Buccella, Lisa Marie
Student No. 2532500
What’s the Difference?
The Politics of Difference in Feminist Representation
Lisa Marie Buccella
Introduction
The politics of difference in feminist theory is hardly a new phenomenon.
Feminism has been largely centered on the realities that women experience as the “other”
gender. Some critics argue that the notion of difference has become the dominant focus
of feminism, even replacing equality as the central concern of feminist theory. Traditional
feminism divides the world into two groups: men and women. Feminists further
subcategorize with the most common examples being the public versus private spheres
and nature versus culture. Motivated by the harm created by societal positioning, the
feminist movement has achieved greater public recognition and increased opportunities
for women on many levels.
Nonetheless, members of the feminist movement are guilty. The charge is based on the
instances when feminism “takes for granted a shared identity among its members [or]
some essential point of commonality” (Fuss 582). While striving to provide oppressed
women with a voice that speaks out against inequality, feminism has achieved another,
not so attractive result: an internal politics of difference comprised of dominant and
marginal feminist voices. These competing voices reinforce that the politics of difference
in feminist theory reaches beyond the male –female dichotomy and applies to the
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differences and tensions that exist within feminism. These tensions arise when white,
middle class, western women speak on behalf of the experiences of non white, non
Western and lower class women, in essence universalizing the female experience. In her
famous essay A Room of One’s Own (1924), Virginia Woolf argued that women’s writing
should explore female experience in its own right and not form a comparative assessment
of women’s experience in relation to men’s. Instead, feminists have tended to consider
the gender distinction prior to all other notions of identity, at the expense of ignoring
other variances that significantly impact the female experience. Due to its longer life
span, the traditional concept of difference has attracted more discourse. Less popular but
more deserving of feminist attention is the updated version of the politics of difference in
terms of the differences among women. This paper will compare the two leading
concepts of difference in feminist theory by assessing the early feminists of autonomy
against the feminist theory based on women’s experiences.
First Wave: Ready, Set, Woolf!
“Feminist Theories” highlights the contributions made by the early feminist
movements to feminism’s development. Selden et al. identify a selection of the central
differences that define the early feminist periods. Leading the early feminist movement
were the vocal and androcentric Virginia Woolf followed decades later by the gynocritic
Elaine Showalter. As a grass roots feminist, Virginia Woolf’s first and fundamental
contribution to feminist theory was her essay, A Room of One’s Own. The piece explored
the impact of the politics of difference as experienced by women writers who were
disadvantaged by their social constructs. To illustrate her point that members of the
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opposite sex are afforded very different opportunities Woolf eloquently narrated the
fictional tale of Shakespeare’s sister. Although “Judith” may have possessed talent and a
comparable flair for writing as her brother, her future unraveled much differently than her
celebrity sibling. For instance Judith became conscious of the restricted education she
had received having been deprived from learning Greek unlike her brothers. Later, she
was prohibited from entering the university library, symbolic of the sanctuary of male
logo (Showalter 458). Deciding to proceed with a proactive approach, Judith escaped the
confines of home and pursued a path that led to further troubles and ultimately to her
premature death. In this text Woolf’s principle concern was with women’s material
disadvantages compared to men and in particular, the historical and social context of
women’s literary production (Selden et al.’s 124). However, Woolf simultaneously
argued that women’s writing should explore the female experience in its own right and
not form a comparative assessment of women’s experience in relation to men’s. This
second argument introduced feminists to another level of the politics of difference,
challenging them to think beyond the narrow scope of the male-female dichotomy.
