New French Feminism and Motherhood

New French Feminism refers to a movement that emerged during and after the student revolt of 1968, in distinction to the older feminism represented by individuals such as Simone de Beauvoir. New French Feminism is heavily influenced by psychoanalysis, poststructuralist thought, and Marxism, and many theorists within it question the emphasis place by the earlier feminist movement on social equality. The early New French Feminists were particularly interested in how language functions as a symbolic system that privileges men, and sought ways to subvert the conventions of what they considered to be patriarchal language. For instance, in The Laugh of the Medusa (1975), Hélène Cixous argues that conventional thought and language requires that women be treated as the Other in relation to man, and that ...