Neoliberal globalization has deepened the impoverishment and marginalization of many women. This system is maintained by the debt supposedly owed by many poor nations in the global South to a few rich nations in the global North, because the obligation to service the debt traps the people of the South within an economic order that severely disadvantages them. I offer several reasons for thinking that many of these alleged debt obligations are not morally binding, especially on Southern women.

Applying the insights of Donna Haraway (1989, 1991) and Helen Longino (1989, 1990), this paper reviews Sandra Harding's (1986a) tripartite model of feminist critiques of science-empiricist, standpoint, and postmodern-and argues that it is based on misunderstandings of the relationship between scientific inquiry, objectivity, and values. An alternative view of scientific inquiry makes it possible to see feminist scientists as postmodern and postmodern feminists as having standpoints.

Anyone who goes beyond procedural questions of a discourse theory of morality and ethics and, in a normative attitude … embarks on a theory of the well-ordered, or even emancipated, society will very quickly run up against the limits of his own historical situation.For some time now, a certain strand of contemporary critical theory has understood its task not as providing a substantive critique of power relations, let alone an alternative normative conception of what social relations might be, but as (...) how to justify critique as such: how to justify those elements which critique owes to its philosophical origins, albeit in a nonfoundationalist manner.1 This focus on—if not obsession with—the theoretical problem of... (shrink)

In this essay I distinguish four different modes of feminist critique of reason. Discussing the work of authors such as Keller, Irigaray, and Butler, I point out that the issue of masculine connotations has been addressed with regard to different concepts-or at least different aspects-of reason. In view of a tendency to overdraw the objections, I suggest to reformulate the feminist critique of reason. I also argue that a rediscovery of those philosophical concepts of reason that do not (...) restrict this term to instrumental rationality might be useful for this purpose. (shrink)

Religious ethics was founded on a commitment to inclusion, welcoming projects from and about different religious and philosophical traditions. This paper argues that the increasing welcome of feminist ethics in the JRE also reveals a tension in the field between inclusion and critique: where feminist ethics is included as another tradition of ethical inquiry, its critical claims can be escaped by appeal to difference from the traditions it seeks to engage. The response to feminist critique should not (...) be to applaud its inclusion without responding to its claims. Where this occurs, religious ethicists must renegotiate the terms of inclusion and the borders of difference. Feminist critique thus requires a return to founding questions of this journal, and the field, about the terms on which different traditions can be discussed and engaged in a common, critical conversation of religious ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Girardian Theory and Feminism: Critique and Appropriation Susan Nowak Syracuse University The construction of theories of relationality, society, and religion supportive of women and women's experience is one of the major concerns of feminist scholarship today.1 This study examines the arguments put forth by feminist scholars who contend that the Girardian theory offers important contributions to their work.2 These scholars use the insights of the Girardian (...) theory into the intrinsic connection between ritual and violence, religion and modes ofrelationality, myth and societal formation, and victimage and social cohesion to critique the androcentric-patriarchal worldview that has shaped western civilization.3 Part One of this study will identify the elements of the 1 It is important to state the well known fact that there is no such thing as the feminist position, theory, or scholarship. It is of the very nature of feminist projects to be diverse, to acknowledge and honor the existence of difference and particularity. In the realms of religion and literature, projects by white Christian and Neo-pagan feminists have been criticized by both womanist and Jewish feminist scholars for their failure to uphold, in practice, this commitment to difference and particularity. 2 1 confine my attention to the ways in which the Girardian understanding of religion, societal formation, and modes of relationality informs the relation of violence and victimage to women. In order to explore the basic issues involved, I examine various writings of Martha Reineke, Luce Irigaray, Sarah Halford, Rebecca Adams, Carole Deering Paul, Cynthia Chase, Ann Demaitre, and Linda Alcoff. 3 It is important to clarify for this study the terms "androcentrism" and "patriarchy." "Androcentrism" refers to patterns of thinking that posit the humanity of dominant male human beings as normative for all human beings; all non-normative human beings are viewed, accordingly, as derivative of, and dependent upon, the normative male. "Patriarchy" is the structural expression of an androcentric worldview. "Patriarchy" as one identified reality does not exist; rather it is a diversified reality whose expressions are influenced by the sociopolitical, historico-religious context. Its structure is so shaped that the multiple forms ofpower within a society are possessed by the dominant males. Women and non-normative men do not 20Susan Nowak Girardian theory that feminist scholars judge to be most useful to their projects, elements that serve as vital theoretical underpinnings for feminist critiques of conceptual frameworks, modes of relationality, and social structures which perpetuate the victimage of women. Part Two examines elements within the Girardian theory which feminist scholars judge to be informed by an androcentric-patriarchal worldview. According to feminist theoreticians, those elements reinforce the oppressive dimensions of human relationships, of social institutions, and of religion. Because of this influence it is claimed that aspects of the Girardian theory cannot promote an authentic sense of selfhood and agency for women. It is, however, also the position of feminist scholars that a revisionary process could strip the theory of its androcentric elements and retool it in a manner supportive of women and women's experiences.4 In this section I will highlight their recommendations for such a revision. Part Three is my critique of the feminist critique. I will indicate what I find to be the major weakness in feminist projects to-date and discuss the ways in which the Girardian concept of difference may offer a possible corrective. Part One Methodologically, a hermeneutic of suspicion is central to feminist projects. Its usage supports two main tasks of feminist scholarship: the retrieval of women's experiences and history from the oppression of silence, as Martha Reineke observes ("Body" 246), and the exposure of androcentric thought frames and patriarchal structures which have relegated women's history and experiences to the crippling domain of silence. René Girard's employment of a hermeneutic of suspicion for the analysis of the myths and have access to power by their own right. Women have access to power only through the men to whom they belong. The "androcentric-patriarchal worldview" can be summarized, then, in terms of an ethos which functions to exclude, to marginalize, and to render invisible in language and public life all who are defined as non-normative human beings. The... (shrink)