Woolf’s contribution to feminism is accorded with her argument that gender is a social
construct, susceptible to challenge and modification. Woolf identified the pressures
hindering women writers such as social and economic obstacles that tend to have a
limiting effect on the achievement of literary ambitions. Women’s achievements are
further hindered because of the dominant ideologies of womanhood and the social taboo
associated with expressing their experiences (Selden et al.’s 126)
Many critics describe Woolf’s feminism as one that rejected the notion of feminist
consciousness. Perhaps motivating this opinion is that Woolf strove to create an
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unconscious femininity that would allow an escape from the confinements and fixed
notions created by the female /male binary. However, as Woolf’s “Judith” illustrated by
her leaving home in A Room of One’s Own while it may be “unpleasant to be locked
out…it is worse, perhaps to be locked in” (qtd. in Showalter 458).
Moreover, Woolf’s feminism meant the desexualization of the female in an effort
to achieve sameness with man, otherwise described as the androgyny theory. Selden et
al.’s explain that the denial of Woolf’s female sexuality was never subverted in her own
work or life in that she thought women wrote differently from men…because their social
positioning was different. To critic Toril Moi, Woolf did not aim to achieve a balance
between masculine and feminine types; rather she was interested in a “complete
displacement of fixed gender identities” (qtd. in Selden et. al.’s 126). Furthermore, Moi
notes that Woolf disabled essentialist notions of gender by dispersing fixed points of
view in her literature. For Elaine Showalter, relying on an androcentric model for
feminist principles is not revolutionary; rather, feminist energies would have been better
spent engaged in discourse on the exclusive female experience (Showalter 460).
Second Wave: A Rowdy Round Two
In her 1981 essay, “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness” Showalter emphasizes
the importance of feminism discovering its “own subject, its own system, its own theory,
and it own voice” (461). For Showalter the early feminist obsession with competing,
correcting, modifying, supplementing, revising, humanizing or even attacking male
critical theory, only succeeded at retarding feminist progress in solving their own
problems (460).
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While second wave feminism shared some of the first wave’s interest in
achieving women’s rights in all areas, the main focus of the next movement was directed
more towards issues of reproduction and the politics of difference in terms of women’s
experience, sexual difference and sexuality. In particular, five subcategories of difference
consumed the concentration of second wave feminists: biology; experience; discourse;
the unconscious; and social and economic conditions. Elaine Showalter is considered a
second wave leader and authority on the issue of sexual difference. Her empirical
approach to feminist theory emerged during the second era and her contribution to
feminism is reflected in her gynocriticism concept. This concept focuses on three areas of
feminism representation, namely the distinction in women’s writing, the importance of
redeveloping a tradition of women authors and finally, assessing women’s culture in its
own right. Gynocriticism “centres on the female author and character, and on female
experience as the marker of authenticity and on notions of ‘reality’ (in particular of a
collective understanding of what it means to be a woman) which can be represented, and
experientially related to, by way of the literary work” (Selden et. al.’s 136-7).
Third Wave: Getting down and dirty with difference
Building on the introduction of feminist politics of difference from the first and
second movements, the final and current movement of feminism represents the most
intensified focus on the controversial notion of difference. New feminism celebrates the
status of female difference, embraces diversity among its members, rather than “wanting
inside” (Arneil 187) and contests traditional notions of sameness and universality. The
more recent feminist movements prefer to adopt a relational instead of a binary approach,
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one that “bases the analysis of politics on the experience and perspective of women rather
than men” (187). Elizabeth Grosz comments on the different foci between the
movements:
Feminists of autonomy, on the other hand, undertakes the challenge to the
foundational reliance of knowledge on phallocentric norms, methods and paradigms. In
questioning the ‘content’ and unspoken assumptions, the preferred methods and ideals of
phallocentric knowledge, these feminists are committed to the development of new or
different forms of knowledge and intellectual inquiry…This, for many, is only the first
step in the development of entirely new forms of theory based on women’s experiences
and perceptions rather than men’s (qtd. in Arneil 187).
Third wave feminism is “washing over all feminists” as members become
increasingly confronted with the central issue of women’s perspectives, positions and
experiences, and its implications for previous formulations of politics, history and
knowledge (Arneil 187). Feminists are beginning to abandon, what Fuss describes as
“useless” theoretical frameworks to which they were previously loyal. According to
Barbara Arneil, feminists need to rethink their marriage to traditional political and
theoretical paradigms” (187). Instead, the central feminist debate has been replaced with
determining “the degree to which a unity and/or universality or women as different from
men can be reconciled with the construction of identity and differences among women.
