ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors' have discussed number of postmodern feminists; they have selected only two for detailed discussion. First, they focus on Helene Cixous and the influence of Jacques Derrida's writings on their thought. Second, they focus on Judith Butler and the influence of Michel Foucault's theories on their thought. The chapter discusses the critiques of existentialist feminism - a communitarian critique of existentialist feminism. The critics of de Beauvoir invite us to ponder whether it is more liberating to think of woman as the product of a cultural construction or instead to think of woman as the result of a natural arrangement. Despite the force of Jean Bethke Elshtain's critique and critiques like it, much can and has been said in defense of de Beauvoir's existentialist feminism. Some of postmodern feminism's roots are found in the work of Beauvoir, who, as they just noted, phrased the fundamental question of feminist theory as, "Why is woman the second sex?".
