Page 145 - Decoding Culture

138 D E C O D I N G C U L TURE

Students to whom I offer the seminar topic 'Examine the influence
of feminism on cultural studies' embrace it enthusiastically only to
report ruefully that the references which I provide leave them
more confused than enlightened. This is not really the fault of the
literature; the Question is a very difficult one to address once you
try to move beyond a simple pointing up of particular studies or
specific innovations. Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that,
1
as Franklin et al. (1991: 1 ) conclude later in their introductory dis­
cussion, 'there remain substantial difficulties in defining what
might be meant by specifically feminist understandings of culture'.
It is this limitation that leads them to restrict the analytic organi­
zation of their account, and their volume of readings, to three loose
and temporally specific areas of potential overlap between femi­
nism and cultural studies.
Other summarizing projects face similar difficulties, often taking
up the challenge by conceiving of a range of 'feminisms' rather
than presupposing a single homogeneous feminist framework.
Lovell (1995) for example, recognizing the diversity of both cultural
studies and feminism, invokes several feminist approaches (among
others: cultural feminism, feminist populism, postmodern femi­
nism, black feminism) in the course of introducing her collection of
essays on 'feminist cultural studies'. As the sheer range of her two
volumes amply illustrates, the mapping task is indeed a formidable
one, the variety of work startling in its vigour and diversity. Or, less
extensively as befits a more textbook-oriented approach, Storey
(1993: 125-126) introduces his account of feminism in cultural
studies in terms of the familiar Quartet of radical feminism, liberal
feminism, Marxist feminism and dual-systems theory. He notes,
however, that alternative classifications might also cast some light
into the conceptual gloom. And while it is true that such headings
as these can provide useful ordering foundations on which to build
a systematic account of the interaction of feminism and cultural

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