CHAPTEA 6 THE QUESRONOF CUlfLlRAC IDENTlTY 281
2 THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF THE
MODERN SUBJECT
Inthis section I shall outline the account offered by some contemporary
theorists of the main shifts that have occurred in the way the subject
and identity are conceptualized in modern thought. My aim is to trace
the stages through which a particular version of 'the human subject' -
with certain b e d human capacities and a stable sense af its own
identity and place in the order of things-fist emerged in the modern
age; how it became 'centred" the discourses and practices which
shaped modern societies;haw it acquired a mere sociological or
interactive dehition; and how it is being 'de-centred' in late-modernity.
The main focus of this sectian is conceptual. It is concerned with
changing conceptions ofthehuman subject as a discursivefigme,
whose unified form and rational identity, I shdl argue, were
presupposed by, and essential to, both the discourses of modern thought
and the processes which shaped modernity.
To by to map the history of the notion of the modern subject is an
exceedingly difficult exercise. The idea that identities were fully unified
and coherent, and have now become totally dislocated, is a highly
simplistic way of telling the story of the modern subject, and I adept it
here as a device entirely for the purpose of convenient expositio?. Even
those who hold braad1y to the nation of a de-centring of identity would
not subscribeto it in this simplsed form, and you should bear this
qualification in mind as you read this section. However, this simple
formulation daes have tbe advantage of enabling me (in the brief space
of t h i s chapter] to sketch a n u d e picture of how, according to the
proponents of the de-cen~ngview, the conceptualization of the modern
subject has shifted at three strategic points during modernity, These
shifts underline the basic claim that conceptualizations of the subject
change, and therefore have a history. Sincethe modern subject emerged
at a particular time (its 'birth')and has a history, it follows that it can
dso change and, indeed, that under certain circumstances we can even
contemplate its 'deathF.
It is now a commonplace that the modern age gave rise to a new and
decisive form of individualism,at the cenhe of which stood a new
conception of the individual subject and its identity. This daes not
mean that people were not individuals in pre-modern times, but that
individuality was both 'lived', 'experienced'and 'conceptualized'
differently.The transformations(discussedin earlier volumes in this
serfes) which ushered in modernity, tore the individual free from its
stable moorings in baditions and smctures. Since these were believed
to be divinely ordained, they were held not to be subjectto fundamental
change. One's status, rank and position in the "eat chain of being' -
the secular and divine order of dings -overshadowed any sense that
one was a sovereignindividual. The birth of the 'sovereignindividual'
between the Renaissance humanism of the sixseenth century and the
282 MODERNITYAND TTS FUIURES
Enlightenment.of the eighteenth century representeda significant break
with the past. Some argue that it was the engine which set the whole
social system of ' m o d e m ' in motion.
Raymond Williams notes that the modern history of the individual
subject brings together two distinct meanings: on the ane hand, the
subject is 'indivisible' -an entity which is d e d within itself and
cannot be further divided on the other, it is also an entity which is
'singular, distinctive,unique' (see Williams, 1976, pp.133-5:
m n ? n u ~ ~ ) .Many major movements in Western thought and cdtuse
contributed to the emergence of this new conception: The Reformation
and Protestantism, which set the individud conscience h e from the
religious institutions of the Church and exposed it directly to the eye of
God; Renaissance humanism,which placed Man [sic)at the centre of
the universe;the scienfic revolutiens, which endowed Man with the
f a d t y and capacities to inquire into, investigate and unravel the
mysteries of Nature; and the Enlightenment, centred on the image of
rational, scientific Man, freed fiom dogma and intolerance,before
whom the whole of human history was laid out for understandingand
mastery.
Much of the history of Western philosophy consists of reflections on, or
rebements of, this conception of the subject,its powers and capacities.
One major figure who gave t h i s conception its primary f o d a t i o n was
the French philosopher, Ren6 Descartes (1596-1650).Sometimesseen as
'the father of modem philosophy', Descartes was a mathematician and
scientist, the faunder of analytic geometry and optics, and deeply
iduenced by the knew science' of the seventeenth century. He was
a c t e d by that profound doubt which followed the displacement of
God from the centre of the universe; and the fact that the modern
subject was 'born' amidst metaphysical doubt and scepticism reminds
us that it was never as settled and unified as this way of describing it
suggests (see Forester, 1987).Descaetes settled accounts with God by
making him the Prime Mover of all creation;thereafter he explained the
rest of the material world entirely in mechanical and mathematical
terms.
