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Bodies and anti-bodies: Feminism

and the postmodernElspeth Probyn

a

aConcordia University , MontrealPublished online: 23 Aug 2006.

To cite this article:Elspeth Probyn (1987) Bodies and anti-bodies: Feminism and thepostmodern, Cultural Studies, 1:3, 349-360, DOI: 10.1080/ 09502388700490251

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B O DIE S A N D A N T I B O D I E S .

F E M I N I S M A N D T H E P O S T M O D E R N

The w orld is memory. I don 't remember anymo re because I

refuse to remember anym ore beca use all my memories

hurt.

(Acker, 1986)

ecent ly I had the teme ri ty to open a fai r ly theoret ical paper with

R a br ief discussion of how my own histor ical body inter twined

with my u nderstan ding a nd experience of ideology and subjec-

t ivi ty. While hardly a n ew app roach, a postmode rnist 'devotee '

in the aud ience subsequent ly men t ioned that this discussion had mad e him

'nervous ' . No w i t may indeed be m erely a qu est ion of clumsy str ipteasing -

the unravel ing of m y part icular discursive bod y - but w ha t I should l ike to

explore here is the 'nervous ' juncture o f feminism and p ostmod ernism, as

wel l as the possible confluence of feminism within the postm odern.

This juxtaposi t ion of feminism and po stmod ernism is not only nervous

but also potentially problematic. Therefore I want to begin by briefly

considering wh at may be at s take in a hasty merging of feminism and

postmodernism. Neither of these fields is homogeneous; feminist theory

potentially engages all disciplines, and postmodernism arises from the

detri tus, and the impossibil i ty, of metanarratives. T here are, howe ver, key

concepts which are proper to ea ch plane. These s ites and concerns do not

define a dichotomy of 'essences' for eitfler field, but they are important

consti tutive and epistemological loci. Thus within feminism they are: the

' l ived' ; difference; bodies and subjectivities; sexuality; the m aterial n ature

of experience; and various pol i t ical ar t iculat ions. And postmodernism

heralds: the end of his tory; the implosion of meaning; the negat ion of

total i ty and coherence; ' the body without organs ' ; the death of the

referent; the end of the social; a nd the ab sence of politics. While these l ists

are not necessarily mutually self-excluding, they do point to significant

areas of contestation. One might reasonably assume, for instance, that a

theory that asser ts ' the death o f the social and the t r iumph of excremental

cul ture ' (Kroker and Cook , 1986: 7) might be incompat ible with on e that

stresses, in various forms, the need to struggle over meanings within the

social realm.

I want here to rescue those s t ruggles over meaning from the rather

excessive rhetoric of postmodernism which makes i t increasingly difficult

to locate what is to be struggled over. The tradit ional poli t ical si tes of

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feminism - the body, experience and a pop ular pol it ics - sound rather

dated in the blur of postmo dernist discourse. While this ma y in par t t ruly

reflect chang ing historical reali t ies, we mu st begin to investigate the w ays in

which feminism has been taken up, denied and disarmed by postmodern-

ism. This will poi nt to the areas of agreem ent and contestation - as well as

those that involve the need to rearticulate both fields.

Postmodernist

bodies

One com m on use of the ' feminine ' wi thin the discourse of postmo dernism

has been as ' the other ' . This par t icular ar t iculat ion of 'wom an-as-othe r ' to

postmode rnist concerns frequent ly places wom en as the last f ront ier at the

end of his tory. Wo m an , or m ore accurately the feminine, is the last spasm,

nearly but not qui te 'a panic s i te for the fin-de-millennium (Kroker and

Cook, 1986). For al l of Craig Owens 's magnanimity in negot iat ing ' the

treacherous course between postmode rnism and feminism' (Owens, 1983:

59), feminism is merely displayed as a 'soft ' poli t ical spot for postm ode rn-

ism: modernist poli t ical ambitions for the masses now fall upon the

'feminine' . To begin to clarify this, let us consider Arthur Kroker 's

rework ing of feminism:

If i t' s t rue that we ' re f inally leaving the obsolete wo rld of the mo dern and

enter ing postmo dernism, then the ear l iest clue to the geography o f this

new terrain is what happens to images of women in the s imulacrum of

the media system. (Kroker and Kroker, 1985: 5)

