对抗性分析：女性主义观点和理论作为分析工具

Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 135–155, 1999 Copyright © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0277-5395/99 $–see front matter PII S0277-5395(99)00003-5 135 Pergamon ANALYZING BACKLASH: FEMINIST STANDPOINT THEORY AS ANALYTICAL TOOL Mary Hawkesworth Center for the American Woman and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 USA Synopsis — Conceiving feminist standpoint theory as an analytical tool rather than as an epistemologi- cal doctrine, this article investigates the merits of this methodological approach for fostering an under- standing of backlash politics and for identifying emancipatory political objectives in the late 20th cen- tury. The article examines competing theoretical accounts of affirmative action and welfare “reform” advanced by conservative women, liberal feminists, socialist feminists, black feminists, and postmodern feminists in order to make backlash more intelligible, to understand the forces that fuel it, and to devise strategies that empower women to resist oppression. By comparing these competing theoretical stand- points, the article also explores the contributions and limitations of standpoint theory as an analytical tool and as a method to engage pressing political issues. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. From its origin in the work of Nancy Hartsock, feminist standpoint theory promised feminist scholarship a novel epistemology that could ground research in the truth embodied in women’s experience. “Women’s lives make available a particular and privileged vantage point on male supremacy, a vantage point which can ground a powerful critique of the phallocratic institutions and ideology which constitute capitalist patriarchy” (Hartsock, 1983, p. 284). According to Hartsock, the feminist standpoint offered a definitive account of “the real relations among human beings as inhu- man, point[ing] beyond the present, and carry- ing a historically liberatory role” (Hartsock, 1983, p. 285). Thus, standpoint theory was to provide a bridge from knowledge to politics as cogent critiques would give rise to transforma- tive praxis. In its initial formulation, feminist stand- point theory followed classical Marxism in grounding ideology critique in a theory of ob- jective truth and in drawing political prescrip- tions from a theory of the objective interests of women. Over the past decade, as feminist the- orists have grappled with the Althusserian conception of ideology, postmodern concep- tions of knowledge, and the powerful critiques advanced by black feminist and postcolonial feminist theorists, these objectivist moorings have slipped away. Feminist standpoint theo- rists have introduced conceptions of “situated knowledges” (Haraway, 1991, p. 188), “subju- gated knowledges” (Collins, 1990, p. 233), and “strong objectivity” (Harding, 1991, p. 142; Harding, 1992, p. 584) in an effort to develop a conception of the feminist standpoint that can account for the multiplicity of women’s per- spectives and the diversity of women’s experi- ences without succumbing to relativism. These efforts have not successfully resolved the prob- lems of knowledge and agency that underlie standpoint theory, however. As an epistemo- logical doctrine, feminist standpoint theory is seriously flawed. It entails a subjectivist ap- proach to knowledge that privileges the expe- rience of knowers as the source of knowledge without grappling with complex questions con- cerning the validity of particular knowledge claims. In relying upon experience as the ground of truth, feminist standpoint theory also fails to do justice to the fallibility of hu- man knowers, the multiplicity and diversity of women’s experiences, and the theoretical con- stitution of experience (Grant, 1993; Hawkes- worth, 1989). If standpoint theory fails as an account of knowledge and as a means to validate particu- 136 Mary Hawkesworth lar truth claims, are there other uses to which it might be put? In this article, I suggest that standpoint theory can be fruitfully adopted as an analytical tool. Imre Lakatos (1970) defined an analytical tool as a heuristic device that illu- minates an area of inquiry, framing a set of questions for investigation, identifying puzzles or problems in need of exploration or clarifica- tion, and providing concepts and hypotheses to guide research (p. 132). As an analytical tool, feminist standpoint theory has a number of advantages. It suggests a way of gathering data for analysis that pre- supposes multiplicity and complexity. The shift in feminist scholarship over the past decade from a notion of “the” feminist standpoint to a recognition of multiple feminist standpoints and multiple standpoints of women generates an analytical tool that accepts plurality as an inherent characteristic of the human condition. Rather than asserting the truth of any particu- lar claim about experience, feminist standpoint