In Praise of Difference: The Emergence of a Global Feminism

NWSA Journal, 2001

As it is clearly known that feminism started differently and began to change year after year, and women and their rights in our time are different from how things used to be; but why women come to be changed? How? What are those changes until now? And what is the difference between feminists and gender equality seekers?

The social realities of the developed and the under developed world are different and so is the nature and reality of feminism within them. The differences in communal culture, social hierarchy and economic structures are responsible for such variations. The growth of a woman within a social environment, her thought process, and the way her familial traditions and beliefs mould her cultural and mental outlook are all to be considered. These factors vary so much owing to the nation, culture and community that the nature and reality of feminism in each space becomes distinct from one another. Generalizing these complexities into a few simplistic structures, therefore, creates gaping discrepancies in such studies. Economic independence alone cannot ensure a woman's liberty and autonomy. The realities of women in the Western world and those of the East are different and thus are the processes through which feminism manifests itself in these societies. But those who ignore these facts in order to propose themselves as the spokes-people for feminism internationally, often make this mistake. The differences between the aspirations, beliefs, expectations and demands of European or American women are drastically different from those of the women of the third world. Thus, international feminism is an elusive concept.

Ecminism Insurgent: Radicalizing C ritique in the Era o f Social D em ocracy * I am grateful to Jo h n Brenkm an, T h o m a s M cC a rth y, C a ro le Patem an and M artin Sch w ab for helpful com m ents and criticism ; to Dee M arq u ez and M arin a Rosiene for crackerjack w ord processing; and to the Stanford H um anities Center for research support. 1 Karl M arx, " Letter to A . R u g e , Septem ber 1843," in K arl M a rx : Early Writings, trans. R o d n e y Livingstone and G regor Benton, N e w York: Vintage Books, 1975, 209. 20 FEMINISM INSURGENT 2 Jiirg en H ab erm as, T h e T heory o f C om m unicative A ction, Vol. I: R eason and the R a tio n aliza tio n o f Society, trans. T h o m a s M cC a rth y, B o ston: B e aco n Press, 1984. H ereafter, T C A I. Ju rg e n H aberm as, T heorie des kom m unikativen Handelns, Vol. II: Z u r K ritik der fu nktion alistischen Vernunft, Frankfurt am M ain : Suhrkam p Verlag, 19 8 1. H ereafter T C A II. I shall also draw on som e oth er writings b y H aberm as, especially Legitim ation C risis, trans. T h o m a s M cC arth y, B oston: B e aco n Press, 19 75: " Introduction," in O bservations on " T h e S p iritu al Situation o f the A g e " : Contem porary G erm an Perspectives, ed. Ju rg e n H aberm as, trans. A n d re w Bu ch w alter, C am b rid ge, M A : M I T Press, 19 8 4 ; and " A R e p ly to m y C ritics," in H aberm as: Critical Debates, ed. D a vid H e ld and Jo h n B. T h o m p so n , C a m b rid ge , M A : M I T Press, 19 8 2. I shall draw likewise on tw o helpful overview s o f this m aterial: T h o m a s M cC arth y, " Translators Introduction," in H aberm as, T C A I, v -x x x v ii; and Jo h n B. Th o m p so n , " R atio n a lity and Social Rationalisation: A n Assessm ent o f H aberm as's T h e o r y o f C o m m u n ica tiv e A ctio n ," Sociology 1 7 :2 , 19 8 3, 2 7 8 -9 4 . Habermas, I am trying to link structural (in the sense o f objectivating) and interpretive approaches to the study o f societies. Unlike him, however, I do not do this by dividing society into two components, " system" and " lifeworld." See this section below and especially note 14. 1 7 Pam ela Fishm an, " Interaction: T h e W o rk W o m en D o ," Social Problems 25 :4 , 1978, 397-4 06 . 18 N a n c y H enley, B o d y Politics, E n g le w o o d Cliffs, N J: Pren tice-H all, 1977-2 7 Ibid., 8. 28 Judith H icks Stiehm , " T h e Protected, the Protector, the Defender," in Women and M e n ' s Wars, ed. Judith Hicks Stiehm , N e w York: Pergamon Press, 1983. 29 Pateman, " T h e Personal and the Political " 10. 42 C f. Zillah Eisenstein, The Radical Future o f Liberal Feminism , Boston: Northeastern U niversity Press, 198 1, especially Chapter 9. W h at follows has some affinities with the perspective o f Ernesto Laclau and Chantal M ouffe in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, N e w York: Verso, 1985. * I am grateful for helpful com m ents from Sandra Bartky, Lin da G o rd o n , Paul M attick , Jr ., Frank M ich elm an , M a rth a M inow , Linda N ich o lso n , and Iris Young. T h e M a r y Ingraham Bunting Institute o f R adcliffe C o llege provided generous research support and a utopian w o rk in g situation. i Foucault, D iscipline and Punish: The Birth o f the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, N e w York: Vintage, 1979, 26. 7 Ifthe previous point was Bakhtinian, this one could be considered Bourdieusian. There is probably no contem porary social theorist w h o has worked more fruitfully than Bourdieu at understanding cultural contestation in relation to societal inequality. See his Outline o f a Theory o f Practice, trans. Richard N ice, Cam bridge: Cam bridge University Press, 1977, and Distinction: A Social Critique o f the Judgm ent o f Pure Taste, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. For an account o f Bourdieu s enduring relevance, see N an cy Fraser, " Bourdieu: U n e reflexion pour l'ere postindustrielle," L e monde, January 24, 20 12. Accessible at lemonde.fr. 8 Here the model aims to m arry Bakhtin with Bourdieu. 9 I owe this formulation to Paul M attick, Jr. For a thoughtful discussion o f the * N an cy Fraser is grateful for research support from the C en ter for Urban Affairs, N orthwestern University; the N e w b e r ry Library/N ational End ow m ent for the Humanities; and the A m erican C o u

