 Like the unconscious in classical psychoanalytic theory, the semiotic decenters the self. One may try to express one’s thoughts in definite, straightforward language, yet because of the semiotic aspects of one’s utterances, what one says carries no single meaning and is amenable to being interpreted in more than one way. In Kristeva’s view, this is all to the good, for accessing the semiotic—that which is conveyed, often inadvertently, by the style of an utterance—kindles social critique. The semiotic gives expression to repressed, unconscious material. According to Kristeva, what society systematically represses provides clues to what is oppressive about society and how society needs to be changed. Thus, she discerns a vital ethical potential in the semiotic (Kristeva 1983 [1987]). Since this ethical potential is explicitly linked to the feminine, moreover, Kristeva’s account of the self displaces “masculine” adherence to principle as the prime mode of ethical agency and recognizes the urgent need for a “feminine” ethical approach. At the same time, Kristeva’s questionable-subject-in-process seems for some to enshrine the very gender dichotomy that causes women so much grief. The association of the woman/mother with the unruly and ambiguous semiotic may obscure the rich affect attunement and preverbal dialogues between caregivers and their socially-oriented infants (Willett 1995). Kelly Oliver’s interpretation of Kristeva resists some of these more gendered components of Kristeva’s view and expands upon the relational self as a capacity for a loving sense of “response-ability” to otherness and difference (Oliver 1998). For Oliver, the self is fluidly defined by its openness to others.