Critical vs Postmodern Feminist Theory

Introduction

Gender and sustainability are deeply connected, both in theory and practice. Firstly to achieve women’s and minorities liberation–including the protection of the environment–against structures and systems that oppress and exploits them. Some practical examples are implementing policies, supporting activism, and transforming culture; especially when it comes to gender’s roles. This has resulted in more participatory approaches, equality and rights that concern women, minorities and the environment. It’s still a long way to go, but initiatives and social movements inspired in these fundamentals have proven that research and action outside academia in this field can be a great catalyst for sustainable change.

This post summarizes the exchange between two feminist theorists: Nancy Fraser and Judith Butler. The exchange is relevant for sustainability as several argumentations and claims done by these two authors can be applied in the context of social and environmental challenges. Their approaches aim to have practical results in the achievement of feminist goals, the transformation of the political economy and the support of new social movements. All of these elements are also connected with sustainability as gender equality, new political-economical systems and activism are key components to modify the unsustainable practices that have degraded the environment up until this moment (O’Brien, 2018). Feminist objectives attempt to bring transformation into a society that has continued to undermine its need for more participatory processes, solution of gender injustices, inclusion of diversity and the empowerment of the “Left” in Butler (1997) and Fraser (1997) terms. Their debate is not just a philosophical exchange but a continued process that aims to influence and empower agents in society, sharing the goals of sustainability science: conceptualized as transdisciplinary research due to its need of engagement with societal problems (Lang et al., 2012).

Nancy Fraser and Judith Butler Debate

The debate between Judith Butler and Nancy Fraser can be traced back to the publication of the book Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange (1995) where both theorists express their approach to feminist theory in addition to contributions and responses from Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell in the same book. The debate then continued with the publication of Fraser’s book Justice Interruptus  (1997) which is discussed in a later publication of Butler titled Merely Cultural (1997), and finally getting a response from Fraser in the journal article Heterosexism, Misrecognition, and Capitalism: A response to Judith Butler (1997).

The debate is understood as a friendly argumentation where both authors aim to have a productive discussion over their understanding, relation and approach of social feminism and capitalism; while presenting different interpretations and applications of theories such as critical theory, Neo-Marxism, discourse analysis, post-structural feminism, postmodern feminism and queer theory. They share a common ground on Marxist feminism but they disagree on the interpretations of the mentioned theories and their usefulness for political economy, new social movements and the conceptualization of contemporary capitalism.

Initial Essays and Responses

The book Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange (1995) is based on a symposium that was given in Philadelphia, USA in 1990 presented as a debate on postmodernism and feminism and contains two articles written by Butler and two written by Fraser that relate to each other. The book does not attempt to give a current state of feminist theory neither to present a state of the art discussion regarding the relationship of these two concepts; however, it does question the meaning and usefulness of the term postmodernism in the feminist debate.

Contingent Foundations

In Butler’s initial essay, Contingent Foundations (1995), she starts by questioning the meaning of the term postmodernism, its implications for feminist social or political theory and asking if it’s a term that one adopts or if the term is imposed on oneself. She then moves to argue that individuals in society are not only “subjects” situated within it, but they are continuously constituted by institutional arrangements and processes shaped by constructions of power and discourse. In the view of Butler, becoming this subject is not a feminist goal since the subject’s opposition is generated by the same structures of disempowerment that seeks to oppose. Furthermore, she questions the use of identity categories which in her view, they are not only descriptive but by nature exclusionary. For example, the term women in many discourses is associated with maternity and caregiving, which ends up excluding women that are not in the age of having, chose not to have or cannot have children for biological reasons. In addition, she relates the term to the materiality of the bodies’ sex, making it a subject of political meaning through discourse because of their struggles regarding violence and rape. Butler’s approach of feminism in this essay is based in the term “resignification”, which motivates subjects to constantly reinvent themselves and open up alternatives and possibilities for the agency of feminism. The term “resignification” is engaged more deeply in her book Gender Trouble, where she uses the example of the concept “woman”, which in her view, is a term that it is not fixed or one that someone is born into; but a constant process of becoming, one which never starts or ends and is always transforming.

False Antitheses: A Response to Seyla Benhabib and Judith Butler

In her essay, False Antitheses: A Response to Seyla Benhabib and Judith Butler (1995), Fraser sees both critical theory and poststructuralism insightful and valuable for feminist theorizing, using the term “critique” under a positive connotation to find emancipatory alternatives for women. “Critique” for Fraser is understood as a normative judgment that is connected to a theory of justification. Fraser responds to Butler’s essay by arguing that seeing people as constituted subjects of power undermines their capacity of opposition and that the term “resignification” lacks normativity to understand whether is good or bad to do it. For Fraser, the term “women” paradoxically constructs and deconstructs identities: On one hand, women’s identities may share characteristics with other collective nominations such as exploited workers or people of color; however, there cannot be a single definition of women. This deconstruction can be problematic since there are conflicts of interests between women from different classes, ethnicities, nationalities and sexual orientations that cannot be undermined. Her understanding of Butler’s approach to feminist goals is the liberation of identity which is seen as inherently oppressive; however, in Fraser’s view, this is problematic as there must be normative judgements that allows to deconstruct identities and then reconstruct them to find alternatives to liberation and utopian hope.

For a Careful Reading

Butler responds to this essay in For a Careful Reading (1995) by problematizing the term “critique” as seeing it embedded in the power or discourse that it seeks to adjudicate. She argues that her proposal of “resignification” is not a normative assessment but the encompassment of possibilities in which the subject can reinvent itself. The normative claim that she defends is grounded on analyzing the constitution of the subject and substituting the possibility of abjection or repudiation in identity politics by valuing positively differentiation and creating a generous political community that does not feel threatened by differences.

