Gender and the Human: An Introduction

This forum offers critical perspectives on the intersection between gender and the politics of the human. The three articles that comprise it showcase dilemmas that have produced an impasse in feminist politics, as well as the possibilities that feminist analysis offers for rethinking the politics of humanity. The introduction traces the historical intertwining of gender and the human, beginning with the paradox of Enlightenment universalism and female exclusion that launched modern western feminism. It considers both the resilience of this dominant framework of feminist analysis and the limitations it has produced. By examining both the implications of the juridical focus on women's inclusion and rights, and the significance of gender and the body for new forms of modern state power particularly in colonial and post‐colonial contexts, it seeks to sustain new feminist interrogations of the modern politics of the human.