standpoint bent’ (Hoffman, 2001: 63), and we would suggest that the question of a
‘standpoint bent’ is best understood by looking at the section preceding this one.
Postmodernists seek to overcome the dualistic character of traditional theory.
We should refuse to accept that we are either critical (and want to overturn
everything) or conservative (and want to keep things as they are). We need to be
both subjective and objective, valuing the individual andsociety. In this way we
avoid making the kind of choices that postmodernists call ‘binary’ and absolutist.
This leads postmodernists to stress the importance of difference and plurality, and
this is why postmodern feminists or feminist postmodernists argue that the notion
of feminism as the emancipation of women is doubly problematic. First, because
emancipation sounds as though at some privileged point in time women will finally
be free and autonomous, and second, because the very term ‘woman’ implies that
what unites women is more important than what divides them.
This, postmodernists argue, violates the logic of both/and, since it privileges
sameness over difference. Indeed, Kate Nash argues that because postmodernism
(we use the term interchangeably with poststructuralism) commits us to arguing
that woman ‘is not a fixed category with specific characteristics’, we have to be
committed to the concept of woman as a ‘fiction’ in order to be a feminist at all
(Hoffman, 2001: 78).Problems with the philosophical feminisms
Liberal feminist critique
Liberal feminists are sympathetic to feminist empiricism. Indeed, one writer has
described feminist empiricism as the ‘philosophical underpinning of liberal feminism’
(Hoffman, 2001: 56), and naturally liberal feminists are attracted to the stress on
rationality, science and evidence. On the other hand, liberal feminists argue that
questions of freedom and autonomy, the rule of law and individual rights involve
values, and feminist empiricists seem to be committed to a notion of science that
excludes values, basing their hypotheses and findings simply on facts.
Standpoint feminists suffer from the same one-sidedness that afflicts radical
feminism. By probing women’s experience in general, it does not respect the division
between the public and the private, and by arguing for the superiority of the female
standpoint, it makes alliances with well-meaning men more difficult. Both factors
make standpoint feminists liable to embrace an authoritarian style of politics.
As for postmodern feminism, liberal feminists feel that its aversion to absolutes
and modernism leads to scepticism and renders problematic the whole concern with
women’s rights.Socialist, radical and black feminist critiques
Socialist feminism challenges the feminist empiricist notion of science as value-free
and not itself ideological. An emphasis upon relationships leads to the view that330 Part 3 Contemporary ideologies