ABSTRACT
As Ellen Feder, Mary Rawlinson and Emily Zakin make clear in their Derrida and Feminism; Recasting the Question of Woman, the editors 'took a gamble' by focusing on Derrida. This enables some feminists to connect 'a discussion of performativity in Judith Butler and Derrida's work'. Tina Chanter similarly uses the metaphor of interruption to thematise Derrida's and her own method. Chanter thus suggests disrupting an opposition which has been constructed between feminism and deconstruction, and indeed an opposition between queer theory and deconstruction. This chapter turns to an analysis of the Feder et al volume of essays on Derrida and feminism, so as to foreground the precise genealogy of this problematic of deconstruction and feminism. It begins with reference to Jane Gallop's important essay on the differences between what she terms 'seventies feminism' and 'nineties feminism'. As Gallop observes, 'seventies feminism envisioned a singular unity which could be collectivised under the name of woman'.
