Feminism Vs Postmodernism Essay

The question of whether the relationship between Feminism and Postmodernism is or has been a productive one (especially for the former) is one that has been asked for a generation now. In its wake has emerged philosophies and theories which have profoundly challenged, if not altered, the shape and direction of Feminism, much to the ongoing dismay of many of its advocates. While the often-contentious discourse around these “two leading currents of our time” (17) did not begin with the debate that ultimately became Feminist Contentions, this work highlights many of the issues critics and proponents have between them. What is Postmodernism to begin with? What can Feminism hope to glean from it? Does Postmodernism really advocate for an erasure of women’s identity and her-story? Can Feminism retain its cherished projects and political achievements while attaching itself to such …show more content…
In abandoning meta narratives, The Death of History risks jettisoning the long struggle of discovery/recovery of women’s her-story in the name of “rejecting the hegemonic claims of any group or organization to represent the forces of history, or to be acting in their name” (22). This leaves her to ask in what one may imagine in a forlorn voice, “Once this “interest” in recovering the lives and struggles of those “losers” and “victims” of history is lost”, can we produce engaged feminist theory” (23)? Finally, she sees the clarion call for a Death of Metaphysics as an imperialist move for the discipline of philosophy, one that would “flattens out history of modern philosophy and the competing conceptual schemes it contains to the point of unrecognizability” (perhaps unsurprisingly, a critique which was often leveled against