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Deconstructing Equality-Versus-Difference: Or, the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism Author(S): Joan W

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Deconstructing Equality-Versus-Difference: Or, the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism Author(S): Joan W Deconstructing Equality-versus-Difference: Or, the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism Author(s): Joan W. Scott Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Spring, 1988), pp. 32-50 Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3177997 . Accessed: 02/08/2011 15:25 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=femstudies. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Feminist Studies, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Feminist Studies. http://www.jstor.org DECONSTRUCTING EQUALITY-VERSUS- DIFFERENCE: OR, THE USES OF POSTSTRUCTURALISTTHEORY FOR FEMINISM JOAN W. SCOTT Thatfeminism needs theory goes without saying(perhaps because it has been said so often). What is not always clear is what that theory will do, althoughthere are certaincommon assumptionsI think we can find in a wide range of feminist writings. We need theory that can analyze the workings of patriarchyin all its manifestations- ideological, institutional, organizational,subjec- tive - accountingnot only for continuitiesbut also for changeover time. We need theory that will let us think in terms of pluralities and diversities rather than of unities and universals. We need theory that will break the conceptualhold, at least, of those long traditionsof (Western)philosophy that have systematicallyand repeatedly construed the world hierarchically in terms of masculine universalsand feminine specificities.We need theory that will enable us to articulatealternative ways of thinkingabout (andthus actingupon) genderwithout either simply reversingthe old hierarchiesor confirmingthem. And we need theory that will be useful and relevantfor politicalpractice. It seems to me that the body of theory referredto as poststruc- turalismbest meets all these requirements.It is not by any means the only theory nor are its positions and formulationsunique. In my own case, however, it was readingpoststructuralist theory and arguing with literary scholars that provided the elements of clarificationfor which I was looking.I found a new way of analyz- ing constructions of meaning and relationshipsof power that called unitary,universal categories into question and historicized Feminist Studies 14, no. 1 (Spring 1988). ? 1988 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 33 qn., A.4_ br /' Am -.Op AJ IN lop* Ewa Kuryluk, Face, 1981, from the Installation, Fall in Princeton, 1984. Kuryluk modulates the gestures and facial expressions depicted on her canvases by the way she chooses to drape them on any given occasion. This is an alternative in- stallation of the same drawing on page 10. 34 Joan W. Scott conceptsotherwise treated as natural(such as man/woman)or ab- solute (such as equalityor justice). In addition,what attractedme was the historicalconnection between the two movements. Post- structuralism and contemporary feminism are late-twentieth- centurymovements that sharea certainself-conscious critical rela- tionship to established philosophicaland political traditions. It thus seemed worthwhilefor feminist scholarsto exploitthat rela- tionship for their own ends.' This articlewill not discussthe historyof these various"exploita- tions"or elaborateon all the reasonsa historianmight look to this theoryto organizeher inquiry.2What seems most useful here is to give a short list of some majortheoretical points and then devote most of my effortto a specificillustration. The firstpart of this arti- cle is a brief discussionof conceptsused by poststructuraliststhat are also useful for feminists.The second partapplies some of these conceptsto one of the hotly contestedissues amongcontemporary (U.S.)feminists- the "equality-versus-difference"debate. Among the useful terms feminists have appropriatedfrom post- structuralismare language,discourse, difference, and deconstruc- tion. Language.Following the work of structuralistlinguistics and an- thropology,the term is used to mean not simply words or even a vocabularyand set of grammaticalrules but, rather,a meaning- constitutingsystem: that is, any system- strictlyverbal or other- through which meaning is constructed and cultural practices organizedand by which, accordingly,people representand under- stand their world, includingwho they are and how they relateto others. "Language,"so conceived, is a central focus of poststruc- turalistanalysis. Languageis not assumed to be a representationof ideas that either cause material relations or from which such relations follow; indeed, the idealist/materialistopposition is a false one to impose on this approach.Rather, the analysisof languageprovides a crucial point of entry, a startingpoint for understandinghow social relations are conceived, and therefore-because under- standinghow they are conceived means understandinghow they work- how institutionsare organized,how relationsof production are experienced, and how collective identity is established. Joan W. Scott 35 Withoutattention to languageand the processesby which mean- ings and categories are constituted, one only imposes over- simplified models on the world, models that perpetuateconven- tional understandings rather than open up new interpretive possibilities. The point is to find ways to analyze specific "texts"-notonly books and documentsbut also utterancesof any kind and in any medium, includingcultural practices-in terms of specific histori- cal and contextualmeanings. Poststructuralistsinsist that words and texts have no fixed or intrinsic meanings, that there is no transparentor self-evidentrelationship between them and either ideas or things, no basic or ultimate correspondencebetween languageand the world. The questionsthat must be answeredin such an analysis,then, are how, in what specific contexts,among which specific communitiesof people, and by what textual and social processes has meaning been acquired?More generally,the questions are: How do meaningschange? How have some mean- ings emergedas normativeand othershave been eclipsedor disap- peared?What do these processes reveal about how power is con- stituted and operates? Discourse.Some of the answers to these questionsare offeredin the concept of discourse,especially as it has been developedin the work of Michel Foucault.A discourse is not a languageor a text but a historically,socially, and institutionallyspecific structureof statements,terms, categories,and beliefs. Foucaultsuggests that the elaboration of meaning involves conflict and power, that meanings are locally contested within discursive"fields of force," that (at least since the Enlightenment)the power to controla par- ticular field resides in claims to (scientific)knowledge embodied not only in writing but also in disciplinary and professional organizations,in institutions(hospitals, prisons, schools, factories), and in social relationships (doctor/patient, teacher/student, employer/worker,parent/child, husband/wife). Discourse is thus containedor expressedin organizationsand institutionsas well as in words; all of these constitutetexts or documents to be read.3 Discursive fields overlap, influence, and compete with one another;they appeal to one another's"truths" for authorityand legitimation.These truthsare assumedto be outsidehuman inven- tion, either already known and self-evident or discoverable through scientific inquiry. Precisely because they are assigned the 36 JoanW. Scott statusof objectiveknowledge, they seem to be beyond disputeand thus serve a powerfullegitimating function. Darwinian theories of naturalselection are one exampleof such legitimatingtruths; bio- logicaltheories about sexual differenceare another.The power of these "truths"comes from the way they functionas givens or first premises for both sides in an argument,so that conflicts within discursive fields are framed to follow from ratherthan question them. The brillianceof so much of Foucault'swork has been to il- luminate the shared assumptionsof what seemed to be sharply differentarguments, thus exposingthe limits of radicalcriticism and the extent of the power of dominant ideologies or epistemologies. In addition,Foucault has shown how badly even challengesto fundamentalassumptions often fared. They have been marginal- ized or silenced, forced to underplaytheir most radicalclaims in order to win a short-termgoal, or completely absorbedinto an existingframework. Yet the fact of change is crucialto Foucault's notion of "archaeology,"to the way in which he uses contrasts from differenthistorical periods to presenthis arguments.Exactly how the process happens is not spelled out to the satisfactionof
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