Feminism Foucault and Embodied Subjectivity

<p><b>Argues that Foucault's work employs a conception of subjectivity that is well-suited for feminist theory and politics.</b></p><p>Addressing central questions in the debate about Foucault's usefulness for politics including his rejection of universal norms his conception of power and power-knowledge his seemingly contradictory position on subjectivity and his resistance to using identity as a political category McLaren argues that Foucault employs a conception of embodied subjectivity that is well-suited for feminism. She applies Foucault's notion of practices of the self to contemporary feminist practices such as consciousness-raising and autobiography and concludes that the connection between self-transformation and social transformation that Foucault theorizes as the connection between subjectivity and institutional and social norms is crucial for contemporary feminist theory and politics.</p>