E K Sedgwick, "Axiomatic" (Summary)

Eve Sedgwick's book Epistemology of the Closet explores the Foucauldian claim that "homosexuality" began around 1870, implying that individuals who preferred sex with people of their own gender were for the first time defined or identified as "homosexuals." However, Sedgwick argues that even as we try to dismantle the category "homosexual," one large model is being replaced with another, which contains a pun: we are all different from each other and we are not always the same ourselves.

Same-gender sex and different-gender sex involve a mixture of both kinds of identification. Auto-identification requires narratives that try to account for how we came to be what we are and establish what we are – though this can never be finally determined. Such narratives can also trigger further identifications by and with others. More particularly, Sedgwick implies that lesbian and gay studies need a particular mix of auto- and alloidentification if they are to remain different from, but not radically other to, each other.

Epistemology of the Closet proposes that many major nodes of thought and knowledge in twentieth-century Western culture as a whole are structured – indeed, fractured – by a chronic, now endemic crisis of homo/heterosexual definition, indicatively male, dating from the end of the nineteenth century. The contradictions discussed in the book are not between prohomosexual and anti-homosexual people or ideologies, but rather the internal incoherence and mutual contradiction of each form of discursive and institutional 'common sense' on this subject inherited from the architects of our present culture.

According to Foucaus demonstration, modern Western culture has placed sexuality in a more distinctively privileged relation to our most prized constructs of individual identity, truth, and knowledge. The language of sexuality not only intersects with but transforms the other languages and relations by which we know.

In gay and lesbian studies, the line between straining at truths that prove to be imbecilically self-evident and tossing off commonplaces that turn out to retain their power to galvanize and divide is weirdly unpredictable. In dealing with an open-secret structure, it’s only by being shameless about risking the obvious that we happen into the vicinity of the transformative.

Sedgwick  explores the concept of nonce taxonomy, which is a rich and unsystematic resource for mapping out the possibilities, dangers, and stimulations of human social landscape. It suggests that people with the experience of oppression or subordination have most need to know this, and that the writing of Proust or James would be exemplary in projects of nonce taxonomy.

Not all gay men or women are very skilled at the nonce taxonomic work represented by gossip, but it makes sense to suppose that their distinctive needs are peculiarly disserved by its devaluation. The sustained pressure of loss in the AIDS years may be making such needs clearer, as one anticipates or tries to deal with the absence of people one loves. What is more dramatic is that every theoretically or politically interesting project of postwar thought has finally had the effect of delegitimating our space for asking or thinking in detail about the multiple, unstable ways in which people may be like or different from each other.

Deconstruction, founded as a very science of difference, has both so fetishized the idea of difference and so vaporized its possible embodiments that its most thoroughgoing practitioners are the last people to whom one would now look for help in thinking about particular differences. In more familiar ways, Marxist, feminist, postcolonial, and other engagé critical projects have deepened understandings of a few crucial axes of difference, perhaps at the expense of more ephemeral or less global impulses of differential grouping.

In the particular area of sexuality, the author assumes that most of us know the following things that can differentiate even people of identical gender, race, nationality, class, and "sexual orientation" – each one of which, if taken seriously as pure difference, retains the unaccounted-for potential to disrupt many forms of the available thinking about sexuality.

Sedgwick explores the complex relationship between sex and sexuality in modern culture, arguing that they represent the full spectrum of positions between intimate and social, predetermined and aleatory, physically rooted and symbolically infused, innate and learned, autonomous and relational traits of being. It hypothesizes that there is always at least the potential for an analytic distance between gender and sexuality, even if particular manifestations or features of particular sexualities plunge women and men most into the discursive, institutional, and bodily enmeshments of gender definition, gender relation, and gender inequality.

gay/lesbian and anti-homophobic enquiry still has a lot to learn from asking questions that feminist enquiry has learned to ask, but only so long as we don't demand the same answers in both interlocutions. In comparing feminist and gay theory as they currently stand, the newness and consequent relative underdevelopment of gay theory are seen most clearly in two manifestations. First, it is now common for feminists to ask what they aren't yet used to asking as anti-homophobic readers: how a variety of forms of oppression intertwine systematically with each other, and how the person who is disabled through one set of oppressions may by the same positioning be enabled through others.

The first great heuristic breakthrough of socialist-feminist thought and the thought of women of color was the realization that all oppressions are differently structured and must intersect in complex embryodiments. This realization has as its corollary that the comparison of different axes of oppression is a crucial task, not for any purpose of ranking oppressions but to the contrary because each oppression is likely to be in a uniquely indicative relation to certain distinctive nodes of cultural organization.

The separatist-feminist interpretative framework emerged in the 1970s, which posited that there were no valid grounds of commonality between gay male and lesbian experience and identity. This view led to the perception that women who loved women were more female, and men who loved men were possibly more male than those whose desire crossed gender boundaries. The axis of sexuality was seen as coextensive with the axis of gender, and male homosexuality was often seen as the practice for which male supremacy was the theory. This gender-separatist framework implicitly and propelled a particular reading of modern gender history, dehighlighting the definitional discontinuities and perturbations between more and less sexualized, more and less prohibited, and more and less gender-identity-bound forms of female same-sex bonding.

Since the late 1970s, there have been numerous challenges in understanding how lesbian and gay male desires and identities can be mapped against each other. These challenges have emerged from the'sex wars' within feminism over pornography and S/M, which exposed a devastating continuity between a certain feminist understanding of a resistant female identity and the most repressive nineteenth-century bourgeois constructions of a sphere of pure femininity. The reclamation and relegitimation of a courageous history of lesbian transgender role-playing and identification have contributed to this renewed sense of shared histories, cultures, identities, politics, and destinies between the two groups.

The irrepressible, relatively class-non-specific popular culture, where James Dean has been as numinous an icon for lesbians as Garbo or Dietrich has for gay men, seems resistant to a purely feminist theorization. Calls for a theorized axis of sexuality as distinct from gender have developed, and the newly virulent homophobia of the 1980s reminds us that it is more to friends than to enemies that gay women and gay men are perceptible as distinct groups. The internal perspective of the gay movements shows women and men increasingly working together on mutually anti-homophobic agendas.

The contributions of lesbians to current gay and AIDS activism are weighty, not despite but because of the intervening lessons of feminism. Feminist perspectives on medicine and healthcare issues, civil disobedience, and the politics of class and race as well as of sexuality have been centrally enabling for the recent waves of AIDS activism.

It can no longer make sense to assume that a male-centered analysis of homo-heterosexual definition will have no lesbian relevance or interest. The immemorial, seemingly ritualized debates on nature versus nurture take place against a very unstable background of tacit assumptions and fantasies about both nurture and nature. The gay essentialist/constructivist debate takes its form and premises from a whole history of other nature/nurture or nature/culture debates, which assumes culture as malleable relative to nature.

  For gay and gay-loving people, every step of this constructivist nature/culture argument holds danger: it is difficult to intervene in the seemingly natural trajectory that begins by identifying a place of cultural malleability, continues by inventing an ethical or therapeutic mandate for cultural manipulation, and ends in the overarching, hygienic Western fantasy of a world without any more homosexuals in it.

Essentialist understandings of sexual identity can provide a sense of gravity and resistance to social engineering momentum in human sciences. However, this approach also reaches deeply into the life-or-death struggle that has been more or less abandoned by constructivist gay theory, which focuses on the experience and identity of gay or proto-gay children. The emotional energy behind essentialist historical work may be more about recognizing and validating the creativity and heroism of the effeminate boy or tommish girl of the 1950s or 1960s, rather than reclaiming the place and eros of Homeric heroes, Renaissance painters, and medieval gay monks.

