Gender Theory

Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray

Judith Butler sees gender as a social construct; Luce Irigaray emphasises the differences between the sexes. Both authors invite readers to see past what is made obvious. The two perspectives, respectively, allow readers to imagine a freedom from the social constraints placed on them through their bodies, then whips them, particularly women, into a righteous indignation after seeing their lives through the looking glass of custom, commodity and exchange.   

Central criticism of both authors seems to point to a utopian aspect to their arguments, as though they were writing in expectation that their imaginations and ponderings were actual reality. Perhaps they are. If the two women are visionaries of a sort and in their own manner, perhaps they are themselves living what to their critics and others seems irreal.

The role of women in society today is so comically outlined and prescribed, and yet too so nuanced that it is no wonder that women are said to appear to understand a language among themselves that at times puts men on guard. Even if Irigaray’s argument were to be factually refuted - that today’s women of modern society in the West are exchanged in just the same manner as Lévi-Strauss described was done in primitive societies – the structure and function of society today would nonetheless allow for an understanding of why Irigaray believes this, and might too provide a clear cut example that would support her views. There is scarcely a young woman in western culture who would feel comfortable agreeing to obey the man she marries. Still, many a young women dreams of being ‘given away by their fathers’ into the protective hands of their desired husbands-to-be. Is this society clinging to quaint custom? Or, is there some truth to Irigaray’s argument?

Irigaray’s critics accuse her of essentialising the feminine: she dares to define it. There is an unsettling irritation reserved for any person attempting to define anyone, or any gender. But Irigaray’s attempt may have been to actually free the feminine, the female, woman from the strictures of labels with which it, she, has been burdened, and to invite women to define themselves. 

Or, even to exist without labels, in much the same way as Butler suggests is possible.

Bibliography

Fuss, Diana J. Winter 1989.

“Essentially Speaking”: Luce Irigaray’s Language of Essence. In: Hypatia, Vol. 3, No. 3. French Feminist Philosophy.

Haas, Lynda. Autumn 1993.

Of Waters and Women: The Philosophy of Luce Irigaray. In: Hypatia, Vol. 8, No 4., pp. 150-159.

Leitch, Vincent B. (ed) 2001.

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Post-colonial theory and feminism

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Spivak and Najmabadi

It is imperative to maintain, to use, the language of feminism in order to ensure adhesion to and clarity of the cause of feminism, Spivak says. It seems as though she may believe that it is easier to stay close to the cause if one remains close to its roots, even in terms of language. Or, as Spivak advocates, primordially in terms of language. In this way, it does seem easier to remain not just true to the cause but to ensure that neither the cause nor the follower is corrupted.

The need for violence in support of the cause, of feminism or of whatever other case needs fighting for? Spivak feels that those people who oppose protesters, meaning the status quo, may through their efforts in fact invite the very action they are trying to quell. In effect, people who seek to block all avenues of resistance instigated by agitators also block the one peaceful means that agitators have of making their case: passive resistance. Thus, agitation must lead to action, from where it is a short slide to violence. 

Critics of Spivak have leveled at her that she has issued, or at least is in support of a muted call to action. This, from an academic who may not want to be seen to incite violence but who would nonetheless understand an expressed need for it. And, if Spivak does not outright condone violence, critics say she nonetheless seems to employ a passive support for it, along with the feeling that agitators may be justified in by-passing all passivity.

Spivak and Najmabadi are interested in discerning and bringing forward the feminine presence in history, the female perspective, her voice. Spivak wonders if the feminine can speak; supposes it can and wonders if the time for passive action has … passed. 

Najmabadi looks for evidence that the feminine has spoken, did speak, and, if so, how? If it did speak, there must be evidence of it. How is it now that this evidence does not seem to be part of the historical record? Rather, it must somehow be deduced from the fact that, if the world is binary – at the very least, and if there is a male voice, of necessity, there must be its opposite.

Bibliography

Najmabadi, Afsaneh 2006.

Beyond the Americas: Are Gender and Sexuality Useful Categories of Analysis? In: Journal of Women's History, Vol. 18, Issue 1, Spring 2006.

Spivak, Gayatri. 

A Critique of Post-Colonial Reason.

In: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Leitch, Vincent B. (et al) 2001. New York: W.W. Norton Company, Inc.

Post-colonial Theory

Fanon; Said; Bhabha; Bhabha; Young

The study of post-colonialism helps to reveal the hidden structures that continue to reference themselves as they organise and legitimise thoughts and discourse. The danger of post-colonialism is that many believe it is the study of what was. They fail to realize the depth to which post-colonialism has shaped their very approach to the subject – and subjects - they are studying.

The study of post-colonialism is one of subtlety as it involves the study of the psyche, and thus of the structure of an individual. To study post-colonialism is to look into the psyche of the created other, whether the other is the creation of the subjected or the creation by the subjected of the subject.

