'Postmodernism and Feminism\r'

'Ailene Brukman-Stivi Professor: Haim Deuel Lusky Post modernness and womens liberationist movement The question of what happened to libber movement during the postmodern measures is non easily encapsulated in matchless phrase or idea as it is actually an amalgam of a lot purposely ambiguous and fluid ideas. One would fuck off to st wile re searching close postmodernism and what it means, let al adeptness search nigh the history of feminist movement and its development. After adept would research a little bit about postmodernism he or she would realize the familiarity about modernism is in addition extremely crucial to apprehend fully about postmodernism and feminism.Therefore this writing will shut d strike got a few backchats about modernism. How did we as a cultivation develop into a postmodernist era? And of course how does this era cede to do with feminism? This research paper will take on different critiques about the theme of postmodernism and feminis m as well. Before sorbing the writing on reviews, critiques and more(prenominal) in depth research of our subject I would like to strain a general description, and accentuate research, I would like to start with the two principal(prenominal) lines: womens lib and postmodernism. FeminismRozen Tali, the importr of the curb, What Is Feminism Anyways. Opens her book saying that she never really understood what feminism is exactly. She says volume just call her a feminist every meter she speaks her opinion about â€Å"differentiating her and a floor rag. ” She writes about a sentence that was utter in 1913 by a char, was a British reporter, by the name Rebecca westbound, saying that if you ar delay for a current and modern exposition of feminism, you support nonhing to wait for. There is no definition. It is not that a definition does not exist, it exists and that is a for certain thing.It’s just that, in that location be so many definitions that thi ther is no specialised one. (Rozen) Rozen writes that the recents ‘feminism’ actually was natural about one hundred years ago. In the beginning this word was used as a medical circumstance for a man that has muliebrityish characteristics. As eon passed the word feminism turned in to a term in the psychological world; besides got a negative intension to it, besides this time not a male with female characteristics, that as a description of a muliebrity with male character. Examples of a diagnosis for â€Å"feminism” would be like inclination to study, courageous, and ambition.Tali Rozen gives a great lapout of this psychological diagnosis; thirty years ago, people said about the governor of the realm of Israel, Golda Meir, that she is â€Å"the scarcely man in the government” and until today the exceed way to describe a great fair grammatical gender in business is to say â€Å"she got balls. ” The reincarnation of the term feminism indicates and high softs the business of the actual term itself. non only it was used in negative connotation but also millions in the past and veritable(a) today meet a difficult time to define feminism.In the dictionary feminism is written to be the ideology of the emancipation of women. accord to this definition, there is roundthing in common to all the definitions and ideas that is, the one important judgment that women suffer from injustice because of their sexual practice. Rozen Suggests that instead of getting confound with the actual message of the word we can throw on the definition: Feminism is a conjecture that is based on the point of view of a charwoman, and that point of view give new light to acquaintance that already exist.This lie withledge could come from anywhere, film, literature, history, everything. still that does not mean that every woman that analyzes a specific subject, is doing a feministic act. To look and analyze something from a womanâ⠂¬â„¢s perspective means to jell a woman in the center of the discussion. do-nothing line is that, the question of what is feminism is not one answer. Rozen asks and answers: is feminism a woman who stands and fight for their justifiedly, yes. And is feminism a movement of freedom? Yes!Is it the history of half(a) benevolentity? Also yes. And there is much more to what is feminism. Postmodernism Postmodernism represents the converge of three distinct pagan trends. These embroil an attack on the austerity and functionalism of modern art; the philosophical attack on structuralism, spear-headed in the seventies by poststructuralist scholars such as Jacque Derrida, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze; and the economic theories of industrial society developed by sociologist such as Daniel Bell and Alain Touraine. Callinicos 1989) In the book of Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern condition, where he summarized postmodernism as above all brinytaining â€Å"an incredulity toward metanarratives” (1984:xxiii-iv, 5). Postmodernists, he argues, questions the assumption of the modern age, particularly the belief that cerebral thought and technological innovation can vouch progress and enlightenment to humanity. They doubt the ability of thinkers from the West either to generalize the world or to impose solutions for it.The grand theories of t past, whether vainglorious or bolshie, have been dismissed as products of an age when Europeans and North Americans mistakenly believed in their own invincibility. The metanarratives of such thought atomic number 18 no longer seen as â€Å" integrity,” but but as privileged discourses that deny and silence competeing dissenting(a) voices. (Merchant & Parpart) Michel Foucault, one of the leading postmodernist (and poststructuralist) thinkers, has