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Guide Questions for The Sex Which Is Not One

Week 14-15 Notes:

The following notes are highlights from the above chapter. They are neither intended to replace the lectures and text, nor to substitute for a reading of the text. Lectures will add to and supplement material given here. In order to do well in this class, it is recommended that you review these notes to identify main ideas after having attended class.

Reading philosophical essays is more challenging in that you often have to scan once, read once, and review once before you can adequately explain the author's position. In order to be sure that you are receiving maximum benefit from your time spent studying, try to answer the guide questions posed below. If you cannot answer them, it is time to read or review to be sure you understand the main arguments presented.

Who is Luce Irigaray?

Luce Irigaray is a second-generation feminist. Her work benefits from the efforts of her predecessors, namely Simone de Beauvoir and Simone Weil among others. When Irigaray began writing the voices of various "others" were being explored in the humanities. Thus, her work in Speculum and The Sex Which Is Not One provided timely critiques of male-dominated social structures. 

Irigaray is both a trained psychoanalyst and a linguist. Hence, her writings tend to reflect those schools of thought in that she critiques the motivation behind the expression and the effects of language on behavior.

Resource Links for this week's assignment:

Pages devoted to Irigaray:

 

Latest Links ò
Notes

Marcuse: One-Dimensional Man

Foucault: Knowledge/Power

Intro to Post-modernism: Baudrillard, Lyotard, and Spivak

Derrida readings

Lacan - Kristeva readings

Post-structuralism and Post-Modern Theory

Russell's Philosophy for Laymen
Guide Questions:

The following questions are designed to fine tune your understanding of the reading. Although I will not collect or check to see if you've completed them, the subject matter and answers to these questions form the basis of what you will be required to know for exams.

Chapter 4:

  1. What is Irigaray's chief criticism of the Freudian approach to the feminine?(69-70) 

  2. What is the traditional connection between anatomy and truth in Freudian theory?(71)

  3. Why does Irigaray reread the philosophical canon?(74-75)

  4. Describe the process of linguistic repression? What is the phenomenon Irigaray refers to as phallocentric logic?(78-80) What would it mean to be repressed at the level of language?

  5. What is the political consequence of understanding how linguistic structures shape our experience?(81)

  6. What are the traditional feminist solutions for recreating social relationships?(82)

  7. What might a feminine language look like?(83)

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Chapter 8:

  1. What might Irigaray mean when she refers to "the exchange of women"?(170-171) List some examples.

  2. Are there situations in which the Kantian imperative "treat no one like a commodity" addresses the problem of treating women as objects with exchange value? Are men ever oppressed in a like manner? If yes, give an example.

  3. Describe the two methods of evaluating a woman as a commodity.(175-177)

  4. How does Irigaray connection commodities with paternal authority?(178)

  5. How do commodities establish their value?(179, 188)

  6. How are desire and exchange value related?(180, 188)

  7. Irigaray argues that women are separated from one another as a consequence of their social repression.(181,188) Is this true?

  8. Is having an exchange value intrinsic to being female?(182-183)

  9. What is the status of women in Irigaray's interpretation of the social order?(184)

  10. Irigaray contends that virgins and prostitutes occupy different places in a social order based on female exchange value. Describe these roles.(186-187)

  11. Is is true that women are not conscious of their status as commodities?(188-189) If so, how did Irigaray achieve this insight?

  12. According to Irigaray how might women contribute to a critique of the political economy?(191)

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Last Updated 19 April, 2000 06:51 PM

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