theory as analytical tool requires the collection of competing claims advanced by women. In marked contrast to social science methodolo- gies that claim value-neutrality, feminist stand- point theory as analytical tool acknowledges that claims about the world are theoretically mediated—constructed in relation to experi- ence in light of a range of theoretical interests. Thus, feminist standpoint theory as analytical tool may offer a methodology markedly suited to the postpositivist recognition of the role that theoretical presuppositions play in cogni- tion. By expanding the sphere of social science research to encompass the theoretical frame- works that support competing empirical claims, feminist standpoint theory as analytical tool may also identify new mechanisms to help re- solve seemingly intractable political disputes. As an analytical tool, then, feminist standpoint theory may provide feminist scholars with new conceptual means to engage contemporary po- litical issues. To explore the potential uses of feminist standpoint theory as analytical tool, this article examines a range of competing explanations of antifeminist backlash, the “relentless whittling down process . . . to halt, or even reverse, women’s quest for equality” (Faludi, 1991, p. xviii). Following standpoint theory’s mandate to take up multiple perspectives, I compare accounts of two aspects of backlash—recent proposals to abolish affirmative action and “reform” welfare—advanced by conservative women, liberal feminists, socialist feminists, black feminists, and a postmodern feminist. By comparing the theoretical assumptions as well as the empirical claims within these conflicting accounts, I hope to illuminate the potential contributions and limitations of standpoint theory as an analytical tool and as a method to engage pressing political issues. I will also sug- gest that feminist standpoint theory as analyti- cal tool is attuned to problems pertaining to objectivity masked by traditional social science methods. Feminist standpoint theory used as an analytical tool, then, may contribute to the construction of an objective account of politi- cal life, although not in the way that Nancy Hartsock originally suggested. A CONSERVATIVE STANDPOINT Although the radical zeal of early, second- wave feminism sustained the illusion that cer- tain “malestream” views were uniquely the products and perspectives of men (Daly, 1978; O’Brien, 1981), the increasing ranks of articu- late antifeminist women destroys that naive vi- sion. Phyllis Schlafly, Linda Chavez, Lynne Cheney, Beverly LeHaye, Anita Blair, Bar- bara Ledeen, and Laura Ingraham constitute a vocal conservative force who advance argu- ments concerning the evils of affirmative ac- tion and welfare that rival the views of Charles Murray, Lawrence Mead, and Paul Weyrich. Conservative women would deny that their views bear any relation to “backlash.” On the contrary, their opposition to affirmative action and welfare stems from a deep conviction that life in the contemporary United States con- forms to the fundamental promise of the doc- trine of equal opportunity. The system oper- ates as a meritocracy in which all have an equal opportunity to compete in a process de- signed to reward individual talent, initiative, and hard work. Conservative women, like their male coun- terparts, deny that discrimination in hiring, wage scales, promotion, and admissions cur- rently exists in the United States. While they acknowledge that African Americans as a group earn less than whites as a group, and that women as a group earn less than men as a group, and that both minorities and women constitute a smaller percentage of managerial and professional workers than of the general Feminist Standpoint Theory as Analytical Tool 137 population, they deny that the explanation of these facts lies in deliberate discrimination. They suggest that a combination of personal choices made by individuals of their own free will and objective forces over which discrete individuals have no control, provide a more adequate explanation of these phenomena. Demonstrating a sophisticated grasp of issues in the philosophy of social science, conserva- tive women cite a cardinal principle in statisti- cal interpretation: correlation cannot prove causation. Thus, they point out that statistical data concerning the relative distribution of mi- norities and women in particular jobs are not sufficient to prove that intentional discrimina- tion has occurred. Statistics cannot “prove” discrimination because proof of discrimination requires a demonstration of intentional exclu- sion of particular individuals by particular in- dividuals. As a descriptive indicator that oper- ates at the aggregate level, statistics can provide no information at all about individual inten- tions. Thus, any conclusion concerning the ex- istence of discrimination in admissions, hiring or promotions, or pay drawn from statistical data, involves