Feminist critiques of science are widely dispersed and often quite inaccessible as a body of literature. We describe briefly some of the influences evident in this literature and identify several key themes which are central to current debates. This is the introduction to a bibliography of general critiques of science, described as the “core literature,” and a selection of feminist critiques of biology. Our objective has been to identify those analyses which raise reflexive (epistemological and (...) methodological) questions about the status of scientific knowledge and practice, both in general terms and in relation to biological research. We have abstracted these listings from a body of material compiled by members of the research project, “Philosophical Feminism: The Critiques of Science,” which covers a range of discipline-specific critiques beyond biology, as well as the more general philosophical critiques which constitute the core of the present bibliography. (shrink)

This paper examines dominant arguments advocating for the procreative right to undergo sex selection for social reasons, based on gender preference. I present four of the most recognized and common justifications for sex selection: the argument from natural sex selection, the argument from procreative autonomy, the argument from family balancing, and the argument from children’s well-being. Together these represent the various means by which scholars aim to defend access to sex selection for social reasons as a legitimate procreative choice. In (...) response, I contend that these justifications are flawed and often inconsistent and therefore fail to vindicate the practice. (shrink)

This essay aims to show how feminist theoretical and practical perspectives have enriched and deepened debate about moral and social issues generated by the proliferation and commodification of new reproductive techniques. It evaluates alternative feminist appraisals beginning with the first group to organize a collective response to the medicalization of infertility and explores several weaknesses working within their assessment: objectification of infertile women, naturalizing constructions of motherhood, hostility to technology, and an overly simplistic conception of power relations. Next, (...) it shows how subsequent feminists have reframed the issues to overcome these weaknesses, drawing on themes prominent in recent theoretical debates: the need to reclaim women's agency, to revalue mothering, and to reappraise power relations. Lastly, it weighs the prospects for a collaborative politics that is sensitive to the social marginalization of vulnerable women and suggests practical strategies for responding to mounting pressures to procreate at any price. (shrink)

Genetic information and technologies are increasingly important in health care, not only in technologically advanced countries, but world-wide. Several global factors promise to increase future demand for morally conscious genetic health services and research. Although they are the largest professional group delivering health care world-wide, nurses have not taken the lead in meeting this challenge. Insights from feminist analysis help to illuminate some of the social institutions and cultural obstacles that have impeded the integration of genetics technology into the (...) discipline of nursing. An alternative model is suggested - the transdisciplinary model - which was developed initially by a nurse and introduced in the 1970s into the delivery of health care and social services for children with developmental disabilities. This holistic model enables all health care professionals to have an equal voice in determining how genetic health care will be globalized. (shrink)

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1997, given by Martha C. Nussbaum, an American philosopher.

