Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom

Abstract

Offering both a discussion of feminism in its postmodern context and a critique of contemporary theory, Zerilli here challenges feminists to move away from a theory-based approach, which focuses on securing or contesting "women" as an analytic category of feminism, to one rooted in political action and judgment. She revisits the democratic problem of exclusion from participation in common affairs and elaborates a freedom-centered feminism as the political practice of beginning anew, world-building, and judging. In a series of case studies, Zerilli draws on the political thought of Hannah Arendt to articulate a nonsovereign conception of political freedom and to explore a variety of feminist understandings of freedom in the twentieth century, including ones proposed by Judith Butler, Monique Wittig, and the Milan Women's Bookstore Collective. In so doing, Zerilli hopes to retrieve what Arendt called feminism's lost treasure: the original and radical claim to political freedom. Why feminism and freedom both begin with the letter F -- Feminists know not what they do : Judith Butler's Gender trouble and the limits of epistemology -- Feminists are beginners : Monique Wittig's Les guérillères and the "problem of the new" -- Feminists make promises : the Milan Collective's Sexual difference and the project of world-building -- Feminists make judgments : Hannah Arendt's Lectures on Kant's political philosophy and the affirmation of freedom -- Conclusion: Reframing the freedom question in feminism.