With post-colonialism, both sides of humanity are necessarily dealing with creations/ illusions before they come into the contact with the individual, who may forever remain elusive if that individual does not survive intact the de-veiling of their psyche. This fear may be what stops individuals from exploring further, preferring out of fear to remain comfortably couched in the upper echelons of post-colonial thought that allow the thinker to seem enlightened as he holds onto an identity into which much has been invested and without which too much would be feared to be lost. The presence of this fear best highlights Bhabha’s opinon that theory is the indispensable backbone to politics as well as post-colonial studies because it provides a guiding line of thought in an area littered with potential pitfalls and unintentional slides back into the comfortable framework of colonial thinking.

Bhabha also speaks of hybridity, of how there is no unity within a nation because a nation, particularly one such as India, is composed of so many elements that unite to form the country. Hybrid best addresses that which comprises nations. And hybrid helps to describe an aspect of post-colonialism and why it may be so elusive to fully grasp, especially from the perspective of the subjected.

Is not the aim of post-colonial studies to try to make former colonialists and their descendants understand what was wrought under their reign? And to make descendants of subjects understand what has happened, to open their eyes? The opening of eyes can create anger at the past, and at what may still be happening in the present. This is, it would seem, the most sensitive aspect of post-colonialism: addressing its reach into the present and beyond. It is the insistence upon addressing this aspect that can send descendants of one-time colonialists back into themselves, shutters down, for self-protection.

Feminist Theory

Simone De Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, Adrienne Rich

One is not born a woman, de Beauvoir wrote, she becomes one. 

“What is the relationship between the myth of the Eternal Feminine and the lived experience of actual women?” De Beauvoir asked the question in 1949.

Is the question such that its essence is the stuff of human existence, and thus always there and unanswerable in definitive manner? If so, might this be because patriarchy is of such entrenched nature in Western society that it defines society itself? Then, is it that despite all of the progress that has been made since 1949, not much in terms of freeing women from stereotype has been achieved?

Feminism has faltered since 1980s, it would seem. Actions on its behalf since that time have taken for granted so much that contemporary activity undertaken for its survival has been tantamount to paying down the interest instead of paying off capital. It would seem that the outstanding sum will never be settled. 

Until something changes, in some aspect, the mythic view will prevail that women are defined by that which men are not – in the sense of whatever is leftover and not needed to describe and confirm male strength, vision and power. How could this be otherwise if, as in de Beauvoir’s view, the body is ‘situated in culture and history’ (Leitch 2001: 1405). Actions changed, thinking changed, and yet we continue to propulgate a sameness to our basic thinking. Unless, of course, there is indeed an actual inherent difference between the sexes that we cannot do or think otherwise.

The risk to women of the gains that have been achieved are significant; the risk of losing themselves paramount. Rich writes: “No woman is really an insider in the institutions fathered by masculine consciousness. When we allow ourselves to believe we are, we lose touch with parts of ourselves defined as unacceptable by that consciousness; with the vital toughness and visionary strength of the angry grandmothers, the shamanesses, the fierce marketwomen of the Ibo's Women's War, the marriage-resisting women silkworkers of prerevolutionary China, the millions of widows, midwives, and the women healers tortured and burned as witches for three centuries in Europe.”

Rich, in her writing, seems also to give example of de Beauvoir’s description of the body situated in culture and history, and of Foucault’s idea that the body and sexuality are social constructs, along with  Lévi-Strauss’s idea of ‘female exchange’, the idea of marrying out of one’s family, tribe, or clan. He proclaimed it to be the bedrock upon which society is built, the incarnation of the incest taboo. His construction has shaped how society is viewed. As has heterosexuality, Rich believed, because it has been entrenched in culture and history. As such, it has ensured that men maintain their power over and right to women’s bodies by insisting on heterosexuality as the only legitimate, and legal, form of partnership.

Bibliography

Leitch, Vincent B. 2001.

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. 

Deleuze and Gauttari

Deterritorialisation

“Psychoanalysis combines with capitalism to channel and control desire.” (Deleuze, Gauttari in Norton 2000: 1594).

Instead of the tree of knowledge, with its grasping roots digging deeper into the earth and its branches lifting ever upwards, picture just the roots.

Picture the roots growing lengthwise, in both directions. Instead of uplifted branches, imagine offshoots of these lengthwise roots, offshoots that occur wherever and whenever there is an intersection of history and culture that result in new thoughts, new tendencies – new growths.

These lengthwise roots cross over one another. They intersect each other. There is no origin of their growth, no central command or dominating structure. There is no beginning, as there would be had the grown down into the earth. There is just the fact of their being and what that fact, or intersection of facts, generates as new knowledge. This is a new way to think, Deleuze and Gauttari assert.

It is true that to follow Deleuze and Gauttari in their thinking does involve letting go of what is familiar, including its peculiarities that may render it illogical in areas, but nonetheless safe because they are familiar. This is so because despite wide protests to the contrary, there is something deeply unsettling about egalitarianism, even in knowledge, where its ability to exponentially produce new facts and chart new territories of existence is threatening. Under capitalism, control is dominant. Who would control this unbridled production of facts? Who could claim responsibility for them, and thus reap profit of them?