In this scenario women, or rather their impossible representations,

funct ion as an ear ly-warning system of postmodernism, images without

referents, bits of the feminine manufactured in the media simulacrum. As

such, they are essentially unconnected, not only to each other, but also to

any polit ical posit ion. T hus Kro ker 's assessment of ' the fate of feminism in

the age of postmodernism' is that ' I t ' s processed feminism' (Kroker and

Co ok, 1986: 5). But wh at is i t tha t m akes feminism 'processed'? Is i t merely

the posi t ioning of wo me n in the mediascape? After al l, the recogni t ion of

the media's (and advertising's) exploitation is hardly new (and has been a

central tenet of feminist cri t iques). Moreover, i t is unclear in what way

wo me n are processed that dist inguishes them from the universal condi t ion

of contemporary media existence:

Everywhere today the aesthet icizat ion of the body and i ts dissolut ion

into a sem iurgy of floating bo dy p arts reveals that we are being processed

through a media scene consisting of our own (exteriorized) body organs

in the form of second-order simulacra. (Kroker, 1987: i i)

I t seems that the feminine body, f ragmented and processed through the

simulacrum of the m edia scene, has become the m etaph or for al l bodies.

How ever, the body as metaphor for a c ulture whe re pow er itself is always

only fictional ' (1987: i ii) cann ot serve as a site of em po we rm en t because i t

signifies nothing . Fu rtherm ore, if po we r is a fiction, the bo dy can n o long er

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tat ion, with simulation and seduction. Montrelay, in fact , identifies

wo me n as the ' ruin of representat ion' : not only do they have nothing to

lose; their exteriority to W estern represe ntation exposes i ts l imits. (1983:

59)

Psychoanalysis has spurred a t remendous amount of feminist wri t ings

engaged with this not ion of w om an as ' lack' . z But Owen s takes this

particular Lacanian concept as indicative of feminism as a (w)hole.

Even if this were the sum total of feminist thought, we would sti l l have

'something to lose' . Furtherm ore, O wens 's p ar t icular merging of feminism

with postmodernism is problematic: ' few women have engaged in the

modernism/postmodernism debate . . . women's insis tence on difference

and incommensurabi l i ty may not only be compat ible with, but also an

instance of postmodern thought ' (1983: 62) .

In the end Owens argues that feminists have nothing to lose in being

taken up within (any) theoret ical discourse, and yet they are al ready found

to be

doing

postmodernism. Owens selects various feminist practices only

to name them: ' the kind of s imultaneous act ivi ty on mult iple fronts that

character izes many feminist pract ices is a postmodern phenomenon'

(1983: 63). He privileges feminist art ists such as Martha Rosier, Barbara

Kruger and Mary Kelly as well as feminist theorists l ike Montrelay, Luce

Ir igaray and H616ne Cixous in tha t they chal lenge 'mod ernism's r igid

oppo sit ion of art ist ic practice and th eory ' , ' the distance [theory] maintains

betwe en itself an d i ts objects ' , an d the fetishism of the ' lo ok'; in that they

celebrate 'gender-specificity'; in their refusal of mastery and of speaking for

others; and their difference and 'subject exchange[s]' (Owens, 1983: 61, 63,

67, 69, 77). These attributes are take n to be quintessentially postm odernist .

W ithout q uibbl ing about wh ethe r par t icular ar t is ts fit into the postmod ern-

ist canon, I do think tha t Ow ens is involved in a rather problem atic naming

game. Here postmodernist deconstruct ion becomes the subst i tut ion of

feminism by postmodernism. It is also possible that Owens's strategy to

bring ' the other ' into the fold is dangerous; one result of this sl ide is that

Ow ens e mpties the polit ical significance of these feminist practices on tw o

levels. First, he uses Marxism as the archetype of theory ('its oppressive-

ness' , ' i ts rigid opposit ion to practical experience') to explain feminists '

resistance to 'phallocratic ' theoretical discourse (1983: 63), thus denying

the creative polit ical impulse m an y feminists find in recent art iculations of

Marxism . Second, whi le feminist wo rk whic h pr ivi leges Lacanian psycho-

analysis is laud ed, i t is acclaim ed only in so far as i t remains close to the

masters . Ow ens points to Irigaray's s tatement of ' the bod y with out

organs [as] the his tor ical condi t ion of w om en ' (1983: 73) with out

considering those feminists work ing from the actual mater ial condi t ions of

women. In thus posit ing feminism as ahistorical , Owens leaves us to

presume that i t i s woman-as- lack which connects feminist pract ice.

