? Data come from a historical printed newsletter by self-described radical feminists practicing lesbian separatism and two current micro-blogs, one surrounding radical-feminist narratives and the other around trans feminism. Through a textual analysis, I show how self-proclaimed radical feminists and trans feminists use poetic and emotive writing to produce different kinds of narratives about coming out and being out in different spaces and for unique audiences. Ultimately, these discursive forms are important for communities as members’ stories challenge and are impacted by public narratives of gender, essentialism, and cis- and hetero-normativity.
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Arrojo, Rosemary. "Fidelity and The Gendered Translation." TTR : traduction, terminologie, rédaction 7, no. 2 (March 13, 2007): 147–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/037184ar.
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Abstract Fidelity and The Gendered Translation — Postmodern theories of language have drastically changed the ways we view the translator's task and the relationships that can be established between the so-called original and its foreign versions. One of the most important insights brought about by such textual theories is the recognition of the translator's inescapable authorial role in the translated text. At the same time, an increasing awareness of the impact of gender-related issues to the production of meaning is beginning to encourage a promising union between feminism, contemporary textual theories, and the emerging discipline of translation studies. Such a union has begun to produce a new brand of politically motivated translations as well as an enlightening reflection on the issues of both translation and gender and to prompt some female translators to write about their feminist practice and strategies that explicitly subvert the original they disagree with. However, as I intend to argue, even though their work and theoretical comments do reveal that their voices have already conquered a much deserved space within the (still) predominantly essentialist scenario of patriarchal culture, they seem to be repeating some version of the same scenario which treats original and translations differently and which they rightly condemn in traditional theories of translation and gender. As they disguise their conscious intervention in the text they translate under the mask of some form of or to the same original they explicitly deconstruct, such translators fail to take their own sound insights seriously and run the unnecessary risk of jeopardizing their work.
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Dallavalle, Nancy A. "Neither Idolatry nor Iconoclasm: A Critical Essentialism for Catholic Feminist Theology." Horizons 25, no. 1 (1998): 23–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0360966900030711.
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AbstractFollowing the work of gender theorists who find the terms “male” and “female” to be socially constructed, feminist theology has tended to repudiate essentialism. The position that results is one of agnosticism about biological sexuality, a position that is only reinforced by the essentialist excesses that ground the discussion of the “psycho-physical structure” of women found in official Catholic teaching. This article suggests that the polarity of feminist theology and official Catholic teaching on questions of sex and gender can be overcome by using the framework of a “critical essentialism,” a position that retrieves the Catholic theological tradition of reflection on “male” and “female” while allowing its claims to be appropriately winnowed by the insights of gender theorists.
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Craig, Elaine. "Converging Feminist and Queer Legal Theories: Family Feuds and Family Ties." Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 28, no. 1 (February 1, 2010): 209. http://dx.doi.org/10.22329/wyaj.v28i1.4495.
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The notion that queer theory and feminism are inevitably in tension with one another has been well developed both by queer and feminist theorists. Queer theorists have critiqued feminist theories for being anti-sex, overly moralistic, essentialist, and statist. Feminist theorists have rejected queer theory as being uncritically pro-sex and dangerously protective of the private sphere. Unfortunately these reductionist accounts of what constitutes a plethora of diverse, eclectic and overlapping theoretical approaches to issues of sex, gender, and sexuality, often fail to account for the circumstances where these methodological approaches converge on legal projects aimed at advancing the complex justice interests of women and sexual minorities. A recent decision from the Ontario Court of Justice addressing a three-parent family law dispute involving gay and lesbian litigants demonstrates why recognition of the convergences between feminist and queer legal theories can advance both queer and feminist justice projects. The objective of this article is to demonstrate, through different and converging interpretations of this case that draw on some of the theoretical insights offered in a new anthology called Feminist and Queer Legal Theory, one rather straight-forward claim. The claim advanced here is that activists, advocates, litigants and judges are all well served by approaching complex legal problems involving sex, sexuality and gender with as many “methods” for pursuing and achieving justice as possible.La notion que la théorie homosexuelle et le féminisme sont inévitablement en conflit l’un avec l’autre a été bien développée à la fois par les théoriciens et théoriciennes homosexuels et féministes. Les théoriciens et théoriciennes homosexuels ont critiqué les théories féministes les qualifiant d’être anti-sexe, trop moralistes, essentialistes et étatistes. Les théoriciens et théoriciennes féministes ont rejeté la théorie homosexuelle la qualifiant d’être pro-sexe sans esprit critique et dangereusement protectrice du domaine privé. Malheureusement, ces descriptions réductionnistes de ce qui constitue une pléthore d’approches théoriques aux questions de sexe, de genre et de sexualité qui sont diverses, éclectiques et qui se chevauchent manquent fréquemment de tenir compte de circonstances où ces approches méthodologiques convergent sur des projets légaux visant à faire avancer les intérêts juridiques complexes des femmes et des minorités sexuelles. Une décision récente de la Cour de justice de l’Ontario portant sur un litige en droit de la famille entre trois parents et impliquant des parties homosexuelles et lesbiennes démontre pourquoi la reconnaissance des convergences entre les théories juridiques féministes et homosexuelles peut faire avancer à la fois les projets légaux homosexuels et féministes. Le but de cet article n’est pas de suggérer qu’une seule «théorie juridique féministe homosexuelle» convergente soit possible, ou même désirable. Plutôt, le but est de démontrer, par le biais d’interprétations différentes et convergentes de ce cas qui s’inspirent de certaines intuitions théoriques présentées dans une nouvelle anthologie intitulée Feminist and Queer Legal Theory, une proposition assez simple. La proposition avancée ici est que les activistes, les avocats, les parties à un litige et les juges sont tous bien servis en abordant des problèmes légaux complexes au sujet de sexe, de sexualité et de genre avec autant de «méthodes» que possible pour considérer la justice dans tous ses détails.
