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Key Concepts in Feminist Theory and Research
This original and engaging text explores the core concepts in feminist theory. This up-to-date text addresses the implications of postmodernism and post-structuralism for feminist theorizing. It identifies the challenges of this through the development of ′conceptual literacy′. Introducing conceptual literacy as a pedagogic task, this text facilitates students′ understanding of, for - The range and lack of fixity of conceptualizations and meanings of key terms; - The significance of theoretical framework for conceptualization of key terms; - The changing nature of language and the reframing of key terms in research (eg the recent shift from equality to social justice); The text explores these issues through six key concepts in feminist equality; difference; choice; care; time; and experience. Each chapter considers the varied ways in which these terms have been conceptualised and the feminist debates about these concepts. Each chapter includes case studies to illustrate the application of these concepts in feminist empirical research, and provides a guide to further reading. This text will be an invaluable tool for students taking courses in feminist theory and research methods, and students across the social sciences who are taking courses concerned with issues of gender.
- GenresFeminism
222 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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September 11, 2013
Aptly titled, this book reviews six key concepts in feminist theory and research from a postmodern/post-structural perspective – the concepts of Equality, Difference, Choice, Care, Time and Experience. Positing multiple truths based on the classic postmodern technique of examining and holding true and valid the multiple positions they come from, along with relevant case studies to back her concepts, Hughes exhorts for the deconstruction of these positionings to critique essentialist traditions of criticism and evolve a more comprehensive methodology to seek how truths are produced from different discourses than insist on a single essentialist view to ‘explain’ and ‘remedy’ one’s field – in this case, feminism.
Rather than privileging fixed notions of what constitutes reality, it encourages opening up of gaps in constructed realities that block perspectives from other positionings. Hughes applies Derridean methods of deconstruction to posit ruptures in feminist theory and universalist/masculine theory to reveal how binaried thinking, from either positioning is highly flawed.
Postmodern feminism is an approach to feminist theory that incorporates postmodern and post-structuralist theory, and thus sees itself as moving beyond the modernist polarities of liberal feminism and radical feminism.
Using Althusserian ideas of interpellation and Gramscian idea of hegemony, Hughes explores the feminist movement and its concepts as they have developed over the years, pointing out flaws imminent in each, positing how a postmodern approach would, though not resolve the issues, but would render a more meaningful analysis of not only what has been already done, but also chart a possible path on which to tread with least injustice to any vantage point.
The chapter dealing with Equality explores the different meanings of equality as produced by the feminist and humanist body of knowledge, exploring the individual right-based arguments put forth by liberalists that have come under critique for normalizing masculinity in their quest for equality between men and women. The distinction between the two feminist approaches – women being “equal but different” from men and women being “equal and different” from men – takes up a substantial part to elucidate the positioning of a postmodern narrative – and these notions of “equality” and “difference” give rise to the second concept dealt in the next chapter – Difference.
The next chapter explores the idea of Difference – three conceptualizations of it are explored – different-but-equal and identity differences, post-structural and postmodern difference, and postcolonial and sexual difference. However, these do not stand in exclusion of each other – they overlap in works of individual theorists, but act as main concepts regularly visited by in discourses of feminism. These concepts prove aptly that while some discourses which assume to “explain” patriarchal positions in society as “universalizing experiences”, they ignore different positionings from which these “experiences” cease to be universal – the discourse of a White, middle-class, American woman would differ significantly from the experiences of a Black, impoverished, American woman, who again cannot speak for a middle-class Korean woman – a heterosexual woman cannot speak for a homosexual or bisexual woman – a native African cannot speak for an immigrant African. And while the discourse of being different from men does posit the risk of being labelled unequal and thus unfit for equal treatment, it is an important weapon to argue for equality on the grounds of difference – rather than equality, the demand for social justice.
The following chapter takes up the concept of Choice – an important word for feminists, and a potential chasm in feminist discourse. Althusser and Gramsci, along with Foucault seem especially relevant here. Contrary to the Rationalist expectations explaining the phenomenon of choosing, Hughes exposes how Choice for men is not the same for women – autonomy, which is the underpinning of most explanations of choice, ceases to be an agent in the case of women, where structuralist factors play an important role in the choices they make – hegemony, in the sense that women are already interpellated to make certain choices in order to be considered rational, normal beings underlines that women are not autonomous beings, less so their choices.
The next concept Care opens up a plethora of issues, including economic ones, and much debated on by Marxist feminists. The dichotomy between men’s cares as economically productive, hence highly valued and crucial, contrasted with women’s care as non-productive, low-value, unimportant work that constitutes women’s “nature”, crippling women from getting out of their responsibility to care is dealt with.
The next chapter on Time challenges, through feminist concerns, the universally accepted concept of Time as linear to understand how the cyclical nature of time reflects more accurately given the present nature of women’s lives. While time exists commonly as chronological for most of us, for women, time moves in a different fashion, thus underlining the essentialist nature of most discourse on Time.
The following chapter deals with the concept of Experience – the word is perhaps the most crucial site of political struggle over meaning, since it involves personal, psychic and emotional investments on the part of the individual. Long divided over the term, theorists have constituted Experience either as an autonomous choice on the part of the individual, or as a social construction to which the individual is always, already interpellated. The assumption of Truth being uncovered through Experience has led to it become a ground for contestations of what consists of experience, and eventually, the truth. Women’s movement, or feminism has been built on the basis of Experience of women as an affiliation, as a community – it is thus difficult to dismantle “women’s experience”, since it draws us into the realm of the conflict between “objectivity” and “subjectivity” in experience. Standpoint theory has attempted to deconstruct reality as constructed by singular experiences and shown how it is both essential and at the same time impossible to determine what consists of experience and therefore, truth.
