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Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter
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TY - CHAP
T1 - Sexual difference
AU - Stone, Alison
PY - 2015/2
Y1 - 2015/2
N2 - This chapter explains the main conceptions of sexual difference that have influenced feminist theory, tracing their roots in the psychoanalysis of Freud and Lacan, and then introducing the radical rethinking of sexual difference put forward by Luce Irigaray. For Irigaray, in the Western symbolic order there has only ever been sexual hierarchy, not genuine sexual difference. Her political program for changing the symbolic order to create a positive feminine subject-position—one that is not merely the underside or negative opposite of the masculine position—has been developed practically by some Italian feminists. Conceptions of sexual difference have also helped feminist theorists to rethink embodiment beyond the sex/gender distinction. The chapter concludes by considering how conceptions of sexual difference have made various current directions in feminist theory possible, including the new “material feminisms.”
AB - This chapter explains the main conceptions of sexual difference that have influenced feminist theory, tracing their roots in the psychoanalysis of Freud and Lacan, and then introducing the radical rethinking of sexual difference put forward by Luce Irigaray. For Irigaray, in the Western symbolic order there has only ever been sexual hierarchy, not genuine sexual difference. Her political program for changing the symbolic order to create a positive feminine subject-position—one that is not merely the underside or negative opposite of the masculine position—has been developed practically by some Italian feminists. Conceptions of sexual difference have also helped feminist theorists to rethink embodiment beyond the sex/gender distinction. The chapter concludes by considering how conceptions of sexual difference have made various current directions in feminist theory possible, including the new “material feminisms.”
KW - body
KW - embodiment
KW - Freud
KW - Irigaray
KW - Italian feminism
KW - Lacan
KW - psychoanalysis
KW - sex/gender distinction
KW - sexual difference
KW - symbolic order
U2 - 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199328581.013.43
DO - 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199328581.013.43
M3 - Chapter
T3 - Oxford Handbooks
BT - Oxford handbook of feminist theory
A2 - Disch, Lisa
A2 - Hawkesworth, Mary
PB - Oxford University Press
CY - Oxford
ER -