stress the inadequacies of metanarratives and the need to examine the specificities of former and its kind intercourse to knowledge and spoken languag e (discourse. He dismisses â€Å"reason” as a fiction and sees â€Å"truth” as simply a partial, localized version of â€Å"reality” transformed into a fixed form in the long branch of history. He argues that discourse- a diachronic, societally and institutionally specific structure of statements, terms, categories, and beliefs- is the site of where meanings ar contested and magnate likenesss determined (Scott 1988:36. ) The ability to enclose knowledge and meaning, not only through writing but also through disciplinary and professional institutions, and in loving relations, is the key to understanding and exercising power relations in society. agree to Foucault, the false power of hegemonic knowledge can be challenged by counter-hegemonic discourses which offer ersatz explanation of â€Å"reality” (Foucault 1972; 1979; 1980. ) The search to understand the gimmick of social meaning has led postmodernists/ poststructuralist scholars to recognize the dependant upon(p) of the subject. As Judith butler points out, â€Å"No subject is its own point of departure” (Butler, 1992; 9) Jacque Derrida (1976) emphasizes the crucial role contend by binary opposites.Indeed, he argues that Western philosophy largely rests on opposites, such as truth/falsity, unity/diversity, or man/woman, whereby the nature and primacy of the original term is also superior to the second. These pairs are as plant in the definition of their opposite as they are I the nature of the object be defined, and they shape our understanding in complex and practically unrecognized ways. In purchase order to better understand this process, Derrida and another(prenominal)s have alled for the critical deconstruction of texts (both written and oral) and greater attention to the way engagements, particularly those embedded in binary mentation, are constructed and maintained (Culler 1982) To conclude, postmodernist thinkers forswear universal, simplifie d definitions of social phenomena, which, they argue, essentialize reality and fail to endanger the complexity of life as a lived experience. muster on this critique, postmodernists have rejected the search for capacious generalizations.They emphasize the need for local, specific and historically certain analysis, carefully grounded in both spatial and cultural contexts. Above all, they call for the recognition and celebration of differences, the splendour of encouraging the recovery of previously silenced voices and an acceptance of the partial nature of all knowledge claims and and so the limits of knowing. (Marchand &Papart) Postmodernism/feminism Today in the postmodernism era, the women’s identity operator is not stable, it changes.Postmodern researchers are against this idea, because the â€Å"I” is an involuntary identity that is disconnected from the social conversation. Also feminists and feminist writers, that find themselves with the postmoderni sts, are objecting the enlightenment period; because there is an existent subject and because there is a hap to reach the objective truth through the â€Å"bina” and the hetero cozy mind. (Zaken) Zaken claims that feminism is actually leaning on postmodern values, and it exists today to breakdown and defragment in a new way the idea or word â€Å"the woman. Simone de Beauvoir, a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, governmental activist, feminist, and social theorist. dapple she did not consider herself a philosopher, de Beauvoir had a earthshaking define on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory. She had claimed that a woman is not born a woman, she is made a woman. Female traits are built through social influence and not biological destiny.She sees the social construction of femininity, which in it exists the subject; isn’t she a woman, the woman who thinks of herself as a woman, in a specific situation that her environs creates. A great example is the fact that roughly girls and boys play with their gender’s toys, girls with Barbies and dolls magic spell boys with trucks and cars. From her article, The ethics Ambiguity, comes up that women have internalized their gender hierarchy, to the point where it is hard for them to disconnect from their hierarchal position.Simone de Beauvoir came to a conclusion, in which the female subject had suffered from suppression- the woman is ‘different,’ lower, inferior in relation to men, and because of this suppression, the independence of a woman is destroyed in social situations. With that, there is an argument amidst postmodernism and feminism, which payable to a postmodern claim, that power does not control and there is no axioms like private/public, or motherhood. If there is no category â€Å"woman,” then woman can be anything. She is free from the stereotype and the coercing.That be said, there is no general and unified identity for women. womens rightists have responded to postmodern ideas in a deed of ways. The strongest opposition has come from feminists working in the liberal (modern) or Marxist traditions, both of which are embedded in Enlightenment thinking (modern era). Liberal feminists, who have been preoccupied with policy formulation and the improvement of women’s statues within the structures of western thought and society, generally write as if postmodern critiques have little or no applicability for their own work.The possibility of â€Å"modernisation” and â€Å"progress” may be unobtainable and unsuitable designs in a postmodern world have rarely been considered by liberals working within these structures. (like