Le parole delle donne. Modalità del discorso di genere e costituzione dell'identità femminile

How women speak: Gender discourse and female identity construction. I would like to tackle some theoretical questions raised by feminist thought, particularly on the subject of gender discourse, in an effort to offer a wider re-thinking of the variables in play. We must not forget that life conditions for women everywhere are still marked by great disparities of treatment and opportunities. Gender difference is not totally biologically determined, but develops through unavoidable bio-cultural input. The “difference” question, then explores the meaning of this difference in its specificity, as it results from a complex biological and cultural process. This involves research in different fields, such as cultural anthropology and psychoanalysis, provided one does not forget to take into consideration, cautiously and determinedly, the material characteristics of each historical identity. The identity of women is historically unstable across cultures, which makes it necessary to give recognized legitimacy to individual identity, without invoking metaphysical categories but also without disembodying it. Individual, gendered, identity is the result of a long process of biological and cultural interactions buried in history. Now that neuroscience has given an important contribution to this debate, the principle of individuation has taken on dimension both scientific and cultural. A definition of difference can be based on this intersection between psychological and material cognition. This paper is aimed at identifying at least a descriptive outline of all the different issues raised by the question of gender, also through a review of the feminist positions of the 60’s, but keeping in mind the fact that the very tools of feminism have been “contaminated” by contributions from specialized fields , in particular the discovery of mirror neurons. It would be interesting to see if one could speak of “female” mirror neurons (for example, through breastfeeding) that would determine a “specialized” care-giving behavior . Women can generate a discourse no longer exclusively dependent on conceptual, asexual strictures, but open to metaphor and narrative . Along these lines we can start to build a common world, where a place is made for a“ feminine logic” that repudiates a generic neutrality of thought, and looks, instead, for the “sexed” character of each of all ideas.