Libby's Odyssey

What does it mean to be recognised as a subject when your experience of the world is shaped by marginality and constrained by dominant ideas of femininity? Feminist theory has long interrogated the universalised human subject and its patriarchal, colonial, and ableist roots. To dismantle and reframe this outdated concept, feminist thinkers have proposed a more dynamic and inclusive model known as the female feminist subject. Building on Teresa de Lauretis (1984), Rosi Braidotti (2003) theorises the subject not as fixed or autonomous, but as embodied, relational, and socially shaped. This framework helped me reinterpret behaviours I once saw as failures to conform, realising they were expressions of complex subjectivity all along.

Through the feminist thinkers explored in this unit, this essay examines how the concept of the female feminist subject has evolved and why it remains significant today. First, I will focus on Simone de Beauvoir, discussing her existential feminist philosophy that frames gender as a continuous process of becoming, rather than an essence or static trait. Next, I’ll draw on Gloria Anzaldúa’s mestiza consciousness to reflect on the multiplicity of identity. Rosi Braidotti’s materialist theory of becoming will explore how bodies, minds, and subjectivities are co-constituted with power and difference. Finally, I will explore Helen Cixous’s theory of écriture féminine as a way of reclaiming the female body and voice through poetry and written art forms. I argue that the female feminist subject is a theoretical construct that is deeply personal and a political site of resistance. This alternative framework of subjectivity has allowed me to understand myself more deeply and reimagine my sense of identity and belonging.

To understand why feminist thinkers have focused so intently on the question of the subject, it is necessary to examine the framework formed through Enlightenment humanism. The Enlightenment period positioned the human subject as rational, autonomous, and self-governing, traits that are valorised as universal ideals. However, at that time, these ideals were deeply gendered, racialised, and classed, with the normative subject implicitly constructed as male, white, and economically privileged. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attempted to intervene in this discourse by arguing that women, too, were capable of reason and moral agency, and thus deserved education and political rights (Wollstonecraft 1792). Her work is part of the foundational feminist understanding of subjectivity, seeking to extend Enlightenment values to women rather than completely reinventing them. While historically this theory was revolutionary to the feminist field, it has since been critiqued for minimising alternative ways of knowing, being, and interacting with the world due to its reliance on a masculine framework of rationality.

Contemporary feminist theorists such as Teresa de Lauretis and Rosi Braidotti build on and diverge from this traditional framework by challenging the terms of Enlightenment subjecthood. De Lauretis (1987) argues that the subject is not a given or stable but is constructed through discourse, representation, and social practice (de Lauretis 1987). According to her standpoint, identity is not something that one simply “has” but is continuously produced through social positioning. Braidotti (2003) extends this argument, challenging the liberal humanist subject’s illusion of autonomy and proposing a feminist subject that is relational, embodied, and materially positioned. This re-imagined subject is “not one, but multiple” (Braidotti 2003), shaped by intersecting axes of power such as gender, race, ability, and class. Unlike the idea of the subject formed during the Enlightenment, the feminist subject is not imagined as transcending its body or history but embedded within them.

For myself, this reconceptualisation of subjectivity has been transformative. As someone who has often felt at odds with the dominant social expectations of rationality, emotional control, and self-containment, feminist theories of the subject offer a framework for understanding myself as more than just a deviation from social norms. Braidotti’s emphasis on “becoming” aligns with my understanding of identity, specifically my experience living with neurodivergence and trauma. Framing subjectivity as a fluid and adaptive process means that I can employ more patience and acceptance with myself as I learn and grow. Rather than aspiring to an impossible, unattainable ideal of wholeness, I have reframed how I see my fragmentation (Braidotti 1991), and I now understand fragmentation as integral to subjectivity.

Simone de Beauvoir’s existential feminist philosophy provides one of the earliest and most influential takes on the feminist understandings of subjectivity. Her famous claim that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (de Beauvoir 1949, 330) challenges the idea that being a woman is something natural or fixed. Instead, she presents it as something that is produced through social norms, cultural expectations, and historical framing. In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir explores how women have been positioned as the “other” in a male-dominated world, taught from a young age to internalise limitations and expectations that are not neutral or universal, shaping how we think, behave, and relate to others (de Beauvoir 1949). Her work was quintessential in shifting feminist thought away from essentialist notions of gender and towards the idea of gender as a process. This highlights that gender is not fixed, but constructed, imposed, and open to challenge.