Desca&s postulated two distinct substances -spatial substance
[matter)and thinkingsubstance (mind).He thus re-focused that great
dualism between 'mind' and "matter' which has troubled Western
philosophy ever since. Things must be explained, be believed, by
reducing them to their essentials -the fewest possible, ultimately,
irreducible elements. At the centre of 'mind' he placed the individual
'
subject, constituted by its capacity to reason and think. 'Cogito, ergo
sum' was Descartes~wchword:'I think,therefore I am'(my emphasis],
Ever since, this conception of the rational, cogitative and conscious
subject at the centre of howledge has been k n o w n as "e Cartesian
subject'.
Another critical contributionwas made by John Locke who,inhis Essay
Concerning Human Understanding, defined the individual in terms of
'the sameness of a rational being' -that is, an identity which remained
CHAPTER8 THE QUESTIONOF CULTURAL IQEW.STTPI 283
the same and which was continuous with its subject: 'as fax as this
consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought,
so far reaches the identity of that person' (Locke,1967,pp,212-13). This
conceptual f i p e or discursive device -the 'sovereign individual"
was embedded in each of the key processes and practices which made
the modern world. He [sic]was the 'subject' of modernity in two senses:
the origin or 'subject' of reason, knowledge, and practice; and the one
who bore the consequences of these practices -who was 'subjected to'
them (seeFoucault, 1986: also Penguin Dictionary ofSociology:
SUBJECT.)
Some have questioned whether capitalism actualIy required a
conception of sovereign individuds of this kind [Abercrombie et a].,
1986). Nevertheless, the rise of a more individualist conception of the
subject is widely accepted. Raymond Williams summarizes this
embedding of the modern subject in thepractices and discourses of
modernity in the follo.cvingpassage:
The emergence of notions of individuality,in the modern sense,
can be related to the break-up of the medieval socid, econoac
and religious order. In the general movement against feudalism
there was a new stress on a man's personal existence over and
above his place or function in a rigid hierarchica1 society. There
was a related stress, in Protestantism, on a man's direct and
individuaI relation to God, as opposed to this relation mediated by
the Church. But it was not until the Iate seventeenthand
eighteenth cenhrries that a new mode of analysis,in logic and
mathematics, postulated the individual as the substantial entity (cf.
Leibniz's "onads'), horn which other categoriesand especially
collective categories were derived. The political thought of the
Enlightenment mainly followed this model, Argument began fiom
individuals, who had an initial and primary existence, and laws
and f o m of society were derived from them: by submission, as in
Hobbes; by contract or consent, or by the new version of natural
law, in liberal thought. In classical economics,bade was described
in a model which postulated separate individuals who [possessed
property and]decided, at same starting point, to enter into
economic or commercial relations. In utilitarian ethics, separate
individuals calculated the consequences of this or that action
which they might undedake.
(MJilliams, 1976, pp.135-61
It was justpossible inthe eighteenthcentury to imagine the great
processes of modern life as centred upon the individual subject-of-
reason. But as modern societies grew more complex,they acquired a
more c6llectiveand social form,Classic liberal theories ef government
based on individuaI rights and consent were obliged to cone to terms
with the slmctures of the nation-state and the great masses which make
up a modem democracy. The classic laws of politicd economy,
property, contract and exchange had to operate,after industrialization,
284 MODERNITYAND KS FUTURES
amidst the great class formations of modern capitalism. The individual
enbepreneur of Adam Smith's Wealth of Notions or even of Marx's
Capitol was tmnsformed into the corporate conglomerates of the
modern economy. The individual citizen became enmeshed in the
bureaucratic adminisbativemachineries of the modern state.
A more social conception of the subject then emerged. The individual
came to be seen as more located and 'placed' within these great
supporting structures and formations of modem society. Two major
developments contributed to articulating a broader set of conceptual
foundations for the modern subject.The first was Darwinian biology
The human subject was 'biologized' -reason was given a basis in
Nature, and mind a 'ground' in the physical development of the human
brain.
The second development emerged with the rise af new social sciences,
However, the transformations which this set in motion were uneven.
These were:
1 The 'sovereign individual', with 'his%ants, needs, desires and
interestsremained the pivotal figure in the discourses of both modern
economics and the law.
