Gender Imago: Searching for new feminist methodologies

Invoking Butler's notion of gender performativity, Kristeva's concept of foreignness, and Laplanche's reconceptualization of otherness, the authors examine the power of fantasy to change the women and men that we always already are. Using "writing-in-response," they discuss the meaning of gender performance in relation to their theoretical commitments. The article is structured around three different forms of dialogue: (a) two lectures that the authors presented, each one contesting accepted ideas of gender, self, and society; (b) seven e-mail correspondences that develop the ideas presented in the lectures and that dramatize the transition from speaking to writing-in-response; and (c) a discussion, developed both together and separately, that raises the possibility of exploring a new language of gendered subjectivity. The article challenges the concept of "direct experience," the separation between psychology and sociology, and destabilizes the space between gender fantasy and performance.