The Question of 'Nature': What Has Social Constructionism to Offer Feminist Theory?

The Question of ‘Nature’: What has Social Constructionism to offer Feminist Theory? Elisa Fiaccadori SOCIOLOGY RESEARCH PAPERS 2 The Question of ‘Nature’: What has Social Constructionism to offer Feminist Theory? The Question of ‘Nature’: What has Social Constructionism to offer Feminist Theory? 3 The Question of ‘Nature’: What has Social Constructionism to offer Feminist Theory? Elisa Fiaccadori The question of ‘nature’ is of particular up reinforcing exactly these constructed importance for feminist theorizing as differences between ‘men’ and ‘women’, feminists have long come to realise that it is ‘culture’ and ‘nature’, which they refuse on often upon this ‘concept’ that the giveness of the basis of their sexualising, racialising and sexual differences and, consequently, the universalising effects (see Butler, 1993; Alcoff inferiority of ‘women’, is assumed1. It is in Tong and Tuana, 1995; Flax in Nicholson, against biological determinism that feminists 1990). Instead, they are more concerned with have developed their most powerful theories problematising ‘nature’ by asserting the social and critiques of dominant categorisations of and cultural constructedness of the category ‘women’ (see, for example, de Beauvoir, ‘women’. According to post-structural 19892 ; Rich, 1981). Particularly, both ‘second feminists, it is only by acknowledging the wave feminists’ generally, and eco-feminists constructedness of ‘nature’, consequently of specifically, tended to criticise dominant ‘women’ (and ‘men’), that ‘spaces for more conceptualisations of women as ‘naturally’ plural forms of self-identification’ can be inferior and assert the political importance of created (in Kemp and Squires, 1997: 469). reclaiming ‘nature’, ‘the natural’ and ‘the feminine’ from the grip of exploitative To the extent that social constructionism scientific patriarchalism (in Kemp and Squires, problematises ‘nature’ as given, it offers 1997: 469). However, whereas the question feminists ways of criticising dominant of nature remains extremely important to conceptions of being as based on false today’s feminists, post-structuralist feminists foundational claims about the nature of both Goldsmiths Sociology Research Papers have since re-evaluated the latter manoeuvre ‘women’ and ‘men’. Contrary to the idea arguing that it is inadequate, not even of ‘nature’ as given social constructionism3 Copyright: Goldsmiths, University of London desirable, insofar as, paradoxically, it ends suggests that ‘nature’ is a contingent social and Elisa Fiaccadori 2006 IBSN 1-904158-74-9 1 To oppose the idea that women are naturally inferior to men, in 1976 Simon de Beauvoir asserts ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’ (de Beauvoir, 1988: 295). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without 2 Although, de Beauvoir’s implicit but also, at times, explicit rejection of ‘the body’ is seen by most feminists as problematic insofar as it accepts and thus reinforces a split – an impossible split – between the mind and the body, which ultimately may the permission of the publishers. prove counter-productive for ‘women’ (in Price and Shildrick, 1999: 4; but see also Butler, 1993: 4). First published in Great Britan 2006 by 3 Social constructionism is not easily definable. It encompasses an array of theoretical positions (from symbolic intereactionism Goldsmiths, University of London, to postmodernism), whose aims and objectives are very complex and different (see, for instance, Berger & Luckmann, 1966, London SE14 6NW. Goffman, 1954, Foucault, 1979; Derrida, 1974 among many others). However, the one thing that associates them is that they all share a common ‘epistemological scepticism’ about the nature of ‘facts’. And it is this ‘epistemological scepticism’ against meta-narratives of ‘reason’, ‘progress’ and ‘truth’ which has proved very valuable for feminists. 4 The Question of ‘Nature’: What has Social Constructionism to offer Feminist Theory? The Question of ‘Nature’: What has Social Constructionism to offer Feminist Theory? 