Backgrounds and riverbeds: Feminist reflections

Feminist Studies

Volumn 25, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 427-448

  Hekman, Susan ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040707268     PISSN: 00463663     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3178689     Document Type: Review

References (66)

1. John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995), 117, 132.
2. Ibid., 59ff.
3. Ibid., 132-33.
4. Ibid., 145, 147.
5. Ibid., 182.
6. Ibid., 187-89.
7. Ibid., 227-28, S230.
8. Ibid., 227.
9. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan, 1958), S241.
10. Ibid., para. 204.
11. Ibid., para. 325.
12. Ibid., para. 326.
13. Ibid., para. 654.
14. Ibid., para. 25.
15. Ibid., para. 223.
16. Ibid., para. 230.
17. Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), S96-97.
18. Ibid., para. 98-99.
19. Ibid., para. 105A.
20. Ibid., para. 162.
21. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, para. 115.
22. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, para. 162.
23. Ibid., para. 225.
24. Ibid., para. 252.
25. Ibid., para. 204.
26. Ibid., para. 612. For compatible interpretations of Wittgenstein, see Susan Brill, Wittgenstein and Critical Theory: Beyond Postmodernism and toward Descriptive Analysis (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995); and James Edwards, Ethics without Philosophy: Wittgenstein and the Moral Life (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1982).
27. Ibid., para. 612. For compatible interpretations of Wittgenstein, see Susan Brill, Wittgenstein and Critical Theory: Beyond Postmodernism and toward Descriptive Analysis (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995); and James Edwards, Ethics without Philosophy: Wittgenstein and the Moral Life (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1982).
28. Ibid., para. 612. For compatible interpretations of Wittgenstein, see Susan Brill, Wittgenstein and Critical Theory: Beyond Postmodernism and toward Descriptive Analysis (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995); and James Edwards, Ethics without Philosophy: Wittgenstein and the Moral Life (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1982).
29. J.L. Austin, "A Plea for Excuses," Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 182.
30. For a discussion of this transition, see Michele Barrett, The Politics of Truth: From Marx to Foucault (Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 1991).
31. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), 81.
32. Nancy C.M. Hartsock, Money, Sex, and Power: Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985), 117, 118.
33. Nancy C.M. Hartsock, "Rethinking Modernism: Minority vs. Majority Theories," Cultural Critique, no. 7 (1987): 187-206.
34. For an elaboration of this, see Susan Hekman, "Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited," Signs 22 (winter 1997): 341-65.
35. Sandra Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women's Lives (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 150.
36. See Teri Elliott, "Making Strange What Had Appeared Familiar," Monist 77, no. 4 (1994): 424-33, for a Heideggerian interpretation of making the familiar strange. An example often used to make this point is Susan Glaspell's play, Trifles (Plays by Susan Glaspell, ed. C.W.E. Bigsby [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987]). Glaspell's story has some elements in common with my argument here. What constitutes "evidence" for the men is contrasted with the "trifles" that the women uncover; finding the "truth" is defined by the men's practices; the women's evidence is not evidence at all, but "trifles." The problem with this example, however, is that any good detective would look for exactly the "trifles" that the women uncovered and it would be precisely that evidence that would be decisive in a trial.
37. See Teri Elliott, "Making Strange What Had Appeared Familiar," Monist 77, no. 4 (1994): 424-33, for a Heideggerian interpretation of making the familiar strange. An example often used to make this point is Susan Glaspell's play, Trifles (Plays by Susan Glaspell, ed. C.W.E. Bigsby [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987]). Glaspell's story has some elements in common with my argument here. What constitutes "evidence" for the men is contrasted with the "trifles" that the women uncover; finding the "truth" is defined by the men's practices; the women's evidence is not evidence at all, but "trifles." The problem with this example, however, is that any good detective would look for exactly the "trifles" that the women uncovered and it would be precisely that evidence that would be decisive in a trial.
38. Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press, 1983), 23.
39. Ibid., 27.
40. Ibid., xiii.
41. Marilyn Frye, Willful Virgin: Essays in Feminism (Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press, 1992), 15.
42. Ibid., 7.
