Introduction to the volume "Gender, I-deology: Essays on Theory, Fiction, and Film." Ed. Chantal Cornut-Gentille D'Arcy and José Ángel García Landa. (Postmodern Studies, 16). Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996.

The book "Gender, I-deology" is a collective volume of essays on the representation of gender difference, and on the ideological implications of the conventions or representational strategies used in texts. It includes essays on film, literatura, and critical theory, written from a number of perspectives associated to feminist criticism.  My contribution is the introduction to the volume, and deals with the guiding features of the discourse on genre. I examine a number of social contexts, institutions, practices and discourses which contribute to the discourse on genre: sexuality, essentialist and constructivist social theories, masculinity and femininity, individuality, the organization of work, the discourse of love, of family and marriage, the discourse of history, and last but not least the linguistic implications of generic difference and the ideological role of feminist criticism in the development of a critical awareness with respect to gender roles and stereotypes. I expound a theory of the role of stereotypes and of their unthinking use as a relevant element in the present economy of gender. The paper has a linguistic-semiotic dimension, as it relates aspects of the use and generation of discourse and aspects of critical discourse analysis, viewing both from the standpoint of a theory of social processes which contribute to the formation of gender as a cultural, ideological and discursive object. There is, thus, an analytic continuum linking critical discourse and the social construction of gender through semiotic practices.