The concept of identity and the category of gender identity in feminist political theories

V magistrski nalogi raziskujem razvoj pojma identitete, razvoj feminističnih gibanj, feministične politične teorije in pojavnost pojma identitete oz. spolne identitete znotraj le-te. Feministična politična teorija je področje, ki izhaja iz feministične filozofije in analizira kategorijo spola v razmerju do institucionaliziranih prostorov oblasti ter procesov bojev za razdelitev moči. Feminizem je predvsem političen projekt, ki si prizadeva za udejanjenje temeljnih sprememb v odnosih med spoli. Znotraj feminističnih teorij je nemogoče govoriti o enotnem ženskem subjektu, saj so ženske zelo heterogena skupina različnih interesov in potreb, ki se obenem križajo še z razvejanim poljem drugih, denimo rasnih in ekonomskih ter socio-političnih razlik. Kljub raznolikosti žensk so nekatera feministična gibanja in posledično tudi feministične politične teorije predpostavljale enotno kategorijo kolektivne identitete žensk, ki so jo utemeljevale v kategoriji spolne identitete. Enotnost so upravičevale ali v biološkem esencializmu ali v nujnosti nagovora množice sicer medsebojno različnih žensk za enotnejše feministično politično delovanje. Pojem identitete je imel privilegirano mesto teoretiziranja v feministični teoriji predvsem v premiku od t. i. drugega vala feminizma k tretjemu. V magistrski nalogi zaključujem z ugotovitvami, da pojma kolektivne identitete žensk ni mogoče teoretsko dosledno razviti. Iz nezmožnosti teoretskega spoprijema s pojmom identitete ne sledi, da konkretnega političnega delovanja ne bi bilo mogoče poenotiti kako drugače. Poiskati je treba druge načine, ki raznolikost žensk vključujejo.In my master thesis, I explore the development of the concept of identity, the development of feminist movements, feminist political theory and the emergence of the concept of identity or gender identity within feminist political theories. Feminist political theory is a field that has its roots in feminist philosophy and analyses the category of gender concerning institutionalized spaces of power and processes of struggles for the distribution of power. Feminism is, above all, a political project that seeks to bring about fundamental changes in gender relations. Within feminist theory, it is impossible to speak of a single female subject, because women are a very heterogeneous group of different interests and needs, which also intersect with a diverse field of other differences, such as racial, economic, and socio-political. Despite the diversity of women, some feminist movements, and consequently feminist political theories, have assumed a single category of women\u27s collective identity, which they have grounded in the category of gender identity. This was justified either in terms of biological essentialism or in the necessity of appealing to a multitude of otherwise mutually diverse women for a more unified feminist political action. The notion of identity has had a privileged place of theorization in feminist theory, especially in the shift from the so-called second-wave feminism to third-wave feminism. In my thesis, I argue that the notion of women\u27s collective identity cannot be theoretically developed in a coherent way. However, the inability to theoretically grasp the notion of identity does not imply that concrete political action cannot be unified in other ways. It is necessary to find different ways of including the diversity of women