Moreover, slashing woman with lesbian makes an intervention into queer culture as well, by questioning the omnipresence of white male bodies in gay representation, and the invisiblity of females. Spivak argues that in theory the critical is associated with the private, and the dogmatic is associated with the public. Spivak argues that to understand power without force is to misread Foucault, and more to the point, it is to miss his most trenchant insights. This is one of the most lasting critiques of Foucault's early methodology, and ironically, it is the position now taken up by those who celebrate Foucault as a pragmatic thinker. So as not to repeat the mistakes made by Foucault himself, Spivak suggests a new way of reading History of Sexuality.
Repression is neither a positive nor a negative thing.
His co-workers do not know he is gay, nor do they know the status of his illness. Then consider another person, who is out of the closet, and also has AIDS, someone who was fired from his job due to his disclosure of his sexual orientation. Both of these positions involve pain, struggle, and positive reward to some degree. The ethical discussions of abortion constitute another example of this conundrum. A woman, pressured by her state's outlawing of abortion, or by religious beliefs, may choose not to abort a fetus, and thereby have a relationship to mothering .