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Janice Richardson, "Jamming the Machines? "Woman" in the Work of Irigaray And Deleuze", Law and Critique IX/1 (1998), 89-115: This paper addresses the question: "What is at stake in the different approaches of Irigaray and Deleuze over the meaning of 'woman'"? It considers the relationship between theory and practice to examine how both view their theoretical interventions in terms of political struggle, which challenge traditional conceptions of "the political". Both have been influenced by the events of May '68 and the rejection of a model in which "theory" is to dictate "practice". This is mirrored by the way in which each re-evaluates "the body".

However, there are important differences in the way Deleuze and Irigaray envisage the relationship between self/other. These are explored by considering the way in which each draws upon the work of Spinoza. Whereas Deleuze conceives self/other in terms of flow, Irigaray opens up the possibility of both being with and being apart from the other Further, Deleuze's use of "woman" as a trope for "deterritorialisation" is problematic in that it fits easily within many myths of origin of the state, in which women are constructed as being unable to protect their boundaries, both of the body and of the body politic.

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