POSTMODERN THEORY AND THE SUBIECï OF FEMNSM by Natalie Kristina Baydack A thesis submitted to the Department of Political Studies in conformity with the requirernents of the Degree of Master of Arts Queen's University Kingston. Ontario, Canada April 1998 copyright O Nataiie Kristina Baydack, 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services semices bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the excIusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, disûibute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son pemission. autorisation. This thesis examines the relevance and utility of postmodern perspectives on subjectivity to feminist theory. In feminist theory today there is widespread agreement that the univenal humanist su bject, dong with dl pnnciples of integrity . autonomous selfhood and continuous identity over time, are nothing more substantial than discursive products of repressive patriarchal regimes. and so can have no relevance to feminism. This thesis argues, to the contrary, that feminist theory cm only proceed from a standpoint informed by humanist principles and values. Whereas the posmodem critique of the universal, transcendental subject of hurnanism is certainly warranted, it is a senous mistake to conclude, as many feminists have. that al1 appeals to abiding identity and subjective autonomy are therefore illegitimate. The thesis considers exemplary positions within three main strands of postmodem feminist theory. It concludes that Uisofar as both post-gender theory and sexual difference theory rely on an explicitly post-structuralist framework, and in particula. on a highly problematic, anti-realist conception of language as exclusionary structure, the y cannot constitute a suitable theoretical basis for feminism. On the one hand. post-structuralist feminist theory deprives feminism of its epistemological ground by insisting on the wholly linguistic, and therefore illusory, character of identity. On the other, it assirnilates political agency to the same linguistic structures which produce identity, and in the process elhinates any meaningful conception of women as active agents of change. Materialist feminism, by contrast, departs from the post-smicturalist totalization of language toward a more useful account of subject formation and resistance. Materialist feminism theorires a dialectical relationship between subjects and their world, thus connecting the identity "women" to concrete women as real, histoncal beings. and retaining for feminism its epistemological ground. Furthermore, by insisting that subjects constantly renegotiate the forces of construction even as they are constmcted by them, materialist feminism allows subjects some measure of subjective autonomy and reflexive critique. The thesis concludes, therefore, that feminist theory and politics can only coherently proceed on the basis of a materialist outlook which refuses to sever itself completely from the humanist tradition. The wnting of a Master's thesis is frequently a long and taxing project. and the present effon is no exception. I would like therefore to thank those people whose various contributions have been indispensable to its successful completion. I am most grateful to my supervisor. Eleanor MacDonald, whose trenchant criticisms and comments throughout the writing process have helped me to refine and clarify my position. Without her invaluable support this thesis would have been a very different one indeed. I would also like to thank the members of my defence board, including Sue Hendler, Christine Overall. Phi1 Goldrnan, and Margaret Littie, for their many insightful questions and suggestions, as well as my fellow gaduate students at Queen's. particularly Greg Millard and Mike Krywy, for the countless informal but stimulating conversations which forced me to clariQ my arguments. Table of Contents Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 Chapter One Post-Gender Theory ....................................................................... -9 Chapter Two Sexual Difference Theory ................................................................. 33 Chapter Three Materialist Feminism ......................................................................58 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 71 Bibliography .........................................................................................76 Vitae ...................................................................................................8 1 Introduction It has become increasingly evident, from recent discussions in philosophy and political theory, that not only has the universal subject of humanist discourse suffered an irreversible collapse. but that humanist rhetoric itself is languishing under the weight of a concerted anack against its most fundamental values and presuppositions. It seems to me - and here I corne out very much opposed to present trends - that feminists should not embrace these developments unconditionally. To be sure, the latter has itself made significant contributions to the demise of the humanist subject. nie supposedly universal subject of humanism. feminist theory has for some tirne insisted, is not universal at dl. Quite the contrary. it is a specifically male subject attempting to pass itself off as representative of a general humanity. But even as earlier feminists denounced the false universalism of the humanist subject. their critique was motivated by an essentially hrimonisr belief in the equality of al1 human beings. Indeed, feminist demands for the recognition of a subject "women" were prernised on the assumption that women were pan of a comrnon humanity, al1 of whose members, secondary differences and particular circumstances notwithstanding, were equally deserving of dignity and respect. In recent years, however. postmodem perspectives on subjectivity have thrown the notion of a common humanity irseif under suspicion. In keeping with this development, a substantial body of feminist theory has gone well beyond the original argument for women's inclusion in a general subject to expose the "maleness" of the humanist enterpise as such. The very subject position to which earlier feminists aspired is now widely judged always to bear the imprint of an exclusionary and repressive paaiarchal regime. Indeed, the discovery that the rational, autonomous subject of hurnanism is nothing more substantial than the product of patriarchal power relations has been largely responsible for its demise. The humanist subject - a subject which, according to its postmodern critics, invariably stands outside culture and history and surveys the world from some neuaal and transcendental perspective - is really nothing but a cultural artifact. discursive product or linguistic effect.' The notion that there is something about us that evades the reach of power. that there is something called a "self' whose autonomy and capacity for reflexive critique are not, in the end, sirnply the transient effects of power relations, is now regarded as hopelessly naive, if not in fact insidious. For such appeals to autonomy and reason. so the argument goes, depend on a pemicious "rnetaphysics of presence" whose deconstmction has been energeticaily caried out by a formidable series of anti-Enlightenment thinkers beginning with Nietzsche and continuing through Lacan, Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze. These thinkers have demonstrated that the notion of a self- identical being with a stable existence pnor to culture and language is the merest of illusions. and have taken this insight as their cue to dispense with ail principles of integrity. autonomous selfhood. and continuous identity over tirne. Whereas humanist thinkers. therefore, shared a profound faith in a general humanity whose members were united. despite their differences. in their status as equal and autonomous beings. postmodem perspectives on the "constructed subject" and the "tyranny of identity" unfailingly direct Our attention to the "difference" which that universal category forecloses. Feminist theory. as 1 have already said, has not been immune to this postmodem assault on the Enlightenment legacy. A body of postmodem feminist theory has emerged which. in the most general ternis. is concerned to expose the power relationships which underlie Our seerningly natural systems of representation; to have done with metaphysical substance by reconceptualizing subjectivity as discursive product or linguistic effect: to stress the limitations of change at the material level and correspondingly. the need for discursive, linguistic. or "syrnbolic" transformation; and to promote "difference" at the I~heposunodem