Deconstruction of Centrality and Reconstruction of Feminine Self-identity in Feminist Theology

Abstract

Modern feminist theology has its roots in the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960’s. While the term “women’s liberation” may now be reevaluated, it still seems to be valid as a fundamental imperative for feminist politics. But there are some problems with this kind of expression. If one defines feminist theology in terms of women’s liberation, it is easy to identify all women with victims. Moreover, the term of women’s liberation erased the meaning of difference by presupposing the possibility of becoming a voluntary being based on autonomous and independent. One of the strengths of recent feminist theology is that it suggests a way of thinking differences differently. In spite of good multicultural intentions, productive dialogues across differences and a genuine collegiality among feminist theologians of various backgrounds and contexts, feminist theologians nonetheless attend inadequately to differences. Therefore, feminist theologies focused on differences can pluralize, destabilize, and dismantle any attempt to absolutize dimensions of specificity or particularity in reality. We need to understand such differences and tensions not as fixed positions but as creative possibilities for solidarity and dialogue. In my paper, I will critically examine the notion of ‘difference’, focusing on the ‘subject’ controversy between essentialism and poststructuralism in feminist theory and theology in relation to the concept of “women.” I will mainly deal with the problem of ‘difference’ from the Derridean perspective, promoting a connection of difference, politics of difference, and other discourses including postcolonialism.