Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine

Reviews 111 reported by Loretta Loach and Gill historically and individually vari ian Rodgerson, about S-M and les able pleasures of sex and porn. But in bian erotica and porn. Nor does it do doing so they arguably fail ad justice to variation and change in the equately to address the obverse of social and historical determinants of erotic pleasure and desire - its mis attitudes to sex: to the anti eries and discontents. Certainly liberation backlash in 1970s these cannot be resolved through England, for instance, that doing away with porn. Nor is it any prompted Kenneth Clark's differ help, however, to reject antiporn entiation of art from porn, here docu feminism out of hand without engag mented by Lynda Nead; or to 1920s ing further with the complexities of outrage at Mae West's Broadway women's sexual unease that it both no-frills rendering of working-class crudely over-simplifies yet also im sex, with which Marybeth Hamilton portantly expresses. ends Sex Exposed. She and the book's other con Janet Sayers tributors rescue for feminism the Luce Irigaray: Philosophy that are not only detailed and care in the Feminine ful, but combine philosophical acu Margaret Whitford men with a keen eye for the ways in which Irigaray's work connects with Routledge: London 1991 contemporary tensions and debates that have become central to feminist ISBN0415 059681, £35.00hb theory and philosophy. ISBN 0 415 05969 0, £9.99 Pbk Whitford argues that a number of English-speaking writers have Given that some of the major misinterpreted Irigaray's work, writings of Luce Irigaray engage sometimes in contradictory ways. In closely with, and are steeped in a great deal of recent feminist knowledge of Western philosophical theory, the term 'essentialist' is one traditions, it is perhaps surprising, of the most pejorative that can be as Margaret Whitford points out, used of any feminist writer, and the that her English-speaking reader charge of 'essentialism' one that ship in particular has not recognized legitimates a fairly quick dismissal. her primarily as a philosopher. Her Irigaray has been accused of varying work is studied (and classified) as forms of 'essentialism': of a 'biologi psychoanalysis, literary theory or cal essentialism' that derives a view feminist theory, but rarely as philos of female nature from the suppo ophy. In this book, Whitford offers a sition of an unmediated morphology reading oflrigaray that sees her first of the female body, or of a 'psychic and foremost as a feminist philos essentialism' that misreads Lac opher; but a philosopher for whom anianism and takes the feminine to the boundaries between philosophy be a pre-given libido, prior to lan and other domains are not clearly guage. Irigaray has also been ac demarcated. Irigaray is engaged, cused of a sort of regressive Whitford argues, in 'that most philo Utopianism which offers an almost sophical of enterprises: philosophy romantic picture of a pre-Oedipal examining its own foundations and imaginary closeness between presuppositions' (p. 2). While not women; and of offering a picture of claiming to be offering a fully com 'the feminine' that amounts to a prehensive study of Irigaray's work, reactionary celebration of tra Whitford nevertheless offers read ditional gender ideologies. Some ings of a large range of her writings what in tension with this reading is Palgrave Macmillan Journals is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Feminist Review. ® www.jstor.org 112 Feminist Review that which sees lrigaray's critique of of the analysand. The analysand 'language' and of male rationality as may 'speak' that which is repressed consigning women forever either to in ways of which s/he is not aware, irrationality and incoherence, or to cannot articulate. So may the history the alienation of themselves in the of philosophy 'speak' the repressed male Symbolic. feminine; and just as the aim of Whitford takes issue very con psychoanalysis is not primarily to vincingly with all these interpre establish a new 'truth' but to change tations of Irigaray. lrigaray herself, the analysand, so, Whitford sug Whitford shows, has refused to offer gests, Irigaray is trying to make an a 'theory of woman'; (that, she has intervention in philosophy. said, is a task that can be left to men). Many feminist critics of philos She has also warned of the danger of ophy, as well as Irigaray, have 'blueprints' that suppose it possible noted the ways in which it has been to articulate any fully clear vision of difficult for women to locate them a different future for women. No selves within philosophy as speak form of thought can transcend the ing subjects, without at the same limitations and parameters of its time undergoing a profound self own origins. The