Who counts (or doesn’t count) what as feminist theory?; An exercise in dictionary use  

Oleh:

Winter, Bronwyn

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Feminist Theory vol. 1 no. 1 (Apr. 2000), page 105–111.
Topik: counts
Fulltext: 105.pdf (80.71KB)

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I have a small space to answer a big question. Not because the answer to the question ‘What counts as feminist theory?’ is not simple and selfevident, for I believe it is, but because of the woolliness surrounding the term ‘feminism’ in specialist circles, and the readiness to define it in extremely limited ways in non-specialist circles. The effects of this are so devastating for the state of feminist theoretical debate that I consider their discussion to be of some urgency. I will us leave aside my own model for ‘feminist theory’ to address the question that heads this article.1 Let us deal with the question of ‘theory’ first. Looking up this term in my friendly dictionary,2 I found a collection of six definitions from which the following can be gleaned: • that theory has a conjectural or explanatory role in relation to perceived reality; • that it either refers to principles as distinct from practice, or that it refers to rules and methods that inform practice; and • that it is assumed to be coherent. I will assume that these parameters are widely accepted. When we say ‘theory’, then, we are talking about coherent principles that explain and inform practice. There is no such happy consensus, however, concerning the term ‘feminism’. On the contrary, there has been considerable resistance by supposed specialists in feminist theory to defining feminism at all, including within encyclopaedic or introductory works whose main purpose is ostensibly to ‘explain’ feminism. The reason usually given is either that ‘definition’ means unacceptable ‘closure’ (e.g. Humm, 1989; Tong, 1989) or that there is fundamental disagreement as to its meaning (e.g. Tuttle, 1987;Wilson, 1986, cited in Whelehan, 1995: 1).3 Even those introductory works which meekly posit a definition (e.g. Whelehan, 1995), observe that both disagreements and silences exist among feminists over issues such as ‘identifying the “oppressor” and locating the source of oppression’ (Whelehan, 1995: 26),4 and limit definitions to a broad estcommondenominator of the sort: ‘there is something wrong with society’s treatment of women’ (Tuttle, 1987: 107). 105 TF Bronwyn Winter University of Sydney Feminist Theory Copyright © 2000 SAGE Publications(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) vol. 1(1): 105–111. [1464-7001(200004) 1:1; 105–111; 012015]

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