Essentialism
1976-1988
On of the
texts I loved best in graduate school was Raymond Williams’ keywords.
Now that I’ve dabbled in corpus linguistics I have a whole other understanding
of the idea of keyness, as a word that is
unusually frequent in one set of texts as compared to another set of text. I
keep coming back to this idea of keywords in the women’s culture wars based on
the key words.
I
wanted to know when how and who introduced “essentialism.” I tweeted as I read, mostly about the way French Feminism appeared in Anglophone journals as an sophisticated "other" to its more pragmatic American cousin. (more here) Yesterday as I played around with Jstor’s new beta search, I performed a Williams-inspired analysis of “essentialism” certainly one of the words most key to debates about women’s culture.
As I tweeted, this visualization helped
some. The “peak” of the graph is 1997,
which corresponds with what I recall from living through these years. I decided that I'd get familiar with two tools at once, since I'd determined I also needed to start using Zotero for my references. It auto-imports references beautifully from Jstor, so once i downloaded the free-standing version and the word for mac plug in, I was set.
Sorting
through the docs by date, I realized that essentialism, of course, comes out of
philosophy, not deconstruction philosophy, a Platonic essence kind of
philosophy. In 1978 via writings by
feminists in Europe it entered Anglophone women’s studies journals in film and
literary criticism. British film maker
and theorist Laura
Mulvey refers to "feminine specificity" solidifying into
"essential feminine."[1]
(ahistorical essentialism) The next
instance of “essentialism” in a women’s studies journal seems to be in UK
journal Feminist Review, 1980 article authored by Socialist feminist activist
Beatrix Campbell described an “essentialism based on culture of women are
wonderful.”[2] (celebratory essentialism) In a 1981 special issue of Yale French Studies, “Feminist Readings:
French Texts/American Contexts” British scholar Mary Jacobus
distinguished between Cixous’ essentialism and that of Walter Ong.[3]
(strategic essentialism)
Around
1980, Anglophone feminists became quite interested in what French feminists
were doing, in part due to a very vocal schism between MLF and Psych et
Po. A series of articles ‘explaining”
French Feminism to US and UK audiences appeared that often mentioned
essentialism as a defining difference of the French Factions. In a 1979 piece about De Beauvoir (1978-1979
much focus on du Beauvoir due to 30th anniversary of the second sex’s
publication in France) Michèle Le Doeuff sees de Beauvoir escaping essentialism.”[4]
In 1981 Helene Wetzel opposes Monique Wittig to ecriture feminine’s
“essentialism or biological determinism.” [5] (biological
essentialism).
This
strain continues in a 1983 article for Signs, in which Dorothy Kaufmann-McCall
describes the feminists (MLF) in France as refuting essentialism and Psych et
Po embracing difference (read essentialism) as potentially liberating.[6]
By the
early 1980s in the UK essentialism referred specifically to biological determinism
that socialist feminists often ascribed to radical feminisms. the UK based Feminist Review, Cynthia Cockburn, an activist and
academic, discussing a “materialism feminism” associated with French feminist
Christine Delphy, rejects “the essentialism inherent in …[Kate Millet and
Shulamith Firestone’s] view, and especially the biological determinism of
Firestone.”[7] This
assessment of Firestone appears in work of French feminist Michèle Barrett as
well [review in science & society 1983]).[8]
British literary critic Rachel Bowlby
rejected “an essentialism in which biological difference is made the basis
of subjectivity.[9]
While the strength of socialist feminism
in the UK meant that biological essentialism proved a central target, UK
feminist did also also discussed the consequences of essentialism. In a 1984 Feminist Studies article on lesbian
identity by British feminist activist and academic, Elizabeth
Wilson she describes a sort of apolitical essentialism [that] acts as a
central ideological support to modern capitalist societies.”[10]
In Feminist Review Marie France, writing
about the “sex wars” in the US, argues both “sides” are engaging in
“essentialism” because they conceive of “sexuality and sexual behavior as
embodying some kind of truth … Arguing in essentialist terms … [is] either
backing away from the challenge or ignoring it.” [11]
By 1981
at least one American scholar, Mary Anne Doane,
a film theorist, argued that “it is crucial for feminism to move beyond
opposition of essentialism and anti-essentialism,” although clearly that did
not happen.[12] However, at that point, feminist sociologists
picked up essentialism, (perhaps via Foucault as interpreted by Welsh
historical sociologist Jeffrey Weeks), although literary critics continued to
be extremely influential.[13]
Writing
in 1983 American sociologist Judith
Stacey notes the " twin errors
of functionalism [are] essentialism and universality." That same year, Stacey published a longer analysis of what she termed “the new
conservative feminism” in which she tied activist Betty Friedan and feminist
theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain to a
“retreat to essentialism.” (apolitical
essentialism). In a similar vein, Suzanna Danuta Walters in the Berkeley
Journal of Sociology(1985) sees both “spiritual feminism” and “radical
feminism” sharing “essentialism” citing the work of Susan Griffin and Mary
Daly. She is most concerned with the
“ahistorical essentialism.”[14]
A
number of “big books” appeared including British psychoanalyst Janet Sayers Biological Politics: Feminist and Anti-feminist Perspectives, American Jane Gallop, The Daughter’s Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis (1982), and
Norwegian Toril Moi’s Sexual/Textual
Politics: Feminist Literary Theory.[15]
By the
mid 1980s “essentialism” appeared across a range of journals that published
gender/feminist content, with literary and film criticism still
dominating. 1985 saw the introduction of
the notion of “strategic essentialism” by Gayatri Spivak, primary translator,
and interlocutor of Derrida/deconstruction for many Anglophones “we must rather
strategically take shelter an essentialism … [that] continue(s) to honor the
suspect binary opposition(s).”[16] This notion that essentialism might not be
the apolitical retreat or celebratory pitfall proved revelatory and
controversial (Google scholar finds about 1,020 works citing this article).
That same year Homi Bhaba tied “essentialism”
“to race, nation, or cultural tradition” giving us hybridity in place of
(racist) essentialism.[17] Although the two would on the surface seem to
be at odds with one another, they are not.
Both are joined in a commitment to negotiating the “fixed” nature of
essentialism via different methods.
By 1986
U.S. historians finally picked up the term, although in relation not to gender
but to class, in discussion of Marxism. Michael Denning
in American Quarterly argues that
contemporary “Marxists are more aware of the dangers of ….essentialism than
most other scholars.”[18] Jackson Lears in Reviews in American History writes of “a kind of essentialism” in
the search for an untainted “working-class culture.”[19]
Historians
of women also picked up the term that year. UK journal History Workshop, found American Studies scholar Barbara Melosh invoking
“the essentialism often associated with celebrations of domesticity” in a
discussion of gender in 1930s anti-war plays.[20] In the enormously influential "Gender: A
Useful Category of Historical Analysis" Joan Wallach Scott
acknowledges her reliance on English feminist lit prof and poet Denise Riley as
she argues historians need to pay attention what those theories lit folks have
been on about.[21]
Among many other benefits, they offer a way around an “essentialism” based on
“biological reproduction.” To say Scott
set off a controversy within at least US academic circles would be a serious
understatement. While that following
year in Signs, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
cautions against “temptations to essentialism or ahistoricism,” not all
historians were so easily convinced. [22]
Scott defended her focus on “language” in the UK International Labor and Working-Class History against criticism
from Canadian Bryan Palmer and American Christine Stansell.[23] She specifically labels Stansell’s approach
on “woman, the subject” as “always … end[ing] up in essentialism” because the
category “woman” rests on the body [biological
essentialism]” or a fixed identity (ahistorical
essentialism), and elides “interconnected
processes” (racist essentialism).
These
strands of essentialism, as biological determinism, ahistoricism, or racism
came together in 1988 when philosopher Linda Alcoff tied them up in her
deconstruction of “cultural feminism” which invoked “essentialism” fifteen
times.[24] By
1988 essentialism is central if the not the
key signifier of feminist theory.
Literary historian Mary Poovey used it six times in what is an article
about “how feminism can use deconstruction” and “how deconstruction calls
feminism into question.”[25] Poovey, who invokes “dispatches with
biological determinism (Cixous and Irigaray) then explains how “the concrete ,
class and race-specific facts f historical women” can survive deconstruction
(i.e without ahistoricism or racism). Her
conclusion? Deconstruction can “demystify” women (lead us out of false
universalizing essentialism), but only if “campaigns that reproduce …
essentialism” are avoided in favor of “project that call into question the very
essentialism on which our history has been based.”
And with
that, essentialism has been erased from “French Feminism,” and the charge of
essentialism can be used to criticize (racism, ahistoricism) from the
postmodern position. As Claire Moses has
noted, this American-Made French Feminism served very specific needs for
academic feminists, which I explore in my book-in-progress, The Politics of Women’s Culture. [26]
[1] Jacquelyn Suter, Sandy Flitterman, and Laura Mulvey,
“Textual Riddles: Woman as Enigma or Site of Social Meanings ? An Interview
with Laura Mulvey,” Discourse 1 (October 1, 1979): 86–127,
doi:10.2307/41389047.
[2] Beatrix Campbell, “A Feminist Sexual Politics: Now You
See It, Now You Don’t,” Feminist Review no. 5 (January 1, 1980): 1–18,
doi:10.2307/1394695.
[4] Michèle Le Doeuff, “Simone de Beauvoir and
Existentialism,” Feminist Studies 6, no. 2 (July 1, 1980): 277–289,
doi:10.2307/3177742.
[5] Hélène Vivienne Wenzel, “The Text as Body/Politics: An
Appreciation of Monique Wittig’s Writings in Context,” Feminist Studies
7, no. 2 (July 1, 1981): 264–287, doi:10.2307/3177524.
