ASSIGNMENT-1

FEMINISM AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Indrani Sengupta
M.phil (1
st
semester)



In feminist theories subject is a very contested term for what comes under the purview of subject is a
subject of great debate. Subject at times comes as a category, for example woman or it sometimes
becomes the experience of women. The very idea of subject needs to be defined first. Is subject being
anything or is it a process. When we define subject as being we are narrowing its scope. When the
subject is a process, a continuous evolution, a progression with time as in cyborg manifesto, the very idea
of agency becomes problematic in feminist politics but is not impossible to show that politics is possible.
Judith Butlers work has been concerned with the ongoing analysis and resulting destabilization of the
category of the subject ( a process she calls a critical genealogy of gender ontologies).Is the female
subject a stable and self evident entity? Woman can no longer be a category if the categories of gender,
sex and sexuality come are questioned.(as is done by Butler, Foucault, Gayle etc.).There are identity
categories like gay, straight, bisexual, transsexual, etc. Identity politics based on the collective notion
of identity raises some obvious questions. There are identity politics groups like Us Civil Rights, Gay
and lesbian liberation groups etc. who strive for betterment of this group in social, cultural and political
arena. These groups have members who share a common form of oppression in terms of discrimination.
Clearly, there is an agency to such politics because the subjects are so distinctly defined. Thus to build up
a political agency there has to be a common experience of discrimination. In such a case individual
experience of each member is undermined in trying to assign political agency to a common
discrimination. To define a subject on the basis of a characteristic say oppression is to show the
domination of that characteristic over the other (say individual experiences of oppression) which then
questions the motive of the struggle because many aspects are not covered under the umbrella term of
oppression. Defining a subject leads us to fall into the trap of essentialism. Essentialism defines the
subject on the basis of certain characteristics. If we talk about the category woman not considering any
division within this group in terms of experiences, caste, race, ethnicity etc. we are running the error of
missing out the possibilities of a greater struggle and the agency gets narrowed down. If the battle is
fought on the basis of equal pay for equal work for women , we clearly have an agency but the whole
exercise undermines the heterogeneity of women because in this case we focus only on women who work
outside home. Thus the whole idea of politics becomes narrow because of exclusion. Again, if the agency
for feminist politics is in terms of equality as in this case, are we not again falling into the pitfalls of
essentialism? In the equality game, we are setting men as benchmark and trying to find equality with
respect to them which takes us back on the path of fixing the subject called women within the patriarchal
orbit. There is a tension of categorizing women lest it falls into the pitfall of essentialism and the fact that
if we do not define the subject then the ground of politics becomes obscure. There is a tradeoff between
theory of feminists and the political struggle and the agency. There can be a midway where we do not
sacrifice either of the two and come to a consensus. It is like arriving at a second best option where we
cannot possibly have purity of theories that is doing away with patriarchal norms. Taking this as a
constraint, feminists should reconcile between the two. Again, through various discourses on the subject,
feminists create politics within feminism. There is never a clear cut path that the subject of feminism
takes. In Butlers words to claim that politics require a stable subject is to claim that there can be no
political opposition to that claim.
1
Politics is the art of the possible
2
and thus by destabilizing the subject
we are creating possibilities for new grounds of politics which takes an intermediate range. What form
does feminist politics takes is a question that should be addressed. Donna Haraways articulation of a

