Who owns feminist theory? and just what is meant by the idea of ‘theory’? We explore these fundamental questions as part of interrogating some emergent orthodoxies about feminist theory, proposing that there is a ‘missing revolution’ in feminist thinking, for while ideas about feminist epistemology, methodology and ethics have been fundamentally reworked, those concerning feminist theory have not. Our purpose is to stimulate a debate about the form of feminist theory, rather than the more usual controversies about its content; and (...) thus our concern is with promoting the development of feminist metatheory. We argue that the now-dominant version of feminist theory is a parallel project to that of mainstream/malestream social theory, and that a feminist autocritique of this and related developments is needed, with the aim of achieving a transformation of the fundamental categories of feminist theory. (shrink)

In discussing Simone de Beauvoir’s ontological ethics in an earlier article in this journal, the author suggested in passing that she could be seen as a ‘philosopher manqué’, a ‘lost’ or ‘missed’ philosopher, a woman who gave up or rejected philosophy to pursue ideas by better means for her purposes. Here the author explores the idea of de Beauvoir as a philosopher manqué in relation to her play Les Bouches inutiles, using a translation-in-progress into English, The Useless Mouths, to examine (...) ideas about morality, ethics and intersubjectivity expressed within it. De Beauvoir constructs characters around different philosophical positions, which are evaluated by reference to the play’s unfolding action. This turns on men’s hidden evaluation of the category of women as, by definition, ‘the useless mouths’ of society, an evaluation revealed by strategies for survival in the in extremis situation of a town under siege. (shrink)