Language and the Gendered Body: Butler's Early Reading of Merleau‐Ponty

Abstract

Through a close reading of Judith Butler's 1989 essay on Merleau‐Ponty's “theory” of sexuality as well as the texts her argument hinges on, this paper addresses the debate about the relation between language and the living, gendered body as it is understood by defenders of poststructural theory on the one hand, and different interpretations of Merleau‐Ponty's phenomenology on the other. I claim that Butler, in her criticism of the French philosopher's analysis of the famous “Schneider case,” does not take its wider context into account: either the case study that Merleau‐Ponty's discussion is based upon, or its role in his phenomenology of perception. Yet, although Butler does point out certain blind spots in his descriptions regarding the gendered body, it is in the light of her questioning that the true radicality of Merleau‐Ponty's ideas can be revealed. A further task for feminist phenomenology should be a thorough assessment of his philosophy from this angle, once the most obvious misunderstandings have been put to the side.

How is distress understood in existential philosophies and can phenomenological therapeutic practices be “evidence-based”?

“…The average nondisabled person is, within this reasoning, the default position we all adopt. Feminist writers have developed understandings from Merleau-Ponty in which it is observed that the default position in modern Western societies is White, middle-class, male, and heterosexual (Foultier, 2013). Behind this default position, there will be a complex intersectionality (McCall, 2005), and in whatever way we configure our groups of people like us, someone is always left out.…”