Reviews of Text

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Reviews of Text

• From the Faraway Nearby Georgia O'Keeffe as
  Icon. (book reviews) Daniel L. Marcus. Whole
  Earth Review Spring 1993 n78 p84(1) Mag.Coll.
  68C5872. (437 words)  From the Faraway Nearby
  Georgia O'Keeffe as Icon. (book reviews) Russell
  T. Clement. Library Journal May 1, 1992 v117 n8
  p78(1) Mag.Coll. 64E2003.  

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Reviews of Text

• From the Faraway Nearby Georgia O'Keeffe As
  Icon. (book reviews)       Publishers Weekly
  April 27, 1992 v239 n20 p242(1) Mag.Coll.
  64E5891. Bus.Coll. 65N4012. (217 words)

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Introduction

• Discourse is a central term in contemporary
  cultural studies which like ideology is very
  difficult to define. At its simplest discourse
  as a noun refers to any utterance or discrete
  piece of language. In Michel Foucaults usage
  discourse is the group of statements that belong
  to a single system of formation. In this he
  states is the concept of discursive practice in
  which knowledge/power is disseminated (to seed
  widely to send out) at macro and micro levels.

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Unit 3Mapping the Womens Movement

• Reading (Reading Martinez, Hong-Kingston,
  Menchu and Walker in RWL, 127-140, 141-154,
  155-160, 161-163)
• 1. Introduction
• Western feminisms
• little analysis of race as an interrelated
  category
• inclusive of class - particularly in the context
  of France

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2. Politics and Representation

• Politics broadly defined
• comprises actors efforts to carve out a
  constituency
• mobilizing support
• via preferred formulation of their own collective
  identity
• for the enumeration of their interests
• follows from that collective identity

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2. Politics and Representation

• depends upon understanding of dual aspects of
  representation
• 1. actors representation of self - via
  collective identity
• 2. representation of interests
• two senses linked via power
• power to give meaning to social relations
• and thereby to represent interests

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2. Politics and Representation

• variety of collective identities coexist
• jostling for attention and legitimacy

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2. Politics and Representation

• Political discourses -- packages
• four connected clusters of ideas
• 1. Map of the social world
• 2. Practical schemes to change the world
• 3.utopian visions
• 4.understanding of how to do politics

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2. Politics and Representation

• At issue
• conflicts over representation and
• reproduction of power relations
• based on difference - age, sex, race, class,
  ablebodiness religious, ethnic and so forth

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2.1 Institutional Actors

• actors not all equal in power
• ability to contribute to institutionalization of
  systems of practices and meanings
• via contribution to political discourse
• actors differ across time and space
• re discursive representation of self and
  interests - No womens movement will be
  homogenous re discourse or collective identities

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3. FRANCE

• three wings of the French Womens Movement
• revolutionary feminism
• syndicalist feminism
• egalitarian feminism
• 1968 and forward

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3. FRANCE

• three wings of the movement
• compete to formulate new political discourses
• about women, politics and even revolution in
  the 70s
• originality of the post-1968 womens movement

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3. FRANCE

• insist on the existence of a new collective
  identity
• to force other political actors to respect this
  new collective identity

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3. FRANCE

• divergences in their maps of the social world
• practical schemas
• utopian visions (what a better world would look
  like)
• and strategies for doing politics
• resulted in serious conflict

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3.1 Revolutionary Feminism

• central gravity for Womens movement
• descended from the Maoism (China)
• Trotskyism (Russia)
• auto-gestionnaire (self-government of workers)
• extreme left post 1968

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3.1 Revolutionary Feminism

• reject current state
• revolutionary transformation between women and
  men
• via cultural change and the construction of new
  social relations

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3.1 Revolutionary Feminism

• contributions to feminist discourse
• 1. sexuality and gender relations not
  subordinated to any other social relation
• 2. utopian future women would not only be
  recognized but revalued
• 3.the way to do politics - women to organize in
  autonomous, women-only groups new collective
  identity for women - defined by sexual difference

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3.1 Revolutionary Feminism

• women - bonds which crosses over other social
  differences, especially those of class
• MLF - Mouvement de liberation des femmes
• three major positions to understand womens
  oppression how to do politics

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3.1 Revolutionary Feminism

• 1. proponents of an essentialist theory
• psychoanalytic definition of difference
• rationalization for separatist politics.