European Journal of Womens Studies, 2009

This article argues that Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex continues to teach academic feminism why difference feminism holds productive and generative potential for feminists and why equality feminism has been consistently subject to criticism since the second wave of feminism. Using Hegel's master-slave dialectic as a lens to interpret subjectivity in The Second Sex, this text reveals an aspect of equality feminism that relies upon masculine subjectivity, a subjectivity that inherently constitutes otherness. This reliance on masculine subjectivity is anathema to difference feminism because the otherness inherently constituted by such subjectivity simultaneously and paradoxically constitutes women's ongoing subordination. In assuming equality with men by adopting masculine subjectivity, women are not immune to constituting (other) women as other. Difference feminisms, on the other hand, start from where women are as they choose to see themselves socially, economically, racially, sexually. The Second Sex reveals that difference feminisms imagine freedom in order to identify the difference that would empower women, not strictly towards sex equality with a stable referent (such as the contested referent of the white, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual woman or man), but towards emancipatory projects that make a difference for women themselves. The Second Sex portends that such imagined freedom has not been actualized, thus the present remains circumscribed by power that subordinates the difference(s) in question. When read alongside The Second Sex, the tension between equality and difference feminisms can still be read as feminisms that coexist with one another, each with their limitations, each with productive potential and cautionary rejoinders.

2008

Pakistaniaat, 2013

2003

2nd International Marxist-Feminist Conference, Vienna, 2016

Feminist struggle has often oriented around the problematic of unity and separation, the theoretical framing of which is typically expressed through the binary of a bad universalism and the necessity of insisting upon difference. This paper will argue that Marxist-Feminism is especially apt to think through this problematic. It will survey vectors of difference and universalism in the history of the feminist movement, focusing particularly on the tension between autonomy and separatism, as it played out in the divergent paths of feminisms and tracing the binds between affirmation and negation of difference contra the bad universal of formal equality. Totality and universalism have disparate political-philosophical lineages, yet have strategic affinity in that both invoke the 'whole'. And it is in this that the Marxist-Feminist framework is the most compelling theoretical position and tool of critical analysis.