Abstract

The thesis of this dissertation is that Michel Foucault's work can be useful to feminists in at least three ways. First, Foucault and feminists explore some of the same issues; Foucault's approaches to, e.g., sexuality, dualistic thinking, self-constitution, might help feminists clarify and extend some aspects of their researches. Second, Foucault's discourse, as an example of nontheoretical thinking, can aid feminists in accepting and developing their own tendencies to think nontheoretically. Third, foucault's conception of power as shifting relational networks is a useful alternative to the liberal and Marxist understandings of power with which feminists have been working. ;Chapter I is a brief introduction. Chapter II gives an overview of Foucault's work as set forth in La volonte de savoir; it examines Foucault's dissatisfaction with theory and his understanding of power. Chapter III develops the claim that feminist thinking has three general tendencies or characteristics: it is plural and pluralizing; it is suspicious of rigid hierarchical and dualistic orderings; it tends to attack foundationalisms without proposing alternative foundations for knowledge. These tendencies make theory-building virtually impossible. ;These tendencies also undercut any theoretical framework which feminists adopt. In Chapters IV and V, liberal and Marxist feminisms are shown to be highly unstable. Furthermore, liberal and Marxist conceptions of power are inadequate for feminist thinking. Liberal and early radical feminist discourses contain awarenesses of power as productive, as not merely prohibitive. Marxist feminist discourses contain awarenesses that power comes not only from above but from everwhere. Foucault's analytics of power will accommodate these insights which liberalism and Marxism cannot allow. ;Chapter VI examines the emergence of radical feminist conversation out of liberal and socialist discourses. In radical feminist discourse we hear rejections of theory as well as attempts to articulate intense needs for new ways of understanding selfhood and power. Chapter VII brings feminists and Foucault together and restates the themes developed throughout the essay