Title: Moving From Language to Politics: Contextualizing Deconstructive Feminism in Relation to Women of Color Feminism
Abstract:This paper contextualizes the emergence of deconstructive feminism within the American context from the mid 70s to the early 90s in relation to a contemporaneous feminist movement, women of color femi...This paper contextualizes the emergence of deconstructive feminism within the American context from the mid 70s to the early 90s in relation to a contemporaneous feminist movement, women of color feminism. While these two sets of literature share many similar interests they failed to engage one another. By charting this bit of intellectual history within feminist theory this papers aims to explain this oversight on the part of deconstructive feminism (which lagged behind women of color feminism by about a half decade) and ultimately to offer an alternative to the negative legacy of deconstructive feminism, which I understand to be a propensity among contemporary authors to avoid theoretical and political foundations to the point of eschewing questions of practical feminist politics and leaving us only with feminist coalitions united by shared ethical opposed to political commitments. By juxtaposing first French feminist theory (the precursor to deconstructive feminism) in the 70s with early women of color feminist theory from the late 60s and 70s and then deconstructive feminist theory in the American context (from 1982 through the early 90s) with women of color feminist theory of the same period, this paper reveals a number of striking convergences and divergences between these two sets of literature. Organized around an examination of the three defining theoretical commitments of deconstructive feminism – (1) its commitment to language and specifically to understanding power, oppression, meaning construction and even “being” linguistically; (2) its commitment to deconstructing the category “woman”; and (3) its commitment to redefining the relationship between theory and politics in non-foundational terms – this paper argues that women of color feminism has something valuable to teach contemporary authors on each point. Ultimately, this paper will argue that whereas deconstructive feminists allow their theoretical commitment to language – and to understanding everything linguistically – guide and, I argue, limit their politics, women of color feminism insists that their political commitments guide their particular interest in language and in destabilizing the category woman. Whereas deconstructive feminism has often led to political quietism, women of color feminism foregrounds practical forms of feminist political engagement. By turning to women of color, this paper contends, contemporary feminists may discover a way to both make us of language and destabilize “woman” without forsaking practical feminist politics.Read More
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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