MARIE CARRIÈRE
FEMINISM AS A RADICAL ETHICS? QUESTIONS FOR FEMINIST
RESEARCHERS IN THE HUMANITIES
ABSTRACT. A feminist perspective on selfhood Y bound to a perspective on
otherness Y is the main concern of this article. The resonance of this notion of
selfhood both with ethical philosophy and with the language of humanism
enables a deeper understanding of a feminist ethics as well as its internal
tensions. The article considers the relationship of feminism and humanism as
one of Bparadoxical fluidity^ rather than antithetical polarization, to explore the
ways in which feminism_s alliance with contemporary ethics exemplifies its
paradoxical relation to humanism. The study then underlines the vital
contribution of feminist discourse to an ethical understanding of selfhood and
intersubjectivity. Finally, it examines the work of experimental Canadian poet
Lola Lemire Tostevin, who reveals the importance of an ethical, feminist
version of selfhood that highlights the insufficiency as well as the potential of
both humanist and postmodern versions of subjectivity.
KEY WORDS: ethics, feminism, humanism, Irigaray, Lévinas, other, poetry, Ricoeur,
selfhood, sexual difference
Where universal Fman_ faces, more than ever, a crisis of identity
within the humanities, Fwoman_ has to accommodate non-identity.
How is she to invent herself within this radical absence of certainty?
(Tostevin, 1995: 209)
The question raised above by Canadian poet Lola Lemire Tostevin is
a strong indication of the double bind in which Western contemporary
feminist discourse finds itself.1 Its opposition to universalist, unitary,
transcendental, and exclusive conceptualizations of subjectivity seems to
be in constant tension with the need to re-construct a version of
subjectivity that accommodates women_s rightful claims to selfaffirmation, recognition, and inclusiveness in social, cultural, and
political spheres. In a postmodern age, the Lyotardian Bincredulity
toward metanarratives^,2 especially those steeped in Enlightenment
A number of ideas presented in this article also figure, in a different and more
elaborate form, in my study of feminist Canadian literature, Writing in the Feminine
in French and English Canada: A Question of Ethics (Carrière, 2002).
Journal of Academic Ethics (2006) 4: 245Y260
DOI: 10.1007/s10805-006-9025-1
#
Springer 2006
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MARIE CARRIÈRE
ideals of rationality and self-actualization, appears to be an almost given
point of departure for any self-respecting feminist theorist. Thus the
question of female subjectivity Y let alone autonomy and agency Y
becomes a thorny one, to be sure. In recent years, feminist researchers
and writers have tackled what appears to be their contradictory
relationship to humanist thought paradigms, such as those stemming
from Cartesian, Enlightenment, and Romantic thinking, as well as
modern forms of liberalism. In their much warranted challenges to
universalized models of individualism, many feminists, along with
postmodern critics, reject founded notions of truth, reason, and moral
value, which discard the particularities of gender, race, class, and sexual
orientation. Yet what do we make of feminism_s ideals of and struggles
for emancipation that propagate the importance of selfhood, individual
and sexual uniqueness, as well as political agency? Are these not ideals
that stem from humanist values of difference, diversity and equality that,
for instance, were fundamental to the understanding of the world
according to nineteenth century Romanticism?3 Do not notions of
recognition and autonomy, fundamental to feminist principles, directly
recall the liberalism of John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor?4
Perhaps the doubleness of feminism_s relationship to its precursors_
ideals reveals itself to be not so much a bind, but rather, a necessary
and enabling condition that needs to be further explored. Not only is
it necessary for feminism to reassess its relationship to the language
of humanism, but recent feminist perspectives on selfhood, namely in
the fields of philosophy and literature, speak, and must allow
themselves to recognize, their intrinsic relation to contemporary
ethical theory Y which, in turn, is certainly distinct, but in no way
divorced, from humanist values and principles. My analysis will
unfold in three parts. The first will consider the relationship of
feminism and humanism as one of Bparadoxical fluidity^5 rather than
antithetical polarization. This examination will give way to an
exploration of the ways in which feminism_s alliance with contemporary
ethics begins to exemplify this paradoxical relationship with humanism
and also to underline the vital contribution of feminist discourse to an
ethical understanding of selfhood and intersubjectivity. The last portion of
my study will examine the work of experimental poet Lola Lemire
Tostevin, whose writing reveals the importance of an ethical, feminist
version of selfhood that continues to bring to the fore the insufficiencies as
well as the potentials of both humanist and postmodern versions of
subjectivity.
FEMINISM AS A RADICAL ETHICS?
