Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Bordo, S. (1993). University of California Press, Berkeley, CA: pp. 371. US$45.00 ISBN 0-520-07979-5 (hardback), US$17.95 ISBN 0-520-08883-2 (paperback).
✍ Scribed by Melanie Katzman
- Book ID
- 101284835
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 56 KB
- Volume
- 9
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1052-9284
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
phallocratic order ' ( p. 189). This desire is neither that positioned through maternal desire' nor instinct' but one situated in relation to a construct of woman experiencing choice through her subjectivity becoming realized in the social context. For Margrit Shildrick the possibility for this realization is based on the concept of `leakiness' that has constituted both historical constructs of the female body and present structures of sameness and dierence.
She develops the necessity of a post-structural/post-modern framework with reference to Foucault, Derrida and Lacan, making explicit her reliance on Foucauldian analytics while upholding feminist criticism of Foucault's gender omissions by an eloquent reference to Foucault's deconstructive approach as `a stepping stone of great signi®cance to feminism' ( p. 47). Margrit Shildrick adequately demonstrates the limits of feminist humanism in this book, and while fully acknowledging the value in the aim to realize women's diversity, moves feminist ethics beyond this framework by canvassing the advantages that post-modernism holds so convincingly. Post-structuralism and post-modernism enable the space of subjectivity to be opened and revealed and as being constituted by social and historical practices structured through the language of phallocratic discourse. The value of the arguments, while at times appearing well rehearsed, is in the author's articulation of the site for the possibility of radical change concerning women, subjectivity, and reproduction brought about by a post-modern feminist ethics. The potential for con¯ict with a traditional discourse of ethics that would impact on decision-making around NRTs is a major contribution to feminist and social analysis and applied bioethics.