2 The dualism typical of Cartesian thought was institutionalized in the
split in the social sciences between psychology and the ether
disciplines. The study of the individual and its mental processes
became psychology's special and privileged object of study.
3 SocSology,however, provided a critique of the 'rational
individualism' of the Cartesian subject. It located the individual in
group processes and the collective norms which, it argued, underpin
any contract between individual subjects.It therefore developed an
alternative account of how individuals are formed subjectivelythrough
their membership of, and participation in, wider socialrelationships:
and, canversely, how processes and s h c t u r e s are sustainedby the roles
which individuals play in them.This 'internalizing' of the outside in
the subject, and 'externalizing' of the inside through action in the social
world (as discussed earlier], is the primary sociological account of the
modern subject,and is encapsulated in the theory of socialization.As
was noted above, G.K. Mead and the symbolic interactionists adopted a
radically interactive view of this process.The integration of the
individual into society has been a long-term concern of sociology.
Theorists like Gofhan were highly attentive to the way 'the selfys
presented in different social situations, and how codicts bbtween thesc
different social roles are negotiated. At a more macro-sociological level,
Parsons studied the 'fit' or complementarity between 'the self"and the '
social system. Nevertheless, some criticswould claim that mainsbeam
sociology has retained something of Descartesjdualism, especially in its
tendency to constructthe problem as a relation between two connected,
but separate, entities:here, 'the individual and society'.
This interactive sociological model, with its stable ~eciprocitybetween
'inside' and 'outside', is very much a product of the fist half of the
CHAFER 5 THE QUESTION OF CULfllRALIDEFFnrY
-
285
twentieth century' when the social sciences assumed their current
disciplinary fom. However, in, the very same periad, a more disturbed
and disturbing picture of the subject and identity was beginning to
emerge in the aesthetic and intellectual movements associated with
the rise of Modernism (see Book 3 (Bocock and Thompson, 19921,
Chapter 91.
Here we h d the figure of the isolated, exiled or esbmged individual,
framed against the background of the anonymous and impersonal crowd
or rnebopolis, Examples include the poet Eaudelaife's famous portrait
of the 'Painter of Modern Life" who sets up his house 'in the heart of
the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of motion, in the midst of the
fugitive and the W t e ' and who "becomes one flesh with the crowd',
enters into the crowd 'as though it were an immense reservoir af
elechjcal energy'; the floneur (or 'idle stroller'), who wanders amid the
new shopping arcades watching the passing spectacle of the metropolis,
whom Walter Benjamin celebrated in his essay an Baudelaire's Paris,
and whose counterpart in late-modernity is probably thetourist (cf.
Urry, 1990);'K', the anonymousvictim conhonted by a faceless
bureaucracy in Kafka's novel, The Eal; and that host of estranged
figures in twentieth century literature and sacia1criticism who are
meant to represent the unique experience of modernity. Several such
%exemplaryinstances of modernity', as Fdsby calls them, people the
pages of major turn-of-the-century social theorists like George Simmel,
Alfred Schutz and Siegbied Kracauer [all of whom hied to capture the
essential features of modernity in famous essays on The Strangerkr
'Outsider') (seeAisby, 1985, p.109).These images proved prophetic of
what was to befall the Cartesian and sociological subjectsin late-
modernity.
2.1 DE-CENTRINGTHE SUBJECT
Those who hold thatmodern identities are being fragmented argue that
what has happened in late-modernity to the conception of the modern
subject is not simply its estrangement,but its dislocation. They trace
this dislacation through a series of ruptures in the discourses of modem
knowledge. Inthis section, I shall offer a brief sketch of five great
advances in social theory and the human sciences which have occurred
in, or had their major impact upon, thought in the period of late-
modernity [the second half of t h e twentieth century], and whose main
effect, it is argued, has been theh a 1 de-centring of the Cartesian
subject.
The first major d e - c e n m concernsthe traditions af Marxist thinking.
Marx's writing belongs, of course, to the nineteenth and not the .
twentieth century.But one ofthe ways in which his work was recovered
and re-read in the 1960swas in the Light of his argumentthat 'men [sic]
make history, but only on the basis of conditions which are not of their
own making'. His re-readers interpreted this to mean that individuals
could not in any bme sense be the 'authors' or agents of history since
they could only act on the basis of the historical conditions made by
others into which they were born, and using the resources [materialand
culture)provided to them &omprevious generations.