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Kuykendall, Eléanor H. "Subverting Essentialisms." Hypatia 6, no. 3 (1991): 208–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1991.tb00264.x.
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Jesseman, Christine. "Nancy E. Dowd and Michelle S. Jacobs (eds.), Feminist Legal Theory: an Anti-Essentialist Reader; Wendy McElroy (ed.), Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the Twenty-First Century." Feminist Legal Studies 12, no. 1 (2004): 113–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/b:fest.0000026116.49542.29.
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Köhler-Ryan, Renée. "“The Hour of Woman” and Edith Stein: Catholic New Feminist Responses to Essentialism." Religions 11, no. 6 (May 29, 2020): 271. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel11060271.
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This article examines how Edith Stein’s philosophical and theological anthropology is foundational to the “new feminism” that both Paul VI and John Paul II called for in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. In particular, this article shows how Stein helps to respond to Simone de Beauvoir’s argument that taking women’s biology into consideration leads to essentialism with political implications. This article outlines main themes in the new feminism, and gives a brief overview of the ideas about the “hour of woman” and the “feminine genius” pronounced by popes Paul VI and John Paul II. This article then describes and analyzes Stein’s psycho-physical theory of the human person. Finally, this article considers the importance of Stein’s thought for feminist theology, with brief application to the issue of the ordination of women to the priesthood.
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Stone, Alison. "Essentialism and Anti-Essentialism in Feminist Philosophy." Journal of Moral Philosophy 1, no. 2 (2004): 135–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/174046810400100202.
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AbstractThis article revisits the ethical and political questions raised by feminist debates over essentialism, the belief that there are properties essential to women and which all women share. Feminists’ widespread rejection of essentialism has threatened to undermine feminist politics. Re-evaluating two responses to this problem—‘strategic’ essentialism and Iris Marion Young’s idea that women are an internally diverse ‘series’—I argue that both unsatisfactorily retain essentialism as a descriptive claim about the social reality of women’s lives. I argue instead that women have a ‘ genealogy’: women always acquire femininity by appropriating and reworking existing cultural interpretations of femininity, so that all women become situated within a history of overlapping chains of interpretation. Because all women are located within this complex history, they are identifiable as belonging to a determinate social group, despite sharing no common understanding or experience of femininity. The idea that women have a genealogy thus reconciles anti-essentialism with feminist politics.
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Morton, Stephen. "Las mujeres del «tercer mundo» y el pensamiento feminista occidental." La Manzana de la Discordia 5, no. 1 (March 16, 2016): 115. http://dx.doi.org/10.25100/lamanzanadeladiscordia.v5i1.1535.
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Este artículo es un capítulo del libro Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, de la «Serie Routledge de Pensadores Críticos» (Londres: Routledge, 2003), pp. 71-89.Traducción por Gabriela Castellanos.Resumen: Este artículo recoge las principales ideas de la filósofa y teórica del lenguaje Gayatri Spivak sobre las mujeres del llamado Tercer Mundo, haciendo uso de los conceptos acuñados o re-significados por ella sobre subalternidad y esencialismo estratégico. Se resumen y analizan varios artículos de Spivak, incluyendo sus críticas al feminismo europeo, y retomando sus análisis de obras narrativas de autoras de países tercermundistas,de Asia.Palabras clave: Gayatri Spivak, mujeres del Tercer Mundo, feminismo, subalternidad, esencialismo estratégicoAbstract: This article summarizes the major ideas on Third World women by the philosopher and language theorist Gayatri Spivak, using concepts coined or resignified by her such as subalternity and strategic essentialism. Several articles by Spivak are summarized, including her criticism of European feminism, and her analyses of narrative works by Asian women writers.Key words: Gayatri Spivak, Third World women, feminism, subalternity, strategic essentialism.
