Abstract

Sexual difference theory can best be explained with reference to French post‐structuralism, more specifically its critique of the humanist vision of subjectivity. The “post” in poststructuralism does not denote only a chronological break from the structuralists' generation of the 1940s and 1950s, but also an epistemological and theoretical revision of the emancipatory programme of structuralism itself, especially of Marxist feminist political theory. The focus of poststructuralism is the complex and manifold structure of power and the diverse, fragmented, but highly effective ways in which power, knowledge, and the constitution of subjectivity combine. Poststructuralism questions the usefulness of the notion of “ideology,” especially in the sense developed by Louis Althusser, as the imaginary relation of the Subject to his/her real conditions of existence. In a feminist version, ideology refers to the patriarchal system of representation of gender and, more specifically, to the myths and images that construct femininity. Subjectivity is conceptualized therefore as a process (assujettissement) which encompasses simultaneously the material (“reality”) and the symbolic (“language”) instances which structure it. Psychoanalytic notions of identity, language, and sexuality – especially in the work of Jacques Lacan – play a central role in the redefinition of the subject as a process, rather than in the more traditional sense of a rational agent. The notion of difference emerges as a central concept in the poststructuralists' critique of both classical humanism and of the humanist legacy of Marxist‐inspired structuralist social theory. It includes both differences within each subject (between conscious and unconscious processes), as well as differences between the Subject and his/her Others.