Feminism and Post Modernity

From Derrida's deconstruction to Baudrillard's theory of seduction, most of the so-called post-modern philosophical thoughts (gedachte) use, as one of their most common strategies, the 'deconstructive' power of the feminine. Most post-modern philosophers share the idea that the way woman is defined in the basic (meta)discourses of modernity bears in itself the power to overcome the same discourse that defines it. Working mostly on the boundary terrain of philosophy and literature, these thinkers have tried to show how the accentuated development of femininity in these discourses can bring down the basic dichotomies upon which they are founded.
Postmodern philosophers share with feminist philosophers the image of an intrinsic male-bias in most of the basic (meta) discourses of modernity as it is currently experienced. Furthermore, much of the beliefs surrounding this condition of philosophy (that the traditional modern discourses tend to hierarchize dichotomies (the male/female among them), that the prevailing elements of these dichotomies correspond to the male part of the dichotomy, etc.) are also common believes. However, the way they interpret this condition is, by far, not the same. It is not just the fact that feminists call it Patriarchy while deconstructivists call it Falocentrism, or the fact that most post-modern philosophers are men, while most feminist philosophers are women. There is much more behind it. Even since post-modern philosophy and feminist philosophy share some theoretical background (Heidegger, Foucault, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Empiricism, Pragmatism, Nihilism, etc.), there seems to be a strong mutual exclusion. For most post-modern thinkers, feminist philosophy is still too modern, it belongs to the traditional metaphysics of presence. For most extreme post-modernists, its debt to romanticism and liberalism can not be forgiven. For some feminists, on the other hand, post-modern thought is still too male-biased and lacks the political consciousness to escape the same deconstructing strategies which it embraces. Their theories never reach beyond the texts, so they are mostly practically sterile. Since the phenomena is too complex to be deal completely in this essay, I am going to focus in the latter problem: what is the positions of feminists regarding postmodern philosophy.

1. What is the difference?
There can be seen two easy recognizable stages in the development of postmodern philosophy so far. These may not be actual historic stages defining different epochs in postmodern thinking, but different moments in the philosophical evolution of postmodernity as a philosophical issue. In one first moment, properly called 'postmodern', the work of these thinkers focused on a diagnosis of the current state of culture, and a critique of the underlying 'meta-discourses' which propitiated it. Texts like Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition and Baudrillard's Simulations are exemplary of this kind of postmodern work. However, pretty soon postmodernity faced the need of a more positive enterprise which went beyond mere diagnosis and did not define itself in (negative) relation to a traditional 'modernity'. Postmodern thinkers complemented the destructive and nihilist dimension of their work by giving positive proposals of new alternatives in Philosophy. This second propositive stage is commonly known as '"Thought of Difference". Since the publication of Derrida's article La differánce in TelQuel, in 1968 the notion moved to occupy the central position in postmodern philosophy. Why? Because It worked well as a bond between the two dimensions of postmodern thinking. On one hand, it was a very handy (non)concept for the diagnosis of post-industrial societies and, on the other hand, it opened up a whole variety of opportunities for new theory to be explored. The notion of difference, of course, was not new. It had been on the western theoretical agenda for over a century. Since Freud and Nietzche it had emerged as one of the main vehicles of critique of metaphysics. From the work of Heidegger, postmodern philosophers took awareness of the imbalance in the identity/difference dichotomy, and from the work of Foucault, they took awareness of its political dimension.
Since the beginning of their enterprise, postmodern philosophers put themselves in the way of showing how the traditional dichotomies upon which modern discourses as those of sexuality, politics, language and literature, are built over the subordination of one of the members (the identity) to the other (difference), and 'deconstructing' its asymmetry. Since, as I said, one of these basic dualities was that of man/woman, its results quickly became appealing to many feminist philosophers. From a very naïf point of view, feminism sawthe posmodern task of overcoming the traditional dichotomy of men and women and eliminate the embedded subordination of one over the other closely related to their goals. However, postmodern thought soon showed to be much more complex than that, so that feminist could not take just a naïf position in front of it, and started polarizing into those who supported postmodern methods (as viable tools for feminism) and those who rejected it altogether (as part of the traditional and oppressive malestream in philosophy). In the following section, I am going to briefly explore some of the positions taken by recent feminist philosophers around postmodernity.

