Feminist Theory
Scott, The Uses of
Post-Structuralist Theory for Feminism
Deconstructing Equality vs.
Difference
The Post-Structural Approach
Language (words and other
“texts”)
Discourse
Difference
Deconstruction
Language
Language as a
meaning-constituting system;
Word or not “just words”
Rather, they signify, codify,
perpetuate deeper systems of meaning
Hierarcies, systems of power
Words have no fixed meaning
Thus, post-structuralists ask
questions such as,
“how, in what specific
contexts, among which specific communities of people, and by what textual and
social processes has meaning been acquired?” (Scott 447)
“How do meanings change?”
“How have some meanings
emerged as normative and others been eclipsed or disappeared?”
“What do these processes
reveal about how power is constituted and operates?” (Scott 447)
Other Texts
Language is “any
system…through which meaning is organized and by which, accordingly, people
represent and understand their world, including who they are and how they
relate to others” (Scott, 447)
Our bodies as texts
As bearing the marks of_____?
Examples of from theorists
we’ve read this semester
Of asking these kinds of
questions, reading women’s bodies as texts?
Mary Daly
note Daly usually
characterized as a Rad-Fem, Second Wave, but I am using her as an example of
post-structuralism, deconstruction
A pioneer of this method
before it was really recognized as an approach
Mary Daly Language Examples:
Who are bunnies, bitches,
beavers, squirrels, chicks, pussycats?
Who are stags and studs?
Creative use of Language to
re-case, re-claim original meanings (hags, harpies, furies, Amazing Amazons,
lesbians)
Hyphenates – to recall
earlier meanings, to make us think about meanings
e.g. re-search
or to invent new meaning
re-cover; the-rapist;
stag-nation
AND to consciously begin to
change meanings
Capitalizes – sometimes
when referring to society wide institution
e.g. Deep Background –
where the truth about women’s power/status has receded to – where it
waits to be re-discovered by Furious Furies
Breaking the Rules
Reveals them for what they
are
Conditional, normative and
supportive of patriarchy
Texts
Especially our lives and
bodies as texts
Allen
the marks on women’s bodies
denoted them as mothers
what marks? How are women marked as mothers?
Discourse
Foucault
A discourse is not a langue
or a text but a historically, socially, and institutionally specific structure
of statements, terms, categories, and beliefs (Scott 447)
The elaboration of meaning
involves conflict and power, meanings are locally contested within
“discursive fields of force”
The power to control a field
resides in claims to scientific knowledge embodied in
Writing
Disciplinary and professional
organizations
Institutions (hospitals,
prisons, schools, factories)
Social relationships
(doctor/patient, teacher/student, employer/worker, parent/child, husband/wife)
*Conflicts within discursive
fields are framed to follow from rather than question them (447)
thus, even sharply different
arguments are based upon a set of shared assumptions
e.g., men and women are
different (just how they are different that we argue about)
Once assigned status of
objective knowledge, they are beyond dispute
i.e., you appear crazy if you
question it
Scott gives examples of
Darwinian theory of natural selection
Biological theories of sexual
difference
Can you think of other
examples?
Difference
Meaning is derived from
negation
To be a man is to NOT BE a
woman
What is woman, the negation
of man
Once made, the same positive
and negative serve to encode or establish meanings that are totally unrelated to
the body
e.g. hardware with “male” and
“female” parts
“Fixed oppositions conceal
the extent to which things presented as oppositional are, in fact,
interdependent—that is, they derive their meaning from a particularly
established contrast rather than from some inherent or pure antithesis” (Scott
448)
Stresses the oppositional
nature of the Western philosophical tradition
Esp. BINARY OPPOSITIONS
Unity/diversity
Identity/difference
Presence/Absence
Universality/Specificity
Deconstruction
Derrida as the father (!)
The progenitor (!!) of this
approach, method
“Deconstruction involves
analyzing the operations of difference in texts, the ways in which meanings are
made to work” (Scott 448)
Method: reversal and displacement
Show them to be not natural
but constructed oppositions
Constructed for particular
purposes in particular contexts
Quote from Barbara Johnson
“differences between entities are shown to be based upon a repression of
differences within entities” (In
Scott 449)
Examples of this in feminist
method, feminist empiricism unit?
**What do feminists try to
deconstruct and why? How do they
do it?
Equality-versus-Difference
Equality feminists fear
arguments based on women’s difference, even their “superiority” will be used to
exclude from many of life’s goodies (because they have been)
Scott uses Sears’
discrimination case (women under-rep’d in commission sales jobs) as an example;
Sears attorney argued that EEOC
was unreasonable to assume male/female sameness; historians representing
plaintiffs argued that discrepancy=discrimination (not “natural” difference)
Wal-Mart sex discrimination
case pending - discrepancies
Scott argues against “binary
construction” that pits “equality feminists” against “difference feminists”
Says feminists must
criticize/expose policies, customs based on categorical difference
And at the same time
Seek an equality that rests
on difference
Is this possible?
What is an example of a real
world opportunity, scenario calling for this approach?