The Problem of Representation
In “Voice and representation in the politics of difference” Anna Yeatman
vocalizes the tension of traditional feminism and highlights the other and less popular
politics of difference within feminist theory namely, the differences among women. In
the context of the contemporary politics of justice, Yeatman points to “differences” as a
central issue. Feminism in the context of the contemporary era of oppression, has lost its
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innocence by having to realize that its existence is premised on an assumption that gender
is the most prominent base of oppression (228). This assumption is most significant for
women who do not experience additional sources of oppression such as ethnicity, race
and class.
Yeatman notes that it is impossible to find a practical bearer of this
subjectivity, such as a social movement which can stand in for and represent all the
various and distinct interests in emancipation. Yeatman’s article explores the possibilities
of insight which arise from an internal politics of emancipation within feminism. She
describes the emancipation movement by noting that a politics of difference in such a
movement exposes the contradictory nature of emancipation itself, its orientation by both
interest and ethics (229).
However, of particular import in her article and for the purposes of this essay is
Yeatman’s concern with the representation of women in feminist theory. She identifies
the “custodians” of feminism as the white, Western and middle class women whose
voices are privileged by the discursive economics of feminism by whom these same
economics disprivilege: women who are not white, Western and middle class. Mary
Eagleton supports Yeatman’s custodial notion in her comment:
The white, heterosexual, middle-class woman is taken as the norm and the
literary history produced is ‘almost as selective and ideologically bound as the male
tradition (qtd. in Selden et. al.’s 137).
Before now, this same privileged group was tolerated and even expected to speak
on behalf of all women, including those less economically privileged than themselves.
However, the fact that this select group assumed the role as spokesperson for the
universal female experience is precisely what the new emancipatory movement detests.
The challenge then arises whether or not the custodians of feminism may truly be
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associated with the new movements without forfeiting the distinctiveness of their voice.
“How far can the custodians advocate for the voice of a new emancipatory contestants
without beginning to appropriate this voice? (239)” The dilemma presents one example
of the tension fueled by the differences within feminism.
The Bell debate further illustrates the politics of difference within feminism.
While the debate is specific to the politics of voice and representation within the context
of Australian feminism, the issues it presented reaches into and challenges every feminist
community. The tension arose as Aboriginal women began objecting to the “historically
established dominance of white settler women in Australian feminism” that were
claiming to be the better advocates of the Aboriginal woman experience (Yeatman 239).
The politics in the debate intensified as it came to include a chorus of voices ranging
from Aboriginal and non English speaking background feminists that became the
prominent emancipatory voices to the extent both that the custodians no longer
monopolized agenda-setting within the movement, and that the difference within the
movement can not be arraigned within any one binary” (239).
Reflected in her
controversial article’s title, Diane Bell’s argument was that the “rape of aboriginal
women by Aboriginal men in the Northern Territory is every feminist’s business” (240).
Anna Yeatman intervened in the debate over Bell’s premise with the purpose of raising
public awareness of the objections to the Bell position. One example of such objections
was articulated in the Huggins et al. piece. By her intervening Yeatman challenged her
“sister white feminist audience” by asking them to consider their position on the issues
raised by Huggins argument of Bell’s assumption that there is a universal feminist voice
which can speak on behalf of all women. Yeatman expressed to her audience her belief
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that women were positioned based on the commonality of their shared historical location
as racist. She further expressed that in order to understand this uncomfortable position, it
was imperative to reflect upon arguments such as those raised by Jackie Huggins et al.’s.