Owen s 's closing sentence summarizes his approach: 'Wo me n have learned

- perhaps they have always kn ow n - ho w to recognize the difference'

(1983: 77).

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This essentializing of a ' feminine other ' becomes even more explicit in

other postmo dernist discourses. Am ong these various at tempts to ci rculate

the feminine, Andreas Huyssen's 'Mass cul ture as woman: modernism's

Oth er ' (1986) is perha ps the m ost telling. He re Huy ssen rewo rks the high/

mass cul ture dichotomy, arguing that nineteenth-century discourses

'feminized' the masses:

the polit ical , psychological, and aesthetic discourse around the turn of

the century consistently and obsessively genders mass culture and the

masses as feminine, whi le high cul ture, whe ther t radi t ional or mod ern,

clearly remains the privileged realm of male activities. (Huyssen, 1986:

191)

These pairs of opp osit ion - high/low ; male/fem inine - becom e the central

pivot in Huy ssen's a rgum ent. M ass culture is conceived of solely as the

denigrated, as is the feminine reader in her affinity with the former. Thus

'male fears of an engulfing feminini ty are projected onto the m etropol i tan

masses' (1986: 196). This stripped segregation of the sexual/cultural

enables Huyssen to cross over into po stmodern ism: 'one of the few widely

agreed upon features of postmod ernism is its at tempt to negot iate forms of

high art with certain forms and genres of mass culture and the culture of

everyda y life ' (1986: 203). In Huy ssen's q uestionab le definition, high

(male) meets the everyday feminine in postmodernism. The col lapsed

equat ion of mass cul ture with the feminine is displaced by postmod ernism's

negotiation of high art . This negation of high/male status rescues mass

culture from the feminine but does l i t t le to elevate the latter. While mass

cul ture comes into i ts ow n in the postmo dern, Huyssen ignores the deeper

connect ions of feminist pract ices within the cu l ture of the everyday and the

ways in which feminism articulates the feminine.

Femin(ine)ist

bodies

In a review ar t icle on 'Quebec: la morosi t6 postmoderne ' ( 'gloomy

postmod ernism') a quebecois mad e the fol lowing observation:

In a si tuation where (male) intellectuals have been taken up by a

discourse called postm odernism to the extent that they can only see the

decadence of all ideas, without any possible repeal, feminism continues

to aspire to a certain form of ideological leadership. (Maill~, 1986: 166;

my translation)

These are f ight ing words indeed. However , the quest ion to be worked

through here is precisely where the struggle is. Do we want to be

' ideological leaders ' , and, if so, what does this entail? Are we will ing to

leave the postmod ern to the 'decadents '? I f ' the po stmo dern is too real and

too important to be lef t to postm odernists ' (Grossberg, for thcoming), then

feminism is certainly too crucial to leave in the masculine hands of

postmodernism. If the argument does not break neat ly into gender , i t i s

B O D IE S A N D A N T I B O D I E S 353

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necessary to consider those feminists who have also (been) taken up (by)

pos tm odern i sm .

One ins tance of a feminis t sh if t in to po s tm ode rnism is the recent wo rk of

Tania M odleski . O ne m ight have expected tha t , by cont ras t wi th Huyssen,

her ear l ie r work on women 's reading prac t ices (1982, 1983) would have

grou nded her d iscuss ion of the masses . How ever , the earl ie r tendency to

overs impli fy wo me n 's involvemen t in mass cul ture (e.g. tha t dayt ime

television ' ref lects ' the hou sewife 's l i fe (Mod leski , 1983) ) is no w e xten ded

to the no t ion o f the feminine in mass cul ture (Modleski , 1986a, 1986b).

