Splitting open the world : searching for the true women's writing [thesis]

Jennifer Donovan
1991
This thesis explores the contention presented by the so-called French feminists (including Irigaray, Kristeva, and especially Cixous) that the situation of women cannot change until they have their own discourse and that women's writing must be based in their bodies. The purpose of "l'ecriture feminine", these writers claim, 1s to inscribe difference, to awaken women to one another, and to undermine patriarchy. My ambition was to find actual examples of this "ecriture feminine", and evidence of
more » ... its effects. In attempting to deal with the abstruseness of much of the writing by the French women who encourage women to celebrate the difference and "write the body", I have briefly indicated some points of contact and divergence between Anglo-American feminists and the French. I have also described the persistent patriarchal obstruction to women's writing in order to highlight the revolutionary potential of writing the body. I examined writing by women who were variously womanidentified, feminist and anti-feminist. I also considered various styles of women's writing, particularly poetry, which seemed to approach most closely the discourse envisaged by the French theorists. The writers discussed include
doi:10.26190/unsworks/8209 fatcat:ek4dp2z6kjan7khuapjql3644m