43. Ibid., 99. I should note that Frye's use of the term "background" in The Politics of Reality is different from the way I am using it here. She defines phallocratic reality as the foreground, women as the background, invisible and unnoticed (167 ff). I agree with this characterization although I have used the term differently.
44. Ibid., 99. I should note that Frye's use of the term "background" in The Politics of Reality is different from the way I am using it here. She defines phallocratic reality as the foreground, women as the background, invisible and unnoticed (167 ff). I agree with this characterization although I have used the term differently.
45. Mary Daly can be interpreted as adopting the strategy proposed by Frye. Her work is radical in a linguistic sense: it forces us to confront the hatred of women embedded in our language. See Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), and Mary Daly and Jane Caputi, Webster's First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987). Judith Butler's work is also relevant in this context. See her Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990), and Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge, 1993). Butler develops a feminist strategy for change that calls for the subversive redeployment of existing subject positions with the aim of destabilizing hegemony.
46. Mary Daly can be interpreted as adopting the strategy proposed by Frye. Her work is radical in a linguistic sense: it forces us to confront the hatred of women embedded in our language. See Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), and Mary Daly and Jane Caputi, Webster's First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987). Judith Butler's work is also relevant in this context. See her Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990), and Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge, 1993). Butler develops a feminist strategy for change that calls for the subversive redeployment of existing subject positions with the aim of destabilizing hegemony.
47. Mary Daly can be interpreted as adopting the strategy proposed by Frye. Her work is radical in a linguistic sense: it forces us to confront the hatred of women embedded in our language. See Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), and Mary Daly and Jane Caputi, Webster's First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987). Judith Butler's work is also relevant in this context. See her Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990), and Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge, 1993). Butler develops a feminist strategy for change that calls for the subversive redeployment of existing subject positions with the aim of destabilizing hegemony.
48. Mary Daly can be interpreted as adopting the strategy proposed by Frye. Her work is radical in a linguistic sense: it forces us to confront the hatred of women embedded in our language. See Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), and Mary Daly and Jane Caputi, Webster's First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987). Judith Butler's work is also relevant in this context. See her Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990), and Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge, 1993). Butler develops a feminist strategy for change that calls for the subversive redeployment of existing subject positions with the aim of destabilizing hegemony.
49. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, para. 96-97.
50. See Alessandra Tanesine, "Whose Language?" in Knowing the Difference, ed. Kathleen Lennon and Margaret Whitford (New York: Routledge, 1994), 203-16; and Kathy Ferguson, The Feminist Case against Bureaucracy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), for similar arguments.
51. See Alessandra Tanesine, "Whose Language?" in Knowing the Difference, ed. Kathleen Lennon and Margaret Whitford (New York: Routledge, 1994), 203-16; and Kathy Ferguson, The Feminist Case against Bureaucracy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), for similar arguments.
52. Donna Haraway, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs," in Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. Linda Nicholson (New York: Routledge, 1990), 190-233.
53. Ibid., 191.
54. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (New York: Routledge, 1991), 110.
55. Haraway, "Manifesto for Cyborgs," 196, 218.
56. Donna Haraway, Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science (New York: Routledge, 1989), 1.
57. Ibid., 8.
58. Ibid., 2.
59. Ibid., 135-54.
60. Ibid., 172.
61. Ibid., 284.
62. Ibid., 255.
63. Ibid., 310.
64. Ibid., 288.
65. Ibid., 324.
66. In Primate Visions Haraway suggests that science fiction is another means by which feminists can destabilize the narrative of primatology. I disagree with this strategy. I think that the intersection of the narrative fields is crucial to the possibility of change and that science fiction does not provide sufficient intersection.