Abstract

My Independent Study thesis is divided into three chapters. In Chapter 1, I explore the manner in which our colonial and gendered order revolves around a universalized and fragmented episteme. Such an episteme manufactures a dichotomous logic, separating people into categories such as the colonizer/native and man/woman. These categorizations serve to center and uplift white, bourgeois, heterosexual men as embodying ideal humanity, and assigning deviance, irrationality, and bestiality to all of those who do not fit in. I will discuss the way that such a framework was constructed and perpetuated to support patriarchal and colonialist aims, exploring the way that it impacted/impacts white women, colonized men, and those who lie at the intersections of multiple identities. After examining the historical roots and legacy of this logic, Chapter 2 investigates the manner in which it is still utilized within mainstream Western feminism. I argue that by accepting the dominance and exclusion present in the hegemonic episteme, girlboss feminism only serves the interests of a small privileged few and perpetuates the dichotomous hierarchies that it purports to challenge. Finally, in Chapter 3, I provide an account of a few epistemic tools of feminist resistance that serve to challenge an episteme of oppression. Through poetic knowledge and curdled logic, I argue that we can dismantle the dominant claim to pure categorization and universality. And in using these tools, we can form coalitions among women that embraces, rather than disregards, plurality, particularity, and relationality.

Advisor

McBride, Lee

Department

Philosophy

Disciplines

Feminist Philosophy

Publication Date

2022

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis Exemplar

Download

Share

COinS
 

© Copyright 2022 Grace Susan Robinson