It is becoming increasingly problematic to assume that grounding an identity in biology or "essential nature" is a stable way of insulating it from societal interference. The gestalt of assumptions that undergird nature/nurture debates may be in the process of direct reversal. The conjecture that a particular trait is genetically or biologically based triggers an oestrus of manipulative fantasy in the technological institutions of the culture. In this unstable context, the dependence on a specified homosexual body to offer resistance to any gay-eradicating momentum is tremblingly vulnerable.

The presentation of biologically based "explanations" for deviant behavior is often couched in terms of "excess," "deficiency," or "imbalance" – whether in the hormones, genetic material, or the fetal endocrine environment. If researchers or popularizers had ever referenced any supposed gay-producing circumstance as the proper hormone balance or conducive endocrine environment for gay generation, they would be less chilled by the breezes of all this technological confidence.

In this unstable balance of assumptions between nature and culture, there is no unthreatened, unthreatening conceptual home for a concept of gay origins. We have all the more reason to keep our understanding of gay origin, of gay cultural and material reproduction, plural, multi-capillaried, arguseyed, respectful, and endlessly cherished.

The most important work of history and anthropology is to defamiliarize and denaturalize not only the past and the distant, but also the present. However, this analysis is incomplete in that it has tended to refamiliarize, renaturalize, and damagingly reify an entity that it could be doing much more to subject to analysis.

The author argues that the most potent effects of modern homo/heterosexual definition stem from the implicitness or denial of the gaps between long-coexisting minoritizing and universalizing understandings of same-sex relations. This assumption has troubling implications for those living in a state where certain acts called "sodomy" are criminal regardless of gender, and the threat of juxtaposition on that prohibition against acts of an additional, unrationalized set of sanctions attaching to identity can only be exacerbated by the insistence of gay theory that the discourse of acts can represent nothing but an anachronistic vestige.

The project of the present book will show how issues of modern homo/heterosexual definition are structured, not by the supersession of one model and the consequent withering away of another, but by the relations made possible by the unrationalized coexistence of different models during the times they do coexist. The author does not involve the construction of historical narratives alternative to those that have emerged from Foucault and his followers, but rather requires a reassignment of attention and emphasis within those valuable narratives, attempting to denarrativize them somewhat by focusing on a performative space of contradiction that they both define and, themselves performative, pass over in silence.

The author's first aim is to denaturalize the present, rather than the past, in effect to render less destructively presumable "homosexuality as we know it today." This narrative is of a directly personal sort and has been experimented with to disarm the categorical imperative that seems to promote cant and mystification about motives in the world of politically correct academia.

Identification with/as has a distinctive resonance for women in the dovetailing between old ideologies of women's traditional selflessness and a new one of feminist commitment that seems to begin with a self but is legitimated only by willfully obscuring most of its boundaries. Mainstream male-centered gay politics has tended not to be structured as strongly as feminism, but there are different reasons why this problematics of identification with/as seems distinctively resonant with issues of male homo/heterosexual definition.

In conclusion, the text highlights the complex and contested nature of identity politics and the role of gender and sexuality in shaping women's identities. By understanding the dynamics of identity politics and the impact of these dynamics on women, we can better navigate the complex and often contradictory intersections of gender, sexuality, and identity.

 

 

 

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.

 

Alenka Zupančič, "Sexual Difference and Ontology" (Summary)

Sunaina Arya and Akash Singh Rathore, "Theorizing Dalit Feminism" (Summ...

Jonathan Goldber, "Sodomoetries:Renaissance Texts, Modern Sexualities" (...

"Sodometries" stands out as a remarkable book, characterized by its intellectual depth and stylistic elegance, yet also marked by its confrontational critique of other scholars. Jonathan Goldberg's work offers a profound reevaluation of sodomy as a relational term with multifaceted political implications, challenging conventional understandings of social order and deviance.

 

Building upon Michel Foucault's notion of sodomy as a fluid and contested category, Goldberg argues that sodomy has been historically mobilized to enforce social norms and discipline perceived threats to established order. This central thesis forms the backbone of Goldberg's intricate analysis, which spans sixteenth-century British texts and foundational events in United States history, including the Bowers v. Hardwick Supreme Court decision and narratives of the conquest of the Americas.

 

Goldberg's readings of diverse materials, from literary texts to contemporary cultural artifacts, are guided by his overarching dictum: "There always is penetration." Through this lens, Goldberg illuminates the pervasive interpenetrations of boundaries—nationality, gender, race, psyche—highlighting the complexities of self and Other in relation to normative identity constructions. Particularly insightful is Goldberg's exploration of the lethal energies directed against those who challenge the hegemony of heterosexual male European subjectivity.

 

Central to Goldberg's argument is the visual imagery he employs, notably Theodore de Bry's painting "Americae, Pars Quatra (1594)," which depicts the violent encounter between European colonizers and native inhabitants. By juxtaposing the original painting with an inverted version, Goldberg underscores the projection of "sodomy" onto Others as a means of deflecting recognition of potential deviance within oneself.

 

Goldberg's exploration of sodomy's variability and historical context represents a significant advancement over simplistic equations of sodomy with male homosexuality. By grounding sodomy's indeterminacy within historical realities and considering its "worldly effects," Goldberg integrates deconstructive, materialist, and psychoanalytic modes of analysis. For example, his examination of Renaissance social norms reveals how ordinary practices, such as male friendships and bed-sharing, blurred the lines between licit and illicit behaviors, challenging binary categorizations.

 

However, while Goldberg's inclusive approach sheds light on sodomy's diverse manifestations, it risks obscuring its specific deployments within various discourses, such as legal, medical, religious, and popular contexts. For instance, while female-female eroticism is referenced in medical texts of the period, it often receives less condemnation in legal and religious spheres. Goldberg's analysis of female characters and Queen Elizabeth touches on the sodomitical effect but overlooks the gender-specific signification of sodomy for Renaissance women, thereby neglecting gender asymmetries.

 

Moreover, Goldberg's aggressive critiques of other scholars, including gay, feminist, and New Historical critics, for their alleged failure to achieve a non-normalizing analysis, may hinder constructive dialogue. While there are indeed issues in these critics' work, such as the conflation of sodomy with male homosexuality and the collapse of sexuality and gender, labeling them as homophobic or misogynistic may oversimplify the complexities at hand. Instead, a historicized understanding of the relationship between male homoeroticism, effeminacy, and misogyny is needed, acknowledging the nuances and historical contingencies involved.

 

In conclusion, while Goldberg's insights into the complexities of sodomy and gender dynamics are valuable, a more nuanced and constructive approach to engaging with differing scholarly perspectives would enhance the discourse. By avoiding accusations of homophobia and misogyny and fostering open dialogue, scholars can collectively deepen their understanding of the intricate intersections between sexuality, gender, and power in historical contexts.

 

 

 

 

 

Martha Nussbaum, "Feminism and International Development" (Summary)

• Women worldwide face significant challenges including lack of support for fundamental functions, poor health, vulnerability to violence and sexual abuse, and lack of literacy.
• Women face obstacles in the workplace such as intimidation, sex discrimination, and sexual harassment, often without effective legal recourse.
• Women are not full equals under the law, with no property rights, contract rights, association rights, mobility, and religious liberty.
• Emotionally, women have fewer opportunities to live free from fear and enjoy rewarding love, especially when they are married without choice in childhood and have no recourse from bad marriages.
• Unequal social and political circumstances give women unequal human capabilities, with their instrumental value sometimes being positive or negative.