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Vintges, Karen. "Simone de Beauvoir: A Feminist Thinker for Our Times." Hypatia 14, no. 4 (1999): 133–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1999.tb01257.x.
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For many, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex has only historic significance. The aim of this article is to show on the contrary that Beauvoir's philosophy already contains all the elements of contemporary feminism—so much so that it can be taken as its paradigm. Beauvoir's ideas about the self are extremely relevant today. Feminist themes such as the logic of “equality and difference” and identity are interwoven in her thinking in ways that can offer solutions to what seem to be insurmountable dilemmas in modern feminism. The attack on all kinds of essentialism can be reconciled with feminist identity-politics when the latter presents itself as “arts of living.”
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McWeeny, Jennifer. "Topographies of Flesh: Women, Nonhuman Animals, and the Embodiment of Connection and Difference." Hypatia 29, no. 2 (2014): 269–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12087.
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Because of risks of essentialism and homogenization, feminist theorists frequently avoid making precise ontological claims, especially in regard to specifying bodily connections and differences among women. However well‐intentioned, this trend may actually run counter to the spirit of intersectionality by shifting feminists' attention away from embodiment, fostering oppressor‐centric theories, and obscuring privilege within feminism. What feminism needs is not to turn from ontological specificity altogether, but to engage a new kind of ontological project that can account for the material complexity of social space in the twenty‐first century. Taking inspiration from the phenomenological concept of flesh as well as ecofeminism and María Lugones's theory of the colonial/modern gender system, this essay argues that our own flesh is related to that of others through lines of intercorporeal relations that collectively form topographies of flesh. When we attend to those material relationships present in a particular locality at a point in time, we are able to recognize topographical aggregates of beings that can serve as a basis for this new feminist ontology. An example from Toni Morrison's Beloved involving a human woman and a nonhuman one is used as a paradigm for thinking ontological connection and difference at the same time.
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Gaard, Greta. "Tools for a Cross-Cultural Feminist Ethics: Exploring Ethical Contexts and Contents in the Makah Whale Hunt." Hypatia 16, no. 1 (2001): 1–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2001.tb01046.x.
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Antiracist white feminists and ecofeminists have the tools but lack the strategies for responding to issues of social and environmental justice cross-culturally, particularly in matters as complex as the Makah whale hunt. Distinguishing between ethical contexts and contents, I draw on feminist critiques of cultural essentialism, ecofeminist critiques of hunting and food consumption, and socialist feminist analyses of colonialism to develop antiracist feminist and ecofeminist strategies for cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural feminist ethics.
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Messner, Michael. "Gender Ideologies, Youth Sports, and the Production of Soft Essentialism." Sociology of Sport Journal 28, no. 2 (June 2011): 151–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/ssj.28.2.151.
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By the mid-Twentieth Century in the U.S., a dominant ideology of natural, categorical differences between women and men was an organic part of the unequal distribution of women and men into domestic and public realms, especially in middle class families. Sport was a key site for the naturalization of this ideology, which I call “hard essentialism.” Since the 1970s, an explosion of female athletic participation mirrored the movement of women into the professions, leading scholars to examine sport as a terrain of contested gender relations. This paper extends that discussion by positing a four-part periodization of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic gender ideologies, stretching from the mid-Twentieth Century to the present. Touching down empirically on contemporary professional class youth sports coaches’ views of children and gender, I identify an ascendant gender ideology I call “soft essentialism.” I argue that youth sports has become a key site for the construction of soft essentialist narratives that appropriate the liberal feminist language of “choice” for girls, but not for boys, thus serving to recreate and naturalize class-based gender asymmetries and inequalities. I end by outlining emergent strategies that spring from the contradictions of soft essentialism.
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Galytska, Iuliia. "Alias in women's literature: feminist aspects in a gender context." Grani 23, no. 4 (July 5, 2020): 28–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.15421/172038.
