The Question of ‘Nature’: What has Social Constructionism to offer Feminist Theory?

The question of ‘nature’ is of particular importance for feminist theorizing as feminists have long come to realise that it is often upon this ‘concept’ that the giveness of sexual differences and, consequently, the inferiority of ‘women’, is assumed1. It is against biological determinism that feminists have developed their most powerful theories and critiques of dominant categorisations of ‘women’ (see, for example, de Beauvoir, 19892 ; Rich, 1981). Particularly, both ‘second wave feminists’ generally, and eco-feminists specifically, tended to criticise dominant conceptualisations of women as ‘naturally’ inferior and assert the political importance of reclaiming ‘nature’, ‘the natural’ and ‘the feminine’ from the grip of exploitative scientific patriarchalism (in Kemp and Squires, 1997: 469). However, whereas the question of nature remains extremely important to today’s feminists, post-structuralist feminists have since re-evaluated the latter manoeuvre arguing that it is inadequate, not even desirable, insofar as, paradoxically, it ends up reinforcing exactly these constructed differences between ‘men’ and ‘women’, ‘culture’ and ‘nature’, which they refuse on the basis of their sexualising, racialising and universalising effects (see Butler, 1993; Alcoff in Tong and Tuana, 1995; Flax in Nicholson, 1990). Instead, they are more concerned with problematising ‘nature’ by asserting the social and cultural constructedness of the category ‘women’. According to post-structural feminists, it is only by acknowledging the constructedness of ‘nature’, consequently of ‘women’ (and ‘men’), that ‘spaces for more plural forms of self-identification’ can be created (in Kemp and Squires, 1997: 469)

The Third Wave\u27s Break from Feminism

Janet Halley proves that third-wave feminism is wrong - wrongly described, that is. Young feminists in the United States tout a third wave of feminism that is hip, ironic and playful - the supposed opposite of the dour and strident second wave of 1970\u27s feminism. Goodbye frumpy sandals; hello sexy fishnets, according to third-wave feminism. Initially young women themselves (and now writers and scholars) embraced a pervasive wave metaphor to convey the belief that differences within feminism are generational. Youth crashes against (and ultimately overtakes) its elders. But rifts within feminism cannot be so neatly explained. The story is more complicated than third-wave vs. second-wave, young vs. old, fertile vs. menopausal. The wave metaphor obscures a more complicated story of the power of labels. Feminism is such mighty label that third-wave feminists want to remake it and Janet Halley wants to take a break from it. In spite of their different vocabulary, though, third-wave feminists and Janet Halley share similar goals and methods. Feminism has no use as a label - a theory, even - unless it yields to the complex realities of human experience. This essay explores the goals that third-wave feminists and Janet Halley share. They have similar purposes and methodologies, but they differ in the vocabulary they use to describe their goals. Third-wave feminists embrace the feminist label when Halley wants to leave it aside, at least temporarily. The core idea of both third-wave feminism and Janet Halley\u27s Split Decisions is a departure from a certain kind of feminism - a feminism does not account in a meaningful way for some women\u27s desires for sex, subordination and (sometimes) sex that is subordinating. Third-wave feminists and Janet Halley and third-wave feminists share an affection for the interstitial, the spaces between theory and experience. That space remains unexplored and messy - with no neat division between waves or breaks to be made

Little (White) Women: Locating Whiteness in (De)constructions of the American Female from Alcott to Split Britches

In 1988, the feminist/lesbian performance group Split Britches performed a deconstruction of Louisa May Alcott’s canonical Little Women. Their play, Little Women, the Tragedy (LWTT) highlighted the division within the feminist movement at the time over pornography, and called into question the norms of morality and feminine virtue reflected in and by Alcott’s classic ‘American girls’ novel.’ The play, however, illustrates a problematic construction of feminist/lesbian identity as outside of racial discourse. This paper argues that feminist performances which aim to deconstruct gender and sexuality should also be examined in terms of racialization; the common omission of whiteness as a category of identification can undermine the political goals of feminists of colour and white feminists alike. I briefly describe how Little Women constructs the American female as moral, heterosexual and of ‘white’ European descent. The paper then illustrates how LWTT seems to ignore the actors’/characters’ positions as belonging to the racial majority. This piece’s ability to expose oppressive systems of identity construction relies on the whiteness of the actors’ bodies and characterizations. This reliance indicates a critical gap between how feminists of colour and white feminists approached the performance of sexuality and morality during the 1980s, revealing historical and social inequities between groups of women

