Utopian thought: Re-visioning gender, family, and community (original) (raw)

Abstract

Utopian ideals are vital to sustained engagement in the struggle to create a better society. However, the problematic aspects of utopian traditions also need to be addressed as part of the work of social movements. This paper offers a framework for exploring the interplay of healthy and pathological forms of idealization in groups and for analyzing the non-rational dimensions of group life. In critiquing communitarian thought, the paper develops a socialist± feminist and psychoanalytic perspective focusing on the connections between family, sexuality, and democratic community. The paper concludes with political strategies for grounding utopian ideals in contemporary struggles for reform. KEY WORDS Utopia, communitarian, psychoanalytic feminism, family and community, psychoanalytic group psychology RE  SUME  Les visions d' utopie jouent un ro à le tre Á s important dans les mouvements visant a Á faire une transformation sociale. Pourtant, dans ces projets tranformatifs, il faut aussi tenir compte des aspects les plus proble  matiques des traditions utopiques. Dans cet article, les auteurs proposent une strate  gie pour l' exploration de l' effet re  ciproque des formes d' ide  alisation saines et pathologiques et pour analyser les aspects non-raisonnables en la vie des groupes sociales. En critiquant les ide  es des`communitarians', une perspective socialist± feministe et psychoanalytique est pre  sente  e qui met au centre de l' analyse les rapports entre la famille, la sexualite  et la communaute  democratique. Pour conclure, on propose quelques strate  gies politiques pour inte  grer des ide  ales utopiques dans les luttes actuelles pour la re  forme. MOTS CLEFS L' utopie, communitarian, feminisme psychoanalytique, la famille et communaute, groupe sociale psychoanalytique Every oppressed group needs to imagine through the help of history and mythology a world where our oppression did not seem the pre-ordained order ¼ The mistake lies in believing in this ideal past or imagined future so thoroughly and single-mindedly that ® nding solutions to present-day inequities loses priority, or we attempt to create too-easy solutions for the pain we feel today [1].

Loading...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

References (29)

  1. Cherrie Moraga, Loving in the war years, South End Press, p. 129.
  2. The novels are also different. LeGuin' s subtitle, `an ambiguous utopia' , re¯ects her explo- ration of repressive tendencies in communal society, a problem that is not at all foregrounded in Piercy' s novel. The two novels also re¯ect, perhaps, generational differences in radical post-war feminism. If Piercy's theoretical touchstone is Shulameth Firestone (The dialectic of sex), LeGuin's would be DeBeauvoir (The second sex).
  3. These changes, of course, have very real downsides. Single mothers are impoverished; reproductive technologies have opened up new avenues for controlling and exploiting women' s bodies, two-thirds of the closing of the gender gap in wages has occurred not because women are making more, but because men are earning less.
  4. BARRETT, M. & MCINTOSH, M. (1984). The anti-social family. New York: Verso.
  5. BENJAMIN, J. (1988). Bonds of love. New York: Pantheon Books.
  6. BURACK, C. (1994). The problem of the passions: Feminism, psychoanalysis, and social theory. New York: New York University Press.
  7. CAMENT, K.M.C. & DURRETT, C. (1988). Cohousing. Berkeley, CA: Habitat Press.
  8. COLLINS, P.H. (1990). Black feminist thought. New York: Routledge.
  9. COLLINS, P.H. (1998). Fighting words: Black women and the search for justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  10. COLTRANE, S. (1997). Family man (pp. 117± 120). New York: Oxford University Press.
  11. ELSHTAIN, J.B. (Fall 1982). Feminism, family and community. Dissent, 442± 449.
  12. FRIEDMAN, M. (1995). Feminism and modern friendship: Dislocating the community. In P.A. WEISS & M. FRIEDMAN (Eds.), Feminism and community (pp. 187± 207). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  13. HAMMONDS, E.M. (1997). Toward a genealogy of black female sexuality: The problematic of silence. In M.J. ALEXANDER & C.T. MOHANTY (Eds.), Feminist genealogies, colonial legacies, democratic futures. New York: Routledge.
  14. LEGUIN, U.K. (1974). The dispossessed. New York: Harper & Row.
  15. LEVINE, D. et al. (Eds.). (1995). Rethinking schools: An agenda for change. New York: New Press.
  16. MAHONEY, M.A. & YNGVESSON, B. (1992). The construction of subjectivity and the paradox of resistance: Reintegrating feminist anthropology and psychology. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, 18, 44± 73.
  17. MINER, V. & LONGINO, H.E. (Eds.). (1987). Competition: A feminist taboo? New York: The Feminist Press.
  18. MORAGA, C. (1983). Loving in the war years. Boston: South End Press.
  19. NARAYAN, U. (1997). Dislocating cultures: Identities, traditions, and Third World feminism. New York: Routledge.
  20. PHELAN, S. (1996). All the comforts of home: The geneology of community. In N. HIRSCHMANN & C. DISTEFANO (Eds.), Revisioning the political: Feminist reconstructions of traditional concepts in Western political theory (pp. 235± 250). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
  21. PIERCY, M. (1976). Woman on the edge of time. New York: Ballantine Books.
  22. ROTHMAN, B.K. (1989). Recreating motherhood (pp. 223± 228). New York: W.W. Norton.
  23. SANDEL, M. (1982). Liberalism and the limits of justice (pp. 150± 152). New York: Cambridge University Press.
  24. SEGAL, L. (1990). Slow motion: Changing masculinities, changing men (pp. 264± 268). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
  25. SEGURA, D.A. & PIERCE, J.L. (1993). Chicana/o family structure and gender personality: Chodorow, familism, and psychoanalytic sociology revisited. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, 19, 63± 91.
  26. TURNBULL, C.M. (1981). Mbuti womanood. In F. DAHLBERG (Ed.), Woman the gatherer. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  27. WEISS, P.A. (1995). Feminism and communitarianism: Comparing critiques of liberalism. In P.A. WEISS & M. FRIEDMAN (Eds.), Feminism and community (pp. 161± 186). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  28. WHITEBOOK, J. (1995). Perversion and utopia: A study in psychoanalysis and critical theory. Cam- bridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  29. WHITEHEAD, B.D. (1993). Dan Quayle was right. The Atlantic, 271(April), 47± 84.