Human Development Report 1997
• Developing countries present urgent problems such as gender inequality, poverty, and discrimination against females.
• Countries ranking lowest in the gender-adjusted development index (GDI) and Human Poverty Index (HPI) include low life expectancy, deprivation in education, malnutrition, and lack of access to safe water and health services.

The Capabilities Approach
• The project focuses on feminist political philosophy, particularly in developing countries, and argues that it should increasingly address the urgent needs and interests of women in these countries.
• The capabilities approach, pioneered by Amartya Sen in development economics, is based on functioning and capability.
• Both Nussbaum and Sen agree on the importance of political liberties and the value of each person's capability.

The Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)
• A resistance movement that has helped female workers in the informal sector improve their living conditions through credit, education, and a labor union for over twenty years.

Women's Challenges in India and the Developing World

• Vasanti and Jayamma, two women from different backgrounds in India and the developing world, face sex discrimination and limited opportunities due to sex stratification in the brick industry.
• Both women are confined to domestic tasks and provide financial support for their families.
• The lack of education and sex discrimination limits their opportunities for formal education and skill development.
• Women worldwide face similar challenges, including a desire for independence, economic self-sufficiency, and control over their lives.
• India's complex legal system combines common-law tradition with written constitution constraints, with the Supreme Court often using U.S. constitutional jurisprudence as a precedent.
• India's unique code of civil law makes it difficult for individuals to avail of rights once classified in one of these systems.
• India ranks 138 out of 175 nations on the Human Development Index of the 1997 Human Development Report, with an average life expectancy at birth of 61.334 and high infant mortality.
• India has done extremely poorly in basic education, especially for women, far worse than China.
• Child labor is a significant issue in India, particularly in rural areas where many families rely on their children's work.
• Addressing women's situation in India requires understanding not only universal compulsory primary education but also addressing economic realities.

Sylvia Walby's "Theorizing Patriarchy" (Summary)

• Critics argue that existing theories of patriarchy have shortcomings in addressing historical and cross-cultural variations in gender inequality and differences between women, especially in relation to ethnicity and class.
• The paper proposes a new theory of patriarchy that considers these criticisms.
• Patriarchy is defined as a system of social structures and practices where men dominate, oppress, and exploit women.
• Patriarchy is conceptualized at different levels of abstraction, including the patriarchal mode of production, patriarchal relations in paid work, patriarchal relations in the state, male violence, patriarchal relations in sexuality, and patriarchal relations in cultural institutions.
• The paper argues that patriarchy is not reducible to capitalism, even in a mediated way.
• Dual systems analysis focuses on the relationship between capitalism and patriarchy, arguing that both pre-date and post-date capitalism.
• Hartmann's conception of the relation between capitalism and patriarchy argues that patriarchy pre-dates capitalism and this expropriation of women's labor is not new and distinctive to capitalist societies.
• The problem with dual systems analysis is whether they can adequately sustain the duality of capitalism and patriarchy in their analyses.
• Conflicts over the exploitation of women's labor between patriarchal and capitalist interests have been present throughout history, with employers seeking cheap labour from women and husbands resisting this process.
• The conflict between patriarchy and capitalism has varied according to the localized power of male workers, employers, and women.
• Critics argue that there are significant differences between the labor market experience of women of color due to racist structures disadvantageing them in paid work.

Critiques of the Concept ofPatriarchy

• Essentialism, ahistoricism, and universalism critique the concept of patriarchy. Essentialist theories produce an ahistoric and universalistic theory of patriarchy.
• Feminist theorists propose four forms of relations necessary for patriarchy: biological reproduction, heterosexuality, marriage, and the nuclear family.
• The absence of patriarchal relations in paid work, in the state, and in male violence is questioned.
• The author discusses key patriarchal structures within a realist framework, focusing on six main structures: a patriarchal mode of production, patriarchal relations within waged labor, the patriarchal state, male violence, patriarchal relations in sexuality, and patriarchal culture.
• The author argues that the concept of patriarchy must balance reducing the complexity of the world to a limited number of elements to produce analytic power and not over-simplifying to capture the specifics of the situation.
• The structure of housework has been analyzed in three stages: the domestic division of labor, other aspects of social relations, and inequality.
• Patriarchal relations in paid work form the second structure of the patriarchal structure, affecting women's access to paid work and the segregation of women within it.
• Changes in patriarchal domination in paid work are key to understanding changes in women's oppression in Britain over the last two centuries.

Understanding the Impact of State and Patriarchal Structures on Gender Relations

State's Role in Gender Relations
• The state is a patriarchal structure that significantly impacts gender relations.
• Women are excluded from access to state resources and power due to their lack of power within gendered political forces.
• The state's decision-making positions and resolution of issues favor women are less represented than men.

Patriarchal Relations in the State
• Patriarchal relations shape rules on divorce, marriage, fertility, wage discrimination, sexuality, male homosexuality, prostitution, pornography, male violence, housing priorities for battered women, and belief systems.
• Male violence is a social structural nature and is constituted by various practices including rape, beating, father/daughter incest, flashing, sexual harassment at work, and sexual assault.

Sexuality and Patriarchal Culture
• Sexuality is a significant patriarchal structure, particularly in the context of heterosexuality.
• It guides women towards marriage as a desirable goal and through their sexualisation and simult sexuality.
• Sexuality is more important in constructing social relations than is customary in social theory, but less important than that accorded it by many radical feminist writers.

Patriarchal Culture and Forms
• Patriarchal culture is a diverse set of practices that shape gendered subjectivity and gender distinction.
• Discourses on femininity and masculinity are institutionalized in all social life sites, including religions, media, and education.

Public and Private Forms of Patriarchy
• In recent Western history, there have been two major forms of patriarchy: public and private.
• In Britain, the form of patriarchy prevalent in Britain is more public, with women subordinated in the public sphere.
• Public forms of patriarchy are divided into two: one based on the state and the U.S.A.
• The theory of patriarchy suggests that certain historically specific forms of patriarchy depend on the relations between its structures.

Graham Holderness ed., "The Shakespeare Myth" (Book Note)

 

"Shakespeare Myth" navigates through the intricate landscape of cultural interpretations and representations of Shakespeare, dissecting the multifaceted layers of his legacy. Divided into two parts, the book embarks on a journey through "Discursive Fields" and "Cultural Practices," each segment meticulously exploring various dimensions of Shakespeare's cultural significance. Underlying this exploration is the overarching framework of Cultural Materialism, championed by the series editors John Dollimore and Alan Sinfield, which emphasizes the role of material conditions in shaping cultural phenomena.

 

However, upon closer examination, the book's underlying bias towards Cultural Materialism becomes apparent. While advocating for a critical approach rooted in the material forces of production, "Shakespeare Myth" somewhat falls short in its execution. The initial chapter, "Bardolatry," narrows its focus to the Shakespeare Industry in Stratford-upon-Avon, offering a detailed account of its growth without delving into the historical genesis of bardolatry or analyzing its fundamental characteristics.

 

Throughout the book, bardolatry is portrayed as akin to quasi-religious worship, yet there is a noticeable absence of exploration into how Shakespeare ascended to the status of a transcendent genius. Rather than critically examining the production conditions underlying the myth, the book often presents bardolatry as an unquestioned reality. For instance, when discussing Shakespeare's presence in contemporary popular culture, there is a missed opportunity to scrutinize the knowledge of Shakespeare embedded within jokes and misquotes on birthday cards.

This anthology reveals a recurring theme of contentious debate, particularly evident in its exploration of Shakespeare's legacy. While the section on "Sexual Politics" stands out as a departure from this pattern, other sections delve into critiques of various targets. Ann Thompson provides a comprehensive overview of feminist criticism of Shakespeare, while Simon Shepherd's chapter on "Shakespeare and Homosexuality" meanders, reflecting the instability of Shakespeare's name and identity.