Reading de Beauvoir helped me to understand a complex feeling I have carried with me for most of my life, the feeling that I wasn’t “doing” womanhood correctly. I have often felt like I am out of touch with what is expected of me in society, feeling as if I am too intense, too sensitive, too emotional, or not presenting myself in the ways I “should” be. These didn’t just feel like personality traits; they felt like an intrinsic failure to be “normal”. I have previously spent periods questioning my gender, exploring gender fluid and nonbinary identities, trying to figure out a solution to the discomfort I felt within my skin. De Beauvoir’s work helped me to understand that the societal expectations placed on me are not universal, but part of a system that defines and polices femininity, minimising opportunities for ambiguity or difference. Her concept of “becoming” assisted me in reframing the disconnect I felt, recognising that there is not something wrong with me, just that the social idea of “woman” is narrow and limiting.

The most powerful message that spoke to me within de Beauvoir’s work is that subjectivity involves both constraint and agency. We may be moulded by the world we live in, but we are also capable of shaping and defining ourselves. This idea has been important in my journey towards reclaiming my own identity following trauma, allowing me to exercise self-acceptance and forgiveness. De Beauvoir doesn’t offer all the answers, and her work has limits, specifically regarding intersectionality, which multiple feminist thinkers have acknowledged. However, de Beauvoir’s theories are foundational for feminist discourse surrounding identity, allowing us to think critically about how identity is formed and, in turn, reformed.

Gloria Anzaldúa’s work offers another model of feminist subjectivity, which is grounded in multiplicity, contradiction, and lived experience. In Borderlands/La Frontera, she introduces her idea of mestiza consciousness to describe the experience of existing in the grey area of identity. She explores identities that do not fit within defined categories, often defined by intersecting systems such as race, gender, sexuality, language, and colonialism. For Anzaldúa, the mestiza does not try to manipulate identity to make sense in a traditional context. Instead, she teaches her audience about how she learnt to navigate tension and fragmentation as a part of her subjectivity. Anzaldúa defines the concept of borderlands not as a geographical space, but as emotional, psychological, and spiritual spaces where identities are in flux, allowing room for shifting and renegotiating (Anzaldúa 1999). This refusal of binary thinking marks a departure from essentialist accounts and instead embraces the complexity and nuance of identity.

As someone who often feels as though I am suspended in the space between categories, this framework has helped me engage in identity discussions with a more open-minded approach. I have previously struggled to articulate my own experience in a way that feels accurate to me while also remaining recognisable within dominant cultural frameworks. The intersection of my own identity often leaves me feeling fragmented internally, creating a sense of contradiction. Anzaldúa’s work has helped me to reframe this fragmentation as an inherent part of how subjectivity is formed under conditions of marginalisation, rather than a personality flaw. She champions the idea that existing in the “in-between” can be a form of insight and resistance, rather than fuel for confusion or incoherence.

Anzaldúa also emphasises creativity, specifically writing, as an important outlet when navigating internal complexity. Through poetry, autobiography, and embodied knowledge, she creates a form of expression that acknowledges her shifting identity without suppressing it. This has encouraged me to view my own writing and creative endeavours as a means to sit with my own contradictions and recognise them creatively, allowing them to take a form that reaches beyond my own physicality. In this sense, Anzaldúa’s concept of the borderlands provides a descriptive account of fractured subjectivity while also modelling how to exist in the “in-between” with integrity and intention.

Rosi Braidotti’s contributions to feminist theory offer a powerful rebuttal against the traditional notions of the subject, providing a reimagining that is resonant for those who experience identity as fluid, marginal, or fragmented. This concept draws from Teresa de Lauretis’ (1987) work on subjectivity as a product of discourse and social positioning, laying the foundation for Braidotti’s theorisation of the female feminist subject. In her chapter The Subject in Feminism, Braidotti (1991) challenges the Enlightenment ideals of the subject, arguing that this framework is based on a fantasy of autonomy, coherence, and disembodied rationality. Instead, she proposes a feminist subject that is situated, embodied, and materially grounded, highlighting the influence of history, power, and social location on this subjectivity. Her framework resists ideas of essentialism and abstraction through defining a subjectivity that is “non-unitary yet accountable,” capable of ethical agency despite being in flux (Braidotti 1991).

This model of subjectivity is further explored in Metamorphoses, where Braidotti (2003) describes it as a continual process of becoming: a dynamic negotiation between internal multiplicities and external forces. She explains that “the subject is not one, but multiple,” formed through relationality and affect (Braidotti 2003). These insights have helped me to reframe how I understand my own identity. I have often felt as though I exist in fragments; conflicted between emotional intensity and analytical detachment, between autonomy and dependence, between coherence and disarray. Braidotti’s reluctance to demand stability from the subject provides a compassionate and politically engaged way of understanding internal contradictions. Rather than viewing my differences as dysfunction, I am now able to see them as expressions of my own subjectivity.