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The problem of the identity of the woman hiding her gender under a male pseudonym makes us recollect U. Eco’s arguments about the truth and the purpose of literature as well as A. F. Losev’s ideas about the name and the meaning, the theories of the feminist literary critics K. Millett, M. Ellman, T. Moi, E. Showalter, etc. who have presented "women`s writing" and "writing about women" in the feminist field. As one of the central principles of feminist criticism is that no scientific view can ever be neutral, the problem of pseudonyms occupies an important place in the contemporary gender studies, explicitly or implicitly highlighting the artificially constructed debate, which divides "serious male literature" and "superficial and secondary female writing". On the one hand, this is the problem of feminism itself, on the other, it is a question of the role and place of the woman in the world` culture and history. In this kind of the analysis we cannot ignore such an epiphenomenon of postmodernism as "label change" with the postmodern emphasis on the sociocultural role of the context, which is especially relevant in aspects of the gender "name problem". The last one, undoubtedly, is included in the problematization of postmodern culture on the whole, since all cultural narratives have always been gender "stories". Today an individual construct his or her gender-reflecting reality, still the modelling of the new gender system is far from being complete. The created sign systems are ambivalent, the meanings are very unstable and can easily be hermeneutically interpreted. However, the role of hermeneutics in analyzing the relationship between the author and the sociocultural context is in the core of the gender aspects of literature, in general, and in the problems of the pseudonym as a change of "name", in particular. The latter is by all means relevant and important. Undoubtedly, one of the main incentives for feminist scholars in their turn to women's literature is connected with the patriarchal demand for women's "silence", their "dumbness" in culture and, accordingly, in literature. Obviously, there are two main interpretations of the concept of "female literature" in feminist criticism. The first one is the representation of female subjectivity in its difference from the male one. The second approach is the representation of "non-essentialist" female subjectivity, which is understood as the logical structure of the difference. In general, in the patriarchal dichotomy of the femininity and masculinity "women who write" are always dangerous. "Three strange sisters" – Anne, Charlotte and Emily Bronte wrote their novels under disguise of male pen names, exactly specifying two conceptual motives: the "Other" concept and the image of "Veil". In this context the motive of androgyny is also important from the point of view of both analysis and literary criticism. In ХIXth century George Sand (Aurora Dupin), having most vividly represented this concept, became an example for many subsequent generations of feminists – writers, actresses and media representatives. However, in our era of gender plurality, the question of the pseudonym as a problem of "genders" is not so relevant; more likely it is still a question of the priorities in the feminist theory. In the contemporary discourse of literary criticism many of the author’s socially significant features are perceived as gender neutral. In the postmodern paradigm the question of the androgynous identity of the man/woman writer requires its further actualization as the androgynous is often replaced by the bisexuality (J. Irving` "In One Person"). In general, it should be recognized that postmodern approaches to gender identity, which paint a "picture of the world" today, transform the female experience of being as the "Other", secondary and insignificant with a conceptual orientation to a fundamental variety of postmodern cognitive perspectives.
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Clark, Ann. "The Quest For Certainty In Feminist Thought." Hypatia 8, no. 3 (1993): 84–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1993.tb00037.x.
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In this paper I argue that the essentialism/antiessentialism debate among feminists is a variety of the idealist/realist split that Dewey addressed in The Quest for Certainty. I attempt to use Dewey's thought to subvert this opposition so that we can remove the feminist discussion from the structure of an idealist/realist either/or.
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Herr, Ranjoo Seodu. "Can Transnational Feminist Solidarity Accommodate Nationalism? Reflections from the Case Study of Korean “Comfort Women”." Hypatia 31, no. 1 (2016): 41–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12213.
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This article aims to refute the “incompatibility thesis” that nationalism is incompatible with transnational feminist solidarity, as it fosters exclusionary practices, xenophobia, and racism among feminists with conflicting nationalist aspirations. I examine the plausibility of the incompatibility thesis by focusing on the controversy regarding just reparation for Second World War “comfort women,” which is still unresolved. The Korean Council at the center of this controversy, which advocates for the rights of Korean former comfort women, has been criticized for its strident nationalism and held responsible for the stalemate. Consequently, the case of comfort women has been thought to exemplify the incompatibility thesis. I argue against this common feminist perception in three ways: first, those who subscribe to the incompatibility thesis have misinterpreted facts surrounding the issue; second, the Korean Council's nationalism is a version of “polycentric nationalism,” which avoids the problems of essentialist nationalism at the center of feminist concerns; and, third, transnational feminist solidarity is predicated on the idea of oppressed/marginalized women's epistemic privilege and enjoins that feminists respect oppressed/marginalized women's epistemic privilege. To the extent that oppressed/marginalized women's voices are expressed in nationalist terms, I argue that feminists committed to transnational feminist solidarity must accommodate their nationalism.
