Page 116 - Contemporary Cultural Theory

Chapter 5
FEMINISM

Where culturalisms and structuralisms have very often provided the
intellectual class itself with its own peculiar ideologies of, respectively,
revolt and accommodation, both Marxism and feminism have
proclaimed, by contrast, their capacities to represent quite other
interests, those of the labour and socialist movements on the one
hand, the women’s and feminist movements on the other. Neither
claim is unproblematic, for, of course, the passage from first to second
term is in each case not easily accomplished: labour movements are
not invariably socialist, nor women’s movements invariably feminist.
Nor is it clear how best to understand the specific rôle of the socialist
or feminist intellectual, whether as part of the movement for which
he or she claims to speak, or as a particular politically motivated
member of the intellectual class. If the latter, then the possibility arises
that Marxism or feminism might represent, not so much the true
consciousness of the exploited proletariat or the raised consciousness
of oppressed women, as the false consciousness of a certain fraction
of the intelligentsia. And yet, socialist ideas have on occasion
undoubtedly appealed to fairly large working class audiences, and
feminist ideas to significant numbers of women. The aspiration to
construct a form of intellectualism directed by needs other than those
of the intelligentsia itself, and of the traditionally dominant classes
and groups, is without doubt entirely honourable. Whether that
aspiration has been successfully realized remains to be seen.

From the first to the second wave

Women’s resistance to patriarchal oppression is very probably as old
as patriarchy itself, and certainly long pre-dates the various types of
cultural theory and cultural politics that have concerned us here. In

107