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

女权主义哲学家与妇女使用暴力的关系令人不安。大多数人原则上反对暴力，而另一些人则勉强将其解释为有助于实现性别公正。然而，我的项目将研究妇女的暴力是否以及如何被视为一种内在的解放实践，以及这对（非）暴力的女权主义伦理（FENV）意味着什么。（Gilligan 1982; Noddings 1984）或母亲的美德（Ruddick 1989）传统上被批评为本质主义（Kaplan 1994）。目前，像Judith Butler和Adriana Cavarero（Butler 2020; Cavarero et. al. 2021）这样的哲学家为基于人类脆弱性的FENV辩护。尽管这些说法可能很复杂，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-阿伦德哲学框架来挖掘这种潜力。我的假设是，我们可以设想妇女的暴力作为解放只有当它可以被理解为一个福柯的身体"自我的实践"，并作为一种形式的阿伦特的政治行动。WSDT是妇女参与暴力的一个例子，深受其参与者的重视，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-一项道德事业，其中个人通过与主流权力结构相关来重塑他们的主体性。福柯的“自我实践”，这是被女性主义学者所忽视的，可以揭示WSDT对女性个体身体的解放作用。然而，要概念化WSDT是否可以集体解放，我们需要超越福柯的内在个人主义的帐户。我的计划是在汉娜·阿伦特的行动、权力和自由概念的基础上，重新思考WSDT作为"协同行动"的潜力，即，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，可以修正阿伦特将身体概念化为“政治”的失败。如果WSDT可以理论化为解放，其他历史和当代形式的妇女暴力（例如英国妇女参政者对自己和他人的暴力，或无政府主义女权主义团体黑人对墨西哥杀害妇女的暴力抗议）也可以通过福柯-阿伦的框架来重新考虑。为了进行我的研究，我将首先回顾相关文献，包括女性主义的（非）暴力哲学;对暴力妇女在公共话语中的表现进行研究（例如，Sjoberg & Gentry，2007年）;以及对妇女行使暴力的经历进行研究（例如，McCaughey，1997年）。我还将参与阿伦特关于政治行动和暴力的学术研究，以及福柯的女权主义解读，以推进我的原始解释。接下来，我将构建我的方法和地址，但希望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（一）确定一套规范性标准，以区分哪些做法可以被视为解放性做法，哪些做法不能被视为解放性做法，以及（二）我希望我最初的框架能使女权主义者认识到，一些女权主义者的做法，在加强女权主义者反对其他形式的妇女暴力的同时，在这样做的过程中，我的项目将推进一个创新和细致入微的女权主义者对（非）暴力的解释。

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.