Feminism, Governmentality and the Politics of Legal Reform

Abstract

This paper offers a critical evaluation of the relationship between feminism and the politics of legal change. Using Foucault’s concept of episteme, it explores the presence of the phenomenon itself — namely the conditions which made its rise possible and configured its nature and mode of being. The analysis reveals these politics to be the outcome of the epistemological context of nineteenth century thought, in particular the canon of reason utilised and the apprehension of subjectivity as a self in possession of consciousness and the ability to reflect upon this consciousness. It argues that these epistemic conditions, in granting the Victorian feminist discourse its specific configuration, not only made feminist calls for legal reform possible, but fashioned their form both at the time and into the future. In reaching this conclusion, I suggest that the feminist practice of legal reform is not as neutral as hitherto believed, and argue that we should recognise its dependency on questions of knowledge, truth and subjectivity. Acknowledging this dependency as an inevitable corollary of the politics of legal reform enables these politics to be explored as ‘the conduct of conduct’ — as a social practice with the power to identify and individualise appropriate norms for the conduct of women.