Braidotti also offers a framework centred around affirmative politics, which she defines in Metamorphoses as a move beyond reactive critique toward the generative, ethical construction of new subjectivities and ways of living with difference (Braidotti 2003). Rather than viewing fragmentation as a deficit, this approach embraces multiplicity as a site of becoming. This idea has shifted how I relate to my sense of self, recognising that I am someone who is continually becoming, adapting, and responding, not someone who needs to be fixed or improved. Her model affirms that fragmentation does not preclude agency but encourages deeper engagement with how identity is formed in relation to others, to place, and to power.

Helene Cixous’ work, particularly in The Laugh of Medusa, offers a poetic yet radical approach to feminist subjectivity through her concept of écriture féminine, or “feminine writing”. In her essay, Cixous (1976) encourages women to write their bodies and experiences into existence, arguing that historically, patriarchal language has silenced, distorted, or excluded female expression. She writes, “Woman must write herself: must write about women and bring women to writing…Woman must put herself into the text—as into the world and into history—by her own movement” (Cixous 1976). Writing becomes an embodied act; a way to reclaim agency, creativity, and sensuality that resists the rational, disembodied subject of patriarchal discourse. As Rosemarie Tong explains, Cixous aimed to “disrupt phallocentric structures” through encouraging women to express their bodies and emotions in their writing (Tong 2017). This presents a model of subjectivity that privileges feeling, fluidity, and multiplicity over a defined, fixed identity rooted in logic.

I found Cixous’ approach to subjectivity empowering, as I have often felt a disconnect from traditional and institutional forms of expression. Rigid and overly rational written frameworks don’t always work for me, especially when expressing myself creatively, as they demand clarity, linearity, and detachment. Cixous’ call to write from the body, from emotion, from chaos, has allowed me to explore different forms of voice, ones that are more authentic to how I experience myself and the world. I have found that poetry, journaling, and creative writing are creative outlets that can be utilised to reclaim a sense of self that is not confined by expectations or discipline. When writing in this way, allowing myself to be messy, embodied, and real, I feel as though I am sharing a part of my soul with the paper, rather than simply writing words on a page.

Cixous’ work is a reminder that subjectivity is heavily reliant on expression. Though championing the importance of women writing themselves into history, she highlights how voice and language are essential when expressing individual subjectivity. Her work allows individuals to explore self-articulation that is grounded in lived experience, sensual knowledge, and emotional transparency, which is particularly empowering for those who have been historically misrepresented in media. Through the rejection of stability and universality, and her focus on creativity, embodiment, and individuality, Cixous encourages a reimagining of the subject that is authentic and empowering.

Through the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Gloria Anzaldúa, Rosi Braidotti, and Helene Cixous, this essay explored how feminist theory reimagines the subject as fluid, embodied, and socially situated. Each thinker offers a way to way to make sense of identity that extends beyond rigid and essentialist categories: de Beauvoir explores how gender is produced through social processes; Anzaldúa embraces multiplicity and contradiction; Braidotti reframes fragmentation as part of a relational, dynamic subjectivity; and Cixous explains the importance of voice, emotion, and creative expression. These perspectives have helped me conceptualise that my own experience is not a failure to conform, reframing my differences as a form of subjectivity. Feminist theory provides both the language and the permission to embrace complexity and resist traditional frameworks of what is “normal”.

The female feminist subject is not a fixed identity, it is a process. It requires ongoing negotiations of power, embodiment, and voice, allowing subjectivities that are partial, disrupted, and in motion. This framework has allowed me to reimagine what feminism means to me, reframing it as a philosophical movement of self and survival, rather than just a contentious political debate. The female feminist subject champions the value of becoming, not just being, allowing me to adopt a more compassionate framework for understanding both myself and the world around me.

Bibliography

Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1999. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.

Braidotti, Rosi. 1991. “The Subject in Feminism.” Hypatia 6 (2): 155–74. https://doi.org/10.2307/3810102.

Braidotti, Rosi. 2003. Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Cixous, Hélène. 1976. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Translated by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen. Signs 1 (4): 875–93. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173239.

de Beauvoir, Simone. 1949. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books.

de Lauretis, Teresa. 1984. Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

de Lauretis, Teresa. 1987. Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Tong, Rosemarie. 2017. Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction. London: Routledge.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1792. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. London: Penguin Classics.