Volume V (2022) (2015)
contradictions as a rebellion against the strict rules set within the movement. 17 In addition, third-
wave feminism touches the themes of pro- choice, reclamation of “all things girly,” pro -sex,
genderbending, engagement with popular culture, and generational conflict. All these themes share one thing in common: no categorization, no standardized terminology, and no structure. 18 For some,
this may sound like complete anarchy. Due to an eschew of a unifying agenda, scholars struggle to
define the third-wave. Jennifer Baumgardner, an American writer and feminist activist, states that people keep insisting on defining; however, “feminism is something individual to each feminist.” 19
I consider the evolution of feminism - from first-wave to third-wave - to be a consequence of
what the nomadic theory rejects. The fixed dichotomy of the sexes, men representing the Same while
women representing the Other , leaves no room for motion and change. Men are stuck with the
burden of self-perpetuating their role and keeping up the existing socio-political framework while
women are stuck just acknowledging their struggle, the major transformations in their status, and
definitions of what means to be woman. There is no actual shifting from the fixed concepts that
define them due to pre-created ideas embedded in society. Men and women are stuck in this
Hegelian dialectic of Master-Slave. This is what the nomadic vision and third-wave feminism share
in their foundations, a rejection of ego-indexed ideas. The goal is to break what it has been pre- constructed through a radical process of de-familiarization, 20 move towards the Other and embrace it. The only way to break the power dynamic is by transcending these imposed roles. The Same must undo its central position of power and the Other must disengage itself from its universal identity. 21
In other words, everyone becomes Other . This process does not intend the oppressed to become the
oppressor but to keep an open process of going beyond those hierarchical positions. A never-ending
deconstruction of all our pre-created concepts on the matter; therefore, the eradication of the female
and male subject.
Scholars may reject the eradication of the subject arguing that the notion of the subject allows
individuals to have political and moral agency, a valid argument since feminist theory and the role of Other are political. 22 Philosophers like Hélène Cixous would have problems accepting nomadic
ethics since it goes against the “feminist project” of re -evaluating the experiences of women. In The
17 Jennifer Gilley, “Writings of the Third Wave: Young Feminists in Conversation,” The Alert Collector 44, no. 3 (2005): 189. 18 Jennifer Gilley, “Writings of the Third Wave: Young Feminists in Conversation,” 189-191. 19 Jennifer Baumgardner, 2000, as cited in R. C laire Snyder, “What is Third -Wave Feminism? A New Directions Essay,” 177. 20 Rosi Braidotti, “Nomadic Ethics,” 348. 21 Rosi Braidotti, “Nomadic Ethics,” 348. 22 Margaret McLaren, “Foucault and the Subject of Feminism,” Social Theory and Practice 23, no. 1 (1997): 109.
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