This essay is a critical review of two recent collections, Feminism and Foucauk: Reflections on Resistance, edited by Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby and Feminism as Critique: On the Politics of Gender, edited by Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell. While the collections differ in their manner of addressing the critical sources that have inspired them—the former relying upon a single theorist, the latter attempting to move through some of the philosophical history that constitutes our present theoretical terrain—both attempt to think (...) through and thus revisudize some of the categories of difference which we have inherited. Though the best essays from these collections are celebrated for demonstrating how “feminism as critique” can work to move us toward a clearer and more inclusive feminist theory, questions are raised about what the inattention to race in these volumes suggests about our own role in the construction of power and knowledge, and the erasures that help to secure them both. (shrink)

Reclaiming ‘Big Nurse’: a feminist critique of Ken Kesey's portrayal of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Nurse Ratched or ‘Big Nurse’ in Ken Kesey's counter‐culture novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of popular culture's most arresting and memorable images of the nurse. She is, however, deemed to be remarkable primarily for her malice and authoritarianism. This paper argues that such a purely realist reading fails to fully appreciate the significance of the character (...) of Nurse Ratched. A feminist critique of the novel contends that die importance of ‘Big Nurse’ is less related to how realistic/unrealistic or good/bad she is as a nurse. Nurse Ratched is important because she exemplifies all diat traditional masculinity abhors in women, and particularly in strong women in positions of power and influence. This paper explores the stereotype of ‘Big Nurse’ and argues that Kesey's vision of her ultimate ‘conquest’ is not a progressive allegory of ‘individual freedom’, but a reactionary misogyny which would deny women any function other than that of sexual trophy. (shrink)

To feminists and some postmodernists reason/emotion and man/woman represent two fundamental polarities, fixed deep within Western philosophy and reflected in the structures of our languages, and two sets of hierarchical power relations in patriarchal society. Raia Prokhovnik challenges the tradition of dualism and argues that rational woman need no longer be a contradiction in terms. Prokhovnik examines in turn: · the nature of dichotomy, its problems and an alternative · the reason/emotion dichotomy · dichotomies central to the man/woman dualism, such (...) as sex/gender and the heterosexual/ist norm. (shrink)

"An eloquent work. Somer Brodribb not only gives us a feminist critique of postmodernism with its masculinist predeterminants in existentialism, its Freudian footholdings and its Sadean values, but in the very form and texture of the critique, she literally creates new discourse in feminist theory. Brodribb has transcended not only postmodernism but its requirement that we speak in its voice even when criticizing it. She creates a language that is at once poetic and powerfully analytical. Her insistent and (...) compelling radical critique refuses essentialism-from both masculinist thinkers and their women followers. She demystifies postmodernism to reveal that it and its antecedents represent yet another mundane version of patriarchal politics. Ultimately Brodribb returns us to feminist theory with the message that we must refuse to be derivative and continue to originate theory and politics from the condition of women under male domination." -Kathleen Barry, author of Female Sexual Slavery An iconoclastic work brilliantly undertaken . . . Nothing Mat(T)ers magnificently shows that postmodernism is the cultural capital of late patriarchy. It is the art of self- display, the conceit of masculine self and the science of reproductive and genetic engineering in an ecstatic Nietzschean cycle of statis." -Andre Michel Nothing Mat(T)ers encapsulates in its title the valuelessness of the current academic fad of postmodernism. Somer Brodribb has written a brave and witty book demolishing the gods and goddesses of postmodernism by deconstructing their method and de-centering their subjects and, in the process, has deconstructed deconstructionism and decentered decentering! This is a long-awaited and much-needed book from a tough- minded, embodied, and unflinching scholar." -Janice Raymond. (shrink)

The article contributes to the debate on new materialism commenced by Sara Ahmed (2008). Taking up Lena Gunnarsson’s (2013) argument that erasing distinctions is no effective antidote to dualistic theorising, the article argues that Karen Barad’s (2003, 2007) theory is problematic on this count. Whereas Barad dilutes the theoretical distinction between mind and matter as well as that between the animate and the inanimate, the contention here is that it is ethically and politically vital to hold on to a notion (...) of subjectivity understood in terms of the capacity for experience, on account of which sentient being is exposed to suffering. This requires accentuating the passive dimension of subjectivity rather than merely the active dimension of matter. This article contests Barad’s reinscription of a masculinist devaluation of passivity on the grounds that only by moving beyond it can we overcome the hierarchical opposition of subject versus object and, in consequence, of mind versus matter. (shrink)

Biology is seen not merely as a privileged oppressor of women but as a co-victim of masculinist social assumptions. We see feminist critique as one of the normative controls that any scientist must perform whenever analyzing data, and we seek to demonstrate what has happened when this control has not been utilized. Narratives of fertilization and sex determination traditionally have been modeled on the cultural patterns of male/female interaction, leading to gender associations being placed on cells and their components. (...) We also find that when gender biases are controlled, new perceptions of these intracellular and extracellular relationships emerge. (shrink)

In this text, the authors examine the relationship between political and feminist theory, characterizing and criticizing liberalism and communitarianism from a feminist perspective.

