Summary
Contents
Subject index
Recent debates in contemporary feminist theory have been dominated by the relation between identity and politics. Beyond Identity Politics examines the implications of recent theorizing on difference, identity and subjectivity for theories of patriarchy and feminist politics. Organised around the three central themes of subjectivity, power and politics, this book focuses on a question which feminists struggled with and were divided by throughout the last decade, that is: how to theorize the relation between the subject and politics. In this thoughtful engagement with these debates Moya Lloyd argues that the turn to the subject in process does not entail the demise of feminist politics as many feminists have argued. She demonstrates how key ideas such as agency, power and domination take on a new shape as a consequence of this radical rethinking of the subject-politics relation and how the role of feminist political theory becomes centred upon critique.A resource for feminist theorists, women's and gender studies students, as well as political and social theorists, this is a carefully composed and wide-ranging text, which provides important insights into one of contemporary feminism's most central concerns.
Power and Domination
Power and Domination
Resistance to power is resistance to specific strategies by which power relations are patterned. Gendered power relations are specifically organized according to the interplay among the traditional discourses which have controlled women's bodies. (Faith, 1994: 58)
Not always sure whether to castigate it or to desire it, feminism's attitude towards power has been an ambivalent one. Liberal feminists keen to acquire equality with men argued for a share of men's power, seeing this as the route out of sex discrimination. Radical feminists and some materialist feminists, by contrast, saw male power as domination, the power over things or other human beings that had resulted historically in the subordination of women. They argued for its repudiation and overthrow. Rejecting a virile, masculinist ...
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