The question of identity in feminist thought

Abstract

Identity is a construct of social and cultural ideologies. They pose themselves as natural and enforce norms that define what it is to be a woman, further they warn and intimidate to expel those who do not abide by these norms. No one can be a person without being male or female. The formation of gender should not be considered as something achieved by a single act; rather, it is the reiterative and citational practice, the obligatory repetition of gender norms that create and constrain the gendered subject. The naming of the girl commences the never ending process of girling, the making of a girl, through an “assignment” of obligatory reiteration of gender norms, “the forcible citation of a norm”.