2. The Politics of Language
It may be just the sign of the times, but almost none of the contemporary Feminists fails to recognize the important political dimension of language. On the contrary, most feminist agree in saying that Feminism needs a critical relationship to language . As a social construct, language reproduces the features of the society that constructs it. Overthrowing patriarchy in our society must include throwing it off our own language. Feminism, in this sense, is also a matter of textuality and vocabulary. Feminists are searching for a distinctive voice in which to define themselves as women in their own terms. Their pursuit is not very different from what Richard Rorty called, in his Contingency, Irony, and. Solidarity, the ironist (theoretical) enterprise. Interesting Philosophy is rarely an examination of the pros and cons of a thesis. usually it is, implicitly or explicitly, a contest between an entrenched vocabulary which has become a nuisance and a half-formed new vocabulary which vaguely promises great things. Feminists, in this sense, are trying to produce a new vocabulary in which to define themselves as women. They need a vocabulary strong enough not to be easily assimilated by the prevailing structures, but weak enough not to end up in solipsism and isolation. This vocabulary needs to be strong enough to be recognized as different, but weak enough to allow actual understanding and communication with others (and their vocabularies). Rorty took this concept from Harold Blooms theory of poetry as an Anxiety of Influence , that is, the necessity of the poet to create a taste by which he will be judged. Since Bloom sees this anxiety as a direct result and reaction of man's natural fear of death, feminist position is actually closer to Rorty's account than to Bloom's. Furthermore, it is Rorty who accomplishes both the broadening of its field of application from literature to all sorts of writing (specially theory) and its politicization. What [she] is looking for is a re description of that canon which will cause it to lose the power it has over him. Rorty's ironist, therefore, is very close to the linguistic feminist who conceives her philosophical enterprise mostly in terms of liberation from a male-biased language.
Now a days, we can risk to say that the feminist is a war which is fighted also in the battlefield of language. The starting point, however, remains the political will to assert the specificity of the lived female... experience... This is where most feminist who embrace postmodern philosophy find it appealing. Postmodern philosophy has always define itself as a linguistic enterprise which tries to eliminate the unidirectionality of the power relations embedded in language and open new fields for the insertion of experience in the text. Defined this way, nothing seems to lie closer to the feminist enterprise of redefining women experience than postmodern thought. This is the reason why feminists like Rosi Braidotti think they can find in postmodern theories, like deconstruction, a technique for the elimination of the male-bias in philosophical language. For Braidotti, one of the goals of feminist philosophy is the deconstruction of the dualistic oppositions on which the classical notion of subject is founded, an enterprise shared by most postmodern philosophers who have dealt with the problem (even if not all of them may like the word 'deconstruction').
Another motivation some feminist philosophers find for embracing postmodern philosophy in general, and deconstruction in particular, is that it has set its goals far beyond the mere inversion of the man/woman dichotomy. Some feminists are content with the definition of woman as other-than a non-man. However, deconstructive feminists think that to break free form negation is just the first step, and feminists goals must go far beyond, into a more radical critique of male-thinking. They do not want to reverse the traditional dichotomy man/woman, but break it altogether. From this perspective, deconstruction is the only true alternative. A good example of this position is Shoshana Felman, who takes the Deconstructive side when she claims that the transgresive power of methods like those used by Foucault or Derrida is such 'that no agenda can contain". In other words, deconstruction's critical power is so radical that breaks even the boundaries of the political.
Therefore, contemporary feminist philosophers face a dilemma with respect to postmodernity: radical deconstruction or enlightened equalitarism? Since some feminists have their goals well rooted in the latter, they see feminist deconstructivists as betraying the true hard core of their movement. Trying to overthrow the notion of equality is seen as undermining the foundations upon which the whole feminist enterprise is built. They conceive feminism as modern both in its theory and its political practice. Postmodernity, therefore, is an undesirable pathway to follow, not just because It leads nowhere, but because it must be taken backwards.
Another important reason why some feminists do not accept postmodern thought as a desirable alternative for thinking the feminine is that it is still much of a male enterprise. Their argument is is simple: why look at what other men are saying (and doing) for the redefinition of woman, instead of saying it (and doing it) for ourselves? Who says it is less oppressive, or at least easier, to recognize ourselves in the definition of Woman as the name for that non-truth of truth, that the traditional definitions of womanhood in terms of femininity. With the increasing number of women and men alike who are currently choosing to share ion the rising fortune of female misfortune, it has become all too easy to be a speaker 'for women'. By appropriating the feminine as another strategic element for their (male) enterprises, postmodernity is not helping, but making harder for women to actually define a vocabulary of their own. Rosi Braidotti goes as far as to say that the actual possibility of women redefinition by women is systematically blurred in mainstream postmodern thought. What this latest critique stresses is the basic discrepancy between the motivations behind the deconstruction of the male/female dichotomy for feminist philosophy and postmodernity. They both want it, and they both think of it is a liberating enterprise. However, they disagree in what aspects or features of it are liberating, and for who.