 

The contributors take aim at a range of subjects, with the Globe Reconstruction Project being one of the primary targets. While Sam Wanamaker defends the project, John Drakakis dismantles it, drawing attention to the concerns of potential victims like the roadsweeper who expressed reluctance about Shakespeare's presence in Southwark. The attacks extend to Cambridge English, F.R. Leavis, and the RSC, amalgamated under the term "The Cambridge Connection." Christopher McCullough's essay, "The Cambridge Connection," critiques Leavis's humanism and the RSC's approach to Shakespeare, accusing them of perpetuating the myth of Shakespeare's timeless and universal message.

 

The critique extends to education, with David Margolies arguing that the teaching of Shakespeare serves elitist agendas, perpetuating upper-class attitudes. David Hornbrook laments the decline of Shakespeare in educational settings, blaming cultural relativism and the rejection of middle-class literary values. Even the BBC faces scrutiny for its role in perpetuating the Shakespeare myth. The author dismisses the BBC/Time-Life Shakespeare Series as an "oppressive agency of cultural hegemony," favoring alternative broadcasts like Bogdanov's Shakespeare Lives for their democratic participation.

Despite these shortcomings, "Shakespeare Myth" offers valuable insights into the intersections of ideology, popular culture, and sexual politics surrounding Shakespeare's legacy. By interrogating the cultural practices associated with Shakespearean theatre, education, and broadcasting, the book sheds light on the enduring influence of his works across diverse socio-cultural contexts. However, it also raises questions about the limitations of Cultural Materialism in fully accounting for the complexities of Shakespeare's cultural significance.

Jonathan Dollimore, "Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault" (Book Note)

Jonathan Dollimore's "Sexual Dissidence" offers a multifaceted exploration of resistance, identity, and perversion within the realm of gender and sexuality. While the titular concept of sexual dissidence occupies a central position, Dollimore's analysis extends to a broader consideration of power dynamics and ideological oppositions.

 

Sexual dissidence, according to Dollimore, disrupts the binary oppositions between dominant and subordinate identities, particularly in its challenge to notions of naturalness and unnaturalness. Dollimore draws on a diverse array of theorists and writers, including Augustine, Shakespeare, Freud, and Foucault, to elucidate the complex interplay between sexuality and social structures. At the heart of his argument lies the notion of the "paradoxical perverse" or the "perverse dynamic," which refers to the production of perversion from within the very structures that seek to suppress it. This concept underscores the inherent instabilities and contradictions within dominant social frameworks, highlighting the ways in which they simultaneously contain and exclude forms of sexual dissidence.

 

Dollimore also delves into the contrasting approaches to identity, as exemplified by figures like Oscar Wilde and Andre Gide. He identifies two modes of conceptualizing identity: anti-essentialist and essentialist. While the debate between essentialism and anti-essentialism pervades cultural and gender theory, Dollimore suggests that it is particularly relevant within the context of dissident cultures. He argues that these specific histories of dissidence challenge orthodoxies on both sides of the debate, complicating simplistic binary oppositions.

 

Throughout the book, Dollimore interrogates the complexities of identity formation and resistance, offering nuanced insights into the ways in which power operates within cultural and social contexts. While he acknowledges the importance of questioning essentialist assumptions, Dollimore's analysis tends to favor anti-essentialist perspectives, with figures like Wilde positioned as heroes in the struggle against dominant ideologies.

 

Dollimore prompts critical reflection on the utility of broad categorizations like essentialist and anti-essentialist for specific cultural analyses. While Dollimore's intent to "read culture" with awareness of historical and social complexities is commendable, his initial categorization of figures like Gide and Wilde may oversimplify the intricate interplay between rhetoric, social dynamics, and individual lives.

 

The dichotomy between Gide's essentialist stance and Wilde's anti-essentialist position, as outlined by Dollimore, raises questions about the nuanced relationship between rhetorical positions and the lived experiences of individuals. Dollimore suggests that Gide sought inclusion within dominant concepts, while Wilde embraced transgression and decentered identity. However, this binary framework overlooks the multifaceted nature of both authors' lives and writings, reducing complex social phenomena to simplistic ideological positions.

 

Moreover, Dollimore's assertion that Wilde's anti-essentialism contributed to the violence directed against him oversimplifies the intricate factors at play in Wilde's legal persecution. While Dollimore highlights Wilde's Phrases and Philosophies as evidence used against him in court, he neglects to fully explore the broader context of Wilde's trial. Wilde's legal troubles stemmed from a complex interplay of personal relationships, societal attitudes towards homosexuality, and legal proceedings. Dollimore's emphasis on anti-essentialist rhetoric as a primary cause overlooks the broader social, political, and personal dynamics that shaped Wilde's fate.

 

Indeed, Wilde's commitment to anti-essentialism, if indeed present, would have influenced his interactions with society and his understanding of himself. However, Dollimore's analysis could benefit from a more nuanced exploration of how Wilde's rhetorical positions intersected with the complex realities of his life. By delving deeper into the interplay between rhetoric and lived experience, Dollimore could provide a richer understanding of the ways in which individuals navigate social structures and negotiate their identities.

 

In his thought-provoking concluding chapter, Dollimore delves into Gide's complex relationship with Africa, highlighting the writer's role in both nurturing creativity and perpetuating exploitation. Dollimore's nuanced analysis raises questions about the dynamics of power and desire within colonial contexts, particularly in relation to Western sexual dissidents and their interactions with colonially subjugated peoples in Africa.

 

A key point of contention arises from Dollimore's earlier depiction of a meeting between Wilde and Gide in Algiers in 1895. Here, Wilde encourages Gide to transgress social norms and spend the night with a boy named Mohammed. Dollimore argues that transgression holds different meanings for Gide and Wilde, yet questions linger regarding the ethical implications of their actions. When Wilde facilitates Gide's night of pleasure (or his own), does the anti-essentialist stance of either figure mitigate the inherently exploitative nature of their interactions?

 

Both Gide and Wilde navigate complex power dynamics and personal desires, where essentialist and anti-essentialist rhetoric intersect but do not fully determine their actions. While such rhetoric may shape perceptions and beliefs, it does not offer a comprehensive explanation for the complexities of their behaviors. Dollimore acknowledges the role of rhetoric in perpetuating or challenging power structures, yet suggests that belief is not always a prerequisite for enforcing social norms.

 

Moreover, Dollimore's book grapples with the challenge of addressing the wide scope of its subject matter, from gay sexuality to perversion and dissidence. While the central chapter on Othello illuminates the rhetorical framing of female sexuality as perverse, the book skirts the nuances of how different forms of sexuality occupy this space differently. Additionally, Dollimore's treatment of central concepts often feels brief and cursory, leaving readers yearning for more in-depth analysis and discussion.

Jonathan Goldberg, "Queering the Renaissance" (Book Note)

 

In the introduction to "Queering the Renaissance," Jonathan Goldberg elucidates that the volume doesn't merely provide a glimpse into marginal or shadowy activities but endeavors to redefine the center. To "queer the Renaissance," as Goldberg and the other contributors define it, doesn't entail discovering homosexuals in the Renaissance period. Instead, it involves a focus on homoerotic relations within the context of gender and the powerful social structures that shape sexual difference, such as reproduction and familial structures. The goal is to study the Renaissance with a keen awareness of the diverse acts that can be sexualized and the fluid boundaries between texts, across national and generic borders.

