Overview Queer Theories and Postmodern Feminist Theories Essentialism Linda Alcoff Luce Irigaray

Queer and Postmodern Feminist Theories Thinkers: –Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous, Judith Butler, Judith Halberstam, Jane Flax, Eve Sedgwick Description of Problem: –“woman” has been constructed through language and culture as a masculine construction –“woman” has been constructed as a binary in opposition to man –Gender and sexuality is constructed as dual, binary, oppositional, and fixed

Queer and Postmodern Feminist Theories Analysis: –A binary division of the world into privileged and unprivileged categories (man/woman, culture/nature, hetero/homo) replicates the social order –Normative gender and sexuality roles and beliefs replicate a “norm” Contributions: –Deconstructing gender and sexuality norms in culture makes places for gays/lesbians, bisexuals, transgender and transsexual people- opens up categories and possibilities for all

Queer and Postmodern Feminist Theories Remedies: –Deconstruction of texts and cultural representations –Challenging essentialist notions of sexuality and gender –Providing diverse models of gender and sexuality –Equality will come when there are so many sexes, sexualities and genders that one can’t be played against another

Queer and Postmodern Feminist Theories Shortcomings: If theories are based on dissolving political identities and categories, how do you create alliances with others? If there is no category of woman, how do we fight for women’s rights? Creates more questions than answers Focused on individual, more than institutional or structural change

Essentialism Essentialize- to express or formulate in essential form, essence, inherent –Homogeneous and ahistorical Some feminists have essentialized a “natural” womanhood as the basis for social change That leaves us with two 2 options: –Either we define woman in some way and risk essentializing or –We abandon saying anything about women which leads to the end of political movement

Linda Alcoff Lays out two traditional ways of seeing women –Cultural feminist- there are women and women can be defined by their culture and attributes (peaceful, ability to nurture) –Poststructuralist- should not try to define women because our language and discourse entails hierarchies and binaries that limit women

Linda Alcoff Woman is central to feminist theorizing yet, the concept is problematic –Because all knowledge and constructs are infused with misogyny and sexism –We must deconstruct and de-essentialize this concept She offers a third way to look at women –Women as subject- positional, contextual –No universal feminine –Gender is constructed within parameters –Gender is not natural or university but it is relevant in order to claim a political position

Luce Irigaray Deconstructing content or identity of “woman” and “female” sexuality Female sexuality and the body is theorized within masculine parameters –Women’s bodies as oppositional to men and seen as lacking, envying, “a hole”, the negative, the reverse, the opposite Women have to move from the object of others definition to their own subject position

Luce Irigaray Subjectivity looks at how a woman herself (the "subject") saw her role, and how she saw that role as contributing (or not) to her identity and meaning Becoming the subject of her own sexuality- pleasure is diversified –Multiple nature of female desire –Not sacrificing any pleasure –Not identifying with anyone in particular –Auto-eroticism, homosexuality, love of other women as possibilities