FEMINISM
AS A
247
RADICAL HUMANISM?
As critics of the traditions of Western philosophy, feminists have
challenged oppressive aspects of metaphysics and moral thought, attempting a renegotiation Y rather than an outright rejection Y of founded notions
of reason, truth, and individualism steeped in exclusionary polarizations of
difference. Canadian feminist ethicists Susan Sherwin and Sheila Mullet
recognize both the convergences and diverges of feminism_s relationship to
humanism, especially in an ethical context. Yet as Sherwin points out, if
ethics in general is a study Bconcerned with value questions about human
conduct^ (3), the notion of universal moral theory, detached from the
concern about Bspecific circumstances^ and conducted Bthrough the purely
abstract process of reason^ (5), must certainly be challenged. As Johnson
(1994: 7), author of Feminism as Radical Humanism, willingly admits,
humanism is undoubtedly Bburdened with the weight of its own
oppressive history^. For instance, the assumed abstract neutrality of
Kant_s deontology, in which impartial agents of moral value act and rule
for the good of the majority, is a universalized Enlightenment model that
is seen, by its feminist critics, to assume the interchangeability of people.
This model discards elements of difference (such as gender and class) among
persons as well as the particularities of human relationships (Sherwin, 1992:
12Y13). An exclusive thought paradigm Y whereby morality stems from a
social contract binding rational men, whose behaviour is dictated by a
universal law and an inherent notion of the common good Y historically
corresponds to the exclusion of women from the spheres of subjectivity,
reason, and citizenship. As Moscovici (1996: 35) observes: BBecause not
all human beings are granted equivalent moral status [...] not everyone is
entitled to participate in formulating or even adhering to so-called universal
ethical laws, the laws of reason.^ In turn, Mullet (1992: 74) detects these
forms of exclusion again in Kant_s moral philosophy, which she argues, is
Breplicated in many other philosophical systems^ and dominant discourses.
Within the terms of a contemporary, and as we shall see later on, feminist
ethics, individuals are not independent agents with rights stemming from
Ban abstract reasoning of morality^ (Sherwin, 1992: 14). Rather, human
interaction must Bparallel the rich complexity of actual human
relationships^ (Sherwin, 1992: 15). It is to reflect what Mullet (1992:
85) in turn calls a Brelational thinking.^ In this process of re-thinking
dichotomous thought and social patterns as well as power relations,
Bclassifications as absolute truths having universal significance and
relevance^ (Mullet, 1992: 85) Y analogous to an ethnocentric, colonial
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MARIE CARRIÈRE
universalism that quickly turns into mastery, subjection and Bsuppression
of difference^ (Johnson, 1994: 7) Y are certainly put into question.
Yet as Johnson warns, to flatten out humanism to mean simply mastery,
absolutism, and exclusion is to fail to provide an accurate version of
humanism as well as its relevance to contemporary feminism. According to
Johnson, feminism_s relation to humanism needs to be recognized again as
Bdouble-sided^, since feminism acts as both the Binterpreter^ of humanism
as well as Bits critic^ (Johnson, 1994: ix). As Johnson adamantly points
out, her argument is not with feminist challenges to the gender bias
inherent in the above formulations of impartiality and an (unspecified)
common good, nor is she calling for the return Bto any presumed innocent
description of a common humanity^ (Johnson, 1994: 3). What she does
insist upon is the need to retain the model of the unique and autonomous
subject. Capable of Bstruggling with the limitations externally imposed by
existing institutions, norms and practices, which has come to be associated
with a modern consciousness^ (Johnson, 1994: ix), this subject indeed
recalls the humanist ideal of self-realization. In Johnson_s view,
Bcontemporary feminism needs to be grasped^ Y and, let us add, to grasp
itself Y Bas a particular, inchoate, permutation of the modern humanist
allegiance to the idea of the uniqueness of the human personality^ (Johnson,
1994: ix) Y a notion that is crucial, as we shall see below, to the
understanding of ethics as the basic recognition of the other as irreducible to
the self-same.