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3.1 Revolutionary Feminism

• 2. proponents of a theoretical consideration of
  class- and sex-
• based oppression
• 3. bring this group in closer approximation to
  the Left
• divided into two -
• a - patriarchy a primary social relation
• b - class-based position

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3.1 Revolutionary Feminism

• group a becomes the 3rd group within MLF -
  Pyschanalyse et Politique (Pysch et Po)
• -reject feminism as reformist
• womens difference derived from sexuality
• group primarily drawn from elite, professional,
  and intellectuals
• e.g. Luce Irigaray

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3.1 Revolutionary Feminism

• 1979 - broke with the MLF -weakens-
• sex/gender as real or social constructed - schism
  made joint political difficult if impossible
• split on idea of collective identity and map of
  the world
• upon utopian vision
• upon practical schemes to change the world
• upon form of political action

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3.2 Syndicalist Feminism

• (Syndicalism - movement to transfer ownership and
  control means of production
• and distribution to workers)
• emergent from unions organizations
• women workers- collective identity
• pushed unions to include in their frame

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3.2 Syndicalist Feminism

• sexuality, the family, womens unique experience
  of oppression in capitalism, e.g.,oppressed in
  capitalism and by men

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3.2 Syndicalist Feminism

• merging of the private/public worlds
• weakening of the union in the 80s
• CGT (General Confederation of Work)
• feminism within -return to idea of egalitarianism
• women and men workers were the same
• one branch of syndicalist feminism

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3.2 Syndicalist Feminism

• 1981 CGT reject syndicalist feminism as reformist
• CFDT (French Democratic Confederation of Work)
• Womens oppression different than mens
• capitalism and patriarchy-super exploitation
• family contributed to womens oppression

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3.2 Syndicalist Feminism

• CFDT primary generator of syndicalist feminisms
  collective identity
• CFDT succumbed to idea of changing economy
• eschewed radical left position
• loss of feminist and radical left element
• rejected womens battle

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3.2 Syndicalist Feminism

• but did introduce sex, family, reproductive
  issues to union
• women workers emerge as a visible group within
  androcentric workers

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3.3 Egalitarian Feminism

• associated with the middle to right political
  parties
• no Marxist affiliations
• operated in association with the powers
• sought to gain good-will of those in power

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3.3 Egalitarian Feminism

• change within the system as opposed to the system
• demanded womens equality via reforms

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3.3 Egalitarian Feminism

• no representation of women as a collective
• discourse of egalitarian feminists
• women as disaggregated into specific functions
• mothers, citizens, workers
• at odds with revolutionary feminism

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3.4 Some Consequences

• joint action problematic re political divisions
• three wings of the movement never agreed about
• the discursive constitution of women, nor
• the basis of a collective identity for an actor
  labelled woman

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3.4 Some Consequences

• Therefore
• 1. Map of the social world different
• 2. Practical schemes to change the world varied
• 3.utopian visions differed
• 4.understanding of how to do politics differed

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4. Canada

• 4.1 Commission on the Status of Women
• only one kind of woman (for the most part)
• women as a homogenous group
• women qua women
• presented 1970

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Textual reference

• Adamson, Nancy, Linda Briskin and Margaret
  McPhail (1988). Feminist Organization and
  Feminist Process. In Barbar A. Crow and Lise
  Gotell (eds.), Open Boundaries A Canada Womens
  Studies Reader , 96-110. Toronto Prentice-Hall
  Canada Inc.

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4.2 Locations of Emergence that Shape feminist
Organizations

• race and class different issues
• raised in feminism 1980 and 1990 divisiveness
  both productive and counter-productive
• energy given to internal struggle - issues,
  views, concerns struggle for centre
• hegemony remains strong

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4.2 Locations of Emergence that Shape feminist
Organizations

• two particular locations of emergence for
  feminist organizations institutional
• adopted the typical formation pattern of
  organizations
• hierarchical formation
• a chair, an exec, sub-committees and a membership
  body
• e.g. National Action Committee NAC (umbrella
  organization)

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4.2 Locations of Emergence that Shape feminist
Organizations

• grass-roots organizations
• began as ad-hoc groups
• individuals interested in change
• both groups used democratic model
• institutional feminism responded less negative of
  top-down decisions
• grass-roots feminism viewed this as oppressive
  form of political action
• associating structure to patriarchy

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4.3 Problems Inherent in Organizations

• Institutional
• issues in regard to authority
• over-representation by a dominant group (usually
  white/middle class)
• threat of co-option

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4.3 Problems Inherent in Organizations

• Grassroots
• 1.rejection of leadership - impairing political
  action
• 2.emphasis on personal experience - depoliticized
  and reified concept
• 3.over emphasis on the process - consensus
  embraced/conflict rejected
• 4. Leadership present just obfuscated

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4.4 Types or Forms of Organizational Models

• 1. umbrella/coalition -created networks among
  groups
• overarching political action enabled
• 2. Multi-Issue group -several shared goals
• 3. single-issue group - one objective

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Comments

• single most difficult issue to deal within
  Feminist organizations
• difference - related to identity - sexual,
  racial, ethnic, so forth
• how to deal with organizationally
• use of both institutional and grass-roots models
• does not deal with epistemological differences of
  which we will address next week