Gender as existential modality

Abstract

Gender discussions are still fundamental to (trans)feminist struggles and have an open field to new reflections that contribute to the topic. This issue is important to phenomenology from Simone de Beauvoir to Judith Butler and other contemporary feminist phenomenologists. Considering the contributions already unveiled by these authors, this paper aims to rethink the conceptualization of gender through the concept of existential modality found in Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger in a non-systematic theoretical review. The concept of existential modality implies possibilities as fundamental in the ontological structure of being. Here, possibility has existential and open characteristics that describe ways of being, of linking, meaning and make possible being and meaning. Gender as an existential modality reveals a spectrum of potencies that is realized and established in the corporeal and situated existence of being. This work allows a dialogue with the reflections already made by the feminist authors and the opening to deepen the discussions about gender. Palavras-chave : Gender; Existential Modality; Phenomenology.