An all-encompassing attack on humanist ideas of subjectivity
Bimperils the vital emancipatory potential contained within the heart of
modern humanism^ (Johnson, 1994: 6), Johnson continues, a potential
that she, along with other defenders of humanism such as Jurgen
Habermas, recognizes as vital to the commitment to social justice
espoused, certainly, by feminism. Through its various manifestations and
its many shapes and forms, feminism stands to gain from such inherited
emancipatory ideals (self-identity, individual uniqueness) that can serve
its goals in terms other than binding arguments about universality. In
fact, when Western feminists affirm the value of difference and
uniqueness, they are speaking the language of humanism; they are
speaking as Binheritors of the Enlightenment^ while simultaneously
recognizing, Bagainst the historical Enlightenment itself, that these ideals
have no anchorage in any anthropological truths^ (Johnson, 1994: 109) Y
that they are neither eternal or transcendental.6
In addressing what she calls the Bvery delicate balance between deconstructing and re-constructing subjectivity^ (Moscovici, 2002: 2) that
feminist theorists must somehow achieve, Moscovici goes even further
FEMINISM AS A RADICAL ETHICS?
249
to argue that all-encompassing critiques of humanism_s ideals often
misrepresent some of those texts held up as the grand examples of
humanist master narratives. Moscovici_s particular concern is for the
depiction (mostly on the parts of Lyotard and Jacques Derrida) of French
Enlightenment thinking (particularly Rousseau_s and Diderot_s). Moreover, she finds the need for Bmore nuanced, historicized and positive
modes^ of critique of the so-called neutral, universal, but nonetheless
masculine, subject, as well as its definitions of subjectivity (Moscovici,
2002: 1). For instance, what Moscovi finds as Lyotard_s not always
persuasive opposition of Enlightenment and postmodern narratives (of
homology and paralogy) is complicated by some of the heterogeneous
narratives she finds in Rousseau_s and Diderot_s dissimulations of their
own metaphysics of presence and origin. She also demonstrates how Bthe
universalist model of subjectivity^ (Moscovici, 2002: 4), provided by
French Enlightenment writers, can be seen to correspond Bwith the more
fluid and heterogeneous models^ (Moscovici, 2002: 4) espoused by
postmodernism. Most importantly, and recalling Johnson_s argument as
well as in keeping with this study_s concern with ethical recognition,
Moscovici finds that to postulate a subject capable of recognizing
differences Bdepends in part upon safeguarding those elements of a
rationalist universalist ethics that enable us^ to make such differentiations (Moscovici, 2002: 4) Y again upon retaining the humanist
principle of self-realization. In fact, it is to this understanding of
selfhood, as the inheritor of both a humanist notion of self-consciousness
and a postmodern incredulity towards self-sufficiency, that we can now
turn in defining a feminist ethics.
FEMINISM
AS A
RADICAL ETHICS?
There is no doubt that feminism is concerned with the treatment of women
in a socio-symbolic order historically grounded in a logic of self-sameness,
as it seeks to dismantle binary interpretations of sex, gender, and difference
that disallow ethical relations within and between the sexes. As Moira
Gatens points out, Baddressing the other, the Fthou_ of our social relations^
is an ethical concern (in keeping with the general notion of the ethical as
that which concerns itself with the treatment of others), since interpretations
of difference, including sex and gender, Baffect the way women treat other
women, women treat men, men treat other men, and men treat women^
(Gatens, 1996: 39). As Emmanuel Lévinas has demonstrated throughout
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his philosophical thinking on ethics, the primacy and irreducibility of the
other are the very conditions of an ethical relation. In turn, an ethical
conception of the other (as primary and irreducible to the self-same) is an
inherent component of subjectivity itself.7 As it is understood here, the
ethical is premised upon a theory of the other that lies at an eclectic
confluence of philosophies, more precisely those of Lévinas, Paul Ricoeur,
and Luce Irigaray. It is a feminist perspective on selfhood Y bound to a
perspective on otherness Y that concerns this article. The resonance of this
notion of selfhood both with ethical philosophy and with the language of
humanism enables a deeper understanding of a feminist ethics as well as its
internal tensions.
