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.The summer 1997 issue of Hypatia explored numerous aspects, ideas, and positions of third wave feminism. In this special issue, authors explored the difficulties in defining exactly what third wave feminism is, noting that it emphasizes multiplicity, ambiguity, and difference (Alfonso and issues relating to identity politics (Ferguson 1997). Many of these scholars examined third wave feminist books such as Rebecca Walker's edited collection, To Be Real (1995), and Barbara Findlen's anthology, Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation (1995). Several of these early third wave feminist writers, including the books' editors, discussed how young women (and men) felt alienated by second wave feminism, lacked a sense of belonging to or understanding of feminist ideals and theories, and did not feel included in
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