The Deleuze and Gauttari tree of knowledge is one in constant creation; it exists in a state of growth, of becoming. It is a state the authors say one must constantly adopt in order to avoid becoming irrelevant and overlooked by the dominating structure or culture. As fascinating as this line of thinking is, it nonetheless promotes a tired aspect of majority thinking: we don’t need to change; you do. Or better, ‘make yourselves relevant to us’. Despite Deleuze and Gauttari’s displeasure with a sense of majority and control, their admonishment to ‘become’ is thinking that is nonetheless well rooted within the dominant structure, where control is situated and from where favour must be courted.

Bibliography

Leitch, Vincent B. 2001.

The Norton Anthology of Criticism and Theory. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Derrida and Spivak

Deconstructuralistism and Post-Colonialism

‘The question of deconstruction is the question of translation’ (Leitch 2000: 1815), Derrida wrote. His implication is as deceptively simple and transparent as it is challenging. What Derrida intends with this statement might be considered the backbone to any theory of thinking.

Derrida seems to invite readers, the translators of his own work just as he exhorts them to be of all written texts, to apply his statement to any system of thought. Spivak does so, and finds that deconstructuralism as espoused by Derrida has become politicised. As such, it cannot rise above what it exhorts of its followers.

Derrida’s thesis to understanding the written word is that the assumed superiority of the written text is based on a) Western ethnocentrism and b) the logocentric belief of the superiority of the written word over orality.

Spivak finds that Derrida’s deconstructuralism fails to meet the challenge of understanding the intricacies of post-colonialism. In Spivak’s view, with their thinking that is based on Marxism, deconstructuralists overlook the female contribution to it. Adding insult to injury, rather than allowing critical readers to conceptually (re-) write texts into their own meaning and understanding - the very basis of deconstructuralism, deconstructuralists fall into the historically biased and powerful position of interpreting texts for readers. Worse, without realising their actions, deconstructuralists inadvertently begin again to essentialise the subaltern and consequently to assume they speak for the subaltern.

Spivak’s contention that Derrida does not comprehend post-colonialism is a challenge to one of the tenets of Derrida theory. If there is truth to Spivak’s contention, might it in some part be due to Derrida’s own reluctance to ‘set meaning in stone’? To do so only serves to then set in stone the very medium of language that he says is innately fluid in meaning.

If writing is Western ethnocentric as Derrida claims, has he not somehow taken into consideration that it will not extend to understanding post-colonialism as a result of its Western bias? In this small respect, does Spivak find fault in an area in which Derrida has already allowed has an inherent fault, in which case Spivak is identifying that fault; naming it?

Spivak may be correct in her belief that Derrida’s thinking does not include the post-colonial. But that his thinking can be extended to it, seems, to me, to have been intended in his thesis, as he maintains that what is important is how we read; how we interpret. What he fails to address, and this is too Spivak’s point, is that despite deconstruction, left unveiled is the network of embedded texts that inform opinions; that inform how, where and why texts might be deconstructed.

Bibliography

Leitch, Vincent B. (ed). 2000.

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.

New York: WW. Norton & Company.

Michel Foucault/ Paul Rabinow

 

Knowledge/ Power and Heterotopias

It is a new perspective to consider that the act of colonisation across the globe could be seen as an attempt by colonisers to perfect their societies. At least, Foucault proposes as much with his description of heterotopias. He sees them as inherent to all cultures. And although each culture may construct them differently, that heterotopias are constructed at all remains universal.

According to Foucault, order imposed on colonies such that they reflected back to the coloniser the hoped-for perfection of his own culture (what the homeland was not and could never be) was an attempt to finally get it right, to have people live ‘as they should’. In this respect, the colony would conform to Foucault’s explanation that a heterotopia is constructed space of both illusion and compensation. Of course, there is no perfection, in colonies or otherwise.

Nonetheless, the efforts expended to shape colonies ‘just so’ could be seen as compensating for something that was missing. For example, for a lack of order in the homeland; or a lack of the coloniser’s power even to effect desired change. On an individual level, for example, to insist that the colonised people become a perfected reflection of the colonising masters, and to hope that these efforts would reflect well back home, thus compensating for whatever had been missing… viewed from this perspective, compensation would seem to make sense. As confirmation, one need only consider the myriad of historic and romanticised reports of individuals devoting themselves to the perfection of colonised rule in farflung lands, all in aid of (hopefully) climbing the social ladder back home.

So, might the colony itself have been a heterotopia? Its creation meant it was a space of illusion (of perfection) and of compensation (for the colonising power and its individual citizen’s perceived failings). Colonies often existed within their own sense of time. They became ‘slices of time’ that were separate from time lived. In a sense, like libraries, colonies became spaces of accumulated time, and by so doing reflected the accumulation of how life was in times gone by.

Cuba is not a colony, but might it be a space of accumulated time, for example with its norm of road vehicles from the 1950s? Once substantail change comes to the country, as it promises to do, that space of accumulated time might give way to the transitory.

Instead of an area that reflects accumulated time, perhaps there would be pockets of the country that would remain unchanged so that vacationers could experience life ‘as it once was’. Foucault described holiday villages as being areas of transitory time. Walling off pockets of the country so that they remained still in time might create the same effect, in essence creating spaces that would be open to the public yet at the same time due to their isolation, closed off.