Until recently, feminist theory and citizenship theory have seemed two distinct areas, with writers in both camps seldom discussing the other's work.

Medicalization occurs when an aspect of embodied humanity is scrutinized by the medical industry, claimed as pathological, and subsumed under medical intervention. Numerous critiques of medicalization appear in academic literature, often put forth by bioethicists who use a variety of “lenses” to make their case. Feminist critiques of medicalization raise the concerns of the politically disenfranchised, thus seeking to protect women—particularly natal sex women—from medical exploitation. This article will focus on three feminist critiques of medicalization, (...) which offer an alternative narrative of sickness and health. I will first briefly describe the philosophical origins of medicalization. Then, I will present three feminist critiques of medicalization. Liberal feminism, trans feminism, and crip feminism tend to regard Western medicine with a hermeneutics of suspicion and draw out potential harms of medicalization of reproductive sexuality, gender, and disability, respectively. While neither these branches of feminism—nor their critiques—are homogenous, they provide much-needed commentaries on phallocentric medicine. I will conclude the paper by arguing for the continual need for feminist critiques of medicalization, using uterus transplantation as a relevant case study. (shrink)

Various levels of feminist criticism of Hegel's account of woman and family, both contentious and sophisticated, are examined. While finding much that is telling and valid in them, the author finds much that is uncomprehended and much that stands to be learned about the issues in question were the texts allowed to speak for themselves.

Logic is the systematic study of patterns of correct inference. The first treatise on logic is Aristotle's Prior Analytics , written around 350 B.C. and there are remarkable similarities between the way he presented his theory of valid arguments and the way it is still taught today. He analyzes the form of various inferences and then illustrates them with concrete examples. He begins with very simple cases.

According to Petersen, ‘the individualization argument against NMEF [nonmedical egg freezing]’ states: ‘it is morally wrong to let individuals use technology X [NMEF] – in order to try to handle a problem that is social in nature – if the use of X [NMEF] will somehow work against a social solution to a social problem P [gender inequality in the labor market]’. While there may be individuals making individualisation argument against NMEF, I do not read the scholars he discusses—Karey Harwood,1 (...) 2 Lynn Morgan, Janelle Taylor3 and Angel Petrapanagos4—as making this argument. These scholars agree with the premise of the individualisation argument that NMEF ‘is an individualistic and morally problematic solution to the social problems that women face’, but this does not mean that they agree with the conclusion ‘women should not use NMEF’. In fact, several admit that NMEF can be a good choice for some women; Petropanagos, for example, states ‘individual women may benefit from egg freezing to satisfy their reproductive desires’.4 In this commentary, I argue that Petersen incorrectly reduces these scholars’ positions to the individualisation argument by neglecting three pertinent factors: their feminist orientation, their multifaceted critiques of NMEF and how the rapidly advancing field of reproductive medicine informs their ethical analysis. While Petersen …. (shrink)

I am often asked what feminism can possibly have to do with science. Feminism is, after all, an explicitly partisan, political standpoint; what bearing could it have on science, an enterprise whose hallmark is a commitment to value-neutrality and objectivity? Is feminism not a set of personal, political convictions best set aside (bracketed) when you engage in research as a scientist? I will argue that feminism has both critical and constructive relevance for a wide range of sciences, and that feminism (...) has much to gain from the sciences, including at least some of those that even the most querulous of my interlocutors would dignify as “real” science. I will concentrate here on the critical import of feminism for science, but will identify constructive implications as I go. -/- But first, some ground work. Let me begin with some brief comments about what it is I take feminism to be, and why feminists have been interested in science —why they have undertaken to comment on, scrutinize, and actively engage in science. In the body of this chapter I want to disentangle several quite distinct kinds of feminist critiques of science. I will conclude with some suggestions about what feminism and science have to offer one another that could be, indeed that is, already proving to be very substantially enriching for both a range of scientific disciplines and for feminism. (shrink)

