POINTS AGAINST POSTMODERNISM

KM
POINTS AGAINST POSTMODERNISM
Catharine A. MacKinnon
Chicago-Kent Law Review
2000
75 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 687
The theory is that feminism lacks its own theory of women's experience at the epistemic
level. The crucial issue is between knowledge and power that women situation and
critical theory are opposed to each other and that sexuality holds the juxtaposition.
I
Practical confrontation with sexuality issues created feminism and "high theory" in form
and content. In formulating the theory a method arose which enabled the how of the
what is known about feminist theory. Sex politics is the theory. Diversity bolsters rather
than hinders the theory since it is concrete and systemic. The concreteness of the
movement aimed at showing that how of the what in order to expose the inequality and
dispense with it.
"Women" as a category is distilled from concrete experiences which are synthesized and
used to show what women experience and how. In essence the theory is not general but
of particulars making it a particular theory.
Objective theory seeks to objectify people as items in an effort to understand and control
them. Men maintain the objectification position, which was invisible to all but women
and exposed by feminism.
Gender identity is a problem for feminism because it is off focus. Feminism seeks to take
the particulars and collectively access them in an effort to understand and change them
for the better.
There should be an attack on pornography because it is demeaning to women because it
has a tendency to objectify and victimize them. Women are not subjective and when
attacked they now state what happens and a remedy follows. The analogy for
pornography is that when attacks on women take place because they are women it is
similar to an act of genocide. Allowing women access to things, which enable bettering
of women in general, is a fundamental tenet of feminism.
In gaining power, feminism used credibility. It is not ignored or denied that relegating
women to second-class citizenship happened, but rather exemplified and exposed in an
effort to empower women through the credible reality of their experience.
II
Parallel to women's theory is postmodernism which seeks to destroy reality and in doing
so erode the women's movement. The de-realization of postmodernism claims that the it
is not there and it therefore, is unreal. Postmodernism has few new ideas and the ideas
that are new pale in comparison to feminist thinking, which predates postmodernism.
A. “Women”
Postmodernism is incorrect because it seeks to find a different voice or differences
among women. There is no singular only plural. Women have their voice as a collective
in their experiences but each experience in particular and hence there are no grand
theories or meta-theories. One problem is that some of these metanarratives have been
equated to universals. However, feminism has never endorsed a single causal factor and
hence the model causal nature of the universal characterization is incorrect.
Women in feminist theory are concrete rather than abstract. Within feminist theory, there

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are subdivisions. It is not simply gender, which defines women but race and other
categories, which lead to sub categories etc. in feminist theory.
Particulars build from the ground up which makes women concrete because feminist
theory rejects the abstract top-down theory. In short, male supremacy privileges gender
in a top-down abstract way in which feminist theory rejects.
Some would equate feminism with essentialism. However, essentialism is not the same as
feminism. Essentialism should demarcate as much. Cutting to the quick of the argument
is to say that feminism is comparable to racism in that they are both biological traits and
that they are both reducible to biology witch is categorically incorrect.
Multiculturalism is a politically correct normative version of anthropological relativism.
The cultural relativist would criticize other cultures from the standpoint of their own
culture, as distinguished from feminism since feminist theory does not call for looking at
situations from only a female or feminist point of view thus, feminist theory is
distinguishable from multiculturalism.
B. Method
Postmodernism is a method that is of ideas or the ideological. Hence, the representation
of the penis has been a phallus, yet women are praised for the female body. (I think the
point here is that the focus of the masculine is the penis yet women are regarded as
"bodies.") The idea presented is that women are agents. The definition of an agent is one
who acts for the principal. Hence, women are not seen as individuals but rather as an
extension of some "other."
Postmodernism tends to be lopsided in evaluating gender. It does not account for nor
explain anything remotely coherent about what happens to pornographic material, which
is exploitive, or other effects of the industry.
C. Reality
The theory is that the relation between feminism and reality is altered by postmodernism
and hence pre-feminism may be preferable. According to postmodernism, everything is
interpretation; hence, there is no reality for feminism to relate. The real essence of the
argument is that postmodernism attempts to beat dominance by dominating. It is a
constant struggle for power and one vehicle for that power may be methodologically.
Another problem is modernism. If postmodern thought were to advance, it would
logically make sense to have post-feminist thought. Apparently, there is post-feminist
thought and the theory claims to take feminism a step further. The entire line of
reasoning seems to beg the question that if postmodernism rejects reality it also rejects
pre-reality or post-reality for that matter. Second-class citizen status does not create a
reality question it has simply been relegated to the background, ignored, or perhaps
overlooked. The fact of the matter is that it has always been there and must be addressed.
Reality is a social status. It allows for power in that something is only real when
recognized as real hence reality as a status is self-defining and continues in perpetuity
until non-reality is recognized as real and therefore becomes real. (Circular reasoning)
The General distilled point is that postmodernism dictates what is real or accepted as real
it then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and enables the exploitation of women and
others. The point to be made is that the viewpoint of the victimized should be examined
in a way other than that of the victimizer. Unless this is done a proper viewpoint cannot
be obtained.
III

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Given that postmodernism in feminist theory originated approximately 30 years ago, it
would make logical sense if they both progressed in a linear fashion. However, feminist
legal thinkers take more time on postmodernist issues. In reality this is a waste of time
because postmodernism holds that reality is simply what one projects or what one
imagines and hence feminists are not advancing feminism through postmodern thinking.
Thus quite simply postmodernism does nothing to advance feminism since it rejects
reality.

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