What is a Woman?

And Other Essays

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by Toril Moi

Oxford University Press

Due/Published July 2001, 536 pages, paper

ISBN 0198186754

New in paper (S01)

In her first full-scale engagement with feminist theory since Sexual/Textual Politics, Moi challenges the dominant trends in contemporary feminist and cultural thought, arguing for a feminism of freedom inspired by Simone de Beauvoir'sThe Second Sex. What is a Woman? brings together two brand new theoretical interventions: Moi's work on Freud and Bourdieu, and her studies of desire and knowledge in literature.

In the title-essay, Moi rethinks current debates about sex, gender, and the body--challenging the commonly held belief that the sex/gender distinction is fundamental to all feminist theory. She rejects every attempt to define masculinity and femininity, including efforts to define femininity as that which 'cannot be defined.

In the second part, 'I am a Woman', Moi reworks the relationship between the personal and the philosophical, pursuing ways to write theory that do not neglect the claims of the personal. Setting up an encounter between contemporary theory and Simone de Beauvoir, Moi radically rethinks the need, and difficulty, of finding one's own philosophical voice by placing it in new theoretical contexts. This is a sustained refusal to lay down theoretical or political requirements for femininity, and a powerful argument for a feminism of freedom.

"Forthright and subtle, patient and experimental, learned and generous, Toril Moi in What is a Woman? rehearses, rethinks, and extends her distinguished contributions to feminist theory and interpretation over the past two decades. For a philosopher of my temperament a particular gratitude is in order for this lavish present."--Stanley Cavell

"Rather than rehearsing the now somewhat tired arguments about feminist theory and poststructuralism, Toril Moi offers a refreshing and original reading of Simone de Beauvoir, juxtaposing this to important reconsiderations of Pierre Bourdieu and Sigmund Freud. One of the world's most important feminist theorists herself, Moi insists on clarity of expression and a style of reading that patiently plumbs the depth of difficult issues rather than rushing to denunciation or dismissal. Her example will inspire scholars for years to come."--Lynn Hunt

CONTENTS

Preface
 A Note on the Text
Part I: A Feminism of Freedom: Simone de Beauvoir
1. What is a Woman? Sex, Gender, and the Body in Feminist Theory
2. I Am a Woman: The Personal and the Philosophical
Part II: Appropriating Theory: Bourdieu and Freud
Introduction
3. Appropriating Bourdieu: Feminist Theory and Pierre Bourdieu's Sociology of Culture
4. The Challenge of the Particular Case: Bourdieu's Sociology of Culture and Literary Criticism
5. The Missing Mother: Rene Girard's Oedipal Rivalries
6. Representation of Patriarchy: Sexuality and Epistemology in Freud's Dora
7. Patriarchal Thought and the Drive for Knowledge
8. Is Anatomy Destiny? Freud and Biological Determinism
Part III: Desire and Knowledge: Reading Texts of Love
Introduction
9. Desire in Language: Andreas Capellanus and the Controversy of Courtly Love
10. She Died Because She Came Too Late: Knowledge, Doubles and Death in Thomas's Tristan
11. Intentions and Effects: Rhetoric and Identification in Simone de Beauvoir's The Woman Destroyed