In An Ethics of Sexual Difference, Irigaray (1993) sets out to describe
her feminist ethics against and beyond humanism or, to be precise, the
Cartesian metaphysical paradigm of being, while also retaining Y and
indeed expanding on Y certain dimensions of Descartes_ philosophy. BTo
each period corresponds a certain way of thinking,^ writes Irigaray,
although the perspective is different and Ba matter of ethics^, since one
Bethical imperative would seem to require a practical and theoretical
revision of the role historically allotted to woman^ (Irigaray,
1993:116Y17). Irigaray_s task consists not only in discarding negative
images of women but also in creating new models by which women can
realize what she terms as their own becoming. According to Irigaray,
there is a constant need for the analysis of how women and their bodies
have been and continue to be conceived as the negative of the male selfsame. There is also the need to discover how female otherness can be
reconceived in ethical terms in order to serve this goal of constructing
female becoming, hence, female subjectivity. Irigaray joins her contemporary Paul Ricoeur in devising from Lévinas the idea of the other_s
irreducibility. Ricoeur_s model of the subject as not only the product of
an ethics but as its generator as well certainly illustrates an important,
indeed imperative, component of a feminist ethics.8
In Oneself as Another, Ricoeur Brisks^ the language of humanism in
his conceptualization of ipséité or selfhood. His thinking stems from his
intervention in what he considers as the pointless conceptual collapse of
the postmodern self in crisis, which indeed renders his ethical theory
relevant to an ethics in feminist, female-specific, terms. According to
Ricoeur, the self, even in crisis, is still ultimately responsible for the
other, that is, for identifying itself in relation to the other. Yet if Ricoeur
rejects what he considers as Descartes_ Bapology of the cogito^ Y an
exercise in self-presence that leaves no place for the other_s call Y he
also refuses Bits overthrow^ (Ricoeur, 1992: 4). Ricoeur insists on the
FEMINISM AS A RADICAL ETHICS?
251
subject_s own capacity to discern and recognize its responsibility for the
other and thus insists on the principles of self-autonomy and agency.
Accordingly, subjects are agents of action, of ethical action, likened by
Ricoeur to textual interpreters who are constantly interpreting themselves. Crucial to a feminist ethics, the particular kind of FI_ in Ricoeur_s
thinking can take the initiative in assigning responsibility and in relating
to the other without assimilating the other to itself. Ricoeur posits, then,
a process both of identification and of differentiation, with Bthe admission
that the other is not condemned to remain a stranger but can become my
counterpart, that is, someone who, like me, says FI_^ (Ricoeur, 1992: 335),
but remains distinct just the same. If the Lévinasian other can interrupt the
ontology of the self-same, the Ricoeurian other can also interrupt its total
effacement Y to which the postmodernist subject is prone Y in order to
restore a self capable of agency, recognition, and likeness with an other.
The subject must and can see Boneself as another^ and simultaneously
exhibit solicitude Y a sustained, affectionate concern for the other. In a
relation both of difference and of similitude, Bthe esteem of the other as a
oneself and the esteem of oneself as an other^ (Ricoeur, 1992: 194)
become interdependent.
It is precisely the principles of likeness and reciprocity that echo in
Irigaray_s feminist ethics, based upon the idea of a même difference (or
same difference), which in turn recalls Ricoeur_s principle of identification and differentiation. Irigaray_s theory of an ethics of sexual
differentiation therefore not only makes use of Lévinas_ thinking about
alterity. It is also analogous to Ricoeur_s understanding of selfhood.9
Irigaray (1993: 108) presents her notion of a Bfemale ethics^, or éthique
au feminin Irigaray (1984:106) to use the original French, by allotting to
the feminine the radical alterity that Lévinas proposes in his own
understanding of the other. Ricoeur_s renegotiation of the same and other
than same, of the alterity within and constitutive of the subject, are also
central notions in Irigaray_s notion of love for a same other. This love is the
basis for both her Bfemale ethics^ and ethics of sexual difference, modelled,
in Irigaray_s work, by the motherYdaughter bond.10 Irigaray_s (1993: 17)
ultimate goal is to formulate a Bsexual or carnal ethics^, a Bgenesis of love
between the sexes.^ According to Irigaray_s vision, each sex must be
allowed to transgress its traditional and Bideological ruts^ (Gallop, 1988: 8).
Hence, not only is the alterity of a man to remain irreplaceable, but also,
the alterity of a woman needs to be both discovered and sustained.
In terms of the assimilating logic of sameness, it is an Barchaic^ same
that is to be rejected, Irigaray (1993: 97) argues. As in Lévinas_ critique
of the totalizing subject, Irigaray considers that traditional ontology has
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MARIE CARRIÈRE
been unable to provide a relational model outside the repetition of the
same, outside the Bnostalgia for a return to the ONE WHOLE^ Y this
Bdesire to go back toward and into the original womb^ (Irigaray, 1993:100).
For Irigaray Y who is, let us not forget, a psychoanalyst Y this nostalgia
springs from specific epistemologies and particularly from their interpretations of the first relation with the mother. If, as Freudian and
Lacanian theory has presupposed, the relation with the mother is considered
an archaic, asocial fusion that must undergo a hostile separation so that
subjectivity can socially constitute itself, what hope is there for a relational
ethics among adults? One answer, at least for Irigaray, lies in the rethinking
of the motherYchild, and more specifically the motherYdaughter, bond. As
in Ricoeur_s relational ethics, this project involves not rejecting but rather
rethinking the metaphysical notion of sameness which, for Irigaray, has so
far appeared as Bwomblike and maternal, serv[ing] forever and for free,
unknown, forgotten^ (Irigaray, 1993: 98).