Thus, through a postmodernist exploration of these important concepts that form the crux of feminist debates, Hughes attempts to understand the feminist perception from vantage points rather than seeking an absolutist, essentialist explanation and solution for the feminine problem. The book is more important as a postmodernist approach to the various branches of feminism than espousing a particular brand of feminism itself. And is even more excellent as a pedagogical tool.
A must-read for a critical analysis of feminism as an ideological movement.
Rather than privileging fixed notions of what constitutes reality, it encourages opening up of gaps in constructed realities that block perspectives from other positionings. Hughes applies Derridean methods of deconstruction to posit ruptures in feminist theory and universalist/masculine theory to reveal how binaried thinking, from either positioning is highly flawed.
Postmodern feminism is an approach to feminist theory that incorporates postmodern and post-structuralist theory, and thus sees itself as moving beyond the modernist polarities of liberal feminism and radical feminism.
Using Althusserian ideas of interpellation and Gramscian idea of hegemony, Hughes explores the feminist movement and its concepts as they have developed over the years, pointing out flaws imminent in each, positing how a postmodern approach would, though not resolve the issues, but would render a more meaningful analysis of not only what has been already done, but also chart a possible path on which to tread with least injustice to any vantage point.
The chapter dealing with Equality explores the different meanings of equality as produced by the feminist and humanist body of knowledge, exploring the individual right-based arguments put forth by liberalists that have come under critique for normalizing masculinity in their quest for equality between men and women. The distinction between the two feminist approaches – women being “equal but different” from men and women being “equal and different” from men – takes up a substantial part to elucidate the positioning of a postmodern narrative – and these notions of “equality” and “difference” give rise to the second concept dealt in the next chapter – Difference.
The next chapter explores the idea of Difference – three conceptualizations of it are explored – different-but-equal and identity differences, post-structural and postmodern difference, and postcolonial and sexual difference. However, these do not stand in exclusion of each other – they overlap in works of individual theorists, but act as main concepts regularly visited by in discourses of feminism. These concepts prove aptly that while some discourses which assume to “explain” patriarchal positions in society as “universalizing experiences”, they ignore different positionings from which these “experiences” cease to be universal – the discourse of a White, middle-class, American woman would differ significantly from the experiences of a Black, impoverished, American woman, who again cannot speak for a middle-class Korean woman – a heterosexual woman cannot speak for a homosexual or bisexual woman – a native African cannot speak for an immigrant African. And while the discourse of being different from men does posit the risk of being labelled unequal and thus unfit for equal treatment, it is an important weapon to argue for equality on the grounds of difference – rather than equality, the demand for social justice.
The following chapter takes up the concept of Choice – an important word for feminists, and a potential chasm in feminist discourse. Althusser and Gramsci, along with Foucault seem especially relevant here. Contrary to the Rationalist expectations explaining the phenomenon of choosing, Hughes exposes how Choice for men is not the same for women – autonomy, which is the underpinning of most explanations of choice, ceases to be an agent in the case of women, where structuralist factors play an important role in the choices they make – hegemony, in the sense that women are already interpellated to make certain choices in order to be considered rational, normal beings underlines that women are not autonomous beings, less so their choices.
The next concept Care opens up a plethora of issues, including economic ones, and much debated on by Marxist feminists. The dichotomy between men’s cares as economically productive, hence highly valued and crucial, contrasted with women’s care as non-productive, low-value, unimportant work that constitutes women’s “nature”, crippling women from getting out of their responsibility to care is dealt with.
The next chapter on Time challenges, through feminist concerns, the universally accepted concept of Time as linear to understand how the cyclical nature of time reflects more accurately given the present nature of women’s lives. While time exists commonly as chronological for most of us, for women, time moves in a different fashion, thus underlining the essentialist nature of most discourse on Time.
The following chapter deals with the concept of Experience – the word is perhaps the most crucial site of political struggle over meaning, since it involves personal, psychic and emotional investments on the part of the individual. Long divided over the term, theorists have constituted Experience either as an autonomous choice on the part of the individual, or as a social construction to which the individual is always, already interpellated. The assumption of Truth being uncovered through Experience has led to it become a ground for contestations of what consists of experience, and eventually, the truth. Women’s movement, or feminism has been built on the basis of Experience of women as an affiliation, as a community – it is thus difficult to dismantle “women’s experience”, since it draws us into the realm of the conflict between “objectivity” and “subjectivity” in experience. Standpoint theory has attempted to deconstruct reality as constructed by singular experiences and shown how it is both essential and at the same time impossible to determine what consists of experience and therefore, truth.
Thus, through a postmodernist exploration of these important concepts that form the crux of feminist debates, Hughes attempts to understand the feminist perception from vantage points rather than seeking an absolutist, essentialist explanation and solution for the feminine problem. The book is more important as a postmodernist approach to the various branches of feminism than espousing a particular brand of feminism itself. And is even more excellent as a pedagogical tool.
A must-read for a critical analysis of feminism as an ideological movement.
July 20, 2022
A brilliant and very accessible read. Succint and clearly discusses some very important theories through different themes such as experience, care, and time.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews