Ain’t I a Feminist?

Abstract

I want to recover my faith in feminism during the 1990's. The feminism that gave me the strength to understand the story of a woman born and raised in a colony who migrates to the metropolis, feminism as a liberation project. The feminism which launches a multi-faceted attack on legal institutions that perpetuate substantial inequities. The current state of feminist legal theory makes me wonder if I am still a feminist. The feminism I see myself associated with has a capital F. That which aims at eradicating the various forms of oppression that affect all women, a project overlooked by "small-town" feminism. I am willing to risk being outside current postmodern theoretical trends by supporting capital letters. My capital letters connote expansion, breadth and inclusion. Far from claiming privileged access to truth with a capital T, feminism with a capital F thrives in a room with a great view of narratives about intersections. Feminist legal theorists belong to a norm-forming group involved in what Robert Cover has described as the creation of new legal meanings.' As he suggested, we need to examine the juris-generative operation of such a group and how the process of creating new legal meanings depends on sustaining narratives. Narratives that define both the vision of the juris-generative group and its location in making its work a viable alternative. Today, I'd like to critique the feminist narratives that sustain the creation of feminist legal theory as new legal meaning. My principal claims are: 1) that the feminist narrative deployed as a foundation with its monocausal emphasis on gender falls short of the liberation project feminism should be about: the emancipation of all women, 2) that feminism so defined cannot adequately address the shortcomings of liberal legalism and 3) that postmodernism, although helpful in counteracting feminist essentialism by giving space and voice to a multiplicity of accounts, nevertheless lacks a material analysis of macrostructures of inequality and thus lacks translation potential for social change. Feminist legal theory needs to allow room for the destabilization of gender as both a conceptual and practical tool of analysis. Feminist legal theory moves