POLI 366 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Intersectionality, Consciousness Raising, For Marx
9 Aug 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Wendy Brown
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
• 1st Paper
o Email TA with questions
o 5-6 pages
o Must engage with at least 2 of the class texts
• You may bring in text from outside, but you are not required
o Poli theory paper key: Must contain clear thesis
• Defend this thesis with conceptual argument, or evidence from readings (quotes)
• Concepts must be clearly defined
▪ Ex. Clearly define what you mean by 'sexuality'
• You are providing a reflection and analysis, rather than summary
▪ Prompts urge you to take a position
o If you need an extension (for legit reasons), contact Prof ahead of time
• No exceptions after paper is due
o Use any citation style, just be consistant
• Prompts
o Pick one (out of five) prompt, and must answer it
• Although you don’t have to answer every single question within the prompt
o "Discuss role that pornography plays…"
• Directed toward MacKinnon, but not exclusively
• Think about the limitation of some of the accounts
o "What are the implications of referring to women as the 'second sex'?..."
• Directed towards Beauvoir
▪ Articulate what Beauvoir means, and extend this more into binary gender
construction, power and hierarchies, dominance
• What limitations might there be?
▪ Intersectionality getting lost in binary gender constructions
o "Is Young's concept of oppression a suitable framework for feminist theory?..."
• Think about Young's concept of oppression in context of other readings
• How does the concept of oppression push us forward, or fall behind the number of
criticism other authors have made about power and identity
o "How might feminist theory…"
• Can go in many directions
▪ Think carefully about the state
• MacKinnon might be a starting point
• So might Wollstonecraft, who thinks about Republican freedom as a kind of paradigm
for women's liberation/rights
• Brown
• hooks and Young position of the state
• Beauvoir leaving state out of the picture
o "Both Beauvoir's and MacKinnon's arguments…"
• Hold up Beauvoir or MacKinnon's work to an intersectional critique
• What are the problems? Can anything be salvaged/What can be salvaged?
• Reflect back on the intersectional paradigm, using Beauvoir and MacKinnon
▪ Use them to think critically about intersectionality
• Wendy Brown - 'States of Injury' (1995)
o Chpt. 4: Mirror of Pornography'
o Critique of MacKinnon's conception of gender and sexuality
• Offers one version of 3rd wave feminist critique of MacKinnon
o Brown's focus is on the permetic aspect of sexuality that MacKinnon offers
• MacKinnon's thesis: Sexuality produces gender, and is alone and exclusively the cause
for gender
• Begins with Mac's opening line: "Sexuality is to feminism, as work is to Marxism"
o Brown: If this is true, then an analysis of what work is to Marxism will give us background to
internal logic whereby sexuality functions in construction of gender
• Same as how work functions in establishment of class and inequality in capitalism
o Maps out some equivalences in Mac's book:
• Male Supremacy
a. Gender
b. Male/Female
c. Sexuality
d. Sex --> Gender
• Capitalism
a. Class
b. Capital/Labour
c. Production
d. Work --> Class
o One of the key differences btwn Marxism and Mac's feminism is the role to desire
• Capital establishes it's dominance over labour, because capital turns labour into profit
• In the way that sexuality produces the relation btwn male and female is somewhat
different
▪ Sexuality consists of a somewhat closed circle:
a. On one hand, you have heterosexual desire
b. Which eroticizes gender subordination (male dominance and female
submission)
c. Which produces gender (Gender roles, identities, performances, etc)
d. And gender reproduces the heterosexual desire
▪ Cycle of sexuality as Mac understands it
• Desire plays a fundamental role
• Because of how desire works, it is much harder to get out of an eroticization than it is
to get out of an ideology
▪ For Marx, class relations are not eroticized, just reproduced
▪ For MacKinnon, this reproductive force is desire
▪ Brown sees it being very difficult to break out of the cycle, which is different
from Marxism
o 1st Critique: MacKinnon draws on Marxism, but produces a cycle that is almost impossible
to break out of
• Even with consciousness raising, can be an effect response to ideology (like gender),
but it is ineffective way of dealing with desire
o Theoretic framework for class does not fit sexuality
Document Summary
Clearly define what you mean by "sexuality: you are providing a reflection and analysis, rather than summary, prompts urge you to take a position. "discuss role that pornography plays : directed toward mackinnon, but not exclusively, think about the limitation of some of the accounts. "how might feminist theory : can go in many directions, think carefully about the state, mackinnon might be a starting point. So might wollstonecraft, who thinks about republican freedom as a kind of paradigm for women"s liberation/rights: brown, hooks and young position of the state, beauvoir leaving state out of the picture. Can anything be salvaged/what can be salvaged: reflect back on the intersectional paradigm, using beauvoir and mackinnon, use them to think critically about intersectionality, wendy brown - "states of injury" (1995, chpt. In the way that sexuality produces the relation btwn male and female is somewhat different. For marx, class relations are not eroticized, just reproduced.
