1. public wound clearly visible in the sunshine, an ambiguous wound that the world can see. It is the letter re-written on her body, a simultaneous admission and plea: see this wound and help me, it is your wound as well as mine, ask me, help me, learn the story of how it came to be there;one sees and thus cannot take any responsibility for
2. the various practitioners of identity politics that ?i?ek so decries, who only want to gain recognition for their own marginal groups -gays, lesbians, feminists (one is tempted to say, especially feminists, given all the negative phenomena ?i?ek claims they are responsible for: sexual harassment legislation, the culture of complaint, the universalisation of victimhood, cultural studies. The one who performs the ethical act moves beyond individualistic concerns and "strikes at him/herself;These are exciting -also alarming -descriptions, radical exhortations to break with one's disavowed passionate attachment
3. Woman Given ?i?ek's harsh critiques of "feminism" and the opposition he sets up between, for example, particularistic postmodern "feminist" positions and the position of anti-capitalism that "affects us all," it is surprising that in the majority of ?i?ek's examples, the act is performed by women. As mentioned previously, ?i?ek attributes a whole litany of postmodern "spurious infinities" to feminists; nonetheless, ?i?ek writes that "the ethical act 'as such' has the structure Perhaps another reason that Antigone is so seductive as a male fantasy is because her struggle, though a struggle against male authority, is motivated by her fidelity to a male relative, and is grounded in a "divine" patriarchal law. It is thus a chaste struggle. Antigone, though a woman, is in fact ultimately a desexualised figure. This feature is emphasised in her reflections on her premature death, as she mourns how she will never marry or have children. Far more interesting in this respect is ?i?ek's suggestion that perhaps it is time;B The;Structure of the Act is Feminine or, How Behind Every Act is a Good (Dead)