Gender & Sexuality

Chris Weedon’s “Feminism & The Principles of Poststructuralism” presents an inside look at the ideas of both poststructuralist and feminist theories, but main goal of the article is to understand the relationship between them and to focus on “producing a form of poststructuralism which can meet feminist needs” (321). In order to structure his argument, Weedon presents three main topics: language, subjectivity, and language as discourse. Language, as Weedon reasons, is where subjectivity is “constructed,” and it “offers us various discursive positions, including modes of femininity and masculinity” (324). Also according to Weedon, the term ‘Subjectivity’ refers to the “conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself and her ways of understanding her relation to the world” (325). Lastly, ‘language as discourse’ refers to the social structures organized through practices/institutions that are initially organized by “discursive fields” (aka competing ways of giving meaning/organizing our world).

The idea of a unified or fixed subjectivity arises often in cultural theory, and notably in Feminist Poststructuralism – which rejects this belief and instead holds that subjectivity is not stable. On one side, those who agree with unified/fixed subjectivity would likely include Arnold, Leavis, Williams, Althusser, Freud, Saussure, Levi-Strauss. On the other hand, those who would side with Feminist Poststructuralism and dismiss the idea of unified/fixed subjectivity might possibly include Bazerman,  Laclau and Mouffe, Barthes, Derrida, Foucault.

Weedon’s feminist take on poststructuralism seems to be an effective cultural lens, and it seems to contain less problems and defects than the theories that preceded it. Because it is a hybrid between two notable theories, it possesses the strengths of both arguments. Personally, I believe that this lens could be very efficient and helpful when analyzing culture – especially since it focuses on the concept of individual “subjectivity,” which I find to be very interesting.