Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Sex, Race and ‘Unnatural’ Difference: Tracking the Chiastic Logic of Menopause-Related Discourses.
AU - Roberts,, Celia
PY - 2004
Y1 - 2004
N2 - Theorizing interconnections of sexual and racial differences remains a core problematic within feminist theory. In this article the author argues that these connections might in some cases usefully be understood as constituting a chiasmas. The term ‘chiasmas’ is taken from MichËle Le Doeuff’s analysis of the writings of 18th-century physiologist Pierre Roussel. Le Doeuff argues that Roussel’s understanding of sexual difference is chiastic. An examination of contemporary medical and scientific discourses around the menopause and its treatment through hormone replacement therapy (HRT) takes the argument onto new ground. The author argues here that menopause-related discourses rely on a chiastic logic that connects sexual difference with racial differences. Identification of such logics may prove useful to feminist analyses of specific entanglements of the logics of sexual and racial differences, in contemporary and historical instances.
AB - Theorizing interconnections of sexual and racial differences remains a core problematic within feminist theory. In this article the author argues that these connections might in some cases usefully be understood as constituting a chiasmas. The term ‘chiasmas’ is taken from MichËle Le Doeuff’s analysis of the writings of 18th-century physiologist Pierre Roussel. Le Doeuff argues that Roussel’s understanding of sexual difference is chiastic. An examination of contemporary medical and scientific discourses around the menopause and its treatment through hormone replacement therapy (HRT) takes the argument onto new ground. The author argues here that menopause-related discourses rely on a chiastic logic that connects sexual difference with racial differences. Identification of such logics may prove useful to feminist analyses of specific entanglements of the logics of sexual and racial differences, in contemporary and historical instances.
KW - biological body • chiasmas • hormone replacement therapy • Le Doeuff • menopause • race • sex hormones • sexual difference
U2 - 10.1177/1350506804039813
DO - 10.1177/1350506804039813
M3 - Journal article
VL - 11
SP - 27
EP - 44
JO - European Journal of Women's Studies
JF - European Journal of Women's Studies
SN - 1461-7420
IS - 1
ER -