Women's Writing: A Challenge to "Malestream" Determinism

Abstract

Determinism and Feminism are as diametrically opposed as sugar and spice, fire and water, and day and night. Determinism holds that human action is determined by forces other than will. Feminism implies that collective will can deconstruct the structures of production, reproduction, sexuality, and socialisation that have disadvantaged women. "Woman," born free and autonomous like the rest of God's creatures, is compelled by "malestream determinism" to become "the other." Determinism forbids any change in "Her" status, whereas Feminism includes the tool of transformational politics, which can lead to a more egalitarian social order. Determinism effectively closes the door, whereas Feminism opens new doors of opportunity. Male and female have no universal or deterministic meanings because the individual assumes a gendered identity only within a set of specific social and historical practises. Complexity politics does not imply that identities such as woman/man, black/white, Hindu/Muslim, and Western/Eastern must be abandoned. What it does is interrogate their history in order to demonstrate how the power behind these identities is exercised. The paper seeks to establish the women writing which a challenge to Malestream determinism.