These are the research questions I've outlined in the current incarnation of my PhD proposal:
My initial avenue of enquiry was to weigh the normalising function of certain therapeutic, self-help approaches against opposing feminist aims of radicalism and liberation. I was asking whether or not ‘happiness’ is something feminist women (should) want. Now I realise I also need to ask if ‘liberation’ is something women should strive toward.[1] One could argue that feminism critiques the norms and ideals of patriarchy, whilst at the same time setting up a new (and arguably, equally restrictive) set of norms to which (feminist) women must adhere and conform.[2] In wading through the conflicting pressures to be both an individual and to approximate the norm (so as to be identified as part of a group and to have a sense of belonging in the world) – I must ask which set of standards – those of feminism or mainstream women’s culture industry – should I follow and what are the points of connection between them? What happiness is there to be had in approximating norms or evading them? What relationship to power can be achieved in identifying with norms verses defying them?[3] Once women have (some) power (or happiness or autonomy) how do we then relate to one-another?[4] Since independence, autonomy and self-determination are valorised tropes for feminism and self-improvement, what value do interdependence, relationality and solidarity have?
Self-improvement is often judged as antithetical to socio-political transformation, is this really a simple binary or does feminist agency/ethics require a two-pronged approach incorporating both individual and group work? Suggesting that a woman needs to work on herself might be construed (by feminists) as blaming the victim, which leads me to another double-whammy question: Why do I feel the urge to self-improve and why do women more generally seem to be in need of a makeover? What is at stake in these transformations? Demystified of the commonly-held assumption that self-transformation reveals the authentic inner self and unlocks one’s true potential, what is the value in discovering one’s inner clichés and then divulging them?[5] What if I take myself seriously as a cliché or as a joke? Once the idea of the subject as masterful, rational and coherent is debunked, what use do self-transformations have?
The private becomes the public (or the personal becomes the political and juxta-political) in feminist consciousness raising sessions and through mainstream media representations of women’s lives.[6] Confessional modes of address are ubiquitous in these varying contexts, which leads me to wonder which modes of self-representation or truth-telling are more or less effective in taking up a position to power?[7] Are certain confessional modes more helpful than others in navigating personal/political ethical conundrums? Because I use humour and parody in my work, I have a vested interest in questioning how comedy can be used to address serious issues of socio-political inequality. How might humour and other ‘light’ affects reveal complexities that earnestness might elide?
[1] Foucault comments on the problem of creating an ethics of liberation, stating: “[r]ecent liberation movements suffer from the fact that they cannot find any principle on which to base the elaboration of a new ethics.” Foucault, Michel, “On The Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress”, The Foucault Reader, ed. Rabinow, Paul, London: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 343. Cressida J. Heyes also emphasizes this point from a Foucauldian perspective: “Foucault resists… the notion that any political thinker can recommend a specific programmatic approach to liberation, or indeed that ‘liberation’ is a desirable goal.” Heyes, Cressida J., Self-transformations, p. 123.
[2] For evidence of this see Lori Gottlieb’s chapter “How Feminism Fucked Up My Love Life” in Marry Him, The Case For Settling For Mr. Good Enough, London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2010, pp. 43-60.
[3] Lauren Berlant states: “The woman who was adequate to [women’s culture industry’s] version of normal femininity was as powerful as a feminist would aspire to be.” Berlant, Lauren, The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture, Durham: Duke University Press, 2008, p. 178.
[4] Mariana Valverde points to the necessity of asking this question, stating: “feminists, caught up as we have been in a decades-long crusade to ‘empower’ ourselves and other women, have not thought a great deal about the problems of having too much power.” Valverde, Mariana, “Experience and Truth-telling in a Post-humanist World: A Foucauldian Contribution to Feminist Ethical Reflections”, Feminism and the Final Foucault, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004, p. 86.
[5] Cressida J. Heyes objects to the claim that “the self has a unique authenticity; that to know oneself – a central project for the modern self – is to know the nature of this individual” and goes on to posit that “[t]he things we are expected to find out about ourselves, however, often turn out to be clichéd”. Heyes, Cressida J., Self-transformations, pp.3-4.
[6] In the ‘Critical Context’ section of this paper I will mention again in greater detail Lauren Berlant’s discussion of women’s culture as a ‘juxta-political’ space. Berlant, Lauren, The Female Complaint, pp. 2-3.
[7] In positing that confession is an example of truth-production “thoroughly imbued with relations of power”, Foucault describes the one who listens as “the master of truth”. Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality Part I: The Will To Knowledge, London: Penguin Books, 1998, p. 60.