problem for !riga alienation. The 'subject' of philos ray is not that of what sort of'Utopia ophy has been a male subject. It of stasis' we might devise, but of has also usually been, supposedly, a what strategies of subversion we can fully conscious and rational subject. adopt, how it might be possible to But the idea of the conscious, 'deconstruct' or expose that which is rational subject has of course itself 'hidden' in Western philosophy, how been the subject of critique, notably we might imagine new possibilities, within French philosophy, and per while at the same time (necessarily) haps most importantly in the work making use of that of which we are of Derrida, much of whose work has proposing a critique. This is a task been devoted to undermining the which, far from being unique to 'phallogocentrism' of the Western Irigaray, is one which no attempt to philosophical tradition. Yet what is think through the relation of women the position of women within the to philosophy can avoid. The strat Derridean deconstructive enter egy of 'mimesis', which Irigaray prise? Derrida himself has mobil sometimes uses in Speculum of the ized 'the feminine' as a response to Other Woman, needs to be read in the crisis of the subject; to under this light. mine 'phallogocentrism' it is necess Irigaray (who was herself ary to 'speak like a woman'. But to trained in psychoanalysis and is a 'speak like a woman' is not the practising analyst) uses the methods same as 'speaking as a woman'; and of psychoanalysis to try to dismantle some feminist critics of Derrida what she sees as the structures ofthe have suggested that his mobiliz Western unconscious, and the ways ation of the feminine may in fact be in which these have resonated in simply a colonization; one which, philosophy. In particular, she at moreover, has quite a long history. tempts to trace the fantasies which Derrida has been notoriously un she sees as having haunted male sympathetic to feminism, and his discourse; the destructive male im critique of 'phallogocentrism' has aginary which is based on a buried appeared to leave women in a act of matricide, and the fear of double bind. If they continue to women and of the body which follow 'speak like women', they appear to from this. lrigaray 'reads' the history be consigned to a position of mere of philosophy in a way which re 'enunciation', where a position as a sembles that in which a psycho woman cannot be spoken. If they analyst might 'read' the utterances attempt to appear as speaking Reviews 113 subjects themselves, they are ac philosophy; but we cannot eliminate cused of'speaking like men'. the question without eliminating at Much of Irigaray's work, Whit the same time the task of estab ford suggests, can be seen as ad lishing new forms of co-subjectivity dressing this dilemma. Subtending with men. the 'rational subject' of philosophy, Irigaray's work, Whitford sug but unrecognized, is a sexuate sub gests, is offered in order to create the ject, governed by unconscious de space for a dialogue between herself sires. And subtending philosophy it and her readers, and between the self is the 'male imaginary' in which readers themselves. 'Her work is women are merely lack or 'other'. In offered as an object, a discourse, for philosophy, we need a critique of the women to exchange among them idea of 'reason' that recognizes the selves, a sort of commodity, so that passional foundations of reason, and women themselves do not have to refuses to divorce reason from the function as the commodity, or as the motivations and desires which lie at sacrifice on which sociality is built. its foundation. And Irigaray asks Instructions for use of Irigaray what are the conditions for a 'female would include the message: Do not imaginary' that is not simply incor consume or devour. For symbolic porated back into the male imagin exchange only.' (p. 52) Much the ary as its 'other'? The morphology of same might, I think, be said about the female body to which she appeals Whitford's own book. There is a great in an attempt to construct the idea of deal in the book that I have not a 'female imaginary' should not be discussed in this review, and much of seen as a mere description of the Whitford's discussion of Irigaray is female body. Rather, it is an attempt textually detailed and, at times, to offer a new symbolic mediation of quite dense. But what I think it what a 'female imaginary' might be achieves overall, quite excellently, is like, and to counterpose this to the a new 'map' of much of Irigaray's symbolic mediations of the male work that readers will be able to use body and of male sexuality which both to enter for themselves the have often been a subtext of philo 'map' of Western philosophy that sophical theories.

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