Judith Butler’s essay has far reaching implications that tend to pose infinite interpretations and questions to the readers. Nevertheless, it is the product of the feminine reaction to globalization and post-modernism and the concepts that she has outlined are obviously chapters to critiques and quests into the diverse levels of analysis.
Of particular interest, I would like to draw the attention of the reader to two pertinent queries and discuss them as far as there is room for complexity of analysis and divergent thinking. First and foremost as Butler’s response, “Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of ‘Postmodernism,’” was presented after Benhabib’s essay. Although the focus of Butler’s essay is the relationship between postmodernism and feminism, she observes herself as the theorist who performs, and the academic context she performs in. The query is Butler’s use of the quotes for the word postmodernism. She begins with an inquiry of “postmodernism” and suggests that the term has been ascribed to her and her writing, “Who are these postmodernists? Is this a name that one takes on for oneself, or is it more often a name that one is called if and when one offers a critique of the subject?
She states, several times, that “I don’t know what postmodernism is” but she senses it when she comes across it. Although Butler’s performance is a rebuttal to Benhabib’s essay, she does not delve into the topic of feminism until the end. She recalls Foucault to ground her theory in and among power systems, and then asserts that Benhabib’s conceptualization of feminism is restrictive and paranoid.
The next priority would be to justify the question of relativism v/s universalism. Justice is a cross-cultural discourse and it would not be a futile attempt to search for universalities to overcome the shortcomings of relativism. Cultural relativism does not hold women’s rights as universality valid and true. All norms and regulations are solely products of a particular culture and every value is understood only within that particular culture. Cultural relativism otherwise is independent but it cannot be refuted that cultures are also interdependent. Those who belong to the western culture belong to the colonial powers and are part of leveled organization, while the dominant culture in the third world contest gives a rather divergent view of the argument. Cross-cultural dialogue are possible if women from different background experience a consciousness based on commonalities and diversities. Therefore, women’s rights activist concentrate on universal human rights. Butler points out that where it seeks “recourse to a position –hypothetical, counterfactual or imaginary – that places itself beyond the play of power, and which seeks to establish the metapolitical basis for a negotiation of power relations.” (Butler, Judith. “Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism.” (Butler and Scott 6). All human interactions are subject to power relation and is impossible to escape power play. The category of the “universal” has to be relieved of its foundational weight and opened as “site of insistent contest and resignification. Butler, Judith. “Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism.” (Butler and Scott 7). It would be impossible to invoke a political and practical dimension to the truth about what it means to be human, or what it means to be a woman because a particular category is already segregated. The claim to universality will ever remain a challenge.
Works Cited
Butler, Judith., and Scott, Joan W. Feminists Theroize the Political. New York: Routledge, 1992.