Pragmatism, Feminism, and the Linguistic Turn

The final response of Fraser, Pragmatism, Feminism, and the Linguistic Turn (1995) provides a reflection on how the postmodern debate about feminism in these series of essays and responses has shifted to the “problematization of language”; moving from epistemological implications in the subject’s mind to a discursive analysis of how cultural and social meanings are constructed. Her analysis of Butler’s approach finds usefulness in revealing the discursive power that constructs gendered identities and performances of the subject; and by exposing this construction, one can find alternatives to resignify oneself in innovative manners to successfully contest power. However, Fraser claims that this approach misses a moral-political normative judgement that allows to find links and contest hegemonic structures such as large-scale institutions, economies and states. In her view, dereification of identity is only helpful to understand the historical gendered relationships understood in the micro level; but not with the macro level and the normative implications related with the different conceptual levels of structures in society.

Second Part of the Debate

Justice Interruptus

In 1997, Fraser published the book Justice Interruptus (1997) where she introduces a critical theory that aims to integrate politics of “redistribution” and “recognition” without undermining one or the other. Her definition of the terms is as follows: Redistribution is seen as a remedy for struggles over economic inequality such as readjusting income or reorganizing the division of labor. Recognition aims to solve cultural disrespect by revaluing identities and valorizing diversity. Fraser strongly points out that they are analytical categories that exist intertwined in reality; but she argues that they need to be conceptualized separately in order to resolve the complexities of the real world trying to solve matters of injustice.

To illustrate both ends; she first uses the example of the working class in Marxism which is deeply connected with the need of redistribution in the political economy. Conversely, she mentions the example of homosexuality which is not related with the political economy structure but with a cultural valuation of the legitimacy of heterosexuals that are distributed in the different levels of the class structure where homosexual struggles are related with lack of legal rights, discrimination and violence. She then moves to the example of gender which is interrelated with both dimensions: On one hand the implications of the political economy regime which encompasses wage labor and reproductive labor, and on the other one; cultural sexism associated with androcentrism and masculinity. This combination results in a vicious cycle that reinforces each other to disadvantage women and restrict women’s equal participation in society. To solve these injustices, redistribution solutions would eliminate gendered division of labor, marginalization or exploitation while recognition solutions would eliminate androcentric norms, masculine privileges and would transform cultural valuations that include equal respect for women.

Merely Cultural

Butler then published a journal article titled Merely Cultural (1997) where she attempts to theorize on how to overcome the divisions that have been appearing in the cultural Left-wing politics which have only gained attention due to the marked differences between them and in consequence, have strengthened the Right-wing politics as the desirable middle ground. She then challenges the distinction between the cultural and material life pointing out that the Left claims have forgotten their materialist nature (like the demands in orthodox Marxism) and now are being interpreted as merely cultural arguments in search of identity protection and media attention.

Butler then moves to analyze Justice Interruptus (1997) where she questions Fraser’s decision of locating homosexuality at the cultural end of the spectrum and analytically apart from the political economy when precisely the latter has produced normative judgments deeming desirable heterosexual families in order to reproduce persons for the service of capitalism. According to Butler, if this mode of reproduction is the defining structure of political economy, how can homophobia be regarded only as a cultural struggle when normative heterosexuality and kinship have been fundamental for the functioning of the sexual order within the political economy; and the suppression of non-heterosexual identities is essential for the functioning of this normativity. According to Butler, sexuality is not only closely tied to reproduction, but also naturalizes the term “sex” which produces definitions on what qualifies as a recognizable person and therefore, producing the subjects of contention.

Heterosexism, Misrecognition and Capitalism: A response to Judith Butler

Finally, Fraser’s response to Merely Cultural (1997) is found in the publication Heterosexism, Misrecognition and Capitalism: A response to Judith Butler (1997) where she starts by arguing that in the analysis done in Justice Interruptus (1997), her approach for solving economic and cultural injustices is conceptually irreducible to one or the other as both are equally harmful. According to Fraser, cultural injustices are not only psychological issues such as being looked down or devalued, but are institutionalized practices of misrecognition in law, welfare, health, immigration, naturalization policies, tax codes (to name some examples) that produce social relations that end up impeding equal parity of participation. Even though these injustices are “rooted in social patterns of interpretation, evaluation and communication” and may be catalogued in the symbolic order, their consequences translate into material effects such as being dismissed from civilian employment, military service, family welfare-benefits or inheritance.

Fraser then moves to compare her approach with Butler’s. In Fraser’s understanding, Butler traces the cause of homosexual abjection to the relations of production defined by Marxist theory; however, Fraser proposes to understand these material effects of heterosexism in the category of misrecognition where heterosexuality is valued positively, and homosexuality is seen as deviant. She challenges the approach of Butler that relates normative heterosexuality originated by the needs of the capitalistic political economy and points out that in the current capitalistic societies, this link has been blurred out by the “personal life where intimate relations including sexuality, friendship and love” are no longer exclusive to the family or kinship order. She argues that the maintenance of heterosexual relations is not fundamental for capitalism as it was with other economic systems such as slavery and gives examples of some corporations that have adopted gay-friendly policies and promoted diversity within their workplaces. Homosexuality is more seen as a deviation, criticized by conservatives and religious groups where the main driver is status and not profit.

Fraser concludes by questioning Butler’s approach in trying to deconstruct the distinction between the material and cultural life, which Fraser finds problematic as she sees usefulness in this distinction to “find possibilities of countersystemic ‘agency’ and social change” and not in the abstraction of terms such as “resignification” or gender perfomativity. In her view, this can be achieved by overcoming the “splits in the Left” that Butler mentions by adopting politics of redistribution and recognition which both have legitimate claims and can be integrated in order to achieve social and political justice.

Written by Carlos Cordova

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