Toril Moi Critical Essay | Critical Review by Mechthild E. Nagel

Critical Review by Mechthild E. Nagel

SOURCE: Nagel, Mechthild E. Review of What Is a Woman?, by Toril Moi. NWSA Journal 13, no. 2 (summer 2001): 213-17.

In the following review, Nagel criticizes the politics of What Is a Woman?

The three books under review [What Is a Woman? by Toril Moi, Whiteness: Feminist Philosophical Reflections, edited by Chris Cuomo and Kim Hall, and Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics, by Joy James] highlight the diversity of commitments to feminist “practice” in contemporary U.S. academia. Moi's liberal feminist analysis argues that the definition of woman is at stake in much of feminist theory, and she is intent on showing that Simone de Beauvoir is too quickly dismissed as essentialist by poststructuralist feminists such as Judith Butler. Moi gives lipservice to integrated approaches which are cited in footnotes. But her analysis falls back to the additive approach, i.e., that oppressions can be added on, which is characteristic...
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