A key facet of Valerie Plumwood’s feminist critique of logic is her analysis of classical negation. On Plumwood’s reading, the exclusionary features of classical negation generate hierarchical dualisms, i.e., dichotomies in which dominant groups’ primacy is reinforced while underprivileged groups are oppressed. For example, Plumwood identifies the system collapse following from ex contradictione quodlibet—that a theory including both φ and ∼φ trivializes—as a primary source of many of these features. Although Plumwood considers the principle of excluded middle to be (...) compatible with her goals, that she identifies relevant logics as systems lacking a hierarchical negation—whose first-degree fragments are both paraconsistent and paracomplete—suggests that excluded middle plays some role in hierarchical dualisms as well. In these notes, I examine the role of excluded middle in generating oppressive homogenization and try to clarify the relationship between Plumwood’s critique and this principle from several contemporary perspectives. Finally, I examine the matter of whether Plumwood’s critique requires relevance or whether a non-relevant logic could satisfy her criteria and serve as a liberatory logic of difference. (shrink)

This article critiques Jack Halberstam's concept of queer failure through a feminist cripistemological lens. Challenging Halberstam's interpretation of Erika Kohut in The Piano Teacher as a symbol of postcolonial angst rather than a figure of psychosocial disability, the article establishes a critical coalition between crip feminist theory and queer-of-color theory to promote a materialist politics and literal-minded reading practice designed to recognize minority subjectivities rather than exploiting them for their metaphorical resonance. In asserting that Erika Kohut is (...) better understood as a woman with borderline personality disorder , and in proposing borderline personality disorder as a critical optic through which to read both The Piano Teacher and The Queer Art of Failure , the article challenges the usual cultural undermining of epistemic authority that comes with the BPD diagnosis. It asserts instead that BPD might be a location of more, rather than less, critical acumen about the negative affects that accompany queer failures, and reflect on what we might call a borderline turn in queer theory. On a broader level, the article joins an emergent conversation in crip theory about the reluctance of queer theory to address disability in meaningful and substantive ways. (shrink)

The paper reviews the main concepts and methodological approaches of feminist peace and conflict theory. It reproduces and analyzes the arguments of feminist war critique, and critically relates them to the general theoretical assumptions of the sociology of conflict. The following spheres of feminist war critique are considered in their intersection with sociology of conflict: feminist international relations theory, feminist peace research, peace activism, and peace education. Moreover, the paper shows that there is an intellectual (...) intersection of the feminist prism and R. Collins’ project of micro- and macrosociology. It is argued that the level of awareness of the feminist tradition of conflict in Russian social studies is insufficient at the disciplinary level. The concepts of gender, everyday violence, and positive peace are introduced; their roles are investigated in the feminist war critique. Gender is considered a social and symbolic construct that both creates and is created by the social relations of power. Gender inequality in power, in its turn, produces various forms of violence (physical, sexual, financial, psychological, and social). Other structures of marginalization — race, class, sexuality, physical/mental (dis)abilities — are also taken into consideration. The continuity of the different forms of violence, as posed in the feminist war critique, is problematized: global and regional conflicts are seen as an extension of those diverse forms of violence that flourish during everyday social interactions. Thus, through the problematization of the “continuum of violence”, the paper conceptualizes the trend of feminist research (tracing the connection between everyday social interactions and global conflicts) as a common task of conflict sociology. The essay is intended to highlight the potential of both conceptual and methodological interchange between feminist war critique and conflict sociology. (shrink)

This article looks at the role of the European Union in promoting substantive equality for men and women in the European labour market. For this purpose it looks at the assumptions about gender roles and gender divisions of labour enshrined by EU directives on maternity rights and parental leave. The article presents a theoretical discussion of the role of EU policies in protecting women's rights and thus promoting a socioeconomic model that allows men and women to reconcile work and family (...) life. The main policies at the heart of this research are the 1992 Pregnant Worker Directive, the 1996 Parental Leave Directive, the 1992 Childcare Recommendations and the 2000 Council Resolution on Balanced Participation in Work and Family Life. The article thus assesses the gender biases of EU policies and the ensuing implications for the future of gender relations and socioeconomic trends in Europe. (shrink)

Feminists have argued that oppressive socialization undermines the liberal model of autonomy. We contend that this argument can also be employed effectively as a challenge to the standard bioethical model of informed consent. We claim that the standard model is inadequate because it relies on presumptions of procedural autonomy and rational choice that overlook the problem of how agents are often socialized so that they adopt and internalize oppressive norms as part of their motivational structure. The argument that oppressive socialization (...) undermines liberalism’s view of autonomy is most relevant to what Beauchamp and Childress call the threshold elements of informed consent—competence and voluntariness. We show how these elements fail to account for morally relevant factors such as oppressive socialization. (shrink)

