So wrote the editors of Analyzing Gender . He has also found his way into more popular feminist works, such as those of Judith Butler. Foucault s main influence came in the initial stages of radical feminist theory in the late 60s and early 70s. Foucault s specialty was the interpretation and meaning of language and, for decades, radical feminism has stressed language as a source of the oppression of women. Sometimes language is considered to be the source.
History becomes herstory.
Words are deemed to be so powerful that syllables are acts in and of themselves. Indeed, to eliminate such words, radical feminists have been willing to damage other causes near to their hearts. Consider the 1992 Butler decision by which the Supreme Court of Canada wrote a radical feminist definition of obscenity into Canadian law. Vigorously championed by most feminists in Canada and the US, the Butler decision allows Canadian customs to seize what it judges to be pornography at the border as the material is being imported. Yet radical feminists and many lesbian activists continued to defend the Butler decision.