5 and cultural construct that should not be of ‘culture’, ‘knowledge’, ‘language’ and deemed a specifically male hormone and representations of it, Judith Butler develops taken for granted. This is not to say that ‘power’ (see, for example, Harding, 1991; estrogen a specifically female one, with the Foucauldian insights further to create a feminists accept social constructionism Pateman, 1989; hooks, 1992; Spivak, 1988; advance in organic chemistry and the sophisticated theory of the body’s materiality uncritically; yet, increasingly they make use of Haraway, 1990; Grosz, 1994; Braidotti, development of experimental techniques, as performatively constituted by the it not just to explain ‘women’ but also the 1994). This, however, is not to suggest that scientists began to conceptualize hormones regulatory norms of ‘sex’ (Butler in Harrison oppression of other ‘bodies that matter’ (see, feminists have lost sight of questions of differently. Hormones began to be and Hood-Williams, 2002). More specifically, for example, Butler, 1993; Grosz, 1994; ‘nature’; on the contrary. Nevertheless, it is conceptualized as ‘catalysts: chemical against Freud’s notion of identification as the Spivak, 1988). through ‘culture’ that ‘nature’ and what are substances, sexually unspecific in origin and resolution of the Oedipal complex, she writes: presumed ‘natural’ phenomena, such as the function, exerting manifold activities, instead Nevertheless, as this paper will show, despite body, sex, reproduction, biology and of being primarily sex agents’ (Oudshoorn, ‘Because the solution of the Oedipal these important contributions to the question hormones, to cite only a few examples, are 1994: 36). At this point, investigation into sex dilemma can be either positive or of ‘nature’ and of the individual as socially increasingly being explained within feminism. hormones became more sophisticated and negative, the prohibition of the opposite- and culturally constructed, this approach not only were androgens and estrogens sexed other can either lead to an raises a difficult question: how is it possible In her book Beyond the Natural Body: An found together (e.g. the presence of ‘female’ identification with the sex of the parent to talk about ‘nature’ without re-inscribing it Archeology of Sex Hormones, for instance, hormones was found in the urine of stallions) lost or a refusal of identification…’ into ‘culture’ precisely under the guise of Nelly Oudshoorn looks at scientific but it also became apparent that they were (Butler, 1990: 134). their radical separation or difference (see knowledge and, in line with Thomas close chemical cousins and that testosterone Kirby, 1997; Wilson, 1998; Irigaray, 1985; Laqueur4, she suggests that scientists are could be converted to estrogen (Oudshoorn, In other words, ‘the refusal of identification’ Weed and Schor, 1994; but also and again actively constructing rather than discovering 1994). However, Oudshoorn argues that is also part of the process of ‘materialization’ Butler, 1993; Grosz, 1994; Spivak, 1988)? reality and that ‘the naturalistic reality of the ‘although scientists abandoned the concept through which identities develop. body as such does not exist’ (Oudshoorn in of sexual specificity, the terminology was not Consequently, Butler suggests that although As Michelle Barrett notes, ‘[i]n the past ten Harrison and Hood-Williams, 2002: 133). adjusted to this change in conceptualization identification enables certain sexed subjects years we have seen an extensive ‘turn to Her contribution to the question of ‘nature’ […] the names male and female sex to emerge, ‘in the demand that identification culture’ in feminism (Barret in Kemp & consists in challenging the idea that there is hormones have been kept in current use, be reiterated persists the possibility, the Squires, 1997: 112). The ‘turn to culture’ has such a thing as a ‘natural body’ by showing both inside and outside the scientific threat, that it will fail to repeat’ (Butler, 1993: meant that increasingly feminists have moved how scientific knowledge constructs rather community’ (Oudshoorn, 1994: 12, 36). This, 102). Thus, she contends, the process of away from conceptualisations of ‘women’ as than explains the ‘natural’ facts that it is she says, demonstrates how scientific ‘materialization’ through which both ‘men’ a unified ‘natural’ category and come to presumed to discover. Specifically, drawing knowledge is bound by what she calls a and ‘women’ develop their identities is not perceive it as a differentiated social construct. on Foucault, she describes the archeology ‘disciplinary style’ (a term which she takes completely successful and cannot be Particularly by bringing the question of of sex hormones in terms of a process of from Foucault, 1999) that constructs regarded as universal (Butler, 1993: 2). ‘difference’ to the forefront, ‘second wave’ sexualisation in which sex hormones are phenomena as ‘natural’ in order to legitimate Specifically, it is through the refusal of feminists have shown that ‘women’s situation created as ‘material products’ to ‘transform its premises and findings even when they are identification (or ‘disidentification’) that what of oppression is not reducible to women’s and sexualize the world we live in’ contradictory and ‘messy’ (see also Fausto- she calls ‘abject others’ develop; ‘bodies’ who ‘biology’ or ‘nature’ (see, for example, de (Oudshoorn in Harrison and Hood-Williams, Sterling in

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