an unwarranted inference. Conservative women suggest that the prob- lem of underrepresentation does not reflect discrimination against qualified applicants, but rather reflects the fact that women and minori- ties lack the requisite qualifications for certain positions and therefore, either fail to apply or upon application are rightly rejected. The problem is primarily one of inadequate supply of qualified women and minority applicants, not one of demand hampered by willful dis- crimination. Lack of qualifications—not dis- crimination—impairs the employment poten- tial of women and minorities. And the lack of qualifications among women and minorities relate to individual choices, for which ulti- mately individuals themselves are responsible. Women and minority individuals freely choose career patterns that differ from those of white males, and this crucial element of individual choice is routinely ignored in arguments that move from statistical underrepresentation to allegations of exclusion or discrimination. For this reason, affirmative action is clearly a mis- guided and inappropriate policy. Affirmative action is designed as a social policy to end intentional discrimination in ad- mission, employment, and promotion. Since any underrepresentation that currently exists is not related to any deliberate policies of dis- crimination, the disease and the cure are mis- matched. The basic lack of correspondence be- tween problem and solution stems from the failure to draw an important distinction be- tween problems caused by deliberate individ- ual actions, which are susceptible to solutions aimed at specific individuals, and problems caused by impersonal/objective social forces for which no individual can justly be held ac- countable. Having diagnosed the cause of underrepre- sentation as an insufficient supply of qualified women and minority applicants, conservative women insist that affirmative action is synony- mous with reverse discrimination: government policies necessitate the use of “quotas,” the hiring of less qualified candidates, the oblitera- tion of merit as a criterion of desert and conse- quently, the sacrifice of creative, hard-working individuals. Since qualified women and minor- ity applicants are not available according to this analysis, it follows that school administra- tors and employers must engage in all these abuses in order to increase the number of women and blacks in their institutions as a demonstration to the government of their “good faith.” Giving less qualified women and minority group members “preference” in ad- missions, hiring, and promotion can only result in new forms of discrimination that will entail the erosion of the principles of merit, scholarly quality, and integrity. Thus, affirmative action makes a mockery of the principle of desert, which itself provides the legitimation for de- nunciation of past discriminatory practices (Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 1997). Affirmative action arbitrarily imposes re- sponsibility for a collective problem upon spe- cific individuals. It requires preferential treat- ment for “unqualified” women and minority group applicants and consequently, it discrimi- nates in reverse against the “best qualified” candidates who just happen to be nonminority men. Such reverse discrimination is all the more intolerable because it undermines com- petition while allowing government bureau- crats to impose their subjective vision of the good upon the society at large. Bureaucratic intervention places universities and employers in the position of having to placate federal offi- cials under penalty of loss of federal grants and contracts vital to their very survival. Thus, bu- reaucratic whim becomes a tyrannical task 138 Mary Hawkesworth master that strips would-be federal contractors of their autonomy and their fidelity to stan- dards of pure meritocratic excellence (Lad- owsky, 1995). In the absence of deliberate discriminatory policies in the contemporary United States, the only possible moral justification for the government’s policies is compensatory justice for groups. Affirmative action must be under- stood as an effort to make reparation to blacks for a history of injustice. Yet this concept of compensatory justice to groups for past injus- tices suffered by them as groups is completely incompatible with individual rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution. According to conser- vative women, affirmative action provides blan- ket preferential treatment for certain persons on the basis of race even if those persons did not personally suffer past injustices. Thus, preferential treatment for groups as a social policy is notoriously overinclusive. But it is si- multaneously underinclusive for in providing compensation only for African Americans, it ignores the claims of other individuals who have personally suffered injustice yet who are not members of the groups targeted for