ABSTRACT
One of the battle cries of feminists from the 1970s onwards has been the demand to distinguish 'women's experience' as an experiental and critical category that conditions and contributes to the definition, enactment and perpetuation of gender. The concept 'women's experience' referred both to the essential life cycle that biological women might experience-menstruation, birthing, ageing and other sensations and emotions emanating from the body-as well to the social and societal conditions that program women into F (female/ feminine) roles and expected F performance. The work of French feminists especially reinforced the recognition ofF experience as a basic category for woman's voice, reading and writing. 1