A humanist, and more precisely a metaphysical, component underlines
Irigaray_s ethics as well. In her challenge of psychoanalytical representations of the maternal and of the so-called pre-Oedipal, motherYinfant
relationship, Irigaray turns to none other than Descartes. In his notion of
Bwonder^ Y of the Bfirst passion^ (Irigaray, 1993: 12) Y she perceives Ba
possibility of separation and alliance^ (Irigaray, 1993: 13). Irigaray
conceptualizes wonder as a primary passion, capable of intervening in
what has been conceived, again by psychoanalysis, as homeostasis, or the
undifferentiated symbiosis of the corps à corps with the mother. In this
primary passion of wonder, it is the womanYmother who appears to the
child: BNot the eternal feminine of images or representation(s). But a
womanYmother who keeps on unfolding herself outwardly while enveloping
us^ (Irigaray, 1993: 81). According to Irigaray, this primary recognition of
the other is Bwithout nostalgia for the first dwelling. Outside of repetition.
It is the passion of the first encounter^ (Irigaray, 1993: 82). It leaves no
grounds for a nostalgia for wholeness that ultimately does violence to the
(m)other by assimilating her to a self-same, to the original, allencompassing Benvelope^ (Irigaray, 1993: 83). Here, B[l]ove of same is
love of indifferentiation^ (Irigaray, 1993: 97). Love for and from the
mother, which Irigaray still calls a love of sameness (in relation to both
boy and girl), must be seen as Ba form of innerness that can open to the
other without loss of self or of the other in the bottomlessness of an abyss^
(Irigaray, 1993: 69) Y that can anticipate an ethical relation between the
sexes. Alongside Ricoeur, Irigaray insists that through love of sameness
(already love of the other), love of difference is possible, again recalling
Ricoeur_s insistence on both identification and differentiation.
FEMINISM AS A RADICAL ETHICS?
253
In the end, Irigaray_s contribution to a feminist ethics lies not only in
the motherYdaughter model that she postulates in order to exemplify its
functioning, but also in her articulation of female difference as an
irreducible alterity, specific to itself, and un-assimilable to the self-same,
which nonetheless retains some crucial aspects of the humanist self_s
autonomous status and ability of recognition. These components of a
feminist ethics are in turn pivotal to a nuanced, ethical conception of the
female self as it is put forward by postmodern, feminist poet Lola Lemire
Tostevin. It is to Tostevin_s version of female selfhood that I now turn, to
reinvoke the double-sidedness of feminist treatments of subjectivity with
which I began my discussion, and that, as we shall see, reflects the very
workings of an ethics of recognition.
FEMINISM
AS A
RADICAL ONTOLOGY?
As a francophone, bilingual poet, who writes in English and inserts
French passages into her poems, Tostevin is no stranger to the notion of
doubleness, in terms of her status both as a writer and a feminist. In her
essays, Tostevin discusses at length the conflict arising when Ba woman
writer is no longer willing to perpetuate the image of some stereotypical
Fother_, and she is no longer satisfied with simply unmasking traditional
ideological contructs^ (Tostevin, 1995: 208). Although, throughout her
work, she formulates a postmodern crisis of identity as post-structuralist
theory transpires directly into her work, she also expresses the limitations
of such Bradical absence^, especially from a feminist perspective
(Tostevin, 1995: 209). If, to recall Jacques Derrida, one of Tostevin_s
major theoretical influences, woman is but a sign that differs from itself
within the process of signification, it is nonetheless this same word, as
Tostevin constantly points out, that designates the female speaker of
discourse. For Tostevin, the challenge lies in presenting woman as a
speaking subject (rather than a spoken object), without, however, reverting
to essentialist or a-historical notions of identity.