Just because you are women doesn’t mean you are necessarily innocent. You
were, and still are part of that colonizing force. Our country was colonized on both a
racially and sexually imperialistic basis. In many cases our women considered white
women worse than men in their treatment of Aboriginal women, particularly in the
domestic service field. (qtd. 240)
Yeatman further challenged her audience with the question of whether or not they
were prepared to admit the “fact and implication of their shared positioning as racist in
relation to Aboriginal women” (240). Yeatman clarifies that she was not suggesting that
Diane Bell was any more racist than any other feminist woman. Rather, Yeatman took
issue with Bell’s assumption as an authoritative speaker on behalf of the Aboriginal
women’s history of abuse when the actual voices belonging to the victims were absent
and not available to present, arbitrate, complicate or argue their own politics. In her
defense Bell claimed that her access to cultural resources allowed her to bring a voice to
the politics of the issue and was in effect, “respecting the spirit of their conversations
about how rape and violence are damaging Aboriginal women” (241). So perhaps
resourcefulness is not one of Bell’s better qualities. If her genuine purpose was to
“empower” and “respect the damage to Aboriginal women”, she should have deposited
her “cultural resources” to the provision of victims’ forums where the real voices could
be heard and Aboriginal women could experience genuine empowerment.
Yeatman emphasizes that what is required for the politics of representation is
actual representation (241)! If public awareness of women centered experience such as
Aboriginal rape, is achieved in academic contexts such as conferences, seminar series,
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publications and classrooms etc., then Yeatman urges that is incumbent for those who are
positioned as minority feminists to be present! The absence of these voices from such
forums results in custodians such as Bell, whose cultural competence is limited by the
very nature of her status as white, Western and middle class, taking the microphone and
speaking on behalf of the lives lived by the non white, non Western and lower class
feminist.
However, Yeatman acknowledges that even when minority voices are presented
in these forums, they are stifled by the dynamics of the “same/difference game” (241).
The “game” provides limited options for individual voices to be heard and is based on the
positioning of the speaker. The rules of the game are as follows:
1) if you are like us we do not have to create space for your voice
2) if you are the other, when we invite you to speak, please speak on behalf of all
others, all minorities, all difference
Yeatman understands the object of this game as having to “avoid the complexity
of dialogue that arises between subjects who understand themselves to be complexly like
and different from each other” (241). But nor is discouraging forums of dialogue the
solution either. Instead, to be more effective a revision is required in order to incorporate
the representation of different experiences into the face of feminism and ultimately
achieve greater accountability.
For example, when feminist forums are sheltered within the confines of academia,
widening the politics of representation is hindered and issues of difference are vulnerable
to becoming “corrupted by the introversion of academic competitive narcissism”
(Yeatman 242). While perhaps location is a mere technical detail it has significant
ramifications. The dialogue based forums must be situated in a non threatening, non
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competitive space that is accessible to and welcoming for non scholarly self advocates to
enter. If the forums are revised, there is greater possibility that feminism will begin to
incorporate wider representation of the issues that affect marginalized groups. Yeatman
encourages a co operation between non academics advocates and academic feminists. To
this end, she explains that “the opening up of public space involves the process of
developing accountability within a dialogic partnership between professionals and self
advocates” (242). Yeatman admits that Diane Bell may have reflected this incorporation
by contributing to the accountability between herself as a professional and other self
advocates who lacked access to the written, policy-oriented text. Finally, Yeatman
challenges the current custodians to foster such relationships bearing in mind that the true
representation of difference “cannot occur without the participation of the actors
concerned” (243).
The Problem of Essentialism
In Reading Like a Feminist Fuss identifies the textual and political effects of
essentialising notions such as “class,” “woman,” “a shared women’s experience,” “male
reader,” and “female reader.” (580). Fuss takes issue with such terms that lack
epistemological usefulness because of their failure to account for the real, material
differences among women (580). The harm created by universal notions is the
suppression of the differences that exist within feminism; consequently feminism has
traditionally been reflective of only a small portion of women, better known as the
custodians of feminism: the white, Western and middle class women. Furthermore,
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collapsing terms such as “woman” with “women”, “female” with “feminist” reinforces
the binarism between feminism and deconstruction (580).
