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Strategic Essentialism

Chapter · April 2016

DOI: 10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss554

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Strategic Essentialism
ELISABETH EIDE
Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway
In postcolonial and feminist studies “strate-
gic essentialism” has long been a disputed
concept in connection with both feminism
and minority representation. The same holds
for essentialism; or as Fuss (1990) claims, we
need to speak about “essentialisms.” At some
occasions, Gayatri Spivak, who is said to have
introduced the phrase (Spivak 1988, 1996),
has been regarded as being representative
of “Third World Women,” as if this was an
easily apprehensible category, or as if billions
of women share an essence of sorts. This
way of grouping together people from vast
areas with a diversity of experiences, still
often occurs in public sphere representations.
Modern history, not least with its patriarchal
and colonialist discourses, is full of related
examples.
Essentialism is the assumption that groups,
categories, or classes of objects have one
or several defining features exclusive to all
members of that category (Ashcroft, Grif-
fiths, and Tiffin 1998). Essentialist studies
of race or gender have promoted binaries
of superiority or inferiority, of the colonial
subject or women as inferior, and such dis-
courses were vital for the perseverance of
patriarchal and colonial hegemony. This
hegemony practiced oppression by assigning
the role of subaltern to its subjects, whose
identity became their difference. Essentialism
simplifies and reduces human identity, which
is more justly seen as multifaceted (see, for
example, Maalouf 2000). Assuming a certain
“nature” of one group of human beings, be
it through ethnification, culturalization, or
sexism, is strongly related to essentialism.
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss554
Categorization of women in general – as
Simone de Beauvoir has also eloquently docu-
mented – as the “second sex” entails granting
more diversity to the “first sex” while at
least to a degree depriving the members of
the “other” sex of their individualities and
abilities to transcend their assigned places in
society, and she recommends radical strate-
gies for overcoming this otherness. On the
other hand, throughout history, women’s
organizations have at times emphasized a
female essence, such as, for example, nur-
turing and caring abilities while demanding
parental leave or specific work protection,
in their struggle for human rights and rep-
resentation. Thus, a struggle for equal rights
and to escape the “other” position, may at
times conflict with demands for special rights
for women in need. In addition, minorities
within the “women” category (lesbians, trans-
sexuals, ethnic and religious minorities) may
feel estranged by majority discourses and
priorities.
Gayatri Spivak discusses the experiences of
the Subaltern Studies Group, whose aim it is
to rewrite the history of India with a perspec-
tive from below (subaltern), deconstructing
the imperial version. She reads their work as
“a strategic use of positivist essentialism in a
scrupulously visible political interest” (Spivak
1996, 214). She compares the application
of strategic essentialism to deconstruction,
arguing that although she uses deconstruc-
tion, it does not make her a deconstructivist.
A reasonable interpretation is that strategic
here can be read as pragmatic, since Spivak
sees this essentialism as having little to do
with theory, it rather defines a certain politi-
cal practice: “I think we have to choose again
strategically, not universal discourse, but
essentialist discourse … In fact I must say I
am an essentialist from time to time” (Grosz
 2 STR AT E G IC ES SE N T IA L I SM
1984). An illustrative example is that we
may imagine fighting for more visibility for
women artists in concrete cultural-political
situations, but simultaneously be fiercely
opposed to notions such as “women litera-
ture,” “girl bands,” and so on. These examples
clearly demonstrate the dilemmas inherent
in promoting certain group rights, although
often justified and necessary.
Spivak, while stating that she is at times
an essentialist, warns against the application
of the concept, as other theorists also do,
since strategic essentialism may encourage
the survival of frozen identities and deepen
differences. In the same interview with Grosz,
Spivak urges the “need to take a stand against
the discourses of essentialism … but strategi-
cally we cannot. Even as we talk about feminist
practice, or privileging practice over theory,
we are universalizing – not only generalizing
but universalizing.” She recommends being
“vigilant about our own practice and use it as
much as we can rather than make the totally
counterproductive gesture of repudiating it”
(Grosz 1984).
Strategic essentialism may thus be seen as a
political strategy whereby differences (within
a group) are temporarily downplayed and
unity assumed for the sake of achieving polit-
ical goals. In political practice, its usage in
opposing and fighting against gender oppres-
sion is recommended, be it for judicial or
social rights; but so is opposing and fighting
against theories and discourses that imprison
groups within unifying categories, which
are by necessity narrowing. Strategic essen-
tialism may help bringing down oppressive
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structures and diminish suffering, but should
not be allowed to affect world views and
encourage reductive views against the human
dignity. Thus “the ideal that we may have
to ‘take the risk of essence’ in order to have
any political purchase remains an impor-
tant theme in feminist theory and politics”
(Phillips 2010). On the other hand strategic
essentialism is theoretically unviable.
Essentialism may be used to subjugate or
liberate, but strategic essentialism ought to be
seen as a temporary political strategy and not
as a universalizing theory or as a universal
way of conducting political struggle.
SEE ALSO: Essentialism; Feminism,
Postcolonial; Gender Analysis
REFERENCES
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tif-
fin. 1998. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies.
London: Routledge.
Fuss, Diana. 1990. Essentially Speaking: Feminism,
Nature & Difference. London: Routledge.
Grosz, Elizabeth. 1984. “Criticism, Feminism and
The Institution” [interview with Gayatri Spivak].
Thesis Eleven, 10(11): 184.
Maalouf, Amin. 2000. On Identity. London: Harvill
Press.
Phillips, Anne. 2010. “What’s Wrong with Essen-
tialism?” Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of
Social Theory, 11(1): 47–60.
Spivak, Gayatri. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture,
edited by Larry Grossberg and Cary Nelson,
66–111. Houndmills: Macmillan.
Spivak, Gayatri. 1996. “Subaltern Studies: Decon-
structing Historiography?” In The Spivak
Reader, edited by Donna Landry and Gerald
MacLean, 203–237. London: Routledge.