Part I: Introduction
In the introductory remarks to this chapter, Grosz asserts her interest in political and intellectual practices. She asks, “How can new models of thought, new intellectual practices come into being?” (155) Specifically, she asks questions about how to think the future, how to transform both philosophical and feminist theory, which Grosz argues intersect in their interests in ontology and epistemology. Although philosophy has traditionally excluded women, Grosz declares the need of feminist theory to investigate and use philosophy to its advantage, especially where philosophy/theory is brave, risky, and innovative. Grosz describes the theories of Deleuze and Irigaray as such theories.
Part II: Deleuzian concepts
For Deleuze, theory is not a unified system composed of arguments. Rather, theory/knowledge is made up of concepts which themselves are not “unitary or singular” (158), but always multiple. Concepts attempt to answer questions, which are occasioned by historically locatable, singular events (which can be natural, cultural, or political). The question/problem cannot necessarily be solved, but “enacted, lived through, negotiated” (160). Concepts/solutions arise at the same time questions are determined, and thus contribute to ideas and thought. Thus theory and practice flow into each other, “each [as] a mode of the other’s proliferation” (162). [for a summary of the concepts, see 1-4 on pages 161-162]
Part III: Irigaray and sexual difference
Grosz distinguishes two kinds of feminist theory: the first kind is that in which feminism is temporary, the second in which feminism is eternal. Feminism is temporary when it aims to overcome the oppression of women. In other words, once women have gained equality with men in economic, political, and legal realms, feminist goals will be fulfilled. Thus in this view, feminism is a temporary project.
Feminism is eternal when it posits sexual difference, such as the work of Irigaray. This kind of feminism seeks “the entire restructuring of the symbolic order, of the social apparatuses, including language, forms of knowledge, and modes of representation” (163). In other words, since everything up till now has been phallocentric, only one part of sexual difference has been represented. Irigaray argues that the other perspective (that of woman) has yet to be articulate and advocates for a “revolution in thought” that would reconsider and transform everything (all fields and disciplines) (165).
Deleuze and Irigaray “meet” in that their concept/solution will transform and continue to transform theory/action in unknown ways, but in ways that will be multiple (at least two) and continual.
Part IV: Solutions?
Grosz concludes with four suggestions/solutions (?) for feminist theory and politics:
1) Feminism should not necessarily be centered around struggles for the recognition of women in various groups. Instead, “it may be understood as the struggle around the right to act and to make according to one’s own interests and perspectives, the mobilization and opening up of identity to an uncontained and unpredictable future” (167).
2) Feminism should seek actions which generate transformations that are not necessarily linked to individuals, groups, or organizations.
3) Sexual difference should be recognized as a factor in all human affairs.
4) Feminism should produce concepts that “welcome and generate political, conceptual, and artistic experimentation” (168).
Questions: What do you make of Grosz’s shift in emphasis in feminist theory from a project-based, temporary entity to an eternal process of transformation? What dis/advantages do you think this entails for feminist projects?
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Something that she repeats several times, which I think is particularly crucial, is that sexual differences implies that there are at least to ways of doing anything. And given her discussions of discourses or arguments being uneasily fit-together pieces, it seems that each would entail many other possible discourses. So, the fracture into two implies a splinter into infinity. Hooray!
In response to the post's question, I think that this alternative look at feminism is a very strong one. The notion of feminism in which it is temporary necessitates a certain number of fixations. Essentially, the temporary fix requires a kind of teleological schematic in which terms such as 'woman', 'man', 'feminist', 'patriarch', 'good', 'bad', 'oppressed' and 'liberated' must all be predetermined. These fixations allow the organization of projects that will attend to deficiencies and eventually correct the system. Ultimately, this is a fairly logocentric form of feminism which will likely lead to inevitable conflicts between the schematic and its stewards and the unexpected difference that life constantly introduces. This feminism, while seeking a certain change will find itself isolated from and antagonistic towards other changes. Thus, the alternative that Grosz suggests gives feminism the sustainability that only comes with the capacity to receive and adapt to change, the power that comes with mutability, the vitality that is inherent in any life, that of living in change, changing in life.
I affirm the affirmative nature of a change which comes from the movement and productivity of difference through a futurity as yet unimagined.
In addition to what Anderson said in his response, a project-based feminism that only exists to end women's oppression runs the risk of reproducing and/or endorsing other systems of oppression. Feminism as an eternal process of transformation that intends to open up "identity to an uncontained and unpredictable future" (167) seeks to better address the forces keeping identities, and the binaries they form, intact.
Also, Grosz's related project of the politics of the imperceptible "which has its effects through actions, but which actions can never be clearly identified with an individual, group, or organization" (167) seems to be a promising vehicle for breaking away from identity politics.
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