A critical, philosophical engagement of the psychological structures that propagate the continued oppression of women. In this book, the Italian feminist thinker Lea Melandri argues that systemic violence against women has deep psychoanalytic roots. Drawing inspiration from the work of Freud and the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Elvio Fachinelli, along with feminist practices of consciousness-raising, Melandri demonstrates how male dominance and female subservience are established by society through a binary and oppositional understanding of sex and gender. This understanding–and the oppression and violence against women that results–is inscribed in the psyches of both men and women, and is replicated anew from generation to generation. Melandri analyzes women in media, politics, philosophy, and literature to show how this plays out, and calls for awareness of these deep psychic structures and expectations formed within the dynamics of society and primary family relations.
Author(s): Lea Melandri
Series: SUNY Series in Contemporary Italian Philosophy
Publisher: Suny Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 170
Tags: Women, Violence
Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgments......Page 8
Translator’s Introduction......Page 10
Preface......Page 12
Love and Violence......Page 16
The Non-Presentable Citizenship of the Body......Page 18
The Ambiguous Border between Ethics and Politics......Page 25
The Body and the Law......Page 31
Beyond the Borders of Life......Page 38
The Freedom to Resemble Others......Page 44
If Power Were to Become Female......Page 48
Prisoners of a Dream......Page 52
The Vexatious Factor of Civilization......Page 54
The Vile Body......Page 67
Liberated or Prostituted Bodies?......Page 70
The Mother: The First and Last Taboo......Page 83
Warrior Asceticism......Page 88
The Armed Defenselessness of the Man-Son......Page 92
The Freedom to Be......Page 104
Night Trams......Page 110
Belonging......Page 111
The Astuteness of Eros......Page 115
Por donde saldrá el sol?......Page 119
A Room of Thoughts......Page 126
Dissident Desire......Page 128
The Salvific Bilingualism of the Political Culture of Women......Page 144
Notes......Page 152
Index......Page 160