In the fourth chapter of her book, Reshaping the Work-Family Debate, Joan C. Williams delves into the history of feminisms in the United States and explains how her proposed form of feminism - Reconstructive Feminism - fits into that history and the future. Throughout this exposition, Williams makes several claims about the four primary trends of feminism today and why they are inapplicable to her topic or no longer useful to the feminist cause. I found her assertions to be incredibly problematic and narrow-minded.
First, Williams claims that although Queer Theory and Reconstructive Feminism share the "core insight that gender does not reside naturally in people's bodies," queer theory is irrelevant in work-family feminism. She dismisses queer theory because of its focus on "the margins," without questioning why 'queer' folk make up the 'margins' rather than "the center" where her feminism resides.
Williams also says that "the distinction between sex and gender is vitally important on the work-family axis;" so queer theory cannot be applied. If that is the case, do Trans* individuals not participate in the work-family axis of society? What about Gender-queer folk, or Intersex individuals? Are their experiences to be reserved for the sole domain of queer theorists and ignored by everyone else?
Second, Williams addresses Dominance Feminism, a movement spearheaded by Catharine MacKinnon, to address the way that masculinity is a form of social power and legitimizes violence. Though Williams' critique of MacKinnon's narrow lens is legitimized, she somehow differentiates her own claim - that unspoken masculine norms disadvantage women and non-traditionally-masculine men in the workplace - from MacKinnon's primary claim - that masculinity creates social power. I fail to see the incongruity between their two core arguments.
The third theory that Williams takes issue with is Anti-Essentialist Feminism, specifically the concept of Intersectionality. This was the section that I was most bothered by, primarily because it seemed that she had a poor understanding of what intersectionality actually is. Williams claims that the concept "reinforces white privilege and heteronormativity," when, in fact, the point is quite opposite. I utilize intersectionality to analyze my white, Christian, US privilege as compared to my feminine/female oppression. However, Williams never addresses, or even mentions, privilege, which is a fundamental concern of intersectionality.
Additionally, Williams makes the bold, false claim that "intersectionality is fine for consciousness-raising essays, but in other contexts, it may have outlived its usefulness." I profoundly disagree with this claim and cite Williams' own heteronormativity and white-bias as evidence.
Williams' analyses of these different feminisms and her strict separation of them make me wonder - is it possible to enact multiple or all of the aforementioned forms simultaneously? I believe it is, but why does Williams seem to think it impossible?
These are insightful comments. How do you respond to her claim that the next step is to "jump-start the study of the racialization of gender bias: the ways the experience of gender differs from race"? She problematizing intersectionality in a tricky way by reconceptualizing multiple matrices as "the racialization of gender bias."
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