Jekyll and Hyde: men's constructions of feminism and feminists

Research and commentary on men's responses to feminism has demonstrated the range of ways in which men have mobilised both against and for feminist principles. This paper argues that further analyses of men's responses require a sophisticated theory of discourse acknowledging the fragmented and contradictory nature of representation. A corpus of men's talk on feminism and feminists was studied to identify the pervasive patterns in men's accounting and regularities in rhetorical organisation. Material from two samples of men was included: a sample of white middle-class 17-18 year old school students and a sample of 60 interviews with a more diverse sample of older men aged 20 to 64. Two interpretative repertoires of feminism and feminists were identified. These set up a 'Jekyll and Hyde' binary and positioned feminism along with feminists very differently as reasonable versus extreme and monstrous. Both repertoires tended to be deployed together and the paper explores the ideological and interactional consequences of typical deployments along with the identity work accomplished by the men as they positioned themselves in relation to these

Feminism and the Critique of Violence: negotiating feminist political agency

The acute sensitivity of feminism to violence, in its many different forms and contexts, makes it a particularly interesting case for the examination of the relationship between politics and violence in theory and practice. Our purpose in this paper is not to adjudicate the normative question of whether feminism implies a commitment to pacifism or to the use of non-violence. Rather, we are interested in examining how the relation between feminist politics and violence is construed as feminists struggle to develop a politics in which opposition to patriarchal violence is central. We begin with the feminist critique of violence, and move to examine how particular articulations of that critique shape and are shaped by practices of feminist political agency in specific contestation over the goals and strategies of feminism. We use the well-known case of feminist debates over the Greenham Common Peace Camp in the UK in the 1980s to demonstrate how negotiating women's political agency in relation to opposition to male violence poses problems, both for feminists who embrace non-violence and prioritize the opposition to war, and for feminists who are suspicious of non-violence and of the association of feminism with peace activism. In both cases, the debates over Greenham demonstrate the fundamentally political character of the ways in which the relation and distinction between violence and politics are conceptually and practically negotiated

In Defense of Feminists Who Like Fashion

I’m sitting on the downtown R train one night in Manhattan, a copy of Vogue resting on my crossed legs. It is late and I am clearly unwinding peacefully as I thumb through page after glamorous page of my magazine. The train stops at Prince Street and there’s the usual flux of people in and out. Those left inside settle as the train pulls out of the station. “Ugh. Fashion is stupid,” remarks one young man to another, both of whom are sitting diagonally from me and well within earshot. He’s watching me ignore him as I continue enjoying my reading material. [excerpt

Academic Feminists Analyses of Female Celebrities from the 1980s to Today

This thesis examines the history of academic feminists and their changing debates over race, class, sexism, and sexual preference from the 1980s to the present. In the 1980s, white feminists tended to focus on sexism in the workplace and class discrimination, while black feminists focused instead on the racism and classism that black women faced both inside and outside of academia. More recently, millennial feminists, in both third- and fourth-wave feminism, have continued to focus on racial discrimination within feminism (and broader society) while also examining women’s sexual preferences. However, they have stopped focusing on sexism in the workplace and class discrimination. In this thesis, Alice Kessler-Harris and Rosalind Rosenberg represent the perspectives of 1980s white feminists, while Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Davis, bell hooks, and others represented the perspectives of 1980s black feminists. Ashanka Kumar, Jacqueline Warwick, Audra Gaugler, Joyce E. Marshall, and Janell Hobson represent the perspectives of millennial feminists. Recently, millennial feminists have analyzed the feminism of celebrities such as Madonna, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and Diana Ross. There are multiple purposes to this study. As described above, the first is to describe how white and black feminists from the 1980s to the present analyzed race, class, sexism, and sexual preference. The second is to show the methods in the public sphere through which feminists have raised and analyzed issues of concern. In the 1980s academic feminists wrote print books and magazines and newspaper articles; millennial feminists have written more on social media platforms and are more concerned with commenting on celebrities. This thesis emphasizes the growing importance of celebrity, alongside social media, in transmitting feminists’ messages. The final purpose of this thesis is to highlight that race is the only issue that both black feminists in the 1980s and millennial feminists have given equal consideration. However, this thesis also cautions millennial feminists not to lose sight of the continued importance of tackling class and workplace discrimination

Women & Tolkien: Amazons, Valkyries, Feminists, and Slashers

This paper reports on an early pilot project that asks women who self identify as readers or fans of Tolkien\u27s work and/or teachers who have taught Tolkien\u27s work, and/or scholars who have published on Tolkien\u27s work to answer a few open-ended questions about their reasons for enjoying his work. By women, I mean anybody who identifies as a woman. By Tolkien\u27s work, I mean any of his published novels, stories, poems, or academic essays. The study arises from the question that is often asked of fans of Tolkien\u27s work: why do women so enjoy it, given the relatively minor narrative roles women play