Disciplining Foucault

Feminism, Power, and the Body

Jana Sawicki

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000159073
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Biographies de philosophes

In this book, the author attempts to integrate previous work on Foucault with feminist theory. She expands discussion of feminism and sexual liberation, charts the impact of Foucault on humanistic studies, and picks up an aspect of the mothering theme, the question of new reproductive technologies.

1

Foucault and Feminism: Toward a Politics of Difference

The beginning of wisdom is in the discovery that there exist contradictions of permanent tension with which it is necessary to live and that it is above all not necessary to seek to resolve.

—Andre Gorz, Farewell to the Proletariat

It is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.

—Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

The question of difference is at the forefront of discussions among feminists today.¹ Of course, theories of difference are not new to the women’s movement. There has been much discussion concerning the nature and status of women’s differences from men (for instance, biological, psychological, cultural). Theories of sexual difference have emphasized the shared experiences of women across the divisions of race, class, age or culture. In such theories the diversity of women’s experiences is often lumped into the category “women’s experience,” or women as a class, presumably in an effort to provide the basis for a collective feminist subject.

More recently, however, as a result of experiencing conflicts at the level of practice, it is the differences among women (for instance, differences of race, class, sexual practice) that are becoming the focus of theoretical discussion. To be sure, Marxist feminists have consistently recognized the significance of class differences among women, but other important differences cry out for recognition. The question arises: do the differences and potential separations between women pose a serious threat to effective political action and to the possibility of theory?

Perhaps the most influential and provocative ideas on the issue of difference in feminism are to be found in the writings of black, lesbian feminist poet and essayist Audre Lorde. In her work, Lorde describes the ways in which the differences among women have been “misnamed and misused in the service of separation and confusion.”² As a lesbian mother and partner in an interracial couple, she has a unique insight into the conflicts and divided allegiances which put into question the possibility of a unified women’s movement. She has experienced the way in which power utilizes difference to fragment opposition. Indeed this fragmentation can occur not only in groups but also within the individual. Hence, Lorde remarks: “I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.”³

Lorde claims that it is not the differences among women that separate us, but rather our “refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation.”⁴ Thus, she appears to be saying that difference is not necessarily counter-revolutionary. She suggests that feminists devise ways of discovering and utilizing their differences as a source for creative change. Learning to live and struggle with many of our differences may be one of the keys to disarming the power of the white, male, middle-class norms which we have all internalized to varying degrees.

In what follows I shall elaborate on the notion of difference as resource and offer a sketch of some of the implications that what I call a “politics of difference” might have for “revolutionary” feminist theory.⁵ In order to elucidate these implications I shall turn to the writings of the social philosopher and historian Michel Foucault. It is my contention that despite the androcentrism in his own writings he too has recognized the ambiguous power of difference in modern society. He recognizes that difference can be the source of fragmentation and disunity as well as a creative source of resistance and change.

My aim in this paper is twofold: (1) to turn to Foucault’s work and method in order to lay out the basic features of a politics of difference; and (2) to show how such a politics might be applied in the feminist debate concerning sexuality. In order to accomplish these aims I shall begin by contrasting Foucault’s politics with two existing versions of revolutionary feminism, namely, Marxist and radical feminism. I have selected these two feminist frameworks because they contain the elements of traditional revolutionary theory that Foucault is rejecting.⁶ Other Foucauldian feminisms are developed by Morris and Martin.⁷

Foucault’s Critique of Revolutionary Theory

It will be helpful to contrast Foucault’s approach with Marxism, on the one hand, and radical feminism, on the other. Both Marxism and radical feminism conceive of historical process as a dialectical struggle for human liberation. Both have turned to history to locate the origins of oppression, and to identify a revolutionary subject. Yet, radical feminists have criticized Marxism for its inability to give an adequate account of the persistence of male domination. Replacing the category of capital, radical feminists identify patriarchy as the origin of all forms of oppression. Hence, they view the struggles of women as a sex/class as the key to human liberation.

The recent intensification of feminist attention to the differences among women might be understood as a reaction to the emergence of a body of feminist theory which attempts to represent women as a whole on the basis of little information about the diversity of women’s experiences, to develop universal categories for analyzing women’s oppression, and, on the basis of such analysis, to identify the most important struggles. When Audre Lorde and others speak of the importance of preserving and redefining difference, of discovering more inclusive strategies for building theory; when they speak of the need for a broad based, diverse struggle, they are calling for an alternative to a traditional revolutionary theory in which forms of oppression are either overlooked or ranked and the divisions separating women exacerbated. The question is: Are there radical alternatives to traditional revolutionary theory? As I have indicated, we can turn to Foucault for an alternative approach to understanding radical social transformation.

Foucault’s is a radical philosophy without a theory of history. He does not utilize history as a means of locating a single revolutionary subject, nor does he locate power in a single material base. Nevertheless, historical research is the central component of his politics and struggle a key concept for understanding change. Accordingly, in order to evaluate the usefulness of Foucault’s methods for feminism, we must first understand the historical basis of his critique of traditional revolutionary theory.

Foucault’s rejection of traditional revolutionary theory is rooted in his critique of the “juridico-discursive” model of power on which it is based. This model of power underpins both liberal theories of sovereignty (that is, legitimate authority often codified in law and accompanied by a theory of rights) and Marxist theories which locate power in the economy and the state as an arm of the bourgeoisie. The juridico-discursive model of power involves three basic assumptions:

1. Power is possessed (for instance, by the individuals in the state of nature, by a class, by the people).

2. Power flows from a centralized source from top to bottom (for instance, law, the economy, the state).

3. Power is primarily repressive in its exercise (a prohibition backed by sanctions).

Foucault proposes that we think of power outside the confines of state, law or class. This enables him to locate forms of power that are obscured in traditional theories. Thus, he frees power from the domain of political theory in much the same way as radical feminists did. Rather than engage in theoretical debate with political theorists, Foucault gives historical descriptions of the different forms of power operating in the modern West. He does not deny that the juridico-discursive model of power describes one form of power. He merely thinks that it does not capture those forms of power that make centralized, repressive forms of power possible, namely, the myriad of power relations at the microlevel of society.

