ABSTRACT
Since the publication of Speculum of the Other Woman, Luce Irigaray has founded some of what can be thought of as the central claims of poststructuralist French feminism. Irigaray was born in Belgium in 1932 and holds doctoral degrees in Philosophy and Linguistics; she also trained as a psychoanalyst. Irigaray’s work has gained prominence in organization studies and attention has tended to focus on the organization of sexual difference brought out in her work, rather than on its psychoanalytical tenets. In response to criticisms of biological essentialism, it is often argued that Irigaray engages in what has been termed ‘strategic essentialism’. For organizations, replete with relationships of domination and subordination, Irigaray provides a theoretical perspective that examines who has claims to knowledge or legitimate voice, and the social/discursive relations which sustain these intersections. The concepts of proximity and amorous exchange are central in Irigaray’s texts which constitute a rethinking of ethics, as embodied ethics.
