Feminism, Foucault, and Embodied Subjectivity

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 FOUCAULT AND THE SUBJECT OF FEMINISM F eminists lodge two seemingly contradictory complaints against Foucault’s notion of the subject. On the one hand, some feminists accuse Foucault of abolishing subjectivity altogether. On the other hand, some feminists claim that Foucault proposes a subject that is wholly determined by outside forces. Both complaints rest upon the connection between subjectivity and moral and political agency. Moral and political agency are necessary for feminist theory and practice insofar as they are linked to the possibility of individual transformation and social change. Historically, the possibility of moral agency has presupposed a conception of a unified rational subject. Although assumed to be necessary, this conception of a unified rational subject has recently been challenged by postmodern theories. In general, the argument between those who hold that a unified conception of subjectivity is necessary to moral agency and those who challenge this rests upon a split between those who believe that we need modernist humanist assumptions to undergird social, ethical, and political theory, and those who wish to dispense with modernist notions. Most feminist theorists fall into the first group, for as discussed earlier, feminism is a liberation philosophy that requires an emancipatory politics. Foucault, of course, falls into the second group.1 In this chapter, I argue that one finds an alternative to the modern conception of the subject in Foucault’s work that is useful to feminists. I discuss Foucault’s rejection of some of the prevalent conceptions of the subject in philosophy; it is clear, for instance, that he rejects the Cartesian cogito, and the more recent turn to the philosophy of the subject articulated in existentialism and phenomenology. Moreover, he is clearly suspicious of notions of subjectivity in psychological discourse. In spite of his rejection of these very specific ideas of subjectivity, Foucault does not reject the idea of subjectivity altogether. In fact, I argue that he provides a way of thinking about subjectivity that is both compatible with and useful to feminist theory and practice. Feminists need a conception of the subject that can account both for processes of normalization 53 and for resistance to norms. As even his critics would agree, Foucault’s genealogical writings offer a powerful account of the process of how norms constitute subjectivity . But feminist critics worry that a subject thoroughly constituted through social norms lacks a basis for resistance to those norms. Foucault’s later work offers a view of the self that is socially constituted and capable of autonomy and engaging in practices of freedom. However, when Foucault’s later work has not been ignored by feminists, it has been criticized as presenting a view of the self that, while now capable of autonomy and freedom, is hopelessly subjectivist, individualist, and aesthetic .2 I try to demonstrate that his genealogy of the subject, including his later works, offers an account of subjectivity that is both socially constituted and capable of resistance. In this chapter, I address feminist criticisms of Foucault’s notion of the subject . First, I examine the criticism that Foucault does away with the notion of subjectivity altogether. I argue that his rejection of the rational subject of Modernity parallels feminist criticisms of the Modern subject, for instance, in liberal political theory, as excessively rational and impossibly atomistic. Feminists have developed new understandings of subjectivity that do not isolate rationality as the sine qua non of the subject, and that account for the real situation of sociality, interdependence , and human development. I explore similarities and differences between the influential feminist account of the self in care ethics and Foucault’s notion of the self. The relational self in care ethics provides an account of the self that emphasizes the importance of social roles and relationships. However, its undifferentiated focus on women’s experience has led to charges by feminists of ahistoricism and false universalizing. Foucault’s conception of subjectivity avoids charges of ahistoricism and universalism that have been directed at this relational self. I suggest that Foucault’s genealogical approach can provide a model for feminist inquiries of the subject. His approach, like contemporary feminist approaches, emphasizes historical and cultural specificity and embodiment. FEMINIST CRITICS Feminist suspicions that Foucault is destroying the subject are widespread. Rosi Braidotti puts it this way: “The combination of conceptual elements is quite paradoxical: deconstructing, dismissing, or displacing the notion of the rational subject at the very historical moment when women are beginning to have access to the use of discourse, power and pleasure...