3. Discrepancies
The deconstruction of the sexual difference is not a transitive one-sense operation, which 'only' liberates women but does not affect men (beyond the loss of their oppressive privileges over women). Deconstructing the sexual difference means deconstructing also the male identity, since it has only been defined inside this dichotomy. Once the dichotomy is broken. Once there is no other to negate, men's identity falls into emptiness. Men and women are delivered in a complete new sexual dynamic where identity and difference do not oppose, only differ. That is the goal for male postmodern thinkers. however, it may be nothing but a (necessary) first step for feminist philosophers. Breaking chains is not enough, but it is as far as postmodern thinking may take women. The deconstruction of sexual difference has 'revolutionary' effects not just on women's experience, but on men's as well, who are left in the impasse of a broken identity. Breaking the man/woman dichotomy is annihilating both the positive identity if the male and the negative identity of the female. Feminists use deconstruction to get the first one, while postmodern thinkers use it to get the other. That is why, pure deconstructivists are fully satisfied achieving the indeterminacy of falling into an abyss, while feminists feel the need to go beyond that and find (construct) a place to put their feet on earth. In this sense, feminism has the ability (and political motivation) for taking postmodern thought beyond deconstruction, that is, to break the final 'impasse' an generate a new positivity over the just unveiled emptiness. That is why, among the different positions of postmodernity they lay closer to the ethics of weak thought than to radical deconstruction.
Still, the most common critique of feminism towards postmodern philosophy, a critique that in a certain way crosses the others is their lack of political goals:
4. Deconstruction and Politics
For those who reject postmodern philosophy as having nothing to say about women, it may seem surprising that one of the first dichotomies to be deconstructed in the agenda of postmodern thinking was that of the sexual difference. Since the early works of philosophers like Derrida, Deleuze and Lyotard, sexual difference has been a common 'intertext' on postmodern thinking. Even more surprising is the fact that this attention to sexual difference was originally motivated by a political goal of sexual liberation. However, it was not women whose traditional (lack of) identity these philosophers were trying to deconstruct, but that of male homosexuals. Early postmodern thought was very close to the political pursuit of redefining the gay experience in non-oppressive, non-deviant terms. First approaches to thinking the 'difference' did not lack the political edge that some feminists see missing in more recent developments.
Feminism, on the other hand, has always been a political issue. Feminist philosophy, not to say feminism itself, is conceived as an eminently political enterprise. In a first view, it would seem like feminist's questions in philosophy women's rights, women's oppression, the relationships between men and women, etc. are closer to the items in a political agenda than most of those raised by postmodern thinkers repetition, echo, seduction, intertextuality, etc. Postmodern philosophers obsession with that which is being criticized ends up mining their capacity of actual intervention. Feminists, therefore, have the option of either adjust postmodern techniques to their political agenda (since Postmodern philosophy, it is assumed, lack of it), or completely reject it. The first alternative is taken by feminists like Gayatri Chakavortyr, who does embrace deconstruction as a helpful political tool, but also recognize its political limitations (for the particular feminist enterprise): It is not just that deconstruction cannot found a politics, while other way of thinking can. It is that deconstruction can make founded political programs more useful; by making their in-built problems more visible. However, these feminists who have embraced deconstruction as a feminist tool end up leaving behind their well defined political goals in favor of a more abstract conception of feminism which is latter seen by more traditional feminists as politically empty as the other male postmodern 'theories'. Most feminists do not like to hear about feminine 'salvation' in the forma of 'a desire for an impasse, an abyss or infinite regression, infinite repetition, inhabiting (falling through) the in-between spaces', because they find hard to recognize the political motivations behind this kind of discourse, that is, they find hard to identify it as feminism. In the end, it is still hard to reconcile deconstruction with a strong and well defined practical political agenda.

5. The Problem with diversity: Minow versus Derrida
In order to take the debate into proper ground, that is, to test the relevance of deconstruction in practical political problems concerning difference, the least we can do is transfer it into those problems. In this last section I will try to show the relative convergences and discrepancies between feminists and deconstructivists points of view over an issue on which both of them have written: sexual difference and the law. Since the heterogeneity among positions shown in both fields of work is hard to ignore, please do not take the texts I will use as representatives of feminism (Minow's "Justice Engendered") and postmodern thought (Jacques Derrida's Glas. but also Gilles Deleuze's account of Law on different papers and books).
