Juliet Mitchell

The Future of Gender: Procreative mothers (sexual difference) and child-free sisters (gender)

The article considers the changing position of women and the family from the Second World War until today using the UK as its example. It offers a theoretical perspective by setting out to examine the possibility that the rise of second-wave feminism both reflected and spearheaded an aspect of demographic transition to non-replacement populations. It considers the tension between the formation of ‘sexual difference’ to enable reproduction and what it calls the ‘engendering of gender’ in lateral relations which are indifferent to procreation. With the achievements of feminism as a political vanguard and the demographic transition as its socioeconomic base, women were no longer defined by the family; their definition ceased to depend on procreation. The article proposes that the new use of the term ‘gender’ entered the political arena to become a key concept of feminism to indicate non-procreative sexuality and sexual relations that need not be heterosexual or biologically procreative. Judith Butler’s well-...

Procreative Mothers (Sexual Difference) and Child-Free Sisters (Gender) Feminism and Fertility

The article considers the changing position of women and the family from the Second World War until today using the UK as its example. It offers a theoretical perspective by setting out to examine the possibility that the rise of second-wave feminism both reflected and spearheaded an aspect of demographic transition to non-replacement populations. It considers the tension between the formation of ‘sexual difference’ to enable reproduction and what it calls the ‘engendering of gender’ in lateral relations which are indifferent to procreation. With the achievements of feminism as a political vanguard and the demographic transition as its socioeconomic base, women were no longer defined by the family; their definition ceased to depend on procreation. The article proposes that the new use of the term ‘gender’ entered the political arena to become a key concept of feminism to indicate non-procreative sexuality and sexual relations that need not be heterosexual or biologically procreative. Judith Butler’s well-known suggestion that ‘gender’ troubles the status quo in a revolutionary manner cannot be sustained. Rather than disturbing the universe, the advent of ‘gender’ reflects the transition to a new demographic order.

The Bright Forms … . .: Commentary on Paper by Vivian Dent

This brief commentary on Vivian Dents paper about my way of introducing the horizontal axis of siblings engages in a two-way dialogue about what art can tell us of the unconscious psyche and what psychoanalysis can tell us of the art object. It urges us to look at siblings in the transference and countertransference.

Reply to Lynne Segal's Commentary

The author explains why her work differs from the feminist uses of psychoanalysis that Segal admires. The key to the disagreement with Segal here is understanding what is meant by unconscious processes. The author maintains that these are always transformations. Unlike conscious fantasies, they are often bizarre, as in delusions, hallucinations, primitive fantasies, and the like. So far only a psychoanalytic method can access them. The work Segal prefers charts accessible preconscious identifications in an untransformed way, which by definition reflects “social reality.” The political/feminist use of the latter is likely to be easier, but it is working on different ground from that which interests the author.