In the collection Double Standards, the sequence of poems that opens
with the warning, Bdo not be deceived by appearances/I am not a
woman^ (n. page) indicates a refusal to locate the determined essence of
woman, a stance Tostevin shares with most of the theorists invoked in
her work.11 Although avoiding the dangers of simple reversal which
would inevitably lead Binto the same old apparatus^ of self-presence and
phallocentrism (Derrida, 1979: 61), the refusal to define woman can still
conflict with feminist aspirations to inscribe a woman-subject of her own
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MARIE CARRIÈRE
discourse. In Gayatri Spivak_s words, the speculations Babout a woman_s
discourse by way of the negative [...] launched by mainstream French antihumanism^ (and especially deconstruction) are not always sufficient
(Spivak, 1987:145), especially for the kind of voice (a voice coded as
female) that Tostevin seeks for her poetic speaker. According again to
Derrida, the mark of woman is the mark of indecisiveness: BWoman is but
one name for that untruth of truth^ (Derrida, 1979: 51). She is the limit of
self-adequate theories, Derrida argues, and she disqualifies the name of
man that marks phallocentric philosophy. But is there not a need for
woman to acquire some kind of name of her own, the name of her own
textual effect, and some acknowledgement of her body in the discourse
which she serves to debunk in the (masculine) deconstructive mode? Or
are the feminists and the deconstructionists even thinking through the same
notion of woman? In a way, Elizabeth Grosz begins to address this
dilemma by pointing out that, in the final analysis, woman is Balso a name
(albeit an Fimproper_ one) for women^ (Grosz, 1989: 36). Derrida_s
Babyssal^ metaphor of the feminine may thus merit the suspicion of Bthose
who are female^ and who have a very different relation to the word than
do men (Grosz, 1989: 36). The insistence on the feminine metaphor as
indecisiveness Bmay well, depending on who one is and the position from
which one speaks, effectively silence women^ (Grosz, 1989: 36). If woman
is nothing but a name, a non-name at that, what remains of her in terms of
ethical agency?
In devising a name for woman, Tostevin poses a double gesture: first, the
denial of an essential identity; and second, the constitution of a subject_s
becoming through an ethical recognition of the otherness that always
exceeds the self-same. The latter, indeed ethical, gesture Brisks^ the
humanist tone detected in Ricoeur_s and Irigaray_s treatment of subjectivity, as Tostevin formulates it beyond post-structuralist terms, that is, beyond
an impending, postmodern Banticogito^. It is Tostevin_s inscription of an
embodied subject that ensures the recognition of her sexual specificity and
the respect for her sexual difference, irreducible to and always differing
from universal man: Bet je laisser rôder à travers la parole/la mémoire de
mon corps^ (Tostevin, 1985: n. page.). In another collection titled _sophie,
it is through a deconstructive mode of writing that Tostevin searches for a
female speaker who can inscribe her desire, her body, even if it is Bby the
smallest possible margin^ (Tostevin, 1988: 43), and even if it means being
caught Bbetween writing as body^ and Bwriting as erasure of the body^
(Tostevin, 1988: 22). However, Tostevin_s (1988: 47) speaker hangs on to
the Bapostrophe^ of a momentary (and necessary) presence, transforming
it into the mark of her own becoming.
FEMINISM AS A RADICAL ETHICS?
255
In Double Standards, the speaking subject reaffirms her subjectivity
on new terms Y those terms inherent in an ethical notion of selfhood:
do not be deceived by appearances
I am not a woman I am a woman
a space in space
au sein du vide
autre chose s_annonce
[... ]
to the place where the sign
takes time to sigh (Tostevin, 1985: n. page)
The other, this Bautre chose^, intervenes in the empty space of absence
that has been unmasked in the metaphysical name of woman. Alterity
interrupts the assumption of sameness or essential uniqueness that the
declaration, BI am a woman^, always risks. The presence of this textual
Bwoman^ does not alienate the other and, most importantly here, the
special deconstructive mark of Bwoman^ does not disallow the inscription
of specificity. Tostevin_s speaker follows a trajectory analogous to the
version of subjectivity proposed by Lévinas and reformulated by Ricoeur:
the subject is Bemptying itself of its being, turning itself inside out^
(Lévinas, 1981: 117), so that the female BI^ can Fbe_ without alienating
the other or the same (her specific, autonomous difference).
The affirmation of sexual specificity generates an amorous discourse
invoked throughout the collection titled _sophie, as love involves a fruitful
exchange between the sexes, revealing the direct influence of Lévinas and
Irigaray on Tostevin_s thinking. Beyond its interventions in the postmodernist erasure of the subject, _sophie_s inscription of an embodied,
female subjectivity moves into the contemplation of an ethics that
recognizes and negotiates the autonomy of each sex or, in Irigaray_s
terms, the specificity that makes an ethics of sexual difference possible.