Fuss begins her article by asking what it means to read as a woman or as a man.
She questions what “it is exactly” that underlies and fosters the notion of a gender-based-class style of reading. In search of answers, Fuss consults three pieces including Robert
Scholes’s “Reading Like a Man”, Tania Modelski’s “Feminism and the Power of
Interpretation”,
and
Gayatri
Spivak’s
“Subaltern
Studies:
Deconstructing
Historiography.” In common, these works illustrate the problem of essentialism and the
“vexed relations between feminism and deconstruction” (581).
Robert Scholes’ highlights the notion of class and endorses the ability of women
to be conscious of themselves as a class because they are bound by a certain shared
experience. For Fuss, Scholes’ premise is problematic. In a weak attempt to clarify his
notion of “experience”, Scholes’ concludes that it is “Whatever experience is, it is not
just a construct but something that constructs” (582). Fuss ponders but quickly dismisses
the possibility of Scholes’ referring to the shared experience of female specific body
functions such as the “menstrual flow” (582). A second suggestion Fuss presents is the
experience defined by Teresa de Lauretis, experience in terms of an ongoing process by
which subjectivity is constructed semiotically and historically. But Fuss admits that
Scholes’ earlier reference to the female body renders the de Lauretis suggestion unlikely.
However, even by acknowledging that a shared experience exists, there is little
consensus among women to determine what that experience looks like. Consequently,
Fuss warns that it is important to be skeptical of any authority such as Scholes, who
purports to present substantive claims regarding the female experience. Fuss relies on a
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helpful note by feminist philosopher Jean Grimshaw to emphasize the complexity and
depth associated with the notion of experience:
Experience does not come neatly in segments such that is always possible to
abstract what in one’s experience is due to ‘being married,’ ‘being middle class’ and so
forth (583).
The problem with over inclusive categories like “the female experience” or “the
male experience” is that given their generality and seamlessness, such terms are of
limited epistemological usefulness (584). Tania Modelski provides an example of the
“case of a man and a woman reading Freud’s text.” She reports that “the woman, having
been accustomed to the experience of being considered a more sensual than intellectual
being, must respond to the text differently from the man…”(584). To this assumption
Fuss questions what woman Modelski is speaking for, to and about? Is Modelski
including in her notion of female reader, third world readers, lesbian readers, working
class readers? Probably not. Fuss is repulsed that one can speak so simply of “the female
reader” or “the male reader”, “the woman”, “the man,” and in so doing, blatantly ignores
other dimensions of difference that affect one’s reading and interpretation such as class,
culture, ethnicity and nationality and the fact that some readers may be more materially
empowered than others. Modelski’s universal female is an example of the politics that
black critics protest: the massive silence of feminist criticism about black and ThirdWorld women writers” (Showalter, 458). Fuss questions whether our reading responses
are really that predictable and interpretable that they merit labels such as “female reader”
and “male reader”. Ultimately, Fuss concludes that despite her good intentions, Modelski
is as guilty as her male counterpart Scholes as they both fail to account for the real,
material differences between women. By their camouflaging of the variances among
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women, both authors in effect treat the difference in female experiences as immaterial.
Clearly, experience is a shaky ground upon which to base the notion of class of women
when the notion itself varies from woman to woman. The questions then remains, if
essence and experience are too problematic what can the idea of a class be premised
upon?
Finally, Fuss assesses Spivak’s concept of subject positions as a proposed means
of reading texts and more importantly, textualizing readers. Spivak relied on Foucault’s
definition of the concept who elaborated his own notion of subject positions as one of the
four fundamental components of discursive formations. Fuss then applies Foucault’s
approach to subjectivity into a general theory of reading by considering questions such as
“what are the various positions a reading subject may occupy? How are these positions
constructed? Are there possible distributions of subject positions located in the text itself?
