ABSTRACT

A major influential strand of feminist writing in the last twenty-five years has been the attempt to redefine theories of the self (also referred to as ‘subjectivity’, ‘the subject’ and ‘identity’) to reflect a feminine, caring, rather than a masculine, norm. In philosophy, this has entailed a critique of the Kantian, Enlightenment principle of the autonomous, independent, self-interested, individualistic subject in favour of a connected, relational, caring subject who is formed and embedded in social relationships and whose ethics are defined by care for others (Mackenzie and Stoljar 2000). In critical psychology, a parallel critique focused on how twentieth-century psychology espoused a similar model of the individual (Henriques et al. 1984). Feminist theory has been most active on this terrain, based on its commitment to critiquing the way that the universal human subject is in fact a masculine one.