Her threefold projec t to br ing together the mass , the popular and

pos tmo dern ism thro ugh the passage of the feminine involves a recupera t ion

of mass cul ture and ' i ts pleasure in the pejorat ive sense ' through a

ce lebra t ion of the p leasure inherent in the ' feminiza t ion of Amer ican

culture ' (1986a: 163). Moreo ver, her arg um en t for extol l ing the feminine

of mass cul ture res ts , no t o n the enjoyable neg ot ia ted prac tices of the soap,

but on h er reading of a novel by Ma nue l Puig . Thus M odleski moves away

from th e intricacies of individuals actual ly negotiat ing ' the regular s tuff ' as

she proceeds to ' read the text ' . The charac ter o f Mol ina in the Kiss of the

Spider Wom an stands fo r the ' t ransv alua t ion of the term s [of] masculine =

prod uct ion and work; femininity = con sum pt io n and pass iv ity ' (1986b:

45). Puig provides the bas is for a ' changed, f r iendly a t t i tude towa rd pop ular

ar t ' (1986a: 164) w i tho ut having changed the s takes in reappra ising the

importance of mass cul ture. Modleski 's bias for high-cul ture cr i t icism

highlights the tur ns w ithin the diegesis as a basis for a celebrat ion of mass

culture.

This reevaluat ion of the po pula r se ts up the next s tage in the argum ent :

the privi leging of the feminine in the postmodernist 's masses. In a rather

s t range tur n of events , i t i s Jean Baudr i l lard w ho supposed ly upho lds the

feminine in the pos tmo dern is t paradigm . D rawing on Baudr i l la rd ' s use of

Hegel 's fam ous phrase ' the e ternal i rony of feminini ty ', Modleski a rgues

that 'Baudri l lard himself is just i fying the masses . . . on account of their

putat ive fem inini ty ' (1986b: 47) . She then goes on to say that ' i t is the mu te

acquiescence of the masses to the system - the s i lence of the m ajori ty - tha t

renders them most feminine ' (1986b: 49) . (With fr iends l ike Baudri l lard,

wh o needs enemies?) Modleski re inforces th is conde nsat ion of mass and

feminine extending to women as wel l Baudr i l la rd ' s a rgument tha t the

masses do not pass through the 'mir ror s tage ' (1986b: 49) . However ,

because Modleski ignores Baudr i l la rd 's p revious s ta teme nt tha t ' the masses

are no longer an author i ty to which one might refer as one former ly

referred to class or the people' (Baudrillard, 1983: 22), she closes off a

more sui table s i te for a feminist invest igat ion of the feminine in the

pos tmod ern . Here Baudr i l la rd can be read pos it ively as having ra ised on e

of the key d is rupt ions tha t charac ter ize pos tmodernis t thought : the

dissolut ion of patr iarchal chains of reference. The m asses no longer s tand

in for th e leg i t imation of au thori ty. I f class analysis is no longer viable (at

leas t in the more formal vers ions) , then gender , f reed of the modernis t

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series of opp ositions, becomes on e o f the mo re interesting lines of analysis

wi thin the pos tmodern.

In 'A manifesto for cyborgs ' Donna Haraway works across these

dualisms, contesting 'self/other, mind/body, culture/nature, male/female'

dichotomies as the 'domin ation of all consti tuted as others who se task is

to m irror the self ' (1985: 96). In the truly postm ode rn sphere of 'cyborgs '

there is no longe r a self ( 'one is too few, but tw o is too ma ny' (1985: 96) ),

and the gendered, boun ded bo dy is past ( 'why should our bodies end at

the skin, or in clude at best oth er beings encapsulated by skin?' (1985: 97)).

In the at temp t to weave 'somethin g other than a shroud' (1985: 75),

Haraw ay takes up the disruptions o f ' post-m odern ist theories at tacking

the phallogo centrism of the W est' (1985: 93) and searches und er all the

dead '-isms' for a 'monstrous' politics which 'could embrace partial,

contradictory, p erman ently unclosed constructions of personal and collec-

tive selves and still be faithful, effective - an d ironically, socialist femin ist'

(1985: 75). In Haraway's 'post-information age', 'cyborg politics ' boils

down to ' the struggle for language and the struggle against perfect

com mun ication' (1985: 95); however, the 'his torical material ism' which

she rightly emphasizes as inh eren t in a feminist critique is vaporized in h er

argument. There are no s trategies of how we get from here to there or there

to here, no possible articulation of ' texts and surfaces' (1985: 69).