com- pensation. Furthermore, reverse discrimina- tion imposes the cost of compensation upon individuals who did not perpetrate the injus- tice and who cannot fairly be dubbed benefi- ciaries of the injustice since they neither sought the benefit nor had the opportunity to reject it. Put simply, reverse discrimination im- poses the cost of compensation upon innocent parties. Thus, reverse discrimination can be faulted as both arbitrary in the distribution of benefits to the disadvantaged and in the as- signment of the costs of compensation. Such rampant arbitrariness seriously impairs any moral justification for affirmative action. Reverse discrimination substitutes concern with “abstract groups” and their purported rights for concern with living individuals. Fo- cusing solely upon individuals who “make themselves,” conservative women reject any notion of a legacy of group injury, just as they reject any notion of collective guilt on the part of the group who historically imposed the suf- fering. Therefore, conservative women con- strue affirmative action as an unconstitutional policy that subordinates individuals’ rights to equal treatment to putative “group” rights to preferential treatment. According to conserva- tive women, justice can require nothing more than the use of neutral principles, such as non- discrimination, in admissions and employment. Since deliberate discrimination is not a con- temporary problem, the use of neutral princi- ples will promote meritocratic decisions while simultaneously according justice to individuals regardless of the group to which they happen to belong. For it will allow each individual to “make it” on his/her own. Concern with the value of self-reliance and the development of social policies that hold in- dividuals responsible for their own actions also fuels conservative women’s attack on welfare. Accepting that the market economy affords employment opportunities to all who seek them, conservative women understand the causes of poverty in terms of the attitudes, the psychology, and the behavior of the poor. On this view, the problem to be addressed is a direct consequence of existing welfare poli- cies that produce a class of people who adopt welfare as a way of life, who intentionally waste their skills and talents by willfully refus- ing to work. Conservative women point to stories of in- dividual upward mobility and success (e.g., Clarence Thomas) as proof that high rates of unemployment among disadvantaged groups cannot be explained by appeals to lack of jobs, discrimination, or other social conditions over which the disadvantaged have no control. The poor remain poor because they are unwilling to accept the jobs available to them. The un- derdevelopment of the work ethic is the funda- mental problem of the poor and it is a problem attributable to welfare programs that provide benefits to recipients while expecting nothing in return. In direct contrast to the market that reinforces the work ethic in individuals by re- lating rewards to individuals’ investments of effort and contributions to society, welfare un- dermines the value of such reciprocity by sev- ering the connection between benefits and obligations. To rectify this problem, welfare programs should include a mandatory work re- quirement. Work must replace welfare in order to ensure the future prosperity of the currently disadvantaged members of society. Moreover, to facilitate recipients’ integration into the mainstream of American life, an absolute life- time limit (2–5 years) should be placed on re- ceipt of welfare benefits (Kondrtas, 1995). Once poverty is understood in terms of par- ticular debilitating attitudes held by the poor, Feminist Standpoint Theory as Analytical Tool 139 welfare-to-work programs emerge as an ap- propriate social policy designed specifically to alter individual attitudes toward work. Conser- vative women suggest that mandatory work re- quirements will generate a host of benefits for individual welfare recipients and for society. Requiring welfare recipients to work on a reg- ular basis will help them to cultivate a work “habit,” while simultaneously overcoming their fears of not being able to compete in a job market. On-the-job experience in public ser- vice projects will increase welfare recipients’ feelings of self-worth and self-confidence as they realize they are contributing something of value to their communities. The dependency bred by reliance upon government hand-outs will be supplanted by a growing sense of self- sufficiency as participants gain a sense of mas- tery in their job assignments. The gradual accrual of job experience will enhance the marketable skills and hence the employability of welfare recipients. Over time, the regular exposure to the world of work, coupled with the newfound confidence and the acquisition of marketable skills, will facilitate the individ- ual’s transition from welfare to permanent paid employment in the private s