Love and Violence: The Vexatious Factors of Civilization

Description

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. 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