Abstract

This essay looks at feminist poststructuralist methods of approaching gender, language, and sexuality. It briefly outlines the principles of a feminist poststructuralist approach to language and how it is relevant and useful in the study of gender and sexuality. Focusing on the discursive, embodied production of gender and sexuality and on gender as performance, it examines the example of the competing and contrasting ideas and materialities of freedom, the body, gender, and sexuality produced within Western feminisms and Islamic feminism. It takes the highly contested issues of the hijab, hijab fashion, the niqab, and the burkini to exemplify a feminist poststructuralist approach. The chapter will conclude with a brief consideration of the strengths and weaknesses of this approach and a guide to further reading.