Gender (still) Matters: A Genealogy of Feminist Subjectivities

This essay retraces the intense debate within feminist criticism on the contested concepts of subject and self—and how these are related to the themes of writing and identity—in order to demonstrate that the notion of gender is still important. The names that form my genealogy are those of some 1980s and 1990s feminist critics: Adrienne Rich, Nancy K. Miller, Peggy Kamuf, Chandra T. Mohanty, Gloria Anzaldúa, Monique Wittig, Donna Haraway, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Elaine K. Chang, Rosi Braidotti, Teresa de Lauretis, and Susan Stanford Friedman. They are some of the critics that have warned us against the danger and limitations of resorting to the notion of a pre-given, essential female self, while stating that the concepts of a self and of a collective identity, although problematized, are still necessary. Feminist critics have maintained gender as the common denominator of a self enriched and differentiated by the intersection of categories such as race, class, age, religion, culture, and sexual orientation.