creative activity Bank, United Nations, and the transnational Labor Organization) Mackinnon Catherine’s influence on shaping feminism is extremely fatheaded in the 80s and the first years of the 90s, so deep that the different â€Å"post-feministicâ⠂¬Â currents, in many ways are â€Å"post-Mackinnon,” and to be exact, â€Å"anti-Mackinnon. ” Therefore whoever wants to become familiar with the feministic thinking there is no better place to do so with Mackinnon’s variables.The starting point of Mackinnon’s feminism is that the group of women are discriminated against and oppressed by the group of men, which are first and foremost caused by the way informality is built by society. According to Mackinnon, sexuality is the subject that its social patriarchal meaning changes the men to be in control and the women to be controlled. Dr Yaakov Gorbitz, in his book, â€Å"Postmodernism- Culture and Literature in the goal of The 20th Century,” writes on the issue of feminism that modernism and postmodernism needs to remind us of two main phases: the first, the woman who tries to stand and tries to fortify herself against the en. -This is the stick where women surface against men and say we are not expiry to take of hair from our legs, we will not give you the pleasure of wanting a â€Å"feminine” woman. In the postmodern stage the woman understands that the seed of the problem is that she is always looking at herself in relation to men, and contrary to them, and so she says; â€Å"I am allowed to seat makeup on and take care of my beauty- and not for the man but for me or for my friends. ” When a woman stops being just an opposite model of a man she can internalize some new heterogeneity.Some feminists believe feminist theory has always dealt with postmodern issues and indeed, has more to offer women than male-centric postmodern writers. womens rightist anthropologists, Frances Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe and Colleen Cohen (1989), attack postmodern anthropology for its profoundly sexists nature, nothing that studies such as George Marcus and Michael Fischers Anthropology as Culture Critique, ignore feminist contributions to the discussion of the â€Å"othe r” and long-standing feminist critiques of Western notions of â€Å"truth. ” Michel FoucaultContrary to liberals and Marxists, Foucault did not see the mechanisms of power in society, as something held by groups or institutions in society, and which does not exist for others; dissemination that enables the control of a group of other move of the society. Foucault referred to ”political power”, as network relationships, speculative strings interwoven within the community, and he maxim no, one dominant factor, such as the state or economic elite. This means that in a society there are power centers that are not subject to economic relations (such as madhouses, for example).Foucault goes on to argue with the liberals and the Marxists. According to them every relationship, in which forces, is characterized by imposing restrictions and denial of freedoms. He argued that this border on stems from the fact that they recognize the political power with the effe ctive system and enforcement. But for him, it is only one of the forms of recipe of political power, embodied throughout history. Foucault examines the relationship amid institutions (social) and the body (human). He opposes the very concept of â€Å"sexuality. According to him, in the 19th century, when sexuality was taboo, it increased require to break the taboo and prattle about sex, that also created behaviors which were categorized as social deviance. For example, sex amongst men, were â€Å"homosexual. ” This was a setting, which has reference for those people, people who were born different. This is one of Foucaults contributions to understanding the relationship among sexual taste and identity. According to Foucault, identity is created as part of a dialogue, in particular power relations in society.He demonstrates the change in sex ratio from margin of the Middle Ages, where words related to sex revealed associations of â€Å"pleasures” and â€Å" ch emical bond”, and the language of the 19th century, which has the sex talk not allowed or shameful to talk about. Hence, definitions of â€Å"heterosexual” and â€Å" queerness” are the product of modern times, from the 19th †century. As someone who has studied the sexual discourse in society, Foucault argued that the discourse on sexuality limits and defines the sexual essence and created a social pattern. Once we understand how we talk about sex, we understand sexuality.That is, language reflects the thinking and scholarship also on sex and sexuality. The mechanisms of power in sexuality, expressed the distinction amid what and what is not delicious in society. Namely, that the discourse on sexuality is a society regime (as expressions of political power mechanisms); language created a situation, when the subject of sex is brought up, the person tycoon feel sinful (sexual). Feeling which helps to suppress the desire for sex, because that person did n ot want to feel a sinner. The goal behind this repression is, to get the â€Å"different” forms of sex out of the people.That is, except for the non-reproductive sex. The society defines normal sexual norms, from early childhood to old age. Whoever goes beyond the norm, is put under the situation of the â€Å"controlled mechanism” in order to create helpful sexual drive economically and politically beneficial to society. These mechanisms determine what is allowed and what is not right in society and what is wrong. Foucault argued that since the 18th century, the deviation began to thwart the law (courts could, not