Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice by Clare Chambers Page A

is sus- ceptible to some extent to the economic rules of capitalism (or the prevailing economic order). Some fields are more autonomous in this regard than others, but Bourdieu follows Marx in believing that the economic order invades all fields and is partly responsible for their structure. 35 Second, a field contains the rules that pertain to it specifi- cally. Thus the academic field, for example, is influenced by material concerns, but also places value on other forms of capital such as tenure and publications. Third, each field contains and enforces a set of gen- der rules: norms about the appropriate behavior of the sexes within that field. These gender rules may merely be those that are common to many other fields (general appearance norms, for example), or they may be specific to that field (for example, formal or informal rules concerning which tasks in a factory should be performed by which gender). As with economic rules, some fields may be more autono-
Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, 4.
Lovell, ‘‘Thinking Feminism,’’ 22.
Bourdieu is highly critical of other aspects of Marx’s work, such as Marx’s failure to separate theoretical classes from actual classes ( Practical Reason, 11), his focus on conscious- ness ( Pascalian Meditations, 172), and his account of ideology ( Pascalian Meditations, 177).

    mous from gender rules than others, but all fields embody some gen- der rules, and some gender rules apply in all fields. The gendered habi- tus thus develops in response to all fields, as gender norms are enforced in comparable if not identical ways across all fields.
    Although Bourdieu does not make this argument in the specific form in which I present it here, I propose that it is the best way to combine his analysis of gender with his argument that habitus devel- ops in response to field. Moreover, this analysis sits happily with many feminist accounts, not least because it implies, as Bourdieu points out, that ‘‘a vast field of action is opened up for feminist struggles, which are thus called upon to take a distinctive and decisive place within political struggles against all forms of domination.’’ 36 In other words, the possibility of change is introduced.

    Change

    In Chapter 1, I argued that a Foucauldian perspective on social con- struction raises problems for the liberal notion that individual auton- omy can best be guaranteed by noninterference. However, this point is made so effectively in parts of Foucault’s work that it calls into question the very possibility of autonomous action, and undermines the grounds for normative judgment. Bourdieu explicitly attempts to theo- rize a combination of social influence and individual autonomy, and thus to avoid the implication of determinism that sometimes limits Foucault’s work. However, although Bourdieu intends to make room for human agency, his emphasis tends to be on the social constraints that almost determine individuals, rather than on the opportunities for resistance, autonomy, or freedom (terms which do not sit easily with his approach).
    Lois McNay suggests that the very value of Bourdieu’s work is that it demonstrates the difficulty of change: it ‘‘provides a corrective to certain theories of reflexive transformation which overestimate the extent to which individuals living in posttraditional order are able to reshape identity.’’ 37 The concept of habitus draws our attention to the ways in which norms are imprinted on our bodies, so that it will take more
Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, 4; emphasis in the original.
McNay, ‘‘Gender, Habitus and the Field,’’ 113.

    than a simple act of will or a consciousness-raising class for us to resist or alter them. Change, then, is difficult. The key question for feminists is whether or not Bourdieu’s approach in particular, and the idea of social construction in general, gives any chance for change.
    In line with McNay’s argument, no reader of Masculine Domination could get