'am I That Name?': Feminism and the Category of 'women' in History

Writing about changes in the notion of womanhood, Denise Riley examines, in the manner of Foucault, shifting historical constructions of the category of "women" in relation to other categories central to concepts of personhood: the soul, the mind, the body, nature, the social. Feminist movements, Riley argues, have had no choice but to play out this indeterminacy of women. This is made plain in their oscillations, since the 1790s, between concepts of equality and of difference. To fully recognize the ambiguity of the category of "women" is, she contends, a necessary condition for an effective feminist political philosophy.

Author: Denise Riley
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 10/28/1988
Pages: 126
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.32d
ISBN: 9780333346136

About the Author
DENISE RILEY teaches at the University of East Anglia, UK, and has also held teaching posts at Brown University and at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Her most recent books are The Words of Selves: Identification, Solidarity, Irony and Selected Poems.