Universal Difference: Feminism and the Liberal Undecidability of ‘Women’

182 Pages·1998·21.389 MB·English

by  Kate Nash (auth.)

UNIVERSAL DIFFERENCE

Universal Difference
Feminism and the Liberal Undecidability
of 'Women'
Kate Nash
Lecturer in Sociology
University of East Anglia
Norwich
A8
m
First published in Great Britain 1998 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-333-72116-0
M First published in the United States of America 1998 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 0-312-21004-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nash, Kate, 1958-
Universal difference : feminism and the liberal undecidability of
women / Kate Nash.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-312-21004-3 (cloth)
1. Feminist theory. 2. Women and democracy. 3. Liberalism.
4. Feminism. I. Title.
HQ1190.N36 1997
305.42*01 —dc21 97-28032
CIP
©Kate Nash 1998
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
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written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this wor kin accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 54 3 2 1
07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98
Printed in Great Britain by
The Ipswich Book Company Ltd
Ipswich, Suffolk
To my mother

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
1. Introduction 1
Democratic considerations of liberalism 1
Liberalism as philosophy in practice 8
Outline of chapters 17
2. The Critique of Liberalism as Masculinist 20
Postmodern and difference feminism 20
The masculine individual 29
The public/private opposition 32
3. Ambivalent Anti-patriarchalism 36
Pateman's reading of Locke's Two Treatises 38
Locke's Two Treatises and the undecidability of women 40
Feminism and the undecidability of 'women' in the
Two Treatises 50
4. The Democratisation of Liberalism 66
J.S. Mill, The Subjection (and the undecidability)
of Women 66
The democratisation of liberalism and the liberalisation
of democracy 81
First-wave feminism: counter-hegemonic liberalism 90
5. Post-war Liberal-democracy and the Undecidability of
Women 103
Welfare liberalism and the undecidability of women 104
Second-wave feminism and liberal-democracy 122
Thatcherism: neo-liberalism 'rolling back the frontiers of
the state' 133
6. Conclusion: Feminist Decisions 139
Notes 152
References 159
Index 169
vn

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank everyone who has discussed the ideas in this
book with me, especially Ernesto Laclau, Vicky Randall, Anne Phillips,
Aletta Norval, Jelica Sumic-Riha and Simon Thompson, who have all
read chapters or, in some cases, the entire manuscript when it was a
doctoral thesis.
I would also like to thank colleagues and students at City University,
Essex University and the University of East Anglia for stimulating
thought while I was writing it, especially Ali Rattansi, Carolyn Vogler,
Stephan Feuchtwang, David Howarth, Anna-Marie Smith, Sue Golding,
Tony Clohesy, Barnor Hesse, Farish Ahmad-Noor, Richard Bellamy,
Alan Scott, Roberta Sassattelli, Martin Hollis, Augus Ross and Tim
O'Hagan. I would especially like to thank Michele Barrett who has
always been inspiring by her encouragement to question received wisdom.
I am more thankful than I can say to Zoe Nash, Maryam Najand,
Anne-Marie Fortier and Neil Washbourne who have given support and
encouragement, as well as good ideas and much needed relief from
the task of producing the thesis and then the book; their goodwill in
sustaining me to the very end of the project has been invaluable and
has made it much more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been.
The arguments presented here will not meet with the agreement of
all those who have helped me, but without you I probably wouldn't
have done it as I have, and maybe I wouldn't have done it at all.
The Economic and Social Research Council funded the doctoral
research on which this book is based.
IX