In relation to explaining gender the cultural turn (sometimes called the linguistic turn) was a turn away from an emphasis on inequalities and towards more exploration of identity and meanings (see Table 4.7). Generally speaking the linguistic turn refers to a theoretical shift, across the humanities and social sciences, away from a focus on material things and towards concentration on language and representation. In sociology this ‘cultural turn’ moved away from the Marxist-influenced attention to structural and especially economic factors as determining social life and towards cultural studies’ preoccupations with meaning (see Chaney, 1994). Michele Barrett (1992) outlines four parts to the linguistic turn.
The first aspect of the linguistic turn was a critique of theoretical universalism. Theoretical universalism refers to the tendency of theorists to universalize, to make statements that seem to apply to everybody and everything (Barrett, 1992). Many classical sociological theories, for instance, have set out to try and find universal laws explaining how all of society works, but were basing their ideas on the experiences of white European men. More recent scholars — including Foucault and many feminists — were critical of such grand claims, and so were moving away from ‘grand narratives’ (large stories attempting to explain all) and towards more contextualized theorizing. Feminists also became critical of their own early theorizing that spoke about ‘women’s oppression’ because this assumed that women are all the same. Trying to avoid theoretical universalism has been helpful in thinking about gender because it must be remembered that there are many different kinds of women. However, others argue that theorists need to make some generalizations if they are going to say anything, and especially if they are going to get people to work together towards political goals (see Chapter 6).
The second part of the linguistic turn, according to Barrett (1992), was the critique of rationalism and the subject. Rationality has historically been associated with masculinity and therefore feminist theorists needed to be critical of it. There is a long history to this association which I do not have space for here (see Lloyd, 1984), so I will confine myself to its more recent forms. Modern notions of reason and rational subjects (self-aware human actors) within Western thought developed most strongly from Rene Descartes’ seventeenth-century declaration: ‘I think therefore I am’. His philosophical understanding of what it means to exist as a human being established an oppositional hierarchy between the mind as the seat of reason, and the body as a disorderly vessel of sensation and emotion that must be kept under control. Women, due to their
reproductive capacities, were thought closer to nature and to their bodies and thus deemed incapable of reason. These Western ideas about women’s lack of rationality were long used to justify their inferior social status and deny them rights enjoyed by their brothers, such as the right to education and the right to vote (Bordo, 1987; Pateman, 1988). Post-structuralists criticized Cartesian (meaning ‘following Descartes’) ways of comprehending what it means to be human for assuming that we are always consciously aware of ourselves and in control of what we are doing. Post-structuralists instead think about the decentred subject. They argue that the self cannot form a basis for understanding human existence, because it is not the stable entity that Descartes assumed it to be. They argue that people have multiple selves and unconscious or irrational desires might often shape behaviour. Feminists were sympathetic to many of these criticisms of rationalism and the subject, but also reminded male poststructuralists that for women the problem had been them being thought irrational, when rationality was what was valued. That was one of the arguments Mary Wollstonecraft (1985/1792) made in the eighteenth century. Some status as rational subjects was tardily granted to different groups of women throughout the twentieth century. To suddenly declare that rationality was over-rated and that the subject is dead was frustrating in the extreme for many women, especially women of colour, who were only just finding a voice to exert a sense of subjectivity and speak of their experiences (see Chapters 6, 7 and 8).Yet feminists such as Denise Riley (1988) and Judith Butler (1992), advocating post-structuralist views of the subject, felt strongly that to continue to talk of women as subjects in the old way was to be caught again in the problems of falsely universalizing. Not all women are alike, and a notion of fragmented identities may have a lot to offer in thinking about how differences between women could be thought through. However, this recognition of diversity was combined with a need to consider women’s general exclusion from the modernist project. This refers to the way in which the modern world was masculinized.
The third part of the linguistic turn involved highlighting this gendering of modernity (Barrett, 1992). Feminists directed their attention to the way in which the transition from a traditional agrarian into a complex modern industrial society has been associated with masculinity. The whole notion of the modern as reasoned scientific progress made the ideal ‘modern’ individual a male. Women continued to be thought of as irrational and ruled by emotions. Therefore feminists recognized that modernity was a project based on the exclusion of women. But feminism as a political project has relied hugely on modernist liberal ideas. Feminists are therefore aware of the gendered limitations of modernist thinking but often reluctant to abandon it totally. One crucial thread they did strive to rethink was what materialism might mean and what role the material might play in shaping society.
Barrett’s (1992) outline of the linguistic turn looks fourthly and finally at the critique of materialism. This meant thinking through the limitations of analyses which focused on the material conditions of society such as how objects were made and the access of different groups to resources. This critique entailed relinquishing a materialist model of people, their lives and ideas as determined by the social structure. Other traditions of thought emphasizing experience and subjective interpretations were revitalized. These included phenomenology, which is discussed especially in relation to bodies in Chapter 5. In particular economic explanations were criticized and wider meanings of the ‘material’ beyond the economic were taken up (Rahman and Witz, 2003). One key example of how the linguistic turn shifted approaches to gender towards a concern with meaning was queer theory.