Can a reader refuse to take up a subject position the text constructs for him or her? Does
the text construct the reading subject or does the reading subject construct the text?
Spivak unclearly concludes that “the clearing of a subject position in order to speak or
write is unavoidable” (588). Spivak’s conclusion is ambiguous in the sense that she does
not revisit whether or not she is referring to a clearing away of a previously held subject
position or a clear the way for a particular subject position. Foucault suggests that the
subject positions one is likely to read from is less a matter of choice than assignment. In
response Fuss argues that Foucault’s perspective leads to two difficulties. First, it leads to
an inclination to taxonomize, to list one’s various categorical positions in linear fashion
as if they could be easily extracted and distinguished from one another. Second, reading
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from an assigned position can lend itself to stereotyping, and labeling “kinds” of readers
and predicting their institutional responses as Modelski illustrated earlier (588).
Fuss revisits her initial challenge of determining upon what a notion of a class of
women [reading] ought to be based (590). She suggests that both “class” and “women”
represent political constructs and points to politics as the self evident category in feminist
discourse. However, while Fuss identifies politics as feminism’s essential focal point she
agrees that the notion of politics is resistant to precise definition. In an attempt to achieve
some degree of understanding, Fuss quotes Donna Haraway:
What kind of politics could embrace partial, contradictory, permanently unclosed
constructions of personal and collective selves and still be faithful, effective?
To Haraway, the ‘kind of politics’ includes a class of women connected “through
coalition-affinity, not identity”-affinity based on choice rather than on nature. Fuss
prefers a different approach than Haraway and subscribes instead to the idea that politics
grounds affinity. Ultimately, while Fuss at some points seems to contest the notion of a
class because of its tendency to take for granted a shared identity and commonality, she
agrees that it is important to retain the notion for political purposes. Despite its unsettling
controversy, Fuss considers politics integral to the many definitions and very essence of
feminism.
Conclusion
Feminist politics would certainly be less complicated if the only dichotomy that
existed was that based on gender. However, thanks to the fundamental argument of
Virginia Woolf that the female experience deserves exploration in its own right followed
by the support of second and third wave feminists, the politics of difference among
women has and will continue to consume feminist discourse. More advocates are
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realizing and acting upon the reality that gender is not the only difference. To subscribe
to such a notion is to ignore the impact of culture, race, class, ethnicity and nationality on
one’s persona. Feminism cannot claim to be representative of Woman because She does
not exist. On the other hand, in order to represent women effectively and accurately, the
custodians of feminism need to be reselected. The face of feminism needs to reflect
different experiences, but specifically the experiences survived by the non-white, non
Western, lower class women. The achievements of the feminist movement are less
meaningful if feminists themselves repeat the same oppressive behaviors toward their
own members that they have fought to overcome. (Copyright 2006, Lisa Marie Buccella)
Works Cited
Arneil, Barbara. “Third Wave Feminism(s): the View at, of and from the Border(s) In
Politics and Feminism: An Introduction, pp. 186-197. Blackwell Publishing, 1999.
Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies 4th edition. Eds Robert
Con Davis & Ronald Schleifer. New York, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 1998.
580-591.
Fuss, Diana. “Reading Like a Feminist.” In Contemporary Literary Criticism 4th edition,
edited by Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer, pp.580-591. New York and London:
Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 1998.
Selden, Raman. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Lexington:
University of Kentucky Press, 1985.
Showalter, Elaine. “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness.” In Contemporary Literary
Criticism 2nd edition, edited by Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer, pp.457-478. New
York and London: Addison Wesley Longman Inc., 1989.
Woolf, Virgina. Extracts from “A Room of One’s Own.” In Feminist Literary Theory: A
Reader, edited by Mary Eagleton, pp.73-80. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
Yeatman, Anna “Voice and representation in the politics of difference.” In Feminism and
The Politics of Difference, edited by Sneja Gunew and Anna Yeatman, pp.228-245.
Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1993.
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