1
Judith Butler, Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism in Feminists theorize the
political( New York:Routledge 1992),p 630
2
Otto Von Bismarck
cyborg points at the possibility of a politics without a specific identity. The politics in her paper Cyborg
Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the late twentieth century is based on affinity
which is concerned with shared views. Thus even after destabilization of the subject politics can be
thought of . On the other hand, we can think of Feminist Standpoint theories which aims at giving a
broader base to the agency of feminist politics by considering situatedness of knowledge. In this case the
knowledge of the oppressor and the oppressed is given primacy to provide a greater epistemological
grounding. But this theory also is problematized by the fact that it is a borrowed notion from Marxian
ontology
3
which is andocentric and centred. Also, knowledge is situated in social values can be a critique
to this theory. The theory does not destabilize the subject but rather it tried to incorporate some resources
to strenghten the political agenda. The women of colour through their standpoint can embark upon
political empowerment through the knowledge of their oppression is what the theory posits. Since it talks
about different standpoints, it brings out politics of difference.
4
The subject here is not as blurred as the
subject of Cyborg Politics. The subject here is the situated knowledge of oppression of various forms
which is about standpoints of various individuals. In a way this can be a shared politics. Joan Scott
countered the premise that identity is fixed and countered the fixity by saying it is not individuals who
have experience, but subjects who are constituted through experience.
Donna Haraway developed the idea of a Cyborg to show how politics is possible even when the subject
has no fixity i.e. destabilization of the subject does not take away feminist politics. In cyborg politics
there is a co existence of both the thesis and antithesis because cyborg is a hybrid of a machine and an
organism. Through the image of a cyborg Haraway has made an attempt to challenge the traditional
feminist theories based on a distinct subject. Here the concept of subject is blurred because no distinction
can be made between organic and inorganic when we think about a cyborg. She talks about two opposite
ends which are always together. This type of subjectivity which has blurred boundaries is the result of
modern day technologies in the field of medicines, warfare, manufacturing etc. Thus according to
Haraway, there is no complete wholeness of the subject and if we take cyborg as our ontology ,it gives
us our politics. It has its origin linked to military industrial complex. It is a path of imagining a world
without gender and yet having politics closely attached to it. There are three border crossings that
Haraway talks about. The first is between human and animals which is evident in case of pollution, the
use of animals in curing human diseases etc. The second boundary breakdown is between human and
machine. Machines have become an integral part of human lives which made it impossible to separate
from humans. Today machines are making difficult the distinction between natural and artificial. As
Haraway points out Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert. The
third boundary transgression is between the physical and the non physical. The political negotiation is to
be done through a technological world . Cyborg in other word is a metaphor of change which is brought
about by the intermingling of the human with machines and animals. Thus the identity of woman is
changing which always in contingency with the world.Haraway thinks of politics without identity. The
breakdown of boundary between human and animals, human and machines then questions traditional
approach of feminism where mind and body , animal and human were considered separate. The idea
of wholeness is in constant flux and is getting dissolved. Haraway thinks of politics in this dissolved
field.The politics here is a question of affinity which is not by birth but by choice since which one is

3
Sandra Harding, Introduction: Standpoint theory as a site of political, philosophic and scientific debate in Feminist
Standpoint theory Reader, (edited by Sandra Harding), p 8.
4
Susan Heckman
dominant, machine or organism is not explicit. It is not about relativism because relativism has a
tendency towards fixing each identity. Depending upon the context, the favouritism towards each identity
changes.Cyborgs are unfaithful to their origin because they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism
and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. There is nothing like being female because
the idea of being has an implicit foundation in it. According to her the search for the essential female
is dangerous because such theories have the tendency to exclude women who do not conform to the
theory. One cannot universalize experiences of different women. In that sense the identity of cyborg is
unstable and identity politics is not possible but affinity should form the basis of politics . She cites the
example of women of colour to describe the possibility of affinity politics based on otherness,
difference and specificity. Women of colour are the labour forces who are preferred for the science
based industries who are literate and the political struggle they fight is through writing which gives them
the autonomy to signify lived reality. Haraway thus talks about language politicswhich is the weapon of
expression of the women of colour. Cyborg politics takes writing as a tool to voice against one
code which in Haraways words is the central dogma of phallogocentrism.The political struggle is
through contesting for the meanings of writing. Cyborg writing is about having control of the tools that
separated them as other which is not based on original innocence.The tools are stories that attack
dualism of naturalized identities. The stories recode communication and intelligence to subvert
command and control. They defy the myth of origin of Western culture. In this way the politics is
played out which is not rooted in identification. The women of colour is the epitome of survival. The
image of a cyborg as opposed to a fixed subject and dualisms like mind/body, culture/nature,male/female
etc. renders a hope towards encompassing aspects that are missed out in fixing the subject. While
thinking about this, the distinction between man and woman gets blurred and thus give space to think of a
possibility of removing the fuss called gender.It gives a broader horizon to think of how medical
advancement have blurred the distinction between a male and a female.For example a transgender
man giving birth to a baby by undergoing hormonal change. This clearly shows how scientific technology
has an impact on human. According to Haraway there is system made by myth which have a ground to
become a political language in which science and technology will challenge the informatics of
domination. Cyborg politics is thus about dissolved boundaries and doing away with a specific
subject.
Sometimes defining the subject on the basis of certain traits can prove dangerous. This may give clear
political agenda because the subject becomes distinct but this essentialist approach has the inherent
tendency towards exclusion of certain class. For example when we segregate man from woman on the
basis of differences which are biological, we are not including transgender people. Elizabeth Grosz in
Sexual Difference and the Problem of Essentialism brings out how sexual difference gets transformed
into social difference and which tries to specify female and then individual. The right to equality then
implies that equality is sought setting men as benchmark. She considers equality of difference as a way
out which would resist creating a common platform of different political struggle which would ensure
womens difference not only from men but from other oppressed group. But this again also depends on
patriarchal knowledge. Though the politics comes out quite clear through this but the problem of
essentialism is maintained. One is not able to escape patriarchal framework by thinking along this line.
Thus defining subject or maintaining the stability of the subject gives an agenda to the political struggle
but it takes away the freedom of including other categories which are excluded while stabilizing the
subject.