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Moulaison, Jane Barter. "‘Our bodies, our selves?’ The body as source in feminist theology." Scottish Journal of Theology 60, no. 3 (August 2007): 341–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0036930607003328.
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AbstractThis article is, in part, an effort to come to terms with the ubiquitous celebration of embodiment in feminist discourse, and particularly within feminist theology. It will begin with a brief introduction to some of the key concepts in feminist theology and its use of the body, beginning with the body theologies of those who might now be called ‘second-wave’ theologians – Carter Heyward and Beverly Harrison. From here, I will consider postmodern feminist challenges to the reified and essentialised body as I examine what I call the subversive body in third-wave or postmodern feminism, both secular and theological. Finally, I shall move from these to an alternative construal of the importance of the body through the consideration of Christian bodily practices. Such an alternative will allow me to reflect upon what it is to become a specifically Christian body through church practices. I shall then endeavour to return to the critical concerns raised by feminism about the subjugation of women's bodies in the church as I consider the resources that might be available within the tradition itself for critical and emancipatory practices toward women and other strangers within the Body of Christ.
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Heyes, Cressida J. "Anti-Essentialism in Practice: Carol Gilligan and Feminist Philosophy." Hypatia 12, no. 3 (1997): 142–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1997.tb00009.x.
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Third wave anti-essentialist critique has too often been used to dismiss second wave feminist projects. I examine chims that Carol Gilligan's work is “essentialist,” and argue that her recent research requires this criticism be rethought. Anti-essentialist feminist method should consist in attention to the relations of power that construct accounts of gendered identity in the course of different forms of empirical enquiry, not in rejecting any general claim about women or girls.
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Klein, Anne C. "Presence with a Difference: Buddhists and Feminists on Subjectivity." Hypatia 9, no. 4 (1994): 112–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1994.tb00652.x.
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Essentialist and postmodern feminisms are often regarded as incompatible. I propose that Buddhist theories of subjectivity change the nature of the tension between them as presently construed because Buddhist traditions describe a mind not wholly governed by language, and a subjective mental dimension that is entirely integrated with the body and its sensations. A corollary is the compatibility Buddhists perceive between conditioned subjective states (akin to postmodern feminisms) and the unconditioned (akin to essentialist feminisms).
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Barker, Victoria. "Definition and the Question of “Woman”." Hypatia 12, no. 2 (1997): 185–215. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.1997.tb00026.x.
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Within recent feminist philosophy, controversy has developed over the desirability, and indeed, the possibility of defining the central terms of its analysis—“woman,” “femininity,” etc. The controversy results largely from the undertheorization of the notion of definition; feminists have uncritically adopted an Aristotelian treatment of definition as entailing metaphysical, rather than merely linguistic, commitments. A “discursive” approach to definition, by contrast, allows us to define our terms, while avoiding the dangers of essentialism and universalism.
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Nicholas, Lucy. "Remembering Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘ethics of ambiguity’ to challenge contemporary divides: feminism beyond both sex and gender." Feminist Theory 22, no. 2 (February 7, 2021): 226–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1464700120988641.
Full textAbstract:
This article returns to Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophical oeuvre in order to offer a way of thinking beyond contemporary feminist divisions created by ‘gender critical’ or trans-exclusionary feminists. The ‘gender critical’ feminist position returns to sex essentialism to argue for ‘abolishing’ gender, while opponents often appeal to proliferated gender self-identities. I argue that neither goes far enough and that they both circumscribe utopian visions for a world beyond both sex and gender. I chart how Beauvoir’s ontological, ethical and political positions can be used to overcome the material/cultural, sex/gender bind that the contemporary divide perpetuates. I outline Beauvoir’s ‘ambiguous’ non-foundational ontology that attends to both the cultural origins, and material effects, of both sex and gender, and to the extent that humyns are fundamentally social. After outlining Beauvoir’s definition of freedom as purposive action, I then outline how the existence of the humyn-made and intersubjectively-upheld ‘situations’ of both sex and gender delimit this, urging feminists to return to the lost question of eradicating both. I use the utopian impulse in Beauvoir to argue that an ethics of reciprocity is an alternative mode of understanding the self and others. Beauvoir also calls for a political strategy that I call a ‘utopian realism’ that I apply to the contemporary divide. A way forward that is attentive to the concerns of both positions is the pragmatic use of identity politics that is nonetheless mindful of identity’s limits, alongside Beauvoir’s proto-intersectional vision of solidarity politics based not on identity but on a position of alterity and shared political strategy. Ultimately, I use this to argue that feminism would do better to unite around a shared commitment to challenging alterity, rather than further contributing to it.