La Jolla RP Kors-lite K Jan/Feb’14

Table of Contents

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2NR Frontlines 4

2NR O/V 4

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a2 no link/not our alt 5

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Foucault’s omission of women in his analysis of power perpetuates patriarchy and dooms the alternative – he also concedes the alternative retrenches the links. Featherstone[1] ‘07

A subtlety exists in Foucault’s examination of power and discipline. On one level, much of his work locates power in the shaping of the body. He considers power as produced through the “disciplined” body of the soldier, the prisoner, the patient, the schoolchild. He does focus on the way power operates on sexed bodies (witnesses his work on the homosexual and the hermaphrodite). In his later work, he acknowledges the effects of power in male/female relations, most directly in “The Subject and Power” where he mentions “the opposition to the power of men over women.” He is aware of gender difference but does not consider the connection between power and gender or the way in which face male sexed body is constrained by power. This indifference e or refusal to engage in a detailed way in the politics of power between the sexes makes an alliance with Foucault problematic and gender or the ways in which female sexed body is constrained by power. In addition, Foucault’s postmodern deconstruction of representation makes any alliance between him and feminism problematic. Cynically, one could suggest that just as subordinated groups define themselves in them of universal “truths,” these ideologies are deconstructed and withdrawn. Once the object becomes subject, the rules of subjectivity are changed. Because men no longer speak for mankind,” women should no longer speak as representatives of unified group. Poststructuralist, class, race and gender are all constructs, and underneath those imposed constraints, we are “Is the same.” This view is remarkably similar to the liberal views the class, gender, and race are ultimately irrelevant, for again, “we are all the same.”While critiscm of feminist movements of the past as exclusively while and middleclass is justified, and while feminism must come to celebrate diversity and even an element of disunity, to negate the category of “woman” altogether could make women’s subordination invisible. As Biddy Martin suggests, Foucault’s challenges could easily render the question of “women’s oppression obsolete.” She also points out though that feminism’s multiplicity, its fragmentation, may well be a more effective response in a society where power is not monolithic or centralized. While Foucault does not deny the concept of “woman” as explicitly as do other poststructuralists such as Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan, his refusal to engage in the politics of gender is a mjor omission. The absence of the category of “woman” offers feminists fewer avenues of resistance (“How can we speak out against sexism as detrimental to the interests of women If the category is a fiction?”) feminists who appropriate Foucauldian theory need to be wary that feminism does not become merely an endless road of deconstructionism offering no suggestions for transformation, but merely a fragmentary commentary on woman as a de-gendered non subject. Similarly, Foucauldian theory ( as with other structuralist and poststructuralist theory) is problematic in that it offers little agent to individual players. It views society in terms of discursive or signifiers, instead of individual agents. Individuals act a s part of a system of power and knowledge, are unable to act with any genuine autonomy: we are bodies “totally imprinted by history,” and “vehicles” constituted through power. Ultimately, this means Foucault provides little hope for transformation or any significant type of social change. When one interviewer asked Foucault what might replace the present system, Foucault replied that to ponder a new system was to remain complicit in the present system, Foucault replied that to ponder a new system was to remain complicit in the present system, and added that destruction, such as that caused by Joseph Stalin, must follow. Foucault emphasized resistance to power over transformation or change. This is fundamentally troublesome for feminists since feminism is an emancipator politic, based in both political activism and theoretical critiscm. Foucault took an almost nihilistic attitude towards notions of emancipation while he claimed his position led, not to “apathy, but to a hyper and pessimist activism.” Though he was personality involved in penal refer, pessimism appears to be dominant response to his work. His idea that power is everywhere, therefore nowhere, leads one to wonder if any hope for resistance exists. As Nancy Hartsock says, “Foucault suggests that if our resistance succeeded, we would simply be changing one discursive identity for another and in the process creates new oppressions.