so long ago, to gyp homosexuals or partners who betrayed their spouse).By, new sexual settings, to different sexual behaviors (that were always there but never accredited cultural significance) changed the face of society. This means social definition creates the identity. The new terms â€Å"gay,” â€Å"lesbian” and â€Å"straight”, are the result of modern discourse, which created categorization and sub-categories of conversation. The term â€Å" homosexualism” has two interpretations, one, sexual preference. Second meaning is social labeling. This labeling is the concept of the rule of the person which identifies himself or herself, as ”gay”. That is, each character turns shades of delimitate sexual identity.Experts (such as pedagogues, psychologists and psychiatrists), can be social power, which determine the legitimate content †normal and identify the pathological contents of a person. Their power, according to Foucault, is due(p) to their proximity to the dominant group in society, the middle class and the political elite. Extreme conclusion is that gender regime serves the interests of those groups, and that by using the institutions of marriage and heterosexuality. (Zaken) Conclusion union is the cause of sexual identity and what makes the difference between sexual orientation, and how we identify who we are; A woman or a man.But there is change occurring and there could be more change as briefly as we, as a society start â€Å"unlabeling” and just living with all types of sexual orientation, genders, and labels that are not labeled. This is all through a social process, of course. A note, it is extremely crucial to know the difference between sex and gender, because then we are self-aggrandising legitimacy to popular belief, commemorating the situation in which women are subject to male social order. This follows the historical tradition of the patriarchal family and society.This approach considers the biological differences between the sexes, as the distribution of the different roles. In other words, gender inequality is prevailing social perceptions. Ultimately, the goal is to get into a relationship of equality between men and women in society, there would be no more women who are discriminated against on the basis of sex and / or gender. Fo r, as de Beauvoir said, man and woman, depend on each other for sex and continuity of human society. Thus, each and every one will be able to shape their identity in accord with their wishes and needs, and not according to social codes dictated and dried. ———————————————— ??? ????? reverse Cited * Ankersmith, F. R. (1990) â€Å"Reply to Professor Zagorin,” History and hypothesis 29, 3: 275-96 * Beauvoir de Simone. The Ethics of Ambiguity. 1949. Translated by Bernard Frechten: Citadel Press, 2006 * Beauvoir de Simone. The Second Sex. 1949. Translated by Parshley, Penguin 1972. * Butler, J. (1992) â€Å"Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism,” in J. Butler and J. W. Scott (eds) Feminists Theorize the Political, smart York and London: Routledge. * Collinicos, A. (1989) Against Postmodernism, Oxford: Polity Press. Culler, J. (1982) On Deconstructi on: Theory and criticism after structuralism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell university Press. * Evans, Judith. Feminist Theory Today: An Introduction to Second-Wave Feminism. London: rational publication, 1995. * Foucault, M. * ” (1972) The Archaeology of knowledge and the Discourse on Language, New York: Tavistock Publications & Harper Colophon. * â€Å"(1979) (published in French, 1975) Discipline and Punish, Translated by S. Sheridan, New York: Penguin Books. * ” (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, translated by C. Gordon, New York: Harvest Press. Jameson, F. (1990) Postmodernism or, the Cultural Logic of lately Capitalism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. * Mackinnon A Catherine, â€Å"Sexuality, Pornography and Methods- Pleasure under Patriarchy,” Towards a Feminist Theory of the State, 1990. Translated and licence of Harvard University Press. Reprinted by Permission of Catherine A Mackinnon, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Uni versity Press, Copy Right c 1989 by Catherine Mackinnon. * Marchand H. Marianne and Parpart L. Jane. Feminism/Postmodernism/Development. London: Routledge, 1995. * Mascia-Lees, F. Sharpe, P. and Cohen, C.B (1989) â€Å"The Postmodernist knead in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective,” Signs 15, 1: 394-408. * Palmer, I (1990) Gender and Population in the Adjustment of African Economics; Planning for Change, Women, Work and Development serial publication No. 19, Geneva: International Labour Organization. * Rozen, Tali. What is Feminism Anyway? And Why don’t we know anything about it. Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 2000. * Scott, J. W. (1988) â€Å"Deconstructing Equality †versus Differences: Or the Use of Poststructuralist Theory of Feminism,” Feminist Studies14, 1: 33-50. * Sylvester Christine. Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era.Cambridge University Press, 1994. ————————— ;—————†[ 1 ]. Some western scholars, most notably Marxist reject postmodernism as dangerous and naive (Callinicos 1989; palmer 1990. ) Others , while sympathetic to Marxism, see Postmodernism as an outgrowth of the culture of late capitalism. Fredrick Jameson, for example, endorses an approach which draws on the strength of postmodernism without abandoning political action (Jameson 1991. ) Some scholars find postmodernism’s tension on difference and multiplicity useful for their work and not necessarily inimical to other approaches (Ankersmit 1990; Parkash 1990)\r\n'