Abstract
The potential significance of the relation and interaction between phenomenology and feminism has only begun to be explored quite recently. Given the rich possibilities promised by such an analysis, it is remarkable that so little attention has been paid to this connection; all the more so considering that some of the most prevalent and influential developments in recent feminist theory in North America are those identified with and/or informed by post-structuralist, deconstructive, or postmodern perspectives—discourses which have arguably been influenced by phenomenology, although this is not usually acknowledged, and indeed is often denied. At any rate, whether or not one accepts the claim that the voice of phenomenology can be heard in postmodernism, it is still the case that in the North American context, these various areas are considered to fall collectively within the category of “Continental” philosophy, broadly conceived. And once again, while there has been a close marriage in much Continental thought of feminism and post-structuralism, or feminism and postmodernism, particularly in the context of the developments and influence of recent French thought, there has been comparatively little exploration of the interaction of feminism and phenomenology.
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References
As Tina Chanter puts it, “There is a sense in which sexual difference forms the silent center of feminist theory.” Tina Chanter, Ethics of Eros: Irigarays Rewriting of the Philosophers ( New York and London: Routledge, 1995 ), 230.
Gaylyn Studlar, “Reconciling Feminism and Phenomenology: Notes on Problems and Possibilities, Texts and Contexts,” Quarterly Review of Film & Video 12, no. 3 (1990): 69.
Iris M. Young, “Pregnant Subjectivity and the Limits of Existential Phenomenology,” in Descriptions, ed. Don Ihde and Hugh J. Silverman ( Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985 ), 25.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith ( London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962 ).
Jeffner Allen, “Through the Wild Region: An Essay in Phenomenological Feminism,” Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry 18, nos. 1, 2 & 3 (1982–83): 241.
See for example, Jean Grimshaw, Philosophy and Feminist Thinking (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986); Susan Bordo, “Feminist Scepticism and the `Maleness’ of Philosophy” in Women and Reason, ed. Elizabeth Harvey and Kathleen Okruhlik (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 143–62; Genevieve Lloyd, The Man of Reason: “Male” and “Female” in Western Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984); Michèle Le Dceuff, “Women and philosophy,” Radical Philosophy 17 (Summer 1977 ): 2–11.
One example of a direct charge of sexism, levelled perhaps not so much at phenomenology, as at the individual, is the feminist critique of Sartre’s sexism, in particular his descriptions of female sexuality in Being and Nothingness. See Hazel E. Barnes, “Sartre and Sexism,” Philosophy and Literature 14 (1990): 340–47, and Margery L. Collins and Christine Pierce, “Holes and Slime: Sexism in Sartre’s Psychoanalysis,” in Women and Philosophy: Toward a Theory of Liberation, ed. Carol C. Gould and Marx W. Wartofsky ( New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1976 ), 112–27.
For some recent discussions of essentialism, see Lorraine Code, What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991); Tina Chanter, Ethics of Eros: Irigarays Rewriting of the Philosophers; Moira Gatens, Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality ( London and New York: Routledge, 1996 ).
For more on these discussions, see my “Gender and Other Categories,” Hypatia 7, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 173–79, and “Feminist Theory and the Politics of Inclusion,” Journal of Social Philosophy 21, nos. 2 & 3 (Fall/Winter 1990): 174–83. See also related discussions in various papers in Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. Linda J. Nicholson ( New York and London: Routledge, 1990 ).
A classic feminist analysis in this respect, applied to the question of language, is Janice Moulton’s paper, “The Myth of the Neutral `Man,”’ in Feminism and Philosophy, ed. Mary Vetterling-Braggin, Frederick Elliston, and Jane English ( Totowa, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1977 ), 124–37.
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Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” 523.
Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer ( Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989 ), 325.
See for example Gaylyn Studlar, “Reconciling Feminism and Phenomenology: Notes on Problems and Possibilities, Texts and Contexts,” 69–78.
See for example: Jeffner Allen, “Through the Wild Region: An Essay in Phenomenological Feminism,” 241–56; Sandra Lee Bartky, Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression (New York: Routledge, 1990); Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” 519–31; Judith Butler, “Sexual Ideology and Phenomenological Description: A Feminist Critique of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception,” 85–100; Louise Levesque-Lopman, Claiming Reality: Phenomenology and Women’s Experience (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1988); Gaylyn Studlar, “Reconciling Feminism and Phenomenology: Notes on Problems and Possibilities, Texts and Contexts”; Iris Marion Young, “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality,” in Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990 ), 141–59; Iris M. Young, “Pregnant Subjectivity and the Limits of Existential Phenomenology,” 2534.
See for example: Kristana Arp, “Beauvoir’s Concept of Bodily Alienation,” in Feminist Interpretations of Simone de Beauvoir, ed. Margaret A. Simons (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 161–77, and “A Different Voice in the Phenomenological Tradition: Simone de Beauvoir and the Ethic of Care,” in this volume; Debra B. Bergoffen, The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), and “From Husserl to Beauvoir: Gendering the Perceiving Subject,” in this volume; Linda Fisher, `Beauvoir’s Feminist Phenomenology,“ forthcoming in Proceedings of the Cinquantenaire du Deuxième Sexe, ed. Christine Delphy and Sylvie Chaperon; Sara Heinämaa, ”What is a Woman? Butler and Beauvoir on the Foundations of the Sexual Difference,“ Hypatia 12, no. 1 (1997): 20–39; Eleanore Holveck, ”Can a Woman Be a Philosopher? Reflections of a Beauvoirian Housemaid,“ in Feminist Interpretations of Simone de Beauvoir, ed. Margaret A. Simons (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 67–78; Sonia Kruks, Situation and Human Existence: Freedom, Subjectivity and Society (New York: Routledge, 1990), and ”Gender and Subjectivity: Simone de Beauvoir and Contemporary Feminism,“ Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 18, no. 1 (1992): 89–110; Karen Vintges, Philosophy as Passion: The Thinking of Simone de Beauvoir ( Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996 ).
Margaret A. Simons, “The Silencing of Simone de Beauvoir: Guess What’s Missing From The Second Sex, ” Women’s Studies International Forum 6, no. 5 (1983): 559–64.
This is a substantially revised version of an earlier version of this paper which appeared as “Phänomenologie und Feminismus,” in Phänomenologie und Geschlechterdifferenz,ed. Silvia Stoller and Helmuth Vetter (Wien: WUVUniversitätsverlag, 1997), 20–46.
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Fisher, L. (2000). Phenomenology and Feminism: Perspectives on their Relation. In: Fisher, L., Embree, L. (eds) Feminist Phenomenology. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 40. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9488-2_2
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