The “fathers’ rights” movement represents policies that undermine women's reproductive autonomy as furthering the cause of gender equality. Khader argues that this movement exploits two general weaknesses of equality claims identified by Luce Irigaray. She shows that Irigaray criticizes equality claims for their appeal to a genderneutral universal subject and for their acceptance of our existing symbolic repertoire. This article examines how the plaintiffs’ rhetoric in two contemporary “fathers’ rights” court cases takes advantage of these weaknesses.

In a reading of René Descartes's The Passions of the Soul, Luce Irigaray explores the possibility that wonder, first of all passions, can provide the basis for an ethics of sexual difference because it is prior to judgment, and thus nonhierarchical. For Descartes, the passion of generosity gives the key to ethics. I argue that wonder should be extended to other differences and should be combined with generosity to form the basis of an ethics.

: I argue that Irigaray's recent work develops a theoretically cogent and politically radical form of realist essentialism. I suggest that she identifies sexual difference with a fundamental difference between the rhythms of percipient fluids constituting women's and men's bodies, supporting this with a philosophy of nature that she justifies phenomenologically and ethically. I explore the politics Irigaray derives from this philosophy, which affirms the sexes' rights to realize the possibilities of their rhythmically diverse bodies.

One of the most fundamental premises of feminist philosophy is the assumption of an invidious asymmetry between the genders that has to be overcome. Parallel to this negative account of asymmetry we also find a positive account, developed in particular within the context of so-called feminist philosophies of difference. I explore both notions of gender asymmetry. The goal is a clarification of the notion of asymmetry as it can presently be found in feminist philosophy. Drawing upon phenomenology as well as (...) feminist difference theory, I argue that a gender asymmetry does exist that cannot-as in the first assumption-be transformed into symmetry. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Donna Haraway's figure of the cyborg needs to be reassessed and extricated from the many misunderstandings that surround it. First, I suggest that we consider her cyborg as an ethical concept. I propose that her cyborg can be productively placed within the ethical framework developed by Luce Irigaray, especially in relationship to her concept of the “interval between.” Second, I consider how Haraway's “cyborg writing” can be understood as embodied ethical writing, that is, as (...) a contemporary écriture feminine. I believe that this cyborgian “writing the body” offers us a way of both creating and understanding texts that think through ethics, bodies, aesthetics, and politics together as part of a vital and relevant contemporary feminist ethics of embodiment. I employ the term “poethics” as a useful way to describe such a practice. (shrink)

In a suggestive reading of Descartes’ The Passions of the Soul, Luce Irigaray explores the possibility that the passion of wonder, the first of all the passions, can provide the basis for an ethics of sexual difference. Wonder is the first of all passions because it has no opposite, is prior to judgment and comparison, and because it is united to most other passions. Wonder is surprise at the extraordinary, and Irigaray believes it is the ideal way for women and (...) men to regard each other, as it is prior to judgement, and thus free of hierarchical relations, contrary to traditional ethics. In this sense, it leaves us open to new experiences and the distinctiveness of the other. For Descartes, a different passion, the passion of generosity, gives the key to ethics. Generosity is a species of wonder combined with love, which he understands as proper self-esteem. This proper self-esteem ensures that we have appropriate esteem for others by recognising them as like ourselves in the most important respects – the capacity to exercise free will and the resolve to use it well. He believes that if we value ourselves appropriately, then we will respond to others appropriately. This passion must be cultivated as a habit and virtue. In this paper, I examine how wonder and generosity can be linked to ethics, the relationship between these two passions, and Iris Marion Young’s view that Irigaray’s understanding of wonder can easily be extended to any structured social difference, such as race, class and religion by adopting a stance of ‘moral humility’ and accepting that our relations with others are asymmetrically reciprocal. (shrink)

Luce Irigaray's project elaborates an original concept of sexual difference. While this concept is widely discussed in feminist philosophy, there are multiple readings of sexual difference and some of these are contradictory. This essay surveys the various readings of sexual difference in English. Foci include the debate over the status of essentialism, ontology, and the controversy over the primacy of sexual difference, including discussion of whether her oeuvre marginalizes differences of race and sexuality. I conclude by arguing that her thinking (...) of difference is open to the future and non-totalisable in principle. This means that, difference, the concept at the heart of her thinking of sexual difference, cannot be primarily oriented toward engendering sexual difference because it is necessarily open to engendering relations that cannot be predicted. (shrink)

One of the most fundamental premises of feminist philosophy is the assumption of an invidious asymmetry between the genders that has to be overcome. Parallel to this negative account of asymmetry we also find a positive account, developed in particular within the context of so-called feminist philosophies of difference. I explore both notions of gender asymmetry. The goal is a clarification of the notion of asymmetry as it can presently be found in feminist philosophy. Drawing upon phenomenology as well as (...) feminist difference theory , I argue that a gender asymmetry does exist that cannot-as in the first assumption-be transformed into symmetry. (shrink)