I wanted to post this link to an article by philosopher Martha Nussbaum about the work of Judith Butler and, by extension, certain currents in academic feminism. Nussbaum, not surprisingly, crystallizes certain worries I've had since reading Ann Cudd's excellent Analyzing Oppression just this past summer. After reading Cudd's work, I found myself asking why all feminist theory couldn't be so clear and incisive.
For those of us in the academy, the lit-crit/Continental-philosophy-as-found-in-English-departments wing of the movement is somewhat problematic. While always happy to take on more allies in the Good Fight, much of what is said and written in this tradition is obscure, if not outright incomprehensible, and it associates feminism unfairly and unpleasantly with a bankrupt intellectual tradition. I'm not sure what to do about it except encourage women students who are interested in theoretical work to pursue programs of study which will genuinely prepare them - indeed, this would be to our advantage in any case. The NYTimes' fatuous piece here makes many mistakes, such as categorizing Ayn Rand as a philosopher and repeating the condescending chestnut that women eschew philosophy because it's too "combative," but it brings up a good point. Another relevant blog post can be found here.
(Full disclosure: these links via Brian Leiter's blog)
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Academic Feminism.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/16410
That's the problem with most academic discourse. It is overly footnoted, endnoted, incomprehensibly dense, and full of obscure vocabulary words, which cut down drastically on its readability.
If we really wanted to expand feminism to a mainstream audience, we'd speak plainly and write plainly. Much of this complication is needless.
Well, I was actually making a different point, but I think it is right to note the need for feminist work that is accessible to the mainstream. I think, however, that we're not doing too bad on that count - Jessica, for instance (not to kiss up to the Powers That Be), writes good feminist books that are very accessible.
But while feminism does need discourse with the masses, it is also vital that it have a solid theoretical foundation. Real change is going to be difficult if not impossible if our feet are not firmly planted, so to speak. My point - the one that Nussbaum articulates so elegantly - is that too much feminist "theory" is just pomo posturing, and we need genuine, hardcore engagement with the tough issues rather than Continental circumlocutions and sexy-yet-obscuratanist prose.
"Incomprehensibly dense" feminist theory is definitely a problem, but it's primarily a characteristic of feminist theory that comes out of certain programs and intellectual traditions, and if we want to discourage "incomprehensibly dense" feminist writing, we ought to consciously aver to the clearer and more definitely analytical writers in the feminist tradition, and avoid hitching our wagons to "theorists" whose tendency toward verbal chicanery gives the outsider reason to think that the whole movement is just a bit of intellectual legerdemain. We don't need to bring that on feminism, and we'd be better off to embrace as our intellectual heroes those thinkers who have actually striven for greater clarity and rigor, rather than those who have merely cultivated cults of personality based on Delphic pronouncements.