Fighting in concert: exploring the emancipatory potential of women's violence

女权主义哲学家与女性使用暴力的关系并不融洽。大多数人原则上反对暴力，而另一些人则勉强认为暴力有助于实现性别正义。然而，我的项目将研究女性暴力是否以及如何被视为一种内在的解放实践，以及这对女权主义（非）暴力伦理（FENV）意味着什么。试图将FENV建立在女性所谓的自然或社会“关怀”倾向（Gilligan 1982; Noddings 1984）或母性美德（Ruddick 1989）的基础上，传统上被批评为本质主义者（Kaplan 1994）。目前，哲学家如Judith Butler和Adriana Cavarero （Butler 2020； Cavarero等）。2021)防御基于人类脆弱性的FENV。尽管这些描述可能是复杂的，但它们仍然忽视了某些妇女暴力行为的解放潜力。我的项目旨在通过建立一个福柯-阿伦特的哲学框架来揭示这种潜力。我的假设是，只有当女性暴力既可以被理解为福卡德式的身体“自我实践”，又可以被理解为阿伦特式政治行动的一种形式时，我们才可以将其视为解放。要理解对这一框架的需要，请考虑一下妇女自卫训练（WSDT）的情况。WSDT是妇女参与暴力的一个例子，它的参与者非常重视，但很难与女权主义者对非暴力的无条件承诺相协调。我的直觉是，WSDT可以被理论化为米歇尔·福柯的“自我实践”的一个例子——一个伦理事业，其中个人通过与主流权力结构相关来重塑他们的主体性。被女权主义学术所忽视的福柯的“自我实践”可以揭示WSDT对女性个体身体的解放作用。然而，要概念化WSDT是否能够集体解放，我们需要超越福柯本质上的个人主义解释。我的计划是建立在Hannah Arendt关于行动、权力和自由的概念之上，重新思考WSDT作为“协同行动”的潜力，也就是说，作为自由的集体实践。我的解释性假设是，阿伦特可以解决福柯对集体行动重要性的忽视，这是许多女权主义者所批评的。福柯对身体的关注既是权力的目标，也是抵抗的场所，反过来，可以修正阿伦特未能将身体概念化为“政治的”。如果WSDT可以被理论化为解放，那么其他历史和当代形式的妇女暴力（例如英国女权主义者对自己和他人的暴力，或者墨西哥无政府主义女权主义团体Bloque Negro对杀害妇女的暴力抗议）也可以通过福卡德-阿伦特的框架来重新考虑。为了开展我的研究，我将首先回顾相关文献，包括（非）暴力的女权主义哲学；关于暴力妇女在公共话语中的表现的研究（例如，Sjoberg & Gentry 2007）；以及妇女行使暴力的经历（例如McCaughey 1997）。我也会接触到阿伦特关于政治行为和暴力的学术研究，以及对福柯的女权主义解读，以推进我最初的解释。接下来，我将构建我的方法和地址，但希望能拒绝潜在的反对意见。最后，我打算进一步发展我的框架，将其应用于广泛的妇女暴力行为，以便(I)确定一套规范标准，以区分可以被视为解放的做法和不能被视为解放的做法，以及（ii）考虑我对妇女暴力的解释的影响。我希望我最初的框架能让女权主义者认识到某些暴力行为对女性的解放潜力，同时加强女权主义者反对其他形式的女性暴力的理由。这样做，我的项目将推进一个创新的和细致入微的女权主义对（非）暴力的描述。

Feminist philosophers have an uneasy relationship with women's use of violence. Most reject violence in principle, while others grudgingly justify it as instrumental to achieving gender justice. My project, however, will examine whether and how women's violence can be considered an intrinsically emancipatory practice, and what this entails for a feminist ethics of (non)violence (FENV).Attempts to ground a FENV on women's allegedly natural or social inclination to 'care' (Gilligan 1982; Noddings 1984) or on the virtues of mothering (Ruddick 1989) have been traditionally criticised as essentialist (Kaplan 1994). Currently, philosophers like Judith Butler and Adriana Cavarero (Butler 2020; Cavarero et.al. 2021) defend a FENV based on human vulnerability. As sophisticated as these accounts might be, they still overlook the emancipatory potential of certain practices of women's violence.My project aims to unpack such a potential by building a Foucauldian-Arendtian philosophical framework. My hypothesis is that we may conceive of women's violence as emancipatory only when it can be understood as both a Foucaldian bodily 'practice of the self' and as a form of Arendtian political action.To appreciate the need for this framework, consider the case of women's self-defence training (WSDT). WSDT is an example of women's engagement with violence deeply valued by its participants but difficult to reconcile with a feminist unqualified commitment to nonviolence. My intuition is that WSDT can be theorised as an example of Michel Foucault's 'practices of the self'-an ethical undertaking wherein individuals reshape their subjectivities by relating to prevailing power structures. Foucault's 'practices of the self', which are overlooked by feminist scholarship, can shed light on the emancipatory effect of WSDT on individual women's bodies. However, to conceptualise whether WSDT can be collectively emancipatory, we need to move beyond Foucault's intrinsically individualist account. My plan is to build on Hannah Arendt's concepts of action, power, and freedom to rethink the potential of WSDT as 'acting in concert', i.e., as a collective exercise of freedom. My interpretative hypothesis is that Arendt can address Foucault's neglect of the importance of collective action, which many feminists criticise. Foucault's focus on the body as both a target of power and a site of resistance, in turn, can amend Arendt's failure to conceptualise the body as 'political'. If WSDT can be theorised as emancipatory, other historical and contemporary forms of women's violence (e.g. British suffragettes' violence against themselves and others, or the anarchic feminist group Bloque Negro's violent protests against femicide in Mexico) might be reconsidered too through a Foucaldian-Arendtian framework.To carry out my research, I will first review the relevant literature, including feminist philosophy of (non)violence; studies of representations of violent women within public discourse (e.g. Sjoberg & Gentry 2007); and of women's experiences with exercising violence (e.g. McCaughey 1997). I will also engage with Arendtian scholarship on political action and violence and with feminist readings of Foucault to advance my original interpretations. Next, I will construct my approach & address but hopefully reject potential objections. Finally, I intend to further develop my framework by applying it to a wide range of practices of women's violence, so as to (i) identify a set of normative criteria to distinguish practices that can be considered emancipatory from those that cannot and (ii) consider the implications of my account for a FENV.My hope is that my original framework will enable feminists to recognise the emancipatory potential that some practices of violence have for women while strengthening the feminist case against other forms of women's violence. In so doing, my project will advance an innovative & nuanced feminist account of (non)violence.