Why Feminism? : Gender, Psychology and Politics

by Segal, Lynne

• ISBN13: 9780231119641
• ISBN10: 023111964X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

Segal surveys the impact of feminist thought and activism on contemporary culture. Three decades after the remarkable resurgence of feminism, both critics of the movement and feminists themselves hold sharply opposing views on the success or failures of three decades of women's activism. Exploring feminism's troubled relations with psychology and psychoanalysis, the rise of new evolutionary theory, the impact of queer theorizing on gender categories, controversies over memory and trauma, and increasing anxieties about men and masculinity, Why Feminism? illustrates the continuing provocation and significance of feminist inquiry, laying out potentialities and pitfalls for the century ahead.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii
Introduction: Why Feminism?	1	(8)
Generations of Feminism	9	(29)
Acts of Memory	10	(2)
Dubious Contrasts	12	(5)
Rowbotham's `Seventies' Feminism	17	(4)
The Collapse of a Vision	21	(6)
A New Fundamentalism	27	(2)
The Turn to `Theory'	29	(4)
Political Agendas	33	(5)
Gender to Queer, and Back Again	38	(40)
The Rise of Gender Theory	39	(4)
The Allure of Difference	43	(6)
The Romance of Otherness	49	(6)
The Joys of Queer	55	(5)
Transgender Dialogues	60	(6)
Back to Gender?	66	(4)
The Future of Gender	70	(8)
Genes and Gender: The Return to Darwin	78	(38)
Science versus Culture?	79	(2)
Survival and Sexual Selection	81	(5)
Evolutionary Psychology: The New Contender	86	(8)
The Tale of the Female Ape	94	(6)
Theoretical Pluralists: The Enemy Within	100	(4)
Gene Talk versus Social Change	104	(7)
For Epistemic Diversity	111	(5)
Psychic Life and its Scandals	116	(33)
Tricks of Memory	117	(3)
Dilemmas of Science	120	(3)
Troubled Vision	123	(1)
Feminist Denunciations	124	(3)
Fantasy versus Trauma	127	(6)
Models of Memory	133	(4)
Memory as Narrative	137	(4)
Betrayal versus Abuse?	141	(4)
Narratives in Context	145	(4)
Gender Anxieties at the Limits of Psychology	149	(25)
Feminism Enters the Academy	150	(2)
Still Searching for Sex Differences	152	(2)
Feminist Psychology and Social Constructionism	154	(2)
Openness to Gender Heterodoxy	156	(4)
The Predicament of Men	160	(4)
Projects for Reforming Masculinity	164	(6)
Deconstructing Gender	170	(1)
Subjectivity and Change	171	(3)
Cautionary Tales: Between Freud and Feminism	174	(26)
Opening Skirmishes	176	(3)
Imagining the Void	179	(6)
Oedipal Dramas and the Crisis of Paternal Authority	185	(5)
The First Bond and its Consequences	190	(3)
Retrenchment versus Renewal?	193	(2)
Sexual Difference versus Gender: Accepting Ambiguity	195	(5)
Only Contradictions on Offer: Feminism at the Millennium	200	(33)
Snapshots of Gender	201	(5)
The Subject of Dependency	206	(3)
Family Values	209	(2)
Sweeping Anti-statism	211	(4)
Switching to the Subject	215	(2)
Activist Challenges	217	(3)
Disciplinary Feminism	220	(3)
Cultural Imperatives	223	(2)
Feminism without Politics	225	(4)
Political Futures	229	(4)
Notes	233	(41)
Index	274