Her entrenchment of patriarchy is the paradigm for all systems of oppression –turns back all her internal links to biopolitics. Munir[2] ‘02

My study also seeks to understand sexuality as more than a personal issue between two partners. Articles from feminist literature epitomized by the writings of Kate Millet inform this paper, canvassing a perspective that dissects sexual relations as part of the power relationship intrinsic to human society. "Sex is political", claims the second-wave feminist Millet in her book Sexual Politics (1970), because the roots of women's oppression are buried deep in patriarchy's sex/gender system. The male-female relationship is the paradigm for all power relationships, and "unless the clinging to male supremacy as a birthright is finally foregone, all systems of oppression will continue to function" (Millet 1970, p. 25). Because male control of the public and private worlds is what constitutes patriarchy, (4) male control must be eliminated if women are to be liberated. To eliminate male control is no easy task. It must, first of all, eliminate the prevalent gender relations constructed under patriarchy. Patriarchal ideology, according to Millet, exaggerates biological differences between men and women, ensuring that men always play the dominant role and women, the subordinate one. This ideology is particularly powerful because through conditioning, men usually obtain the consent of the very women they oppress. The role of institutions such as the family, the school, and religion is instrumental in sustaining patriarchy. Each of these institutions justifies and reinforces women's subordination to men with the result that most women internalize a sense of inferiority to men. If a woman refuses to accept patriarchal ideology, and if she manifests her mistrust by casting off her submissiveness, men will use coercion to accomplish what conditioning has failed to achieve. Intimidation, observed Millet, is everywhere in patriarchy (Millet 1970, pp. 43-46). Sexuality is a crucial issue in feminism because "aggression and the `need' to dominate form a routine part of what is accepted as (normal) male sexuality" (Coveney et al. 1984, p. 9). Male violence against women is normalized and legitimized in sexual practices through the assumption that when it comes to sex, men are by nature aggressive and dominant, whereas women by nature are passive and submissive. Because male dominance and female submission are the norm in something as fundamental as sexuality, they become the norm in other contexts as well. As most radical feminists see it, women will never be men's full political, economic, and social equals until heterosexual relations are entirely egalitarian--a state of affairs not likely to be achieved so long as women's sexuality is interpreted in terms of men's sexuality. "Sexuality is the locus of male power", argues Catharine MacKinnon (1982, p. 533) because gender, the socially constructed dynamic of male domination and female submission, is rooted in the institution of heterosexuality. Each and every element of female gender stereotype is sexually charged. "Softness", for example, is a gender trait associated with women; it is sexually charged because, as MacKinnon defined it, "softness" is "pregnability by something hard" (p. 570).

Terminal impact’s nuclear holocaust – AND that outweighs case- patriarchy’s at the root of all violence and makes genocide inevitable. Hope[3] ‘82

Why weren't we prepared for this - the imminence of nuclear holocaust. The final silencing of life. The brutal extinction of the planet. Surely there have been substantial clues throughout history. Male supremacy. Wars. Witch-burning. Male religious myths. Institutionalized greed. The enslavement of half the human race. Centuries of violence. Why weren't we prepared for this? We have lived with violence for so long. We have lived under the rule of the fathers so long. Violence and patriarchy: mirror images. An ethic of destruction as normative. Diminished love for life, a numbing to real events as the final consequence. We are not even prepared. Mary Daly, in Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, writes, "The rulers of the patriarchy - males with power - wage an unceasing war against life itself. Since female energy is essentially biophilic, the female spirit/body is the primary target in the perpetual war of aggression against life. Women must understand that the female self is the enemy under fire from the patriarchy." She further writes that "clearly the primary and essential object of aggression is not the opposing military force. The members of the opposing team play the same war games and share the same values. The secret bond that binds the warriors together is the violation of women, acted out physically and constantly replayed on the level of language and shared fantasies." We needn't look far for evidence to support her theory. Recall the U.S. Army basic training jingle: "This is my rifle (slaps rifle). This is my gun (slaps crotch). One is for killing, the other for fun." The language of war is the language of genocide. Misogynist obscenities are used to train fighters and intensify feelings of violence. War provides men with a context to act their hatred of women without the veneer of chivalry or civilization. War is rape. In the male world of war, toughness is the most highly-prized virtue. Some even speak of the "hairy chest syndrome." The man who recommends violence does not endanger his reputation for wisdom, but a man who suggests negotiation becomes known as soft, as willing to settle for less. To be repelled by mass murder is to be irresponsible. It is to refuse the phallic celebration. It is to be feminine, to be a dove. It means walking out of the club of bureaucratic machismo. To be a specialist in the new violence is to be on the frontier.