Haraway draws at tention to the polyphony aris ing from the detri tus of

mode rnist organization, but the basis for her ' techno-eman cipation' is

unstable; ' the voices may reach us from it ; but w hat they s a y . . , is imbued

with the obscuri ty of the matrix out of which they come' (Atwoo d, 1985:

324).

Interbodies II

A friend recently rema rked abou t the subject of the postmod ern: 'Ho w can

one be against a his torical period? ' The dis t inction between postmodern ism

and the po stmo dern may indee d be a shadowy, if not dow nright arbitrary,

one. However, it may be useful to distinguish between the apocalyptic

theory, and the 'structure of feeling' exhibited and lived in a certain

historical time. After all:

Something new has entered the cul tural te rra in: the p o s t m o d er n . . , an

emergent set of practices and statements which increasingly saturates

and colors our lives, no t just in cultural form s bu t in historical events and

interpersonal relations as well. (Grossberg, forthcoming )

While i t wou ld be ridiculous to posit a r igid definit ion of the postm odern,

Grossberg attempts to elucidate the postmodern as a set of differing

practices, and postmodernism as a set of discourses interpreting those

practices . But this differentiat ion of the postm oder n from postmo dernism

should not be thought of in terms of confl ict ing opposit ions. As Jean-

Francois Ly otard has recently reiterated, the privileged mo de o f thoug ht in

BODIES AND ANTI BODIES 355

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the postmodern is that of 'un proc~s en ana- ' (1986: 126). This anacli t ic

mode of thought breaks from modernist dichotomies and emphasizes the

ways in which concepts , pract ices and fragments ' rest upon and lean on'

each other . Thus postmodernism leans on the postmodern, but does not

necessarily account fully for i t . There is no reason to assume that what

Dick Hebdige calls 'the l iving textures of popula r cul tures ' and ' the ebb a nd

flow of popu lar debate ' . (1986: 94) are total ly subsumed within the

postmo dern. W hile both H ebdige an d Grossberg r ightly wa rn against this

totalizing tendency within postmo dernism , nei ther is wil l ing to relinquish

postm odern cul tural pract ices. Indeed, Grossberg's love of the pos tmod ern

'bil lboard' al lows us to see the ways in which current fads, sayings and

expressions of cul ture lean on each other and construct par t icular

constellations. These constructions may be fl imsy but they are not

necessari ly the o ccasion for invokin g Nietzschean nihil ism. In the place of

'excremental cul ture ' , we should rather recognize that ' the postmodern

points us to par t icular s t ructures an d struggles within popular cul ture and

everyday life ' (Grossberg, forthcoming). In other words, to cite one of

Grossberg's b il lboards, ' If you 're o n the Titanic, go first class ' , or, in other

terms, we ' re in the postm odern , let 's get something out of i t.

Feminism in the postmodern

In reviewing various feminist methodologies, Angela McRobbie queried

the privileged posit ion of oral histories and ' talk' within feminist research:

Is this kind of feminist research parasit ic on wo me n's en trapme nt in the

ghettos of gossip? Or is

o u r

way wi th words something we must

celebrate, something which need not s imply be indicat ive of our

imprisonment , but something we can use as a weapon of pol i t ical

s truggle , an arma men t where w e have an unambiguous advantage over

men? (1982b: 57)

Mc Robb ie 's careful emphasis (and celebration) of the s t rengths o f wo men 's

everyday pract ices in feminist research shou ld be kept in m ind before we

too quickly com e to rest on the postm odern. In thinking of the am biguous

advantages of feminist research in the postmodern we must be careful to

avoid b oth being theoretically ghettoized an d losing the specificity of ou r

analyses.

