Issues arising from "... but never by chance..."
" ... but never by chance ... ", curated by Linda Marie Walker, is an exhibition of seven female artists and a publication of seven female writers. The subject of the exhibition and publication is eroticism and, as a women's event, female eroticism. This presupposes that one may speak "as a woman" upon a topic that originates in the gendered body. " ... but never by chance ... " provokes some considerations on the "essence" that is in question in both essentialism and the essential difference surrounding feminist thought.
Essentialism has become somewhat of a catchword in feminist debate, an accusatory label of reductionist thinking. It has become equated with the term "biologism" and the confusion of feminism with biologically gendered experiences. The confusion of these terms essentialism and biologism seems to originate in earlier conceptions of feminist thought which were based on a distinction between sex and gender. Briefly, in this article, I wish to assert that the sex/ gender distinction has outlived its usefulness! and that a re-appraisal of essentialism is vital to the future of feminism(s). I will refer to the artworks of " ... but never by chance ... " and to the curatorial rationale and critical parameters of the exhibition. I wish to refute the equivalence of the terms biologism and essentialism. Feminism is all about an irreducible difference. This is not a (biological) difference between man and woman, nor a (metaphysical) difference in woman's nature but a (political) difference in the feminist conception of women and the world. In elaborating and appraising debates upon essentialism I wish to draw upon the thoughts of two major feminist writers and teachers: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Teresa... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline