ABSTRACT

Since its beginnings, feminist theory has been involved in what Christine Di Stefano has called “dilemmas of difference.” 1 Liberal feminists have stressed the equality of men and women and, hence, the unimportance of differences based on gender. But liberal feminists have also assumed that women hold certain interests in common. For this reason, they have presumed both the difference between men and women as political subjects and the importance of a separate feminist political practice. To this extent, as Deborah L. Rhode points out, “liberal feminism assumes the very sense of shared identity it seeks in large measure to transcend.” 2