8. The Ethics of Sexual Difference

Abstract

The Ethics of Sexual DifferenceFeminist criticism today comprehends a diverse field of ideas and interests, disabusing one of the thought that it might repre sent a unified or single theoretical camp.Indeed, the disunity of feminist criticism is itself a matter for varying opinions, and feminist thinkers have reacted to the problems of internal debate with both enthusiasm and dismay.Some women believe that their political cause is compromised by internal debate because dissent allows men to dismiss the importance of feminist literary theory, just as they have dismissed generations of women.Oth er women see dissent as the sign of a healthy pluralism not permitted to them in the male world and essential to a future of political openness and change.The future of sexual difference, they argue, depends on the recognition of all differences.One tendency, however, does appear to mark much feminist literary criticism.Feminist critics tend to assume that literature is a social institution, although the nature of the institution is still open to debate.What is at stake in feminist writing is not simply literature or criticism as such but the ethical and social conse quences of women's exclusion from the world of literature in particular and the world of men in general.The result is a pow erful dialogue between life and literature.When feminist critics

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