UNIVERSAL DIFFERENCE
Universal Difference Feminism and the Liberal Undecidability of 'Women' Kate Nash Lecturer in Sociology University of East Anglia Norwich A8
m M First published in Great Britain 1998 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-333-72116-0 First published in the United States of America 1998 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0-312-21004-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nash, Kate, 1958- Universal difference : feminism and the liberal undecidability of women / Kate Nash. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-312-21004-3 (cloth) 1. Feminist theory. 2. Women and democracy. 3. Liberalism. 4. Feminism. I. Title. HQ1190.N36 1997 305.42*01 dc21 97-28032 CIP Kate Nash 1998 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 Printed in Great Britain by The Ipswich Book Company Ltd Ipswich, Suffolk
To my mother
Contents Acknowledgements viii 1. Introduction 1 Democratic considerations of liberalism 1 Liberalism as philosophy in practice 8 Outline of chapters 17 2. The Critique of Liberalism as Masculinist 20 Postmodern and difference feminism 20 The masculine individual 29 The public/private opposition 32 3. Ambivalent Anti-patriarchalism 36 Pateman's reading of Locke's Two Treatises 38 Locke's Two Treatises and the undecidability of women 40 Feminism and the undecidability of 'women' in the Two Treatises 50 4. The Democratisation of Liberalism 66 J.S. Mill, The Subjection (and the undecidability) of Women 66 The democratisation of liberalism and the liberalisation of democracy 81 First-wave feminism: counter-hegemonic liberalism 90 5. Post-war Liberal-democracy and the Undecidability of Women 103 Welfare liberalism and the undecidability of women 104 Second-wave feminism and liberal-democracy 122 Thatcherism: neo-liberalism 'rolling back the frontiers of the state' 133 6. Conclusion: Feminist Decisions 139 Notes 152 References 159 Index 169 vn
Acknowledgements I would like to thank everyone who has discussed the ideas in this book with me, especially Ernesto Laclau, Vicky Randall, Anne Phillips, Aletta Norval, Jelica Sumic-Riha and Simon Thompson, who have all read chapters or, in some cases, the entire manuscript when it was a doctoral thesis. I would also like to thank colleagues and students at City University, Essex University and the University of East Anglia for stimulating thought while I was writing it, especially Ali Rattansi, Carolyn Vogler, Stephan Feuchtwang, David Howarth, Anna-Marie Smith, Sue Golding, Tony Clohesy, Barnor Hesse, Farish Ahmad-Noor, Richard Bellamy, Alan Scott, Roberta Sassattelli, Martin Hollis, Augus Ross and Tim O'Hagan. I would especially like to thank Michele Barrett who has always been inspiring by her encouragement to question received wisdom. I am more thankful than I can say to Zoe Nash, Maryam Najand, Anne-Marie Fortier and Neil Washbourne who have given support and encouragement, as well as good ideas and much needed relief from the task of producing the thesis and then the book; their goodwill in sustaining me to the very end of the project has been invaluable and has made it much more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. The arguments presented here will not meet with the agreement of all those who have helped me, but without you I probably wouldn't have done it as I have, and maybe I wouldn't have done it at all. The Economic and Social Research Council funded the doctoral research on which this book is based. IX
Is the differential treatment of women and men part of the sorry history of liberal democracy, or built into their very foundations? Does liberal democracy have to turn itself into something other - an alternative to liberal democracy - in order to deal with sexual inequality? Or can the inadequacies and inequalities be redressed with some future, but still liberal, democracy? XI