 

"Queering the Renaissance" masterfully demonstrates the centrality of homoerotic behavior and desire in the early modern period, offering essential contributions to scholarship that often interprets literature and history from that era through the lens of contemporary discursive formulations of sexuality. The collection's individual essays cover a wide range of canonical and non-canonical texts and genres. The book provides contextualization through a thoughtful afterword by historian Margaret Hunt, who examines issues and methodologies in gay and lesbian historiography. Additionally, legal scholar Janet Halley's essay explores the connections between early modern sodomy history and the 1986 Supreme Court case, Bowers v. Hardwick.

 

Among the reprinted essays, Alan Bray's "Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England" revisits early modern discourses of friendship and sodomy, while Valerie Traub's "The (In)Significance of 'Lesbian' Desire in Early Modern England" delves into anxieties surrounding female same-sex eroticism in both plays and gynecological tracts. Dorothy Stephens' "Into Other Arms: Amoret's Evasion" explores how Spenser's "The Faerie Queene" opens up possibilities for a female world beyond male control. Finally, Michael Warner's "New English Sodom" examines how English erotic discourses influenced Puritan New England and American religious history.

The new essays in the collection make distinct contributions that enrich our understanding of early modern erotics. Jeff Masten and Marcie Frank delve into the connection between early modern erotics and the emergence of the patriarchal author, while Graham Hammill uncovers links between Bacon's anal purging and the development of empirical science. Donald Mager, Forrest Tyler Stevens, and Elizabeth Pittenger examine Tudor discourses of desire and sodomy in works by John Bale, Erasmus, and Nicholas Udall. Alan K. Smith extends the collection's scope into the Italian Renaissance, while Carla Freccero explores France during Marguerite de Navarre's time. Goldberg himself delves into the anus as the locus of desire in "Romeo and Juliet," and Richard Rambuss provides a compelling analysis of homoeroticism in early English religious poetry, critiquing earlier critics' heterosexist bias.

 

These essays share a commitment to understanding early modern sexuality within its sociohistorical context. They argue persuasively for a rigorous, historicized reading of (homo)eroticism during this period and criticize frameworks that stigmatize or essentialize early modern sexuality. Future scholars of early modern sexuality will need to engage with these conclusions or risk appearing ignorant of the field's complexities.

 

However, the book's emphasis on defining acceptable boundaries of "queer" scholarship may be too stringent, as it centers too squarely on the question of what it means to "really queer" the Renaissance. While this issue is central to queer historiography, some contributors critique certain strands of gay historiography for focusing exclusively on the rise of homosexual identities and subcultures. They argue that this narrow focus inadvertently contributes to environments where decisions like Bowers v. Hardwick can thrive. It's worth noting that the Supreme Court and present regimes of power haven't relied on gay and lesbian historians to foster homophobic abuse. Such "queerer-than-thou" thinking risks polarizing rather than facilitating constructive debate around essentialism and constructionism.

More importantly, the polemics of this critique obscure the collection's underlying assumption that during the Renaissance, same-sex sexuality wasn't perceived as "strange," as articulated by Jeff Masten (303). The prevailing notion is that same-sex behavior was either fully integrated into the sociohistorical context of the period or seen as disruptive sodomy. While Queering the Renaissance presents compelling evidence to support this idea, there's credible evidence suggesting that some same-sex behavior wasn't considered sodomitical. However, these essays often overlook or dismiss such evidence.

For instance, Elizabeth Pittenger's essay skillfully navigates the complexities of textual evidence and reality in Nicholas Udall's case. Udall, a playwright and headmaster of Eton, was allegedly dismissed for buggering a student, yet faced no other consequences. Pittenger suggests that an open secret, a tacit social agreement not to acknowledge the known behavior, may have allowed Udall to be seen as a respected figure despite the allegations. However, Pittenger assumes that homosexuality in the period was a nonentity, leading her to focus on deconstructing the open secret rather than exploring the implications of a potentially legible homoeroticism in Udall's case.

This tendency to render homoeroticism illegible due to preconceived notions hampers critical readings of texts that may hint at erotic practices as contained disruptions within the social field of the period. Certain texts, like transvestite comedies or satires, which could shed light on these practices, are notably absent from Queering the Renaissance. The danger of assuming there was no "strange" sexuality in the period is evident in Valerie Traub's analysis, which shows how the category of sodomy effectively erases female homoeroticism from both early modern discourse and contemporary recovery efforts.

Traub's work underscores the limitations of relying solely on categories like sodomy and highlights the need to explore other erotic possibilities. While the distinction between universalizing and essentializing approaches to early modern sexuality is crucial, Traub's findings suggest it may be more nuanced than initially presumed. Queering the Renaissance, while showcasing constructionist politics and poststructuralist practice, maintains this distinction rigidly, indicating its limitations despite its scholarly contributions to queer studies.

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Stevie Jackson, "Feminist Social Theory" (Summary)

• Feminist social theory examines societal differences between men and women, arguing they stem from factors like money, politics, and societal structures.
• Initially based on social sciences, feminists now focus on literature and culture, examining how women are depicted in media.
• Feminism and Marxism have been intertwined since the 1970s and early 1980s, with Marxism focusing on how rich people exploit poor people in capitalism.
• Debates on whether capitalism or male dominance (patriarchy) is the main reason for women's unfair treatment led to debates on the origin of patriarchy.
• Feminists have long debated the history of patriarchy, with some believing it is a constant issue, while others believe it has evolved over time.
• In the 1980s, feminist ideas began moving away from material things like money and work, focusing on how women's work and jobs differ from men's, and how capitalism and male dominance are connected.
• French feminist Christine Delphy suggested that housework occurs because families are set up with men controlling women's work, leading to some Marxist feminists angry.
• Heidi Hartmann and Sylvia Walby explored the idea that patriarchy is a separate system of inequality alongside capitalism, with men controlling women's work.
• Despite some Marxist feminists arguing that class relations are the most important factor in understanding women's situation, others see patriarchy and male dominance as tangled up with modern capitalist societies.

Marxist Feminism and Reproduction
• Marxist feminists have emphasized women's subordination in terms of reproduction, a topic of debate since the debate about housework.
• Critics argue that this idea can be reduced to biology, ignoring the complex nature of society.
• Some feminists, like Rosin McDonough and Rachel Harrison, argue that patriarchy comes from men controlling women's sexuality and ability to have kids, dividing women into two groups: those who had kids to pass down property and those who had kids to make future workers.
• Some feminists are cautious about focusing solely on reproduction and leaving out the importance of work and class relations.

Influence of Catharine MacKinnon, Catharine MacKinnon, and Monica Wittig
• MacKinnon, MacKinnon, and Wittig have contributed to feminist theories and politics, shaping discussions on women's bodily experiences, feminist Queer theories, and radical feminist theories of sexuality.

Shift in Ideology and Culture towards Language, Discourse, and Representation
• The shift in ideology and culture towards language, discourse, and representation has been influenced by Marxist feminists.
• The addition of Michel Foucault's ideas led to a view of power as diffuse and discourse-driven, challenging essentialist notions of gender.

Critiques of Postmodern Theorizing
• Critics from black women, Third World women, and women of color highlighted the limitations of feminist analyses framed predominantly from a white Western perspective.
• Some feminists have reasserted the importance of structural inequalities, with the term "materialist feminism" revitalized by American theorists like Rosemary Hennessy and Donna Landry.

Feminist Research and Postmodernism
• Feminist research continues to explore gendered labor markets, power dynamics within families, and the intersections of sexuality and work.
• Materialist analyses remain relevant for grappling with systematic inequalities in today's world marked by globalization and post-colonial legacies.