Foucault’s own theory of power differs from the traditional model in three basic ways:

1. Power is exercised rather than possessed.

2. Power is not primarily repressive, but productive.

3. Power is analyzed as coming from the bottom up.

In what follows I shall outline Foucault’s reasons for substituting his own view of power for the traditional one.

1. Foucault claims that thinking of power as a possession has led to a preoccupation with questions of legitimacy, consent and rights. (Who should possess power? When has power overstepped its limits?) Marxists have problematized consent by introducing a theory of ideology, but Foucault thinks this theory must ultimately rest on a humanistic notion of authentic consciousness as the legitimate basis of consent. Furthermore, the Marxist emphasis on power as a possession has resulted in an effort to locate those subjects in the historical field whose standpoint is potentially authentic, namely, the proletariat. Foucault suspends any reference to humanistic assumptions in his own account of power because he believes that humanism has often served more as an ideology of domination than liberation.

For the notion that power is a possession Foucault substitutes a relational model of power as exercised. By focusing on the power relations themselves, rather than on the subjects related (sovereign-subject, bourgeois-proletarian), he can give an account of how subjects are constituted by power relations.

2. This brings us to the productive nature of power. Foucault rejects the repressive model of power for two reasons. First, he thinks that if power were merely repressive, then it would be difficult to explain how it has gotten such a grip on us. Why would we continue to obey a purely repressive and coercive form of power? Indeed, repressive power represents power in its most frustrated and extreme form. The need to resort to a show of force is more often evidence of a lack of power. Second, as I have indicated, Foucault thinks that the most effective mechanisms of power are productive. So, rather than develop a theory of history and power based on the humanistic assumption of a presocial individual endowed with inalienable rights (the liberal’s state of nature), or based on the identification of an authentic human interest (Marx’s species being), he gives accounts of how certain institutional and cultural practices have produced individuals. These are the practices of disciplinary power, which he associates with the rise of the human sciences in the nineteenth century.

Disciplinary power is exercised on the body and soul of individuals. It increases the power of individuals at the same time as it renders them more docile (for instance, basic training in the military). In modern society disciplinary power has spread through the production of certain forms of knowledge, such as the positivistic and hermeneutic human sciences, and through the emergence of disciplinary techniques such as techniques of surveillance, examination and discipline which facilitate the process of obtaining knowledge about individuals. Thus, ways of knowing are equated with ways of exercising power over individuals. Foucault also isolates techniques of individualization such as the dividing practices found in medicine, psychiatry, criminology, and their corresponding institutions, the hospital, asylum and prison. Disciplinary practices create the divisions healthy/ill, sane/mad, legal/delinquent, which, by virtue of their authoritative status, can be used as effective means of normalization and social control. They may involve the literal dividing off of segments of the population through incarceration or institutionalization. Usually the divisions are experienced in the society at large in more subtle ways, such as in the practice of labeling one another or ourselves as different or abnormal.

For example, in The History of Sexuality Foucault gives an historical account of the process through which the modern individual has come to see herself as a sexual subject. Discourses such as psychoanalysis view sexuality as the key to self-understanding and lead us to believe that in order to liberate ourselves from personality “disorders,” we must uncover the truth of our sexuality. In this way dimensions of personal life are psychologized, and thus become a target for the intervention of experts. Again, Foucault attempts to show how these discourses, and the practices based on them, have played more of a role in the normalization of the modern individual than they have in any liberatory processes. He calls for a liberation from this “government of individualization,” for the discovery of new ways of understanding ourselves, new forms of subjectivity.

3. Finally, Foucault thinks that focusing on power as a possession has led to the location of power in a centralized source. For example, the Marxist location of power in a class has obscured an entire network of power relations “that invests the body, sexuality, family, kinship, knowledge, technology…”⁸ His alternative is designed to facilitate the description of the many forms of power found outside these centralized loci. He does not deny the phenomenon of class (or state) power, he simply denies that understanding it is most important for organizing resistance. As I have indicated, Foucault expands the domain of the political to include a heterogeneous ensemble of power relations operating at the microlevel of society. The practical implication of his model is that resistance must be carried out in local struggles against the many forms of power exercised at the everyday level of social relations.

Foucault’s “bottom-up” analysis of power is an attempt to show how power relations at the microlevel of society make possible certain global effects of domination, such as class power and patriarchy. He avoids using universals as explanatory concepts at the start of historical inquiry in order to prevent theoretical overreach. He states:

One must rather conduct an ascending analysis of power starting, that is, from its infinitesimal mechanisms, which each have their own history, their own trajectory, their own tactics, and then see how these mechanisms of power have been—and continue to be—invested, colonized, utilized, involuted, transformed, displaced, extended, etc., by even more general mechanisms and by forms of global domination. It is not that this global domination extends itself right to the base in a plurality of repercussions…⁹

In other words, by utilizing an ascending analysis Foucault shows how mechanisms of power at the microlevel of society have become part of dominant networks of power relations. Disciplinary power was not invented by the dominant class and then extended down into the microlevel of society. It originated outside this class and was appropriated by it once it revealed its utility. Foucault is suggestin...