Marxism, properly understood, they argued, displaced any notion of
individual agency, The Marxist slmcturalist, Louis A l h s s e r (2918-89)
(whose theories of ideology are discussed by Kenneth Thompson: see
Book 3 [Bocockand Thompson, 1992),Chapter 7;see also Penguin
Dictionary of Sociology:ALTHUSSER] argued that, by putting social
relations (modes of production, exploitation of labour power, the
circuits of capital) rather than an abstract notion of Man at the centre of
hfs theoretical system, Manc displaced two key propositions of modern
philosophy: '(1)that there is a universal essence of man; 12) that this
essence is the amibute of "each single individual" who is its real
subject':
These two postulates are complementary and indissoluble. But
their existence and their unity presuppose a whole empiricist-
idealist world outlook.By rejecting the essence of man as his
theoretical basis, Marx rejected the whole of this organic system of
postulates. He drove the philosophical category of the subject, of
empiricism,of the ideal essencefrom alI the domains in which
they had been supreme. Not only from political economy (rejection
of the myth of homo economicus, that is, of the individual with
dehite faculties and needs as the subject of the classical
economy); not just kom history; ...not just from ethics (rejection
of the Kantian ethical idea);but also born philosophy itself.
(AIthusser, 1966, p.228)
This 'total theoretical revolution' was, of course, fiercely contested by
many humanistic theorists who give greater weight in historical
explanation to human agency. We need not argue here about whether
Althusser was wholly or partly right, or entirely wrong. The fact is that,
though his work has been extensively criticized, his 'theoretical anti-
humanismf[that is, a way of thi&ng opposed to theories which derive
their ~ a e n tfrom some notion of a universd essence of Man lodged
in each individuaI subject) has had considerable impact on many
branches of modern thought.
The second of the great 'de-centrings' in twentieth-century Western
thought comes from Freud's 'discovery' of the unconscious, Freud's
theory that our identities, our sexuality,and the sb+uchmof our desir~s
are formed on the basis of the psychic and symbolicprocesses of the
unconscious, which function according to a 'logic' very different horn
that of Reason, plays havoc with the concept of the hewing and
rational subject with a hxedand unified identity -the subject of
',
Descdes3'I think,therefore I am'.This aspect of Freud's work has also
had a profound impact on modern thought in the last three decades.
Psychoanalytic khinkers like Jacques Lacan, for example, (whose work
CHAPTER 6 THE QUESTIONOF CULTURAL IDENTrlT
- 287
on the unconscious foundations of femininityis discussed by Helen
Crowley: see Book 3 [Bocockand Thompson, 1992)'Chapter 2) read
Freud as saying that the image of the self as 'whole' and d e d is
something which the infant only gradually, partially, and with great
dificulty, learns. It does not grow naturally from inside the core of the
infant's being, but is fonned in relation to others; especially in the
complex unconscious psychic negotiations in eerly chiIdhood between
the child and the powerful fantasies which it has of its parental figures.
In what Lacan calls the 'mirror phase' of development, the infant who is
not yet coordinated, and possesses no self image as a 'whole'person,
sees or 'imagines' itself reflected -either literally in the mirror, or
figuratively, in the "mirror' of the other's look -as a 'wholeperson'
(Lacan, 19771. (Incidentally,Althusser borrowed this metaphor from
Lacan, when trying to describe the operation of ideology; see Book 3
(Bocock and Thompson, 1992),Chapter 7.1 This is close in some ways
to Mead's and Coaley's 'looking glass' conception of the interactive self;
except that for them socialization was a matter of conscious learning,
whereas for Freud subjectivity was the product of unconscious psychic
processes.
This formation of the self in the 'look' of the Other, according to Lacan,
opens the child's relation with symbolic systems outside itself, and is
&us the moment of the child's entry into the various systems of
symbolic representation -includq language,culture and sexual
difference, The contradictory and unresolved feelings which accompany
this diEcult enby -the splitting of love and hate for the fader,the
codict between the wish to please and the impulse to reject the
mother, the division of the self into its 'good' and 'bad' parts, the
disavowaI of the masculinelfeminine parts of oneself, and so an -
which are key aspects of this 'unconsciousformation of the subject',
and which leave the subject 'divided', remain with one for We.