Gayatri Spivak's "Feminism and Critical Theory" (Summary)

 Spivak's Analysis of Feminism, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, and Deconstruction in Literary Criticism

Definition of Feminism
• Spivak questions the definitive definition of a woman as a "man" in literary texts.
• They argue that no rigorous definition is possible but definitions are necessary to keep us going.

The Role of Textuality in Human Sciences
• Textuality is a part of discourse within human sciences where the problem of the discourse is made available.
• Human textuality is the representation of a world in terms of a self at play with other selves and generating this representation.

Marxist or Psychoanalytic Criticism
• The discourse of the literary text is part of a general configuration of textuality.
• The solution is the unavailability of a unified solution to a homogeneous, generating or receiving, consciousness.

Alienation and Normality in Freud
• Freud's ideas of alienation and normality and health are often seen as reductive models in the literary critical establishment.
• The traditional social situation of women producing more than they receive raises questions about the use-value of a woman's unremunerated work.

Externalization and Alienation in Capitalist System
• The labor process externalizes itself and the worker as commodities, fracturing the human relationship to himself and his work as commodities.
• The legal possession of the child is an inalienable fact of the property right of the man who "produces" the child.

Rewriting Freud's Text
• The task of rewriting Freud's text is to make available the idea of a womb envy as something that interacts with the idea of penis envy to determine human sexuality and the production of society.

Feminist Enterprise and Redefining Literature
• The feminist enterprise should provide evidence to prevent the great male texts from becoming great adversaries or models for revising or reassessing ideas.
• The development of a reading method that is sensitive to gender, race, and class is crucial for this change.

The Relationship between Wage Theory and "Women's Work"
• Spivak discusses the subversive power of "women's work" in models for the construction of a "revolutionary subject."

Spivak's Analysis of Psychoanalytic Feminism and Margaret Drabble's The Waterfall

• Spivak discusses the role of psychoanalytic feminism in colonialism and Marxist feminism in examining economic text and operations of new imperialism.
• She argues that deconstruction, reversing and displacing historical events, is crucial in understanding the asymmetry of interest and the hidden ethico-political agenda of differentiations constitutive of knowledge and judgment.
• She suggests that deconstruction will not allow the establishment of a hegemonic "global theory" of feminism.

Drabble's The Waterfall
• Drabble's work explores concerns of race and class in a nonexpository way.
• The author suggests that Drabble is taking up the challenge of feminine "passivity" and making it the tool of analytic strength.
• The author discusses the concept of love and the reasons behind it, and the idea of making women rivals in terms of the man who possesses them.
• The author doubts the irony in Drabble's creation of such a classbound and yet analytical Jane, as it must come from "outside the book."

The Role of Jane as a Narrator
• The author explores the conditions of production and determination of microstructural heterosexual attitudes within her chosen enclosure.
• The author emphasizes the need for different forms of understanding and change rather than relying on self-identical categories of truth.
• The author suggests that the desire to "understand" and "change" is both symptomatic and revolutionary, and that a taxonomy of different forms of understanding and change is necessary.

The Complex Relationship between Women and the Prileging of Essence in Literature and Fiction
• Spivak points out the complex relationship between women and the privileging of essence in literature and fiction.
• She discusses the discontinuities and contradictions in assumptions about women's freedom to work outside the house and the sustaining virtues of the working-class family.
• The author suggests that the nuclear family does not have a transcendent ennobling power, and the rise of meritocratic individualism has a relationship to the development of ideology and marriage in the West.

Socialized Capital and the Killing of Women
• The author criticizes socialized capital for its remote control and the killing of women, as seen in the case of Control Data.
• Derrida's work becomes solipsistic and marginal when he writes under the sign of woman, critiquing proprietion and the tyranny of the text of the proper.

Liz Stanley's "Feminist Praxis:Research, Theory and Epistemology in Feminist Sociology" (Book Note)

 

 

The central aim of this book is to provide detailed analyses of specific examples of feminist research, illustrating how feminist epistemology translates into tangible research practices. Indeed, the book offers comprehensive accounts of research projects spanning various domains, including colonialism, social work, LGBTQ+ issues, and cultural icons like Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe.

 

Denise Farran's contribution highlights the nuanced nature of research methodologies, demonstrating how both statistical analysis and qualitative approaches construct partial representations of reality. Farran emphasizes the subjective nature of research methods, acknowledging that each approach offers a distinct perspective on the phenomenon under study.

 

Anne Pugh further explores the complexities of research methodology, contending that while statistics are often deemed as more legitimate representations of reality, they require oversight to prevent misuse. Pugh argues that statistics, like any research tool, can be influenced by the biases and subjectivities of the researchers involved.

 

Other researchers delve into the notion of objectivity in research, arguing that true objectivity is unattainable and that researchers inevitably bring their own subjectivity to the research process. This perspective underscores the importance of transparency and reflexivity in research practice, encouraging researchers to acknowledge their own biases and the ways in which they shape their findings.

 

Vivienne Griffiths offers a unique approach to research participation, describing how dramatic role-plays can enable adolescent girls to engage with experiences rather than merely conceptualize them abstractly. This methodological innovation highlights the importance of incorporating diverse and participatory approaches to research, allowing marginalized voices to be heard and understood within academic discourse.

 

The book presents a collection of feminist research projects, emphasizing their utility as flexible guidelines rather than rigid prescriptions. However, beneath this seemingly egalitarian approach, there exists an implicit hierarchy that favors qualitative research over quantitative statistics, encourages the embrace of subjectivity over the pursuit of objectivity, and privileges experiential knowledge over abstract reconstructions. These tendencies raise questions about whether they stem from a genuine feminist epistemology or simply reflect broader sociological critiques of positivism.

 

In the first two chapters, Liz Stanley and Sue Wise endeavor to outline a feminist epistemology, although this section of the book is met with dissatisfaction and echoes concerns from their earlier works. Stanley introduces a convoluted analogy regarding the academic mode of production, illustrating the multifaceted roles of students as commodities, raw materials, or co-producers. Through a critique of western dualism, she contends that feminists view knowers and the known as inseparable entities, with objectivity consisting of intellectual practices that separate individuals from knowledge of their own subjectivity. This perspective implies that all understandings of the world are grounded and contextually specific, challenging the notion of a singular, objective truth.

 

However, Stanley and Wise's argument leads to a paradox: if knowledge is inherently subjective and context-dependent, then the knowledge produced by researchers cannot be equated with the knowledge possessed by the subjects of their research. This suggests a fundamental disjunction between academic knowledge and lived experience. Yet, the authors hesitate to assert the superiority of sociologists' knowledge over that of laypeople, fearing accusations of intellectual elitism. Nonetheless, they imply that sociological training equips individuals to engage with certain tasks more effectively, thereby tacitly endorsing the utility of academic expertise.

 

This reluctance to fully embrace the epistemological implications of their argument reflects a broader ambivalence within feminist scholarship. On one hand, feminists seek to challenge traditional hierarchies of knowledge and empower marginalized voices. On the other hand, they recognize the value of expertise and specialization, particularly within academic disciplines like sociology. This tension underscores the complex relationship between feminist theory and academic practice, as scholars grapple with the inherent limitations of both subjective experience and disciplinary expertise.

Marianne A FerberJulie A Nelson (ed.), "Feminist Economics Today:Beyond Economic Man" (Book Note)

 

The feminist economics project has made significant strides. This progress is particularly notable as feminist economics has transitioned from mere critique to establishing the groundwork for a burgeoning paradigm shift within the discipline. The latest volume, curated by editors Marianne Ferber and Julie Nelson, features eight chapters that encapsulate the trajectory of feminist economic research in recent years.

