Book Reviews : DRUCILLA CORNELL, Beyond Accommodation: Ethical Feminism, Deconstruction, and the Law. London: Routledge, 1991, £35 hardback, £10.99 paperback
| Author | Davina Cooper |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399300200112 |
| Published date | 01 March 1993 |
| Date | 01 March 1993 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
121
DRUCILLA
CORNELL,
Beyond
Accommodation:
Ethical
Feminism,
Deconstruction,
and
the
Law.
London:
Routledge,
1991,
£35
hardback,
£10.99
paperback.
Drucilla
Cornell’s
book
Beyond
Accommodation
revolves
around
two
questions
that
remain
largely
implicit.
First,
what
is
woman?
And
second,
how
can
we
transform
the
meanings
attributed
to
sexual
difference?
To
address
these
issues,
Cornell
focuses
on
postmodern
French
developments
in
the
areas
of
psychoanalysis,
deconstruction
and
writing.
Before
addressing
some
of
the
book’s
strengths
and
weaknesses,
let
me
first
set
out
its
main
argument.
According
to
Cornell
(p.
3),
her
objective
is
to
write
the
feminine
that
has
been
pushed
to
the
’rere’
(the
back?)
in
order
to
develop
a
critical
standpoint
by
which
we
can
judge
the
masculine
world.
Emphatically,
Cornell
rejects
the
suggestion
that
we
should
aim
for
equality
with
men
by
denying
feminine
difference,
even
if
such
feminine
difference
is
produced
within
the
masculine
imaginary.
Instead,
she
argues,
the
only
way
to
transcend
the
sexual
hierarchy
is
to
affirm
the
feminine
(p.
100),
a
project
Cornell
denies
as
being
essentialist
or
one
that
relegates
differences
between
women.
Although
most
of
the
book
remains
immersed
in
postmodern
debates,
at
points
Cornell
shifts
from
the
Law
of
the
Father
to
the
law
of
Western
legal
systems,
and
tries
to
relate
her
argument
to
legal
reform.
The
focus
of
her
concern
is
that
women’s
harms
are
not
recognized;
thus
what
is
needed
is
to
develop
a
way
of
articulating
the
injury
done
to
women.
Although
this
will
not
achieve
justice,
for,
Cornell
argues,
justice
is
’beyond
our
description’,
it
will
begin
to
undo
the
injustice
meted
out
to
women.
Cornell
is
critical,
however,
of
those
who
attempt
to
improve
women’s
position
through
claims
of
equality.
Women’s
experiences,
she
argues,
must
not
be
translated
into
the
language
of
men.
Thus
she
returns
to
her
claim
of
the
necessity
of
affirming
the
feminine.
Yet
how
is
this
to
be
done?
In
Beyond
Accommodation
the
focus
is
on
writing.
Writing’s
performative
power
means
it
can
be
used
by
women
to
disrupt
conventional
meanings
and,
through
the
lack
of
closure
inherent
in
all
language,
construct
new
ones.
Yet,
Cornell
recognizes
the
danger
of
re-metaphorization -
presenting
new
images
that
simply
turn
women
once
more
into
objects
of
knowledge.
In
the
same
way,
she,
following
Derrida,
resists
the
search
for
an
ahistorical
feminine
authenticity
(p.
87).
Nevertheless,
she
argues,
the
process
of
metaphorization,
immanent
to
all
linguistic
representation,
is
vital.
However,
in
the
case
of
women,
it
must
retain
a
reflexivity,
in
order
never
to
forget
it
is
only
positing
the
’as
if’.
Metonomy,
whereby
the
part
stands
for
the
whole,
too
is
crucial,
to
expose
the
genealogy
of
(past)
structures
of
power
that
have
created
’woman’.
Comell’s
focus
for
such
writing
strategies
is
the
myth.
By
returning
to
myths
to
recreate
the
feminine,
she
argues,
we
can
find
a
way
beyond
current
systems
of
gender
representations
(p.
173).
The
Amazons,
however,
are
rejected
as
a
suitable
set
of
heroines,
since
their
code
is
not
love
but
a
war
against
domination
(p.
174).
A
preferred
choice
is
Cleopatra.
Since
we
as
women
cannot
escape
the
feminine,
our
means
of
rupturing
the
sexual
hierarchy
must
be
through
mimesis.
By
this
is
meant,
deliberately
and
affirmatively ’
assuming
a
feminine
role,
then
restyling
or
subverting
it
from
within.
Cornell
contrasts
her
strategy
with
what
she
describes
as
a
’politics
of
revenge’
(p.
11).
This
she
associates
with
Catherine
MacKinnon,
whose
goal,
according
to
Cornell,
is
simply
to
reverse
the
current
hierarchy
of
power.
Such
a
project
is
’accommodation’
since
it
is
rooted
within
the
ethics
of
the
male
imaginary.
It
is
this
that
we
need
to
move
’beyond’.
Instead
of
questions
of
power,
we
must
develop
a
feminine
ethic
rooted
in
intimacy
and
love,
in
particular
love
of
the
’Other’
(p.
203).
In
her
conclusion,
Cornell
describes
this
as
’a
new
choreography
of
sexual
difference ...
sexuality
lived
as
love
that
must
be
premised
on
the
truly
&dquo;hetero&dquo;,
the
Other,
the
beyond
to
our
current
system
of
gender
identity ...’
(p.
205).
Although
Beyond
Accommodation
makes
a
useful
contribution
to
debates
in
the
areas
of
post-Lacanian
psychoanalytic
theory
and
French
postmodern
feminism,
it
is
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