Journal article
Not woman enough: Irigaray's culture of difference
Feminist Theory, Vol.2(3), pp.311-327
2001
Abstract
This article examines the limitations associated with Irigaray’s concept of a culture of difference. I suggest that her concept of sexual difference depends upon a conservative fiction of sameness. I argue that a fiction of phallic sameness underpins her evangelical championing of difference, and that such a fiction retains a conservative blindness to the complexities of contemporary social relations and erases the positive effects oppositional discourses have had on the culture of modernity. I question the debt Irigaray disavows to other non-difference feminism, her insistence that woman are radically marginalized and suggest that her culture of difference is prescriptive and normative. Egalitarian feminism, understood as a postmodern project, is far more strategic, insofar as it offers a multiply-situated analysis of the relationship between women and power within modernity. I replace Irigaray’s negative image of the egalitarian feminist as an unnatural woman with the figure of the cyborg who embraces ontological impurity and strategically works within culture.
Details
- Title
- Not woman enough: Irigaray's culture of difference
- Authors/Creators
- A. Bray (Author/Creator)
- Publication Details
- Feminist Theory, Vol.2(3), pp.311-327
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Identifiers
- 991005541001507891
- Copyright
- © 2001 by SAGE Publications
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Social Sciences and Humanities
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article
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