However, thoughthe subject is always split or divided it experiences its
own identity as being held together and 'resolved', or d e d , as a result
of thefantasy of itself as a unified 'person' which it fonned in the
mirror phase. This, according to this kind of psychoanalytic thinking, is
the conbadictory origin of 'identity'.
Thus, identity is actually something formed through unconscious
processes over time, rather than being innate in consciousness at birth.
There is always something 'Imaginary'or fantasized about its unity.It
always remains incomplete, is always 'in process', always 'being
formed'. The 'feminine' parts of the male self, for example, which are
disavowed, remain with him and find unconscious expressions in many
unachowledged ways in adult'Life. Thus,rather than speaking of
identity as a finished thing, we should speak of idenhFcation, and see it
as an on-going process. Identity arises, not so much from the fullnessof
identity which is already inside us as individuals,but from a lack of
wholeness which is 'Elled' from outsi_de us, by the ways we i m 3 e
ourselves to be seen by others. Psychoanalytically,the reason why we
cantinually search for 'identity', constructingbiographies which knit
288 MODERNITYAN0 ITS FUIWRES
1
together the different parts of our divided selves into a unity, is to
recapture this fantasized pleasure of Mlness (plenitude).
Again, Freud's work, and that of the psychoanalytic thinkers like Lacan
who read him in this way, has been widely contested. By definition,
unconscious processes cannot be easily seen or examined. They have to
be inferred by the elaborate psychoanalytic techniques ofreconstruction
m d interpretation and are not easily amenable to 'proof'.Nevertheless,
their general impact en modem ways of thought has been very
considerable. Much modern thinking about subjective and psychic life
is 'post-Freudian', in the sense that it takes Freud's work on the
unconscious for granted, even when it rejects some of his specific
hypotheses.Again, you can appreciate the damage which this way of
thinking does to notions of the rational subject and identity as 5xed and
stable.
The third de-centringI shall examine is associated with the work of the
structural linguist,Ferdinand de Saussure (seeBook 1 (Hall and Gieben,
19923,Chapter 5,for a discussion of his theories of language]. Saussure
argued that we are not in any absolute sense the 'authors' of the
statements we make or of the meanings we express in language.We can
only use language to produce meanings by positioning ourselves within
the rules of language and the systems of meaning of our culture.
Language is a social, not an individual system. It ppre-e~stsus.We
cannot in any simple sense be its authors. To speak a language is not
only to express our innermost, original thoughts, it is also to activate the
vast range of meanings which are already embedded in our language
and cultural systems.
Further, the meanings of words are not h e d in a one-to-one relation to
objects or events in the world outside language. Meaning arises in the
relations of similarity and difference which words have to other words
within the language code, Wt?know what 'night' is because it is not
'day'. Notice the analogyhere between language and identity. I know
who 'I' am in relation to The other' [e.g. my mother] whom I cannot be.
As Lacan would say, identity, like the unconscious, 'is structured like
Ianguage'.What modem philosophers of language,like JacquesDerrida,
who have been influenced by Saussure and the 'linguistic tun', argue is
that, despite hidher best efforts the individual speaker can never finally
&meaning -including the meaning of his or her identity. Words are
'multi-accentual'. They always carry echoes of other meanings which
they trigger off, despite one's best efkrts to close meaning down. Our
statements are underpinned by propositions and premises of which we
are not aware,but which are, so to speak,carried along in the
bloodstream of our language. Everythrngwe say has a 'before' and an
'after'-a 'margin'in which others may write. Meaning is inherently
unstable: it aims for closure [identity),but is constantly disrupted b y
difference). It is constantly sliding away kom us. There are always
supplementary meanings over which we have no control, which will
arise and subvert our attempts to create fixed and stable worlds (see
Derrida, 1981).
CHAPTER 6 THE QUESTIONOF CULTURAL IDEMITTTY 289
The fourth major de-centring of identity and the subject occurs in the
work of the French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault. In a
series af studies [some of which have been referred to in other volumes
in this series:for example,Book 1 (Hall and Gieben, 1992)' Chapter 6;
Book 3 (Bocock and Thompson, 1992),Chapters 4 and 51,Foucault has
produced a sort of 'genealogy of the modem subject'. Foucault isolates a
new type of power, evolving through thenineteenth century, and
coming to full flower at the beginning of this century, which he calls
'disciplinary power'. Disciplinary pewer is concerned with the
regulation, surveillance and government of, &st, the human species or
whole popuIations, and secondly, the individual and the body. Its sites
are those new institutions which developed throughout the nineteenth
cenhrry and which 'policekd discipline modern populations -in
workshops, barracks, schools, prisons, hospitals, clinics, and so on (see,
for example, Madness and Civilization [I967),Birth of the Clinic119733
and Discipline and Punish (1975)).