The female lover Bremains a subject in the act of love^ (Irigaray, 1991:
188), indeed an autonomous and to some extent, a free as well as selfrealizing subject. In the last part of _sophie, the appropriation of the Old
Testament Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) Y also treated in a similar
way by Irigaray Y moves Tostevin_s speaking subject out of a failing
amorous relation into a more fulfilling one, where, again as Irigaray insists,
B[i]t takes two to love. To know how to separate and how to come back
together^ (Irigaray, 1993: 71). Tostevin_s own Song adopts the eightsequence pattern of the biblical version, yet reverses the pattern of the
lovers_ relationship which, in the Bible, moves from a joyful union to a
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MARIE CARRIÈRE
painful separation. Moving from the lovers_ rift into their fecund rejoicing,
Tostevin_s version inscribes a compelling, poetic eroticism. In adopting the
speech of the biblical female lover as her own, the poet-speaker privileges a
play with signifiers, which pairs the sacred with the carnal (Bcanticum
canticorum/a little cant/a little cum^ [Tostevin, 1988: 72]). The lines,
Bmouth roofed by your soft/mouths off a ricochet/of bilabial syllables^
(Tostevin, 1988: 72), convey a carnal knowledge of Bthe wet phrase^
(Tostevin, 1988: 72) enunciating this sexual union and affecting the
discourse of love. The lovers come to figure as autonomous subjects in
_sophie _s amorous tale, as the female subject claims to have learned to
speak her desire and inscribe her body in the depiction of their union:
the curving stem of knotted rootstock the nodding flowers of
Solomon_s seal it is all here in song in this weed and rain
filled garden (where voice is the site) its body distinct
from the metaphor so I can love you now that I am no longer
spoken for. (Tostevin, 1988: 74)
As Tostevin_s biblical borrowing indicates, her own sequence is, after all,
a Bsong^, and the cover of the book does convey the Goddess Sophia
supposedly responsible for the Bseven-tone musical scale^ (Walker, 1983:
701). Elsewhere in the collection, the play on the musical note Bmi^ recalls
the French for Fmid_or Fmiddle_, while also sounding the English pronoun
Bme^. Through this play, the female subject inscribes her own becoming.
Once again Brisking^ to adopt the humanist cogito in order to enable ethical
recognition in _sophie, Tostevin invokes the multiplicity of language:
mi-dire half thought half song when the passive voice of I am
spoken barely utters a kind of midspeak that speaks the part
the art of the half spoken that opens wide the middle ground
demi-pensée demi-chanson intonation d_une voix
lorsqu_elle se réduit à l_essentiel s_en va au-delà d_elle
pour mieux s_entendre entre versions entre amours entre
philosophies.
[...]
je mi-dis donc je suis. (Tostevin, 1988: 57)
Here, the writing/speaking Bje^ inhabits a discursive space of inbetweeness that stems from the doubleness of discourse. She places herself
in-between (cultural, personal, and philosophical) versions of herself,
between the different generic uses of her prose-lyricism, within the BFsong
speech_^ anticipated by the musical note Bmi^ coupled with Bdire^
FEMINISM AS A RADICAL ETHICS?
257
(O_Quinn, 1989: 43); she dwells within a constant linguistic duality, a
midspeak delineating the difference that constitutes both language and
subjectivity. Tostevin_s speaker can Boser mi-dire^ (and Bme dire^) that
Bje mi-dis donc je suis^ (1988: 57): I am because BI^ or self is only Bhalf^
of the equation, pre-conditioned by the other, just as writing and speech,
or writing and music, constitute this Bdemi-chanson^ of a poem.
Finally, Tostevin_s writing provides a vivid example of complete, if
often agonizing, self-awareness. It also exemplifies the type of critical
assessment that feminism needs to apply to itself. For it is by fully
recognizing the tensions that reside at its core that feminist theorists can
become better aware of the full potentiality of their contributions to an
ethics of recognition as the founding principle of intersubjectivity.
Moreover, feminist theory can better tackle as well as expand those
modes of conceptual negotiation that are required for the understanding
of a contemporary ethics, as well as its increasingly crucial relevance to
the various research fields of the humanities. Indeed, amid the challenges
posed to researchers by the diversity of our increasingly global societies,
the other Y the other_s difference, status, gender, race, class Y figures
most prominently at the heart of various research enterprises, whether
these emanate from the field of philosophy, literature, linguistics, cultural
studies, or history. Work as well as workable policies, guidelines, and
research methodologies play an important part in the array of responsibilities that scholars must assume as they reflect on the choices they make,
the cultural images they create, the voices they claim to represent, the
perceptions they adopt, the stories they interpret, or the meta-narratives
they attempt to debunk. In these endeavours to grasp, question and
reconstruct meaning, an ethical understanding of both the self and the
other, as presented by the theorists and writers featured in this article, can
also help transgress what Lévinas denotes as the potentially Bclosed and
circular nature of this self-conscious awareness^ (Levinas, 1989: 75). By
avoiding the encapsulation of our subjects and of those texts which are
the focus of our inquiries into the human sciences, we can come to
respect their ultimate undecidability as well as their openness.
