Contradiction as Agency: Self-determination, Transcendence, and Counter-imagination in Third Wave Feminism

Valerie R. Renegar, San Diego State University
Stacey Sowards, University of Texas at El Paso

Abstract

This essay examines the contradictions often found in third wave feminist texts that function as strategic choices that may shape, foster, and enhance an individual’s sense of agency. Many third wave feminists utilize contradiction as a way to understand emergent identities, to develop new ways of thinking, and to imagine new forms of social action. Agency, then, stems from the use of contradiction as a means of selfdetermination and identity, of transcendence of seemingly forced or dichotomous choices, and counter-imaginations of a better future.