Dilemmas of Difference:

This paper examines the contemporary intersection of postmodernism and feminist theories of gender difference. Three strategic forms for posing the relationship between western feminism and the Enlightenment legacy of humanistic rationalism are examined: feminist rationalism, feminine antirationalism, and feminist postrationalism, and feminist postrationalism. It is argued that the theoretical rigor of postrationalism. It is argued that the theoretical rigor of postrationalism is obtained at the cost of a deracinated politics, while themore tangible political appeals of rationalism and antirationalism reproduce mirrored naive accounts of the relationship between women and modern western culture. The aim of this paper isto open up, rather than to resolve, questions concerning the relationship between feminism, modernity, and postmodern theory.