The aim of 'disciplinary pewer' is to bring 'the lives, deaths, ac~vities,
work, miseries and joys of the individual', as well as histher moral and
physical health, sexual practices and family life under strider discipline
and control; bringing to bear on them the power of adminisbative
regimes, the expertise of the professional, and the knowledge provided
by the 'disciplines' of the social sciences. Its basic object is to produce
'a human being who c m be beated as a "docile body"' @reyfus and
Rabinow, 1982, p.135j.
What is particularly interesking born the point af view of the history of
the modern subject is that, though Foucault's disciplinary power is the
product of the new Iqe-scale regulating collective institutions of late-
modernity, its techniques invdve an application of power and
hewledge which further 'individualizes' the subject and bears down
more intensely on hislher body:
In a disciplinary regime, individualization is descending. Through
surveillance, constant observation,all those subject to control are
individualized. ...Not only has power now brought individuality
into the field of observation, but power fixes that objective
individudity in the field of writing. A vast, meticulous
documentary apparatus becomes anessential. component of the
growth of power [inmodern societies].This accumulation of
individual documentation in a systematic ordering makes 'possible
the measureme t of overall phenomena, the description of groups,
s,the characterization of collective facts, the calculation of gaps
between individuals, their distribution in a given population'.
(Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982, p.159,,quoting Foucault)
It is not necessary to accept every detail df Foucault's picture of the all-
encompassing character of the 'disciplinary regimes' ef modern
administrative power to understand the paradox that, the mere
collective and organized is the nature of the institutions of late-
290 MODERNITTAND T S FUTURES
modernity, the greater the isolation, surveillance and individuation of
the individual subject.
The fifth de-centcingwhich proponents of this position cite is the
impact of feminism,b o d as theoretical critique and as a social
movement. Feminism belongs with that company of 'new social
movements', all of which surfaced during the 1960s-the great
watershed of late-modernity -alongside the student upheavals, the
anti-war and counter-cultural youth movements, the civil-rights
smggles, the 'Third-World' revolutionary movements, the peace
movements, and the rest associated with '1968'. What is important
about this historical moment is that:
Thesemovements were opposed to the corporate liberal politics of
the West as well as the 'Stalinist' politics of the East.
T k ? q d k a e d the 'subjective' as well as the 'objective' dimensions of
politics,
They were suspicious of aEl bureaucratic forms of organization and
favoured spontaneity and acts of politicalwilt.
As argued earlier, all these movements had a powerful cultuml
emphasis and form, They espoused the 'theake' of revolution.
They reflected the weakening or break-up of class politics, and the
mass political organizations associated with it, and their
fragmentation into various and separate social movements.
Each movement appeaIed to the social identityof its supporters. Thus
feminism appealed to wamen, sexual politics to gays and lesbians,
racial struggles to blacks, anti-war to peaceniks, and so on. This is the
historical birth af what came to be h o w as identitypolitics -one
identity per movement.
But feminism also had a more direct relation to the conceptud de-
cenbing of the Cartesian and the sociological subject:
It questioned the classic distinction between 'insidekd 'outside',
'private' and 'public'. Feminism's slogan was 'the personal is
poIitical',
It therefore opened up to political contestation whole new arenas of
social life -the family, sexuality,housework, the domestic division
of labour, child-rearing,etc. [This is discussed further in Book 3
@locockand Thompson, 1992),Chapter 2.1
* lt also exposed,as a political and social question, the issue of how
we are formed and produced as gendered subjects. That is to say, it
politicized subjectivity,identity and the process of idenacation (as
mentwomen, motherslfathers, sons/daughters),
What began as a movement directed at challengingthe socia1position
of women, expanded te include the formation of sexual and gendered
identities,
Feminism challenged the notion that men and women were part of-
the same identity -'Mankind' -replacing it with the question of
sexual difference.