Against the implosion of the feminine and mass cul ture we must not

forget that the place of the feminine body in m ass an d everyday cul ture has

been a cru cial question in feminism. It is also, thank fully, m uc h to o difficult

to impose any postmodernist closure on these si tes. In engaging with the

postmodern there may be ways of overcoming some of the l imitat ions of

tradit ional paradigms, but the impulse to art iculate loci of concern into

polit ical strands remains as vital as always. Furthermore, we should look

for the various ways in wh ich ' the p opu lar ' is ar t iculated and l ived in the

shad ow of postm odern ist theorizing (and the real possibil ity) of the death

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of the social. I f the postm ode rn shows us anything, i t is that w e no w have

m ore subjectivities tha n ever, that ou r bodies are more a cutely art iculated,

and that a surface is only one wa y of reading.

Indeed, bodies and memories may come back to us in the postmodern:

bodies, no t as flat surfaces, b ut as ever-changing, emb od ied subjectivit ies;

and memories , never s tat ic and l inear , but important f ragments to be

rear t iculated again and again. This anacl it ic mode of theory m oves us away

from the part icular entrapm ents of a post-Althusser ian not ion of interpel-

lation in which subjectivit ies are (over)determined by multiple 'hail ings' .

The indiscriminate affectivity of the postmodern pushes at the logic of

positioning. At the same time, b y specifying that mem ories and individuated

practices are indeed fragm entary in nature, w e need no t s lip into anothe r

humanist version of the unified subject. The anacli t ic makes clear that

mem ories do no t exist in a representat ional relat ion to any essence. Thus

the feminist art iculation of bodies and memories does not collapse into

some version of the psychoanalyt ic presymbolic ' feminine ' . Rather , the

negot iat ion of memories and bodies operates along the l ines of what

Fouc aul t cal led 'the technologies of the self ' . These are ' techniques which

permit individuals to effect, by their own means, a certain number of

operations on their bodies, their souls ' (Foucault , 1985: 367). This model

of 'subjectification' is consistent with the postmodernist refusal of both

representation and interpellation (Deleuze: 1986).

Feminism in the postm ode rn has to search for t races which can point to

'al l that prolongs the body and l inks i t to other bodies or to the world

outside (Bakht in, 1965: 317) . This emphasis on bodies and memories

must not be col lapsed back into concepts of ' the personal ' a nd 'experience ' .

The latter, as privileged terms in feminism and cultural studies, too often

take on an ontological s tatus, condensing around an individual subject-

posit ioning and a quasi-rationalist ideology. Alternatively, bodies and

memory in the postmodern can be seen as defining epistemological l ines

which articulate subjectivit ies and practices. Far from being reified into

blocks of the real , memo ries of bodies, bodies and mem ories lean on each

other, as subjectivities rest up on each other. This constellation constructs a

polit ical context. To be sure, the polit ics are never guaranteed but are

always the resul t of contradictory moments yoked together into new

configurations.

An example of how the everyday is wo un d through and in terpenet rated

with polit ical significances can be seen in H ebdige 's art icle 'Som e sons an d

their fathers ' (1985). He re, thro ugh the fragments of memo ries, the shards

of Thatcherite actuali ty and the moments of jostl ing subjectivit ies, there

emerges a heterogeneity (not a hierarchy) of meanings. As with Bakhtin's

carnival, the fluidity of th e everyday is seen in i ts excess, existing beyo nd

notions of contro l or op posit io n - both less and m ore than these. Similarly,

McRobbie (1984) works through the entwinement of memories , fantasy,

dance, par ts of her own biography and pieces of another 's (Pavlova's)

officialized l ife, as she thinks through the variegated meanings of

adolesce nt femininity. Instead of the totalized p osit ion of low /high culture,

B O D IE S A N D A N T I B O D I E S 357

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we see here how our bodies and memories run through di f ferent cul tura l

prac t ices . McR obb ie ar t icula tes the mem ories of school dances , Fame and

Flasbdance, Ca md en Palace and famil ies , no t to va lor ize them, bu t to br ing

out their specif ici ty. Along the way, these pract ices and the bodies that

move through them are g iven the d igni ty ( for once) of be ing taken

ser ious ly . This movement of memories and bodies resonates wi th Judi th

Will iamson's observat ion: ' i t is not found in things, but in ways

of doing th ings ; and the ways th ings are done are another k in d of shape '

(1985: 13).

