Seeing Double ? or,Why 'To Be or Not To Be' Is (Not) the Question for Feminist Legal Studies

In this paper I explore the relation between feminism, deconstruction and ethical lawyering. It is argued, first, that a certain feminist critique of 'essentialism' points to the practical inevitability of the need to endorse categories of gender, etc. but, second, that a knowledge of the inherent deconstructability of these categories means that their use should be strategic; that is, as a mechanism through which to illuminate the beyondness which such categorization depends on. The paper then proceeds to con sider the application of this philosophical position to law and legal strategies. Here the argument is that prior versions of deconstructive feminist attempts to provide legal strategy blueprints re-essentialize their philosophical insights and, in so doing, concede too much to law's 'essential' intractability, as a consequence replacing ethical judgment with dogmatic insistence (in this instance, in response to the question whether or not, as legal strategy, to 'be or not to be'). The paper concludes with a dis cussion of how it might be possible to move 'beyond' this impasse.