Subjectivisation and feminism. An analysis of a political manifesto

Abstract

The theme of this article is the the Italian feminist movement of the 1980s. That movement was characterised by political transformation and a crtitique of identity. The article takes as its point of departure the inaugural speech of the movement, the manifesto "Piu donne che uomini" (1983). The analysis that we present is inspired in the work of Michel Foucault. It aims to show to that the production of new feministic subjectivities, when fighting the symbolic dimension of masculine domination, has an intrinsically political character. In the 1980s, in the Italian context and particularly in the feminist movement, the rules of the political game set up by the events of 1968 materialized. That allows us to evaluate the effects, achievements and contradictions of an anti-institutional policy that takes as its object one's own identity.