Feminism and deconstruction, again: negotiating with unacknowledged masculinism

Abstract

Argument. It is not just that deconstruction cannot found a politics, while other ways of thinking can. It is that deconstruction can make founded political programs more useful by making their in-built problems more visible. To act is therefore not to ignore deconstruction, but actively to transgress it without giving it up. (A slightly tougher formulation which clarity-fetishists can ignore: deconstruction does not aim at praxis or theoretical practice but lives in the persistent crisis or unease of the moment of techne or crafting.) Feminism has a special situation here because, among the many names that Derrida gives to the problem/solution of founded programs, one is ‘woman’. I explain in the essay why feminism should keep to the critical ways of deconstruction but give up its attachment to that specific name for the problem/solution of founded programs ([psfp], also named ‘writing’. I put it so awkwardly because so-called ‘political’ academics will still insist that writing is only script and make the blindingly brilliant critique that Derrida ignores mothers speaking to infants!).

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