Feminism and Universalism Francoise Lionnet Feminism and Universalism

Structural dissymetry “Western” modes of analysis/concrete status of women in various non-Western cultures Non-Western women’s subjective experience of their own position

Politics of representation Politics of representation and the necessity of interdisciplinary work Representation of women as the object of (patriarchal) knowledge Academic feminism and its (real) others

Rights, bodily integrity, female excision A violation of basic human rights—Enlightenment notion of the sovereign individual subject Vs Collective identity grounded in cultural solidarity

The ideal test-case African immigrant women brought to trial Non-understanding of the terms of the trial Punishing women and children—women treated not as individuals but as representatives of their culture Feminist movements in Africa and the Middle East against fgm Right to bodily integrity not an absolute value in Western society Abortion and reproductive rights throw up contradictions

Power inscribed on the woman’s body Tradition: part of a network of power within which conflicting notions of freedom, community and authority hold ground (375) M Foucault: “system of subjection” of individual bodies within a specific cultural code The French state sees the body as sovereign, belonging to the citizen; Malian society—body is meaningful in relation to societal customs: body as a contested site

Who is universal? Immigrants subsumed under French law//women subsumed under patriarchal tradition Both claim to be universal; both impose constraints on the human body Lionnet is critical of both cultural relativism and an uncritical universalism