ABSTRACT
The critique in deconstruction, the most serious critique in deconstruction, is the critique of something that is extremely useful, something without which we cannot do anything. The classical association of femininity with materiality can be traced to a set of etymologies which link matter with mater and matrix and, hence, with a problematic of reproduction. The classical configuration of matter as a site of generation or origination becomes especially significant when the account of what an object is and means requires recourse to its originating principle. The regulation of sexuality at work in the articulation of the forms suggests that sexual difference operates in the very formulation of matter. But this is a matter that is defined not only against reason, where reason is understood as that which acts on and through a countervailing materiality, and masculine and feminine occupy these oppositional positions.
