The relevance of critical theory

[NotSupposedtobeHere]

Here's the largely post-structuralist literary critic Mary Poovey on the definition of "woman" in cultural terms:

The epistemological term woman could guarantee men’s identity only if difference were fixed – only if, that is, the binary opposition between the sexes was more important than any other kinds of difference that real women might experience. And this depended, among other things, on limiting women’s right to define or describe themselves. […] women were granted the authority to write and publish literature, but they were largely denied access to ‘masculine’ discourses like medicine, law, and theology.

From her book Uneven Developments about women & writing in the 19th Century. I know post-structuralist thinkers - and the dreaded "Queer Theory" - are often held up as muddying the radical feminist waters, and making current 20 year olds think that they are justified in their sometimes muddled arguments.

But I think here Poovey is pointing out something that's still happening: control of certain discourses is used by men to control women.

Thats interesting.
I frequently see MRA's claim that feminism infantilises women. But I see radical feminism as a movement that frees women from a permanent state of childish dependency, which is our lot under patriarchal systems.

I don’t think it’s the theory per se. I think it’s large numbers of people going to university and not really learning what ‘socially constructed’ actually means (or ‘essentialism’ for that matter). And then going on social media and spreading their misunderstandings.

So you get a lot of people who know just enough to be really dangerous but not enough to realise they’re talking shit.

@arbitraryname I suspect you're right sadly. Some of my students tool to post-structuralist critiques of Enlightenment epistemology with delight, telling me that Derrida's critique of 'truth' meant that all scholarship is just opinion, and all opinions were valid.

Oh no no no, say I. It means you have to argue ever more precisely & rigorously for your "best fit given the data we have and taking account of historical and cultural specificity" explanation - and Derrida doesn't say truth doesn't exist - just that it's deferred...