Kathi Weeks suggests that one of the most important tasks for contemporary feminist theory is to develop theories of the subject that are adequate to feminist politics. Although the 1980s modernist-postmodernist debate put the problem of feminist subjectivity on the agenda, Weeks contends that limited debate now blocks the further development of feminist theory.

Both modernists and postmodernists succeded in making clear the problems of an already constituted, essentialist subject. What remains as an on-going project Weeks contends, is creating a theory of the constitution of subjects to account for the processes of social construction. This book presents one such account.

Drawing on several different theoretical frameworks, including feminist standpoint theory, socialist feminism, and poststructralist thought, as well as theories of perfomativity and self-valorization, the author proposes a nonessentialist feminist subject, a theory of constituting subjects.