While this ma y s ou nd al l very nice, there is also a 'h ard l ine ' here. This

l ine concerns the s truggles over meanings and ar t iculat ions. I f locat ing

fem in i sm in the pos tm odern m oves us to new w ays o f t h ink ing abou t

ourselves, ou r pract ices, our bodies an d o ur m emo ries, feminism mus t st il l

res is t be ing 'processed ' thro ug h the pos tmo dern is t mi ll . However , resi s ting

the s l ides , d isp lacements and condensat ions of some pos tmodernis t

theoris ts st il l requires that we r ethin k an d reart iculate tenets of feminism.

If , for example, the feminine can be so s imply reduced to the denigrated

pos i t ion of mass cul ture , perhaps i t' s t ime to recons ider wh at we w ant i t to

mean, and how we can more effect ively use i t . I t may well be that as a

theoret ical te rm the feminine needs to be pr ized open, an d cut f ree once and

for al l f rom the dichotomies which formerly colored i ts usage. If

pos tmodernism pushes us to reevaluate te rms, negot ia te meanings and

think of prac tices in d i f ferent cons te l la tions , the p os tm od ern requi res th a t

feminism wo rk on mul t ip le levels s imul taneous ly . At a t ime when an

organiza t ion prom ot in g wo me n 's t radi t ional role in the fami ly can garner

widespread suppor t in Nor th Amer ica , when abor t ion r ights can be

seriously chal lenged, and when some sexual preferences are rendered

i l legal , then the pol i t ical l ines have to be s trengthened. The connect ions

have to be made in every direct ion, and across several planes.

The ' sexier' m ode of analys is out l ined above might seem f rivolous whe n

applied to abort ion, or even anorexia nervosa (Probyn, 1987). After al l ,

people do n ' t d ie f rom reading Harlequins, or f rom dancing or rock and ro l l

(at least not direct ly) . But abort ion and anorexia are also constructed

across planes, and fragmented qui te l i teral ly with our bodies and

memories. Although we l ive at these s i tes as well , they could not be seen

from previous paradigms. I t is a v i ta l theore t ica l m om en t wh en we can ask

why they w ere ignored. I t is f rom th is m om en t tha t feminism and cul tura l

s tudies have to wo rk up on themselves, in tegra t ing concepts f rom di ffering

planes. Thu s a th eory of ar t iculat io n rema ins crucial (even, or part icular ly)

as i t is used to prob lema tize a nd pol i ticize very different cul tural pract ices

f rom those Gramsci may have h ad in mind. In a s imi lar man ner , d i f ferent

l ines of analysis drawn from postmodernist cr i t icism can be insightful ly

appl ied to the prac tices of the everyday, even tho ugh po s tmo dern ism may

deny i ts existence. W ha t is nee ded no w are analyses 'en ana- ' of those mo re

unyie ld ing s ites - the points th a t heg emo ny jus t won ' t l et go o f : socie ty as

hierarchy; wo me n 's bodies as pa t r ia rchal bus iness; sex in oppo s i t ion; and

classi ficat ion as the no rm. Indeed, the only way in which we can approa ch


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these s i tes i s th rough an a r t icu la t ion o f our memor ies , our bod ies and a

p o p u la r t h a t e x c e e d s c o n t rol .

Concordia Universi ty , Montreal

Notes

I should like to thank Martin Allor for his attentive comments and support

throu gho ut the writing of this article.

1 Although one might be tempted to scoff at Owens's n~ive (albeit presumably

politically correct) attitude, it should be mentioned that he was the first

postmode rnist theorist to consider feminism from 'his' stance.

2 Of course, the project of feminism and psychoanalysis is crucial and wide-

ranging: in France, l dcriture fdminine; in Britain, the many trajectories of

Screen;

and latterly in the United States, notably in the w ork of Jane Gallop and

Gayatri Spivak. Toril Moi's (1985) excellent Sexual~Textual Politics examines

the intro duction of French feminisms into A nglo-American feminist thought.

My argument does not here concern psychoanalysis but postmodernist

articulations of certain aspects of feminism.

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