I consider the issues that recent feminist critiques of science raise for contemporary empiricist philosophy of science. Three particular focuses of feminist criticism are addressed: the social arrangements within and outside science communities that divide cognitive labor and authority, the apparent androcentrism in several of the social and biological sciences, and the use of models that reflect Western political experience in the biological sciences. ;I urge that a consideration of these issues indicate that science communities interact with (...) our larger society with consequences for the directions of scientific research, and with consequences for our common sense understandings of human and nonhuman nature. In the light of feminist criticisms, I re-examine the philosophy of science of a major American philosopher, W. V. O. Quine. The interplay between Quine's work and feminist scholarship provides support for two thesis. ;First, I urge that contemporary philosophy of science has too narrowly construed the factors relevant to the epistemology of science. Among the factors that feminists have shown to have an impact on research programs and theoretical frameworks are Western gender arrangements and Western political experience generally. Much contemporary philosophy of science lacks the categories that would enable these factors to be incorporated in the epistemology of science. I argue that frameworks need to be developed that can both accommodate these factors and account for the success of our theorizing. ;Secondly, I urge that the thesis of "epistemological individualism" be abandoned by empiricists. I argue that the feminist criticisms considered and aspects of Quine's philosophy of science indicate that the thesis is empirically unsound. I argue that the acquirers of knowledge are communities, and not individuals, and I use aspects of Quine's philosophy of science and the current presence of androcentric and feminist perspectives in the sciences to support this view. (shrink)

In this article the author suggests that progress in philosophy can be conceived through contemporary French theories that propose a new, polysemantic way of thinking. Postmodern philosophy has tried to renew the meaning of the subject, of the subject's identity, and of language and communication. The author believes that the postmodern, feminist approach to those concepts represents significant progress in philosophy. It is, in fact, exactly in the context of feminism—conceived of not just as a women's sociopolitical or scientific (...) activity but as a broad theoretical approach to many areas—that Western philosophy has acquired its most explicit and adequate meaning. A crucial example here is the new historicophilosophical analysis of the concept of gender. The author appeals to Lipovetsky, Lacan, Derrida, Kristeva, and other thinkers to show how postmodern feminism helps to overcome the binary vision of the contemporary world and the dichotomic composition of earlier philosophical thought. (shrink)

This paper engages television comedy to critique the ethical values that are amenable to neoliberal capitalism. First, I explore the co-optation and containment of feminism as a collective social change movement by postfeminist and neoliberal cultures. I show how self-reliance and resilience become legible as classed, raced, and gendered values packaged for feminine, neoliberal women. Next, I address the specific challenges that neoliberal biopower poses for ethical values as they have been traditionally understood. I then argue that comedy is a (...) particularly effective medium through which to consider the generation of resistant values that can support feminist collectivity. I develop a provisional protocol for engaging ambivalent media and read two scenes from TV comedies focused on the femininity of class-aspiring or class-privileged women. This critically exposes what kinds of values might counter the co-optation of self-reliance and resilience. I conclude that cultural performances of femininity not only codify neoliberal values, they also are a resource for generating resistant feminist values inasmuch as they present intentionally frivolous modes of living. Within such a culture frivolousness becomes viable as a mode of everyday ethical commitment that can disrupt the negative impact of neoliberal biopower. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the emergence of Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) within American psychiatry and beyond in the postwar period, setting out what I believe to be important and suggestive questions neglected in existing scholarship. Tracing the nomenclature within successive editions of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ( DSM), I consider the reification of the term ‘FSD’, and the activism and scholarship that the rise of the category has occasioned. I suggest that analysis of FSD benefits (...) from scrutiny of a wider range of sources (especially since the popular and scientific cross-pollinate). I explore the multiplicity of FSD that emerges when one examines this wider range, but I also underscore a reinscribing of anxieties about psychogenic aetiologies. I then argue that what makes the FSD case additionally interesting, over and above other conditions with a contested status, is the historically complex relationship between psychiatry and feminism that is at work in contemporary debates. I suggest that existing literature on FSD has not yet posed some of the most important and salient questions at stake in writing about women’s sexual problems in this period, and can only do this when the relationship between ‘second-wave’ feminism, ‘post-feminism’, psychiatry and psychoanalysis becomes part of the terrain to be analysed, rather than the medium through which analysis is conducted. (shrink)