Telling feminist stories

Abstract

This article identifies and analyses the dominant stories that academics tell about the development of Western second wave feminist theory. Through an examination of recent production of interdisciplinary feminist and cultural theory journals, I suggest that despite a rhetorical insistence on multiple feminisms, Western feminist trajectories emerge as startlingly singular. In particular, I am critical of an insistent narrative that sees the development of feminist thought as a relentless march of progress or loss. This dominant approach oversimplifies the complex history of Western feminisms, fixes writers and perspectives within a particular decade, and repeatedly (and erroneously) positions poststructuralist feminists as ‘the first’ to challenge the category ‘woman’ as the subject and object of feminist knowledge. Rather than provide a corrective history of Western feminist theory, the article interrogates the techniques through which this dominant story is secured, despite the fact that we (feminist theorists) know better. My focus, therefore, is on citation patterns, discursive framings and some of their textual, theoretical and political effects. As an alternative, I suggest a realignment of key theorists purported to provide a critical break in feminist theory with their feminist citational traces, to force a concomitant re-imagining of our historical legacy and our place within it.

Religion, Intersectionality, and Epistemic Habits of Academic Feminism. Perspectives from Global Feminist Theology

“…Clare Hemmings' critique of the dominant narratives of Anglo-American feminist theory as a narrative of progress (loss and return) and her insistence on alternative histories and narratives (Hemmings 2005 and) is compelling. Hemmings (2005) identifies, describes, and analyses the dominant stories that academics tell about the development of Western, second-wave feminist theory. She suggests that despite a rhetorical insistence on multiple feminisms, Western feminist trajectories emerge as startlingly singular.…”

Corpos, subjetivações estéticas e arte e feminismos: passagens na pesquisa em Psicologia

“…Sem desconsiderar as dificuldades e práticas opressivas, Hemmings (2011), em análises das histórias feministas, questiona narrativas como a supramencionada que acabam por aprisionar a categoria mulher e sugere que é preciso superá-las em prol da potência dessa categoria. A autora pontua que para escapar destas ainda dominantes narrativas sobre a história feminista é preciso um trabalho político, epistemológico e ontológico que não busque considerar a história mais "verdadeira" e se debruce numa escrita transversal e heterogênea.…”

Intersectional Directions in Working Life Research—a Proposal

“…Ethnicity and nationality are highlighted as fundamental to this, and also the shifting alliances between groups of women at good and low times. (Glucksmann 2009, p. xvi) As has been pointed out (Hemmings 2005), the dominant story of the genealogy of gender studies claims that 1970s and 1980s gender research, specifically if it was produced in dialogue with Marxist theory, constructed women as a homogenous group and failed to recognize power differences between women, specifically power differences rooted in race/ethnicity and sexuality. Glucksmann and Phizacklea's (1990) worksite ethnographies show that this "feminist story-telling" excludes important and pioneering work of that time, which today can be conceptualized as intersectional in its approaches and careful analyses of what Glucksmann later named "intersecting divisions."…”