A Politics of the Self

Abstract

On the one hand, third wave feminism includes in its list of political concerns many issues that clearly are discernible as established feminist issues. These are ‘racism, child abuse, rape, domestic violence, homophobia and heterosexism, ablism, fatism, environmental degradation, classism, and the protection of healthcare rights, reproductive rights, and equity’ (Garrison, 2000: 143). On the other hand, the relationship of third wave political practice to many established forms of feminist political organization and activism is one of dissonance, because third wave feminism sits uneasily with a politics based upon making a common identification with the category ‘woman’. The emphasis within third wave feminism is on the myriad positionings occupied by women, which produce different experiences of these issues. While third wave feminism identifies substantive areas of concern for a feminist politics, the relationship that any individual woman has to these concerns will be defined in terms that escape homogenization. This recognition requires a politics based upon the dynamics of social and cultural difference rather than a politics organized through the expression of commonalities. It is also a politics that is located in the spaces of everyday life rather than in formal political institutions.