Materialist and queer feminism in France: Politics of Counter-Hegemony

Abstract

This article questions the relationship between materialist feminism and queer movement in France. It addresses the pluralization of feminist emancipation in France since the mid-1990s in light of the conflict between materialist and queer feminisms, which started as the queer theory was developed in France in the nineties. The starting point is the hypothesis that the link between these two political theoretic discourses is possible since it actually takes places in the current “queer-feminist” movement’s activist practices. The article argues that this combination is meaningful and deserves to be better theorized because it carries with it a radical message of inclusiveness. The alliance of the two approaches questions the definition of the feminist subject, and especially the formulation of a political unity that is not essentialist. The article analyses the extent to which the counter-hegemonic approach provides with tools to answer this issue.