2NR Frontlines

2NR O/V

A. The aff refusal to identify the unique nature of biopolitical control of women as well as their alternative’s rejection of identity politics is tantamount to complicity in patriarchy –that’s Munir 02- their deconstruction hides women’s subordination and allowing the worst forms of oppression to continue – the impact’s genocide and extinction – that’s Hope ’82- and case outweighs- her impacts pale in comparison to systemic patriarchy that will wipe out all life on earth

B. The key argument is that the aff makes it worse – Foucault himself suggests that the alt would just allow another discursive identity to take power – that’s Featherstone 07– this means that even if there’s risk of a link, negating is still net less biopolitical because it precludes a worse actor from wrenching power from resistance movements while still providing women with some agency.

Link Extension Ev

Foucault’s focus on the masculine gender denies women power to resist power – rape becomes justified in an attempt to present objective relationships of power. Johnson[4] ‘04

Some feminist scholars criticize Foucault’s theories for their lack of agency, their focus on masculine gender, and their failure to provide specific approaches of active resistance to subjugating powers. Jana Sawicki examined these concerns in her analyses

of Foucault in “Foucault, Feminism, and Questions of Identity,” “Identity Politics an Sexual Freedom: Foucault and Feminism,” and Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power, and the Body. In her analyses, Sawicki describes feminist criticism aimed at Foucault’s rejection of “universal theories of history.” These foundational theories are fundamental to feminist research since many feminists use these theories in attempts to transform

women’s epistemic positions in domains that otherwise excluded them (296; Butler; Harding; Haraway; Hartsock). Of particular concern to some feminists are Foucault’s questions about the complicity of individuals in their own subjugation (296). As Sawicki examines the feminist positions related to Foucault’s work, she emphasizes the importance of the questions his work brings forward for discussion. Sawicki notes Foucault calls the concept of subjectivity into question, resulting in enlightened debate

between feminist standpoint theorists and post-humanist feminists. Feminist standpoint theorists (Nancy C. M. Hartsock, Sandra Harding, Patricia Hill Collins, Dorothy E. Smith) draw on universal histories of economics, science, and

politics to uncover, identify, and redefine women as subjects capable of resisting patriarchal systems of domination and definition. Frances Bartkowski questions Foucault’s limited treatment of resistance in relation to power, noting that Foucault’s definition of power is created and derives its substance through its opposition to

resistance (44-45). Resistance is particularly present in the act of confession, yet, as Bartkowski notes, controlling institutional practices work to suppress confessional

discourses that actually “shore up” the practices themselves (45). Further, Biddy Martin notes Foucault’s warning that when we examine any confessional situation and explore

its relationship to Western institutional forms of power, we examine the ways in which truth is produced and the influence of power on its production (13-14). Moreover, as Winifred Woodhull argues, using Foucault’s theories concerning sexuality, resistance, and female sexuality “is bound up with economic and political structures, language and philosophy, the world of work and the world of play” (169). Foucault believed that sexuality was socially constructed and that resistance must begin by a “desexualization” of the categories identifying individuals by their sexuality, such as “woman,” homosexual,” or “lesbian” (169). Foucault even went so far as to offer that “rape” should be “decriminalized” and turned into a civil offense; he saw this as a form of

resistance, identifying rape as a “crime of power, not of sex” (169-170). And, indeed, when women turn to the state for protection from rape, they turn to the very institution that produces the social and cultural ideologies that underlie their vulnerability to the act