Luce Irigaray classically challenges what she takes to be the masculine foundations
of knowledge in Western liberal culture. The present article contends not only that
this epistemological challenge implicates a radical feminist politics, but that it
is also more helpful in formulating a multicultural feminist theory than is
often acknowledged by her readers. This is because her account responds to the false
neutrality of liberal feminist approaches to multiculturalism. It does so by
supporting, at the socio-political level, transformative genealogical practices that
are aimed at fostering women's agency in culturally sensitive ways.
However, Irigaray's recent work on multiculturalism does not sustain the
necessary continuity between her core epistemological critique and her political
claims. In particular, the continuity between her criticism of the West's
sexual indifference and the cultural multiplicity of female identity becomes
problematic in her recent work. The author finally contends that
Irigaray's writings pose difficulties for a multicultural feminism,
because they fail to specify the different forms of policy necessary to promote
diverse women's equality in the postcolonial contexts on which she
recently focuses.