Nothing Mat(t)ers: A Feminist Critique of Postmodernism

146 NOTHING MAT(T)ERS
The stories of Hipparchia and Crates, Elisabeth and Descartes, or Heloise and
Abelard 46 are narratives of patriarchal hegemony in love and wisdom. Michèle Le
Doeuff explains how women’s tenuous position in the halls and tomes of learning
contributes to a “confusion of amorous and didactic relationships” (1989, p. 104),
reducing the scope of our desire to know:
[T]his erotico-theoretical transference…is equivalent to an absence of any
direct relationship of women to philosophy. Only through the mediation of a
man could women gain access to theoretical discourse. Here we find a
predicament common to the feminine condition: that of not being able to do
without a protector and mediator in any part of life defined as social (1989,
p. 104).
The anxiety women experience in individual relationships is duplicated in the
Master’s House of Theory and Philosophy. Highly eroticized didactic relationships
are embedded in a system which diminishes female originality and punishes female
presence and resistance. Progressive texts and teachers promise nurture but betray
innocence. The cognitive confusion that Heloise experiences is the splitting of the
self into two Mrs. Rochesters: the loving Jane Eyre, and the raging madwoman in the
attic. 47 Rousseau’s Emile may be read as either a Harlequin or a Gothic narrative,
depending on one’s belief in the good faith of the phallus.
The feminist project must yet elaborate an ethics and aesthetics that is not filtered
through or returned to a masculine paradigm, but expressed creatively and
symbolically by a subject that is female. Only an unflinching autonomy can
challenge extortions to feminine deference and the deferment of feminist philosophy.
Women’s memory is annulled in the patriarchal tradition. We must resist absorption
by the androgynous myth, which, as Mircea Eliade indicates, was part of the
Mephistophelian tradition (Irigaray: 1987b, p. 423). Androgyny: the eternally
46. The story of Abelard, the twelfth century philosopher, and his young student, Heloise, is
celebrated as one of the greatest romances. Here is how Abelard understood her learning and his
love, from the section “How Abelard’s Love for Heloise brought about a Fall which afflicted both
Body and Soul”: “At at time when I considered that I was the one philosopher in the world and had
nothing to fear from others, I, who up to that time had lived most chastely, began to relax the reins
on my passion… there lived in Paris a maiden named Heloise, the niece of a canon named Fulbert,
who from his deep love for her was eager to have her advanced in all literary pursuits possible… I
considered all the qualities which usually inspire lovers and decided she was just the one for me to
join in love. I felt that this would be very easy to accomplish; I then enjoyed such renown and was so
outstanding for my charm of youth that I feared no repulse by any woman whom I should deign to
favour with my love. And I felt that this maiden would all the more readily yield to me as I knew she
possessed and cherished a knowledge of letters… [Fulbert]…put his niece entirely under my control…
telling me to use pressure if I found her remiss. I was astonished at his simplicity in this matter and
would have been no more astounded if he had been giving over a tender lamb to a ravenous wolf.
For when he handed her over to me not only to teach but to discipline, what else was he doing but
giving free reign to my designs, and opportunity, even if I were not seeking it, easily to subdue her
by threats and stripes if blandishments did not work… And the better to prevent suspicion, I
sometimes struck her not through anger or vexation but from love and affection which were beyond
the sweetness of every ointment” (1964, pp. 25–28). Thanks to Patricia Mills for this reference.
47. See the novel by Jean Rhys, (1985) Wide Sargasso Sea, first published in 1966.