achieve this end, they have utilised the concepts of language, discourse,
difference, deconstruction and positionality. Alongside earlier feminist
work, e.g., Spender’s (1980) Man Made Language, postmodern feminists
highlight the significance of power relations conveyed through language
(Flax, 1990). Language is important because objects are designated in par-
ticular ways through naming to embody forms of power (Flax, 1990). For
postmodernists, language not only constructs meaning, it also organises
cultural practices that expose their significance (Scott, 1990). Power is con-
ceptualised as complex in that it comes from a number of different points,
but is created through the complicated interplay of inegalitarian and fluid
social relations. Resistance is an integral part of the fluidity of these inter-
actions (Foucault, 1980).
Discourse is the structure of statements, terms, categories and beliefs
that are expressed through organisations and institutions. Some dis-
courses are more valued than others. Those that are considered less impor-
tant are marginalised. Power and knowledge come together in discourses
(Foucault, 1980). An analysis of these discourses can reveal the circum-
stances that shape the lives of particular individuals or groups. Difference
is used to create meaning through a negation of its opposite. This relies on
binary oppositions in which those who are subordinate or different are
‘othered’ (Wittig, 1988). In normalised discourses, the dominant group,
just is. That is, it provides the standard whereby the others are measured.
To understand this, their position, has to be deconstructed. Deconstruction
refers to the exposure of a concept as ideologically or culturally construed
rather than being a ‘natural’ reflection of reality (Collins, 1991).
Postmodernism also reveals that seemingly dichotomous terms are inter-
dependent (Flax, 1990). These insights facilitate an analysis of the links
between the dominant group and subordinate ones along the specificity of
their contexts. Positionality refers to the circumstances in which the
speaker is located and from which discourse is made (Foucault, 1980).
Postmodernists deem identity a problematic and a fluid category
(Modood et al., 1994; Frankenburg, 1997). In more recent theory-building,
postmodern feminists have formulated more sophisticated understand-
ings of women’s capacity to act as agents. This construes women as capa-
ble of making their own destinies whilst acknowledging that women also
reproduce oppression amongst women (Gatens, 1996).
Key to postmodern feminists’ critiques of other feminists has been their
concern to constantly interrogate categories (Flax, 1990). Crucial to this is
questioning the category, ‘woman’, and challenging essentialist homoge-
neous representations of women, especially those depicted in the early fem-
inist slogan, ‘sisterhood is universal’ to signal that women are similarly
oppressed by patriarchy throughout the world (Morgan, 1970). The post-
modern individualistic representation of women has the potential to
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