Feminist Experiences: Foucauldian and Phenomenological Investigations, by Johanna Oksala (Book Review Article)

Beata Stawarska

doi:10.5399/pjcp.v2i1.3

Abstract

Review of Oksala's 2016 Feminist Experiences: Foucauldian and Phenomenological Investigations.

Highlights

Are there omissions of references from the feminist philosophical library that are significant insofar as they may affect Oksala’s argument, especially her assessment of phenomenology as a tradition in need of radical revision if it is to be of merit to an emancipatory project? Is phenomenology construed too narrowly because of the choice of readings, and would it emerge as a more politically productive approach if the library of references included key texts from feminist phenomenology?
I will make the case that both sets of questions can be reasonably answered in the affirmative, and that, as a result, Oksala’s laudable goal of rehabilitating feminist philosophy as a form of social critique would benefit from including feminist phenomenological works in its philosophical library, and from bringing phenomenology and genealogy into a greater rapprochement than her current argument allows
I would have found some philosophical analysis featuring concrete instances of women’s experience whose conceptual edge and communicative potential provides an opportunity for critical reflection and social and political reform useful in this regard

Summary

Introduction

I will argue that Beauvoir’s phenomenology, read through Butler’s lens, challenges this assumption and provides a perspective on experience as being both constituted and critically transformative, broadly compatible with Foucault. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex offers detailed descriptions of the socially situated experience of women within patriarchy and constitutes an exemplar of a feminist phenomenological approach.

Results

Conclusion