Both of these texts see a male bias in the way sexual difference is treated by 'modern occidental law', even though what this means is something different for Derrida and Minow. In Glas, Jacques Derrida criticizes the way the Law accounts for (sexual) difference taking as underlying texts Hegel and his reading of Antigona., while Minow does it from the perspective of the concrete actual laws operating in the United States of America. In any case, what actually interests both thinkers is the way this male law tries to cope with sexual difference. How are women treated (as women) by the laws of men. Since the law is built over the idea of abstract citizenship, how does it find a place in itself for concrete differences among citizens? Both Hegel and The American Legislative System, thought to have found an answer in the same place: Diversity. Both Minow and Derrida, on the other hand, are suspicious of this apparent solution to the 'dilemma of difference' and try to question it. First of all, because diversity is strongly rooted in categorization. Even if 'diverse' is not used as a category in itself, there are certain well defined cathegories which account for it: Woman, Physically Handicapped, Ethnic Minority, etc. These categories, of course, are defined by and in relation to the hegemonic non-diverse citizen: male, white, middle class, etc.. In this way, he perpetuates his point of view through the identification of 'the different'.
Here is where both Derrida's and Minow critiques are centered. For both of them, identification of 'the different' is annihilation of actual difference. Difference with Identity is no longer difference but identity, and since this identity can not but be foreign to it, it is also oppressive. Those are Derrida's words, and they seem to find an echo in Minnow's when she recognizes that categorization is not actual recognition, but mere subordination and, in that sense, oppression. Women do not win anything by being called "women", if this means "women (for men)". Derrida's claim goes further to say that Diversity is ...an indifferent difference,, because it is not an actual difference, but a difference denied in its difference. Furthermore, that is also the way Minow calls it, too: indifference. Once the categories are defined, your only choices are identification or rejection. If you do not identify yourself as member of a minority, your singular 'difference' is ignored, so the actual attitude of the law ends up in nothing but 'indifference', either by ignoring it or by giving it an artificial positive identity. Also, it is not Minow the only one who has recognized in diversity a partial, if not a completely false solution to the dilemma of difference. Rosi Bardotti has also seen in diversity through categorization, another modality of homologation, that is to say the assimilation of the feminine into masculine modes of thought and practice and, consequently, sets of values. Derrida recognizes this by virtue of Hegel's reading of Antigona, the classic text about the conflict between Woman and Law. Diversity, says Derrida, means, just like the Death of Antigona's brothers, the Death of Singularity. Their equal right to the power of state destroys them both, for they were equally wrong.. Their death is not actual death, but death as singularities. In this sense, Minow follows Derrida in saying that, since language works always over generalities, the singularity of an individual will never be positively reached by a category that is conceptually defined, that is, defined by the rules of identification. Embracing diversity, the 'different' dies as a singularity.
So far, Martha Minow shares most of Derrida's claims on the 'Diversity' treatment of difference by the law, but she can not accept it as the only possible treatment. Derrida and Deleuze end up saying that this treatment of (in)difference is so intrinsic to Law, that could well account for its definition.. Minow can not take the Law as inevitably male-biased. For deconstructivists, it is quite easy just to switch to another term (Deleuze picks 'rule'), but Minow knows that it is not that easy in the real world. According to Minow, Deleuze and Derrida's account of the law lies quite far from the actual truth of hat the law is, because they work with an idealized, positive, constitutional aspect of law, not with the real dynamic one as it happens in actual court. Rather than securing an illusory universality and objectivity, law is a medium through which particular people can engage in the continuous work of making justice. The law "is part of a distinctive manner of imagining the real". By switching form the positive constitutional law, to the law as practice, Minow goes beyond Derrida and Deleuze's deconstructive critique, and gets closer to pragmatism and weak thought. It is not surprising, from this point o fview, that the former analysis end up with no alternative, because their starting points are as metaphysical as the ones they try to overthrow. We must stop seeking to get close to the "truth" and instead to get close to other people's truths. 'Get closer to other people" is something you will never hear said by a radical thinker of difference (even though it may be a common element in weak thinkers proposals).

Resuming, the deconstruction of sexual difference in most postmodern thoughts, from Lyotard to Deleuze has more or less proved its theoretical efficacy as a critique to traditional (male) metaphysics...yet it is not directly related to either the discursivity or the historical presence of real-life women so it has not proved to be directly helpful for those who, call themselves feminists or not, search for a new vocabulary closer to the actual feminine experience.

December 13, 1994. Axel Barceló'.