The dynamics of female self-identification conceptions: from modernism to postmodernist feminism

A number of new contradictions between the personality and society, including the accentuation of the problem of human being's identity and self-identification have been engendered by globalization. Whereas formerly the individual enjoyed a stable set of norms, values, and motivations determining his identity structure, nowadays social institutions bearing responsibility for the stable identity development are experiencing transformations and fail to accomplish their functions to the full extent or are actually in complete collapse. The social, economic and political status of woman has undergone the most drastic transformations resulting in pivotal changes of her identity structure and identification processes. Under the contemporary circumstances the old-fashioned modernist views and ideas about the role, status, and position of women, the traditional patterns of behaviour and value judgments turn out to be inappropriate. One can state that the classical ideas of women's self-identification are old and tired version and now it is time for a new apprehension of this significant process. The problem of identity and self-identification has been handled in a particular way both in the framework of postmodernist theories and in terms of contemporary feminist conceptions. The theorists of postmodernist feminism have put forward a sufficiently interesting and important project reconsidering female/gender identity structure as well as female identification/self-identification processes.