[6] Dorothy Kaufmann-McCall, “Politics of Difference: The
Women’s Movement in France from May 1968 to Mitterrand,” Signs 9, no. 2
(December 1, 1983): 282–293, doi:10.2307/3173782.
[7] Cynthia Cockburn, “The Material of Male Power,” Feminist
Review no. 9 (October 1, 1981): 41–58, doi:10.2307/1394914.
[8] Review in “JSTOR: Science & Society, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Winter,
1983/1984), Pp. 495-498,” accessed June 12, 2013, s-
[9] Rachel Bowlby, “The Feminine Female,” Social Text
no. 7 (April 1, 1983): 54–68, doi:10.2307/466454.
[10] Elizabeth Wilson, “Forbidden Love,” Feminist
Studies 10, no. 2 (July 1, 1984): 213–226, doi:10.2307/3177862.
[11] Marie France, “Sadomasochism and Feminism,” Feminist
Review no. 16 (July 1, 1984): 35–42, doi:10.2307/1394956.
[12] Mary Ann Doane, “Woman’s Stake: Filming the Female
Body,” October 17 (July 1, 1981): 23–36, doi:10.2307/778247.
[13] Mary Jacobus, “The Question of Language: Men of Maxims
and ‘The Mill on the Floss’,” Critical Inquiry 8, no. 2 (December 1, 1981):
207–222, doi:10.2307/1343160; Elaine Showalter, “Feminist Criticism in the
Wilderness,” Critical Inquiry 8, no. 2 (December 1, 1981): 179–205,
doi:10.2307/1343159.
[14] Suzanna Danuta Walters, “Caught in the Web: A Critique
of Spiritual Feminism,” Berkeley Journal of Sociology 30 (January 1,
1985): 15–40, doi:10.2307/41035342. Her
conclusions are quite relevant to my book While not dismissing women’s culture
completely, she sees “certain elements” possessing “radical and oppositional
ponteitl” there is a “dangerously conservative strain to spiritual feminism
within women’s culture that could impede
the development of a truly oppositional and radical feminist movement”
[15] Jane Gallop, The Daughter’s Seduction: Feminism and
Psychoanalysis (Cornell University Press, 1984); Toril Moi, Sexual/textual
Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (London; New York: Routledge, 2002);
Janet Sayers, Biological Politics: Feminist and Anti-feminist Perspectives
(Tavistock Publications, 1982).
[16] Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Three Women’s Texts and a
Critique of Imperialism,” Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1 (October 1, 1985):
243–261, doi:10.2307/1343469.
[17] Homi K. Bhabha, “Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of
Ambivalence and Authority Under a Tree Outside Delhi, May 1817,” Critical
Inquiry 12, no. 1 (October 1, 1985): 144–165, doi:10.2307/1343466.
[18] Michael Denning, “‘The Special American Conditions’:
Marxism and American Studies,” American Quarterly 38, no. 3 (January 1,
1986): 356–380, doi:10.2307/2712672.
[19] Jackson Lears, “Radical History in Retrospect,” Reviews
in American History 14, no. 1 (March 1, 1986): 17–24, doi:10.2307/2702110.
[20] Barbara Melosh, “‘Peace in Demand’: Anti-War Drama in
the 1930s,” History Workshop no. 22 (October 1, 1986): 70–88,
doi:10.2307/4288719.
[21] Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of
Historical Analysis,” The American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (December
1, 1986): 1053–1075, doi:10.2307/1864376.
[22] She
links a historical, in this case “burgeoning women’s culture” of the 17th
century to “essentialist” “currents” that should not “be equated with
feminism,” preferring instead historical subjects who “connect ideas of women
as a sex to ideas of women as a gender” Her
title’s reference to “culture and consciousness” terms that come from
contemporary feminism rather than historical women, and her reading here of essentialism
and feminism, sex v gender, , sex v
do not require much stretching to fit the terms of thedebates
circulating within feminism in the late 1980s.
[23] Joan W. Scott, “A Reply to Criticism,” International
Labor and Working-Class History no. 32 (October 1, 1987): 39–45,
doi:10.2307/27671706.
[24] Linda Alcoff, “Cultural Feminism Versus
Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory,” Signs 13,
no. 3 (April 1, 1988): 405–436, doi:10.2307/3174166.
[25] Mary Poovey,
“Feminism and Deconstruction,” Feminist Studies 14, no. 1 (April 1,
1988): 51–65, doi:10.2307/3177998. For the purposes of my book, her remarks
about the writing of women’s history are quite salient.There could be “a
historical practice[that] deconstruct(s) the specific articulations and … categories,
their interdependence,and the uneven processes of deployment and alteration,
enabling feminists to write a history of the various contradictions within institutional
definition of women that show how these contradictions have opened the
possibility for change”
[26] Claire Goldberg Moses, “Made in America: ‘French
Feminism’ in Academia,” Feminist Studies 24, no. 2 (1998): 241,
doi:10.2307/3178697.
No comments:
Post a Comment