The French feminists of the 70s or so experimented with "difference feminism". I'm not so sure it was a resounding success. They raised some important points of awareness, but they could never win the rhetorical battle against women, in that way. Difference feminism came largely out of the Lacanian school (the school of the "French Freud") and was invested in making use of the fundamentally misogynistic platform of Lacanianism, by turning it against itself. Therefore, what was presented as a negative value by this school -- women's putative 'affinity with nature' -- was turned around to represent a positive value for women.
In fact, I think what these earlier French feminists were attempting was something akin to a rhetorical gesture of their own, rather than actually promoting any true biological affinity with nature on the part of women. The tone of Irigaray's "Speculum of the Other Woman" is highly ironic and critical of patriarchal formulations.
All the same, witty rhetoric is often not understood as counter-discourse on an intellectual level. It can be misunderstood as somehow positing 'facts' or a 'deeper reality', when it isn't.
Most people misread ironic intellectual discourse.
In fact, I think what these earlier French feminists were attempting was something akin to a rhetorical gesture of their own, rather than actually promoting any true biological affinity with nature on the part of women. The tone of Irigaray's "Speculum of the Other Woman" is highly ironic and critical of patriarchal formulations.
All the same, witty rhetoric is often not understood as counter-discourse on an intellectual level. It can be misunderstood as somehow positing 'facts' or a 'deeper reality', when it isn't.
Most people misread ironic intellectual discourse.
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