ABSTRACT
In one sense, Foucault is rather fortunate to have attracted the attention he has from feminists, since it is not clear that he has done that much to deserve it. His own engagement with feminist writing is minimal. He has not focused on ‘the woman question’, in the forms in which it has been posed in poststructuralist theory, to anything like the degree that is true of Lacan and Derrida-the two other comparable influences on feminism at the present time. His overall argument, however, encourages as much scepticism as theirs about the theoretical coherence and practical viability of feminist emancipation. At the same time, the hallmark of Foucault’s style of approach is a clinical detachment which has both recommended his work to his followers, but also veils a somewhat less than objective male-centredness of outlook. In this covert androcentricity, then, Foucault arguably reveals himself as peculiarly indifferent, even insensitive to feminist concerns.