NOTES
1
Throughout this article, by feminism or contemporary feminism, I refer to theorists
and writers who have adopted a postmodern, that is to say, a post-metaphysical or poststructuralist, approach in dealing with issues of subjectivity, difference, and language. I
consider the work of such authors as Jane Gallop, Donna Haraway, Kelly Oliver, and
Chris Weedon on the American side, and Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva,
and Monique Wittig on the French, to fall under this broad category of postmodern
258
MARIE CARRIÈRE
feminism, while keeping in mind that their individual modes of thought remain very
distinct from one another.
2
Such incredulity, according to Lyotard (1984: 6), Brefines our sensitivity to
differences and reinforces our ability to tolerate the incommensurable. Its principle is
not the expert_s homology, but the inventor_s paralogy.^
3
See Moscovici_s (1996) account of French Romanticism in From Sex Objects to
Sexual Subjects.
4
See Rossi_s (1970) edition of Essays on Sex Equality by John Stuart Mill and
Harriet Taylor Mill.
5
I borrow this expression from the note about the author at the end of Moscovi_s
(2002: 169) Double Dialectics.
6
Johnson_s definition of Bradical humanism is founded precisely on such a
recognition, as well as its awareness of its own internal paradox, that is to say, Bthe
universalistic character of its own aspirations and value commitments and the always
particularistic, culture-bound terms in which these universalising claims are raised^
(Johnson, 1994:12).
7
With a critique (still far from an outright rejection) of traditional metaphysics Y
particularly of the full and self-sufficient awareness of one_s existence Y ethics becomes
the initiator of ontology in Lévinas_ work. This means that the other_s irreducibility and
primacy to the self initiate subjectivity (or being), and being depends on the priority of
the other which in turn remains prior to the assimilative needs and powers of the selfsame. In his BEthics as First Philosophy,^ Lévinas (1989: 86) explains how being
becomes a Bright to be^ due to its fear for the other, which replaces the metaphysical
notion or assured fact of self-presence as its foundation, a disarming call to responsibility
by the other, to be sure. In short, the FI_ is never FI_ without the other.
8
The appropriations by Ricoeur and Irigaray of a Lévinasian ethics are so similar that
it would be difficult not to read them as analogous, even though neither avows a
connection to one another, as they both do with Lévinas.
9
Notably, although indebted to Lévinas_ philosophy, Irigaray also presents a forceful
critique of his use of the feminine and the maternal as prototypes of his ethics. See her
BQuestions to Emmanuel Lévinas^ (Irigaray, 1991).
10
It is important to note that the motherYdaughter model posited by Irigaray is
precisely that, a model. Philosophy has a long tradition of using models (Aristotle_s
treatise on friendship, Hegel_s masterYslave relationship, Lévinas_ face-to-face
encounter) to describe conceptual patterns or, as Kelly Oliver observes, Ba
relationship that is not necessarily inherent in only this particular model^ (Oliver,
1995:186). As for Irigaray_s focus on the maternal, it is Bmeant to vividly indicate how
intersubjective relationships operate^ (Oliver, 1995: 186) rather than the only possible
operation of intersubjectivity. Yet, as for most psychoanalysts, the motherYchild
relationship is held by Irigaray to be a prototype Bfor all subsequent relations^ (Oliver,
1995: 166).
11
Derrida (1979: 101) contends that B[t]here is no such thing as a woman, as a truth in
itself of woman in itself,^ a notion that Cixous (1994: 39) echoes: BShe does not exist,
she cannot-be,^ in light of Bhis [man_s] torment, his desire to be (at) the origin.^ For Julia
Kristeva too Bla femme, ce n_est jamais ça^ (Bwoman can never be defined^), Ba woman
cannot Fbe,_ for woman does not belong and must not be reduced to the metaphysical
nomenclature of Fbeing_^ (Kristeva, 1981:137).
FEMINISM AS A RADICAL ETHICS?
259
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Department of French,
University of New Brunswick,
P.O. Box 4400, Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3,
Canada
E-mail: carriere@unb.ca