One noteworthy contribution comes from Paula England, who revisits and updates her seminal work on the concept of the "separative self" originally discussed in "Beyond Economic Man" (1993). England not only critiques traditional notions of the self but also explores newer perspectives on the "soluable self." She directs attention to emerging literature within economics that challenges the dichotomous view of the self, offering insights into three key research streams: household bargaining models, endogenous taste formation, and the study of care work. This demonstrates a shift towards more nuanced understandings of human behavior within economic frameworks.

 

In a subsequent chapter co-authored with Nancy Folbre, England delves deeper into the analysis of care economics, bridging feminist theories with new institutionalist approaches. Their exploration draws inspiration from the institutionalism of Karl Polanyi, presenting a framework that reframes care as a central component of economic systems rather than a peripheral concern. This approach not only enriches economic analysis but also underscores the importance of care in shaping societal structures and relationships.

 

Another notable contribution comes from Lourdes Benerìa, who offers a critical examination of mainstream development policies while proposing an alternative framework for analyzing globalization. By drawing upon Polanyi's institutionalist perspective, Benerìa sheds light on the social and economic implications of globalization, particularly for marginalized communities. Her work highlights the interconnectedness of economic, social, and political systems, emphasizing the need for holistic approaches to understanding and addressing global challenges.

 

 

Lisa Saunders and William Darity, Jr. contribute a pivotal chapter that scrutinizes the evolving dynamics of race-ethnicity as a social construct and its intricate interplay with gender. Their analysis underscores the significant strides made since the publication of "Beyond Economic Man," particularly in elucidating a multifaceted, interdisciplinary understanding of racial discrimination. This nuanced approach reflects a maturation in scholarship, characterized by a transdisciplinary lens that acknowledges the complex intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender.

 

For those unacquainted with the origins and tenets of postcolonial thought, S. Charusheela and Eiman Zein-Elabdin offer an invaluable primer in their chapter titled “Feminism, Postcolonial Thought, and Economics.” This chapter serves as an essential resource, providing readers with a comprehensive overview of postcolonial theory and its implications for feminist economics. By elucidating the connections between colonial legacies, gender oppression, and economic structures, the authors lay the groundwork for a more inclusive and culturally informed economic discourse.

 

Julie Nelson ventures into uncharted territory with her innovative exploration of the "black box" of the firm. In her chapter, she delves into the realms of business, organizational behavior, and ethics, challenging conventional economic assumptions regarding the nature of firms and markets. Nelson's inquiry goes beyond mere critique; she meticulously examines the relational dynamics within firms, questioning the pervasive notion of firms as strictly separative entities. Drawing on insights from management studies, organizational behavior, law, economic sociology, and business ethics, Nelson proposes an alternative theoretical framework for understanding firm agency.

 

Central to Nelson's analysis is the acknowledgment that firms are not monolithic entities driven solely by profit maximization. Instead, she emphasizes the inherent complexity and fluidity of firm behavior, advocating for a "mushier" approach that recognizes the diverse motivations and relationships shaping organizational dynamics. By integrating perspectives from multiple disciplines, Nelson offers a more holistic understanding of firm behavior, one that transcends traditional economic paradigms and embraces the complexities of real-world business practices.

Sneja Gunew and Anna Yeatman (ed.), "Feminism and the Politics of Difference" (Book Note)

 

The process of building coalitions around common issues and objectives is intricate and delicate, often leading to the emergence of serious differences as the coalition encounters itself through its grassroots membership. What once appeared as clear common ground can quickly become a murky and dangerous terrain, fraught with divergent interpretations, symbols, and meanings. These differences go beyond mere semantics; they are rooted in the diverse identities and experiences of marginalization within the group itself. Even individuals who belong to the same marginalized group may have vastly different lived experiences and perspectives.

 

While seekers of progressive social change may share a unifying vision of a society that embraces and celebrates difference through non-hegemonic and inclusive structures, this vision can become tarnished in the face of polarizing debates and painful exchanges. Alienation sets in, prompting some to eagerly escape or retreat from the movement. However, even in their alienation, individuals are uniquely wounded and vary in their resources and abilities to recover.

 

It is essential to recognize that differences themselves are not inherently divisive. Divisions only become problematic when they are disavowed or left unexamined, particularly within social change movements like feminism. In recognition of this challenge, the editors of "Feminism and the Politics of Difference," Sneja Gunew and Anna Yeatman, have curated a collection of thoughtful essays from a multidisciplinary group of internationally based feminists.

 

Gunew and Yeatman's volume offers women valuable insights, creative concepts, and analytical tools to navigate their differences and collaborate effectively towards feminist social change. Drawing from poststructuralist critical theory, including deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and postmodernism, along with postcolonialism, the editors aim to deconstruct power structures that perpetuate binary oppositions and marginalize alterity.

 

They critique prevailing modes of thinking that perpetuate homogenizing and universalist logic, which privileges certain groups while excluding others. Such thinking, they argue, upholds traditional power structures and fails to challenge the underlying dynamics that sustain inequality. By challenging these entrenched paradigms, Gunew and Yeatman advocate for a more inclusive and nuanced approach to feminism—one that embraces difference and resists the temptation to replicate existing power structures.

 

Central to their argument is the recognition that feminist solidarity cannot be achieved through the mere inversion of power dynamics. Rather, it requires a fundamental reimagining of social relations and a commitment to dismantling hierarchies that marginalize certain voices within the movement. This entails creating space for diverse perspectives and experiences to be heard and valued, even when they diverge from the mainstream narrative.

 

Gunew and Yeatman's exploration of the politics of difference challenges traditional approaches to identity politics by advocating for the recognition and affirmation of diverse perspectives as "incommensurabilities." Through their anthology, they highlight the complexities and dangers inherent in navigating various themes across gender, culture, time, and place. By presenting a quilt of topics ranging from anti-racist politics in Canadian feminist publishing to the experiences of Chicanas traversing the Texas-US Southwest/Mexico border, the anthology offers a jarring display of difference that transcends simplistic binaries.

 

The authors in the anthology strive to move beyond identity politics, which often construct binary oppositions between self and other, thereby limiting the possibilities for genuine engagement with difference. Instead, they emphasize the importance of analyzing the constructions and dynamics of race and ethnicity, while also recognizing the necessity of opening spaces for excluded groups without resorting to tokenism or appropriation. Moreover, they caution against the temptation to represent or designate differences in a superficial manner, as this can lead to essentializing and reductive portrayals of marginalized groups.

 

One recurring theme in the anthology is the danger of reducing complex identities and experiences to simplistic categories or stereotypes. The authors emphasize the need to resist the impulse to identify representatives of particular groups, as this can perpetuate harmful stereotypes and homogenize diverse experiences. Instead, they advocate for a more nuanced and intersectional approach that acknowledges the multiplicity of identities and experiences within marginalized communities.

 

Furthermore, the anthology underscores the importance of genuine solidarity that goes beyond mere symbolic gestures or performative acts of allyship. Rather than appropriating the experiences or identities of others, the authors urge readers to engage in meaningful dialogue and mutual learning, recognizing that true solidarity requires active listening, empathy, and a willingness to challenge one's own assumptions and biases.

 

At its core, the anthology serves as a reminder of the richness and complexity of human experience, and the importance of embracing difference as a source of strength and resilience. By celebrating the diversity of perspectives and voices represented in the anthology, Gunew and Yeatman invite readers to reflect critically on their own understandings of identity, power, and privilege, and to work towards building more inclusive and equitable societies.

