Elizabeth V Spelman, "Inessential Woman:Problems of Exclusion in Feminis...

Inessential Woman by Elizabeth Spelman challenges the common belief in feminism that race and class are integral to gender, arguing that attention to these issues is a requirement of the concept of gender itself. Spelman's key contribution is to show that we have not acted on what we said we believed, but rather did not know what we thought we knew - how to think about gender. She unpacks the requirements, insights, and methodologies of feminist theories themselves, demonstrating that understanding our gender relations requires understanding the way we have constructed the relation between blacks and whites, owners and workers, and the genders of subordinated groups.

The book's impact comes not from its familiarity but from its excellence in content. It encourages white middle-class feminists to inquire into their knowledge and actions, showing that understanding gender relations requires understanding the constructions of race and gender. Spelman also raises questions about the influence of Plato in some versions of feminism. The book's third chapter on Simone de Beauvoir demonstrates that holding race and class constant to isolate gender oppression misunderstands the nature of gender and reinforces the privilege of white middle-class women.

Spelman discusses the role of early childhood experiences in shaping gender identity and hierarchy. She argues that gender is a social construction, and early childhood experiences are crucial for this construction. Spelman contends that in a racist society, children must learn that the rules of domination and subordination are different in relation to white and black women. Racism is embedded in the original learning of gender, not extrapolated from it.

To fully understand the importance of early childhood experiences in learning gender identity and hierarchy, more research is needed to understand the mechanisms of this learning, including issues of sequence, language, and consciousness. Spelman also argues that gender cannot be constructed independently of race due to the nature of racism in America. She provides glimpses of how the gender of both blacks and whites is shaped by racism and how racism is interpenetrated by sexism.

Despite her persuasive argument that race must be integral to gender, Spelman does not provide specific answers to questions about how women of color view issues like violence against women and reproductive rights.

Spelman argues that understanding gender through the intersecting repressions of society is crucial for addressing the intersection of race, class, and sexism in society. She highlights the importance of understanding gender through the intersecting repressions of society, such as the imbalance between race and class.

Wendell Berry has explored the harms of racism, including how it shapes both blacks' and whites' experiences of sexuality. The movie Working Girl offers an effective picture of the differences between the way gender is constructed for upper middle-class professional women and for the "working girls" who are their secretaries. However, the gentle challenge it poses to the interpenetrating oppression of gender and class is offered in the context of reinforcing one of the lynchpins of patriarchy: the upper-class prince charming hero without whom all the heroine's efforts would have failed.

Spelman's work on gender and race is a complex exploration of the intersections of power, privilege, and advantage in societies. She argues that society systematically accords different advantages based on various factors such as religion, ethnicity, sexual preference, and more. She raises questions about whether the problem of infinite fracturing can be contained by focusing only on those forms of diversity that are part of a hierarchical ordering of power resulting in oppression.

The concept of who counts as white or "of color" is contested, with some Jewish women claiming they are not white. Gloria Anzaldua suggests that this self-categorization does not necessarily mean that Jewish women are women of color. Racial categories are socially constructed, and there can be no simple "truth" as to who is really white or "of color." Working through the conflict helps clarify how racial categories are constructed in society, how they may interfere with our capacities to hear one another, and how they can best be used or deconstructed to understand and overcome oppression. Feminist theory emphasizes the importance of embracing multiplicity and challenging categorization to better understand the diverse stories of oppression experienced by women of color. Spelman's insights highlight the deep challenges feminism raises for conventional understandings of law and theory, as it disrupts conventional categories and undermines the identity among human beings. Feminist theory insists that we cannot know the things we most need to know about people for the purposes of political theory or practice unless we treat their embodiedness and affective dimensions as central.

Spelman's insights emphasize the challenges feminism presents for conventional understandings of law and theory. By celebrating difference and making diversity central to all inquiries, we can challenge conventional categories and undermine the identity among human beings. The infinite regress of specificity in legal and political theorists raises questions about the foundation for shared rights and the common ground for characterizations of people as bearers of rights. Feminist theory demands making particularity, context, and diversity central, being wary of generalization, paying attention to a multiplicity of voices and perspectives without assuming they fit into any preconceived category, and expecting disruption of categories linked to privilege.

In practice, the impact of diversity can lead to groups of feminists fracturing along intersecting oppressions, such as race, sexual orientation, language, and class. However, genuine solidarity remains a real possibility. The author discusses the disruptive implications of infinite multiplicity and its impact on the pursuit of equality, arguing that focusing on the sameness of individuals is not the only way to achieve this goal. The author acknowledges the mistaken forms of generalization engaged in by white middle-class feminists and emphasizes the importance of recognizing and respecting differences among individuals to achieve equality and mutual respect.

Multiplicity is crucial in communication and collective agreement, as our models of agreement are based on the unity of reason. However, recognizing and allowing for the affective dimension of communication can jar the theoretical basis for unity necessary for deliberation and let loose the anger of those excluded. This problem is even more acute for adjudication, where the norms of impartiality and universality are at their strongest.

To achieve impartiality, our understanding of impartiality must change if the presupposition of unity is lost in taking diversity seriously. The common law model of the judge and two parties assumes that truth will emerge from listening to different perceptions, but this model has limits, as it still premised on the possibility of a neutral arbiter applying neutral rules.

The embrace of multiplicity presents pressing problems in both the long and short terms. In the long term, a new unity may emerge that incorporates diversity, embodiedness, and affect. Feminist theory emphasizes the end of hierarchical oppression, making human wholeness possible by ending the arbitrary division of human capacities according to gender, race, and class.