Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism

Since 1980’s the most controversial debates among feminists have been between cultural feminists and post-structuralist feminists. Cultural feminists argue in support of the necessity to redefine woman since the origin of women’s oppression problem goes back to the patriarchal definition of woman. In fact, cultural feminists embrace essentialist approach, while feminists who utilize post-structuralism claim that solutions offered by cultural feminists would never accomplish the purpose of women’s liberation. From the post-structuralism perspective, feminists can dispel the illusion of essentialism through deconstructing all existing concepts.

Cultural feminists believe that patriarchy has perpetuated a distorted and undervalued image of woman; therefore, the point of departure for the political and social feminist movement is to redefine and revalue feminine attributes. Capturing the real essence of “woman” and making it the basis for the definition of femininity- free from masculine values- is a central strategy for cultural feminists, since they claim that the women’s liberation movement requires self-aware agents to fight against institutional discrimination. In other words, women need to discover the universal truth of women in order to cultivate their own potentials.


Cultural feminists encourage women to open the social and political doors using their own identities. In contrast, liberal feminists strive to provide opportunities for women to move up to the position of power by encouraging them to be more masculine. On the other hand, cultural feminists emphasize the importance of a universal women’s identity, which results in oppressing diversity within the group of women. “Their effect is to reflect and reproduce dominant cultural assumptions about women and promote unrealistic expectations about “normal” female behavior that most of us cannot satisfy” (Identity Crises in Feminist Theory, Alcoff, 335).



For instance, Robin Morgan considers women as a world political force and claims for the necessity of women’s global movement. According to Morgan, women’s movement is cross-cultural, cross-racial, cross-sexual-preference, and cross-occupation/class since women have a common world view due to their unique experiences as women in patriarchal societies. Therefore, women’s oppression can contribute to shaping a collective identity which is the basis for their global movement. In other words, women’s specific point of view and their consequent political and social movement are “the result of a common condition which, despite variations in degree, is experienced by all human beings who born female” (Sisterhood Is Global, Morgan, 4).


Unlike cultural feminists, post-structuralist scholars are not interested in repeating the modernists’ questions about the origin of women’s oppression. On the contrary, they pose a question that why do we think we are sexually repressed? In “the history of sexuality”, Foucault explains that “If sex is repressed, that is, condemned to prohibition, nonexistence, and silence, then the mere fact that one is speaking about it has the appearance of a deliberate transgression”(Foucault, 6). In other words, people take pleasure from thinking that they are sexually oppressed since it provides them an opportunity to see themselves as a revolutionary, a person who deliberately moves beyond boundaries, fights for liberty, and predict a better future.


Post-structuralist feminists believe that cultural feminists’ reactionary approach to the patriarchal system reinforces the function of the dominant discourse. From the post-structuralism perspective, cultural feminists’ strategy to make demand in the name of “women” is problematic since they produce another discourse through their solutions based on the essence of woman. Given that the dominant discourse requires being in constant conversation with alternative discourses, cultural feminists contribute to the survival of the system through which discourses work. Post-structuralist feminists challenge other feminists’ attempts to capture the essence of women by pointing out the social and historical construction of subjectivity. According to post-modernists, there is no self prior to the discourse, and consequently, “the category of ‘woman’ is a fiction that feminist efforts must be directed to dismantling this fiction” (Alcoff, 338). Feminists’ adoption of post-structuralism leads to the notion that “feminist practice can only be negative” (Alcoff, 338), since feminists should deconstruct all sexual conceptions rather than participating in western dichotomous system of thought.


For instance, Judith Butler, one of feminists who embraces post-structuralism, refuses to call herself a lesbian since lesbianism is constructed through the dominant discourse of heterosexuality. According to Butler, labeling oneself as a lesbian is only a form of participation in the dominant discourse which tends to retain heterosexuality as a norm and homosexuality as deviant. “For being ‘out’ always depends to some extent on being ‘in’.” (Butler, 302) In other words, the category of homosexuality is a byproduct of heterosexuality. Moreover, she sees lesbianism as a matter of practice rather than identity. In other words, what kinds of characteristics do lesbians need to share to define the new category of lesbianism? How can one reduce her unclear identity to a vague category of homosexual or heterosexual?


Mohanty criticizes western feminists’ tendency to generalize the cause of women’s oppression in order to make a global movement. “There is, it should be evident, no universal patriarchal framework which this scholarship attempts to counter and resist”. (Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, Mohanty, 54) She points out western feminists’ ethnocentric approach and their ignorance of the necessity of more indigenous forms of women movement. According to Mohanty, third world women should represent themselves: “It is time to move beyond the Marx who found it possible to say: They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented.” (Mohanty, 74)