 

The exploration of authenticity within the anthology extends beyond individual identities to encompass the ways in which authenticity is projected onto others. By emphasizing the need to shore up or justify existing structures, there is a risk of limiting the possibilities for embracing difference. When differences are segregated into rigid categories of authentic and inauthentic, the potential for subversion and liberation becomes obscured. Structures lose their fluidity and permeability, hindering the exploration of alternative perspectives and challenging the status quo.

 

One area of examination within the anthology is the burden of authenticity placed upon marginalized individuals and groups. The pressure to conform to predetermined notions of authenticity can stifle creativity and innovation, reinforcing existing power dynamics and perpetuating marginalization. By interrogating the processes of legitimation and authorization, the authors seek to uncover the mechanisms by which certain voices are privileged while others are marginalized. This includes an analysis of access to resources such as language, print media, and the arts, which can either amplify or silence marginalized perspectives.

 

Grounded in the messy realities of women's political experiences, the anthology's theoretical perspectives offer valuable insights into the complexities of navigating difference within feminist discourse. While the authors' insights may be perceived as scattered gems, they provide readers with a nuanced understanding of the challenges and opportunities inherent in addressing issues of authenticity and legitimacy. Readers who appreciate poststructuralist discourse and its playful approach to deconstruction will find much to engage with in the anthology's theoretical framework.

 

However, for readers who prefer more direct and concrete narratives about the politics of difference in feminist activism, the anthology may still offer satisfaction. Through its exploration of various themes and perspectives, the anthology invites readers to critically reflect on their own understandings of authenticity, legitimacy, and power dynamics within feminist movements. By embracing the complexities of difference and resisting the urge to essentialize identities, the anthology encourages readers to challenge dominant narratives and advocate for more inclusive and equitable social change.

Carol Thomas's "Female Forms: Experiencing and Understanding Disability" (Book Note)

 

 

In her book, Carol Thomas, a disabled woman and medical sociologist deeply committed to both disability and feminist studies, offers a thorough and thoughtful critique of the social model of disability. While the book is part of a series dedicated to disseminating views of the social model, Thomas takes the opportunity to challenge some of its fundamental principles. Drawing from her personal experiences as well as her academic expertise, Thomas divides her work into three sections, each building from current discussions in disability and feminist studies towards her own synthesis of relevant issues.

 

The book's style, heavily referenced and peppered with lengthy original quotes, is designed to appeal to readers new to disability studies, providing a comprehensive background on key writers and concepts. However, some readers may find this style detracts from Thomas's own arguments, which occasionally seem overshadowed by the exhaustive consideration of other viewpoints. Nonetheless, Thomas's perseverance in articulating her perspectives is rewarded with compelling and well-argued paradigms.

 

In Part One, titled 'Defining Disability,' Thomas embarks on a lengthy exploration of the history of the social model, particularly focusing on the definition put forth by the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS). She delves into the reasons behind the perceived discord between social modelists and medical sociologists, highlighting the latter's adherence to the International Classification of Impairment, Disability, and Handicaps (ICIDH) model—a framework often dismissed by their counterparts. Thomas uses this discord as a lens to deconstruct the social model, identifying two intertwined strands within it: the social relational definition and the property definition.

 

The social relational definition posits that disability stems from the social imposition of restrictions on people with impairments, emphasizing unequal power dynamics. On the other hand, the property definition, reminiscent of the ICIDH model, acknowledges the role of social factors in causing activity restrictions but also leaves room for considering non-social causes of disablism. Thomas argues that this latter definition allows for a more nuanced understanding of disability, encompassing psycho-emotional aspects often overlooked by traditional social modelists.

 

Thomas critiques social modelists for neglecting the cultural dimensions of disability, particularly the role of negative internal messages in constraining individuals' activities. She proposes a modified definition of disability that incorporates both social imposition of restrictions and the socio-cultural undermining of psycho-emotional well-being. In her view, disability is a form of social oppression that encompasses both external barriers and internalized prejudices.

In Part Two of her book, titled 'Female Forms,' Carol Thomas extends her exploration of the psychoemotional dimensions of disability within the framework of feminist scholarship. While feminist writers often emphasize the significance of personal experience in understanding social phenomena, social modelists tend to be critical of this approach, doubting its efficacy in driving social change. However, Thomas, drawing from personal testimonials, makes a compelling case for the importance of personal narratives in both comprehending disability experiences and catalyzing efforts for societal transformation.

 

One significant aspect of Thomas's analysis is her observation that mainstream feminist discourse has largely overlooked the perspectives of disabled women. Consequently, there appears to be a disconnect between the priorities and concerns of disabled women and those of mainstream feminism. Thomas underscores that disabled women's perspectives are diverse and multifaceted, defying any simplistic categorization. While she acknowledges disagreement with certain viewpoints within disabled women's literature, she maintains that the methodologies developed within feminist scholarship could serve to enrich and broaden the discourse within disability studies.

 

Thomas's engagement with the intersection of feminist and disability scholarship reveals tensions as well as opportunities for collaboration. On one hand, she acknowledges the limitations of mainstream feminist discourse in adequately addressing the experiences and concerns of disabled women. This oversight perpetuates marginalization and reinforces the invisibility of disabled women within broader feminist movements. However, Thomas also highlights the potential for synergy between feminist and disability scholarship, particularly in the realm of methodology.

 

By advocating for the incorporation of feminist research methods, such as intersectionality and standpoint theory, into disability studies, Thomas suggests a way forward for bridging the gap between these two fields. These methods offer a framework for understanding the complex interplay of gender, disability, and other intersecting identities, thereby enriching our comprehension of diverse experiences within the disabled community.

In Part Three of her book, titled 'Understanding Disability,' Carol Thomas delves into theoretical concepts surrounding disability and impairment, tracing the historical and political evolution of contemporary perspectives. Through a succinct and insightful examination, Thomas provides a valuable reference point for readers seeking to navigate the complexities of disability studies. She ultimately concludes that a significant gap persists between materialist and post-modernist views within the field, highlighting the challenges of synthesizing socio-structural, cultural, and experiential dimensions of disability.

 

Thomas's analysis underscores the need for a more inclusive and nuanced approach to disability studies—one that embraces a diversity of theoretical perspectives. She argues that the incorporation of multiple viewpoints would not only enrich the field but also foster greater understanding of the complex dynamics shaping disability experiences. Thomas advocates for the acceptance of a variety of theoretical frameworks within disability studies, rejecting the notion that a single approach can adequately capture the multifaceted nature of disability.

 

In her assessment, Thomas contends that a non-reductionist materialist feminism holds promise as a theoretical framework for understanding and explaining disability, impairment, and their gendered dimensions. By acknowledging the interconnectedness of socio-structural, cultural, and experiential factors, this approach offers a more holistic understanding of disability that transcends narrow disciplinary boundaries.

 

However, Thomas acknowledges the inherent challenges of reconciling diverse theoretical perspectives within disability studies. She recognizes the limitations of attempting to synthesize conflicting viewpoints, expressing skepticism about the feasibility of achieving a comprehensive theoretical framework. Nonetheless, she maintains that embracing theoretical diversity can strengthen the field by fostering dialogue and collaboration among scholars with differing perspectives.

 

Returning to her own position as a disabled feminist, writer in disability studies, and medical sociologist, Thomas grapples with the dilemma of reconciling these distinct identities and perspectives. She acknowledges her vested interest in bridging the gaps between these groups and seeks to identify common ground that can facilitate dialogue and cooperation.

 

In this context, Thomas revisits the social relational model as a potential framework for achieving a truce between conflicting theoretical perspectives. By emphasizing the interconnectedness of social relations and disability experiences, this model offers a pathway towards greater understanding and collaboration within the field of disability studies.