The FRENCH FEMINISTS

BODY as JOISSANCE--"there is a semiotic force in writing

that is able to disrupt the restrictive symbolic order."

woman is the "privileged site" to start the deconstruction of phallocentric thinking.

the "feminine" is a concept (negation of phallic), not literally Woman.

To some theorists, these ideas are problematic because they dualistically define feminine in opposition to masculine.

These poststructuralists shun essence in favor of ecriture feminine-----which can easily move toward an essentialist position anyway.

HELENE CIXOUS: spoke of "writing the body," criticized for being biologically reductive

Ecker argues that the idea of "ecriture feminine" is not essentialist because the French are too aware of its traps, and therefore perform a "brilliant tightrope act." Rather, she argues, their successors misinterpret them in prescribing what women's writing should be.

Ecker points out that any argument about the female body always risks sounding like biological determinism because the female body is so culturally coded.