Lynne Segal

Sex exposed : sexuality and the pornography debate

Book synopsis: Over the past twenty years debates about pornography have raged within feminism and beyond. Throughout the 1970s feminists increasingly addressed the problem of mens sexual violence against women, and many women reduced the politics of mens power to questions about sexuality. By the 1980s these questions had become more and more focused on the issue of pornography--now a metaphor for the menace of male power. Collapsing feminist politics into sexuality and sexuality into pornography has not only caused some of the deepest splits between feminists, but made it harder to think clearly about either sexuality or pornography--indeed, about feminist politics more generally. This provocative collection, by well-known feminists, surveys these arguments, and in particular asks why recent feminist debates about sexuality keep reducing to questions of pornography.

Gender, war and militarism: making and questioning the links

The gender dynamics of militarism have traditionally been seen as straightforward, given the cultural mythologies of warfare and the disciplining of ‘masculinity’ that occurs in the training and use of mens capacity for violence in the armed services. However, womens relation to both war and peace has been varied and complex. It is women who have often been most prominent in working for peace, although there are no necessary links between women and opposition to militarism. In addition, more women than ever are serving in many of todays armies, with feminists rather uncertain on how to relate to this phenomenon. In this article, I explore some of the complexities of applying gender analyses to militarism and peace work in sites of conflict today, looking most closely at the Israeli feminist group, New Profile, and their insistence upon the costs of the militarized nature of Israeli society. They expose the very permeable boundaries between the military and civil society, as violence seeps into the fears and practices of everyday life in Israel. I place their work in the context of broader feminist analysis offered by researchers such as Cynthia Enloe and Cynthia Cockburn, who have for decades been writing about the ‘masculinist’ postures and practices of warfare, as well as the situation of women caught up in them. Finally, I suggest that rethinking the gendered nature of warfare must also encompass the costs of war to men, whose fundamental vulnerability to psychological abuse and physical injury is often downplayed, whether in mainstream accounts of warfare or in more specific gender analysis. Feminists need to pay careful attention to masculinity and its fragmentations in addressing the topic of gender, war and militarism.

Back to the boys? Temptations of the good gender theorist

Saturated with gloom, anxiety, mirth or irony, discourses of men in crisis are ubiquitous. Critically surveying available empirical evidence and the ever-expanding conceptual apparatus for deconstructing and refiguring masculinities, this article reflects upon the historical, social, cultural and political landscape of crisis literature. It considers the limitations of attempts to reform or undo some of the unwanted repercussions of manhood, whether endeavouring to reform, deconstruct, subvert, reclaim or ironize social attitudes, texts or performances of masculinity.

Look Back in Anger: Men in the Fifties

‘A new hero has risen among us’, wrote Walter Allen in his influential review of Kingsley Amis’s first novel, Lucky Jim, in January 1954.2 The new hero is male, the ‘intellectual tough’ or ‘tough intellectual’. He is rude, crude and clumsy, boasts his political apathy, his suspicion of all causes, and he is out to do nobody any good but himself. His heroism consists in the fact that he is honestly self-serving, fiercely critical of all he sees as phoney, pretentious or conformist — a passion which expresses itself most readily in a rejection of what he sees as womanly, or domestic. He exudes a bullying contempt for women.

Thinking like a man: the cultures of science

Culture includes science and science includes culture, but conflicts between the two traditions persist, often seen as clashes between interpretation and knowledge. One way of highlighting this false polarity has been to explore the gendered symbolism of science. Feminism has contributed to science studies and the critical interrogation of knowledge, aware that practical knowledge and scientific understanding have never been synonymous. Persisting notions of an underlying unity to scientific endeavour have often impeded rather than fostered the useful application of knowledge. This has been particularly evident in the recent rise of molecular biology, with its delusory dream of the total conquest of disease. It is equally prominent in evolutionary psychology, with its renewed attempts to depict the fundamental basis of sex differences. Wars over science have continued to intensify over the last decade, even as our knowledge of the political, economic and ideological significance of science funding and research has become ever more apparent.

After Thatcher: Still trying to piece it all together

S heila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright wrote Beyond the Fragments a generation ago. Inspired by the activism of the 1970s and faced with the imminent triumph of the right under Margaret Thatcher, they drew on their experiences as feminists and socialists to offer ideas for a project that would help create stronger bonds of solidarity and alliance, through the formation of a new kind of left movement. Since then the obstacles facing those struggling for radical social transformation have grown formidably: we have seen among other disasters the decline of the left as a national force, the massive impact of the neoliberal agenda, the collapse of manufacturing industry, greatly increased environmental problems and a widening inequality gap.

Psychoanalysis and politics: Juliet Mitchell then and now

Feminism and psychoanalysis have been in constant dialogue over the last four decades, and Juliet Mitchell has played a critical role in instigating and shaping that conversation. Yet her own work incorporates some of the most contentious aspects of it. Here I explore her latest book, Madmen and Medusas, to reflect upon why the relationship between her work and that dialogue remains so troubled. This exploration enables me to consider, once more, the contrasts between psychoanalytic perspectives that focus upon kinship, ideology, and symbolic structures and those which stress the historical contingency of gender categories.

Portraying ageing: its contradictions and paradoxes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight the stigma surrounding old age, which in many ways has increased rather than decreased with the ageing of the population. Design/methodology/approach – The approach of this paper is to introduce the reader to recent writing and research surrounding talk of a “demograhic time bomb”, with the ageing of populations world wide. It also looks back on the work on “ageing studies” over the last two decades, revealing the prevailing disavowals of old age among the old themselves, as well as the contrasting gendered dynamics of the ways in which we are, as Margaret Gullette writes, “aged by culture”. Findings –The author introduces the conceptual notion of “temporal vertigo” to the complicated effects of the multiplicity of continuities and discontinuities older people experience when reflecting upon who they are over a lifetime. Ageing is of interest for those who have always been sceptical about any notion of the “true self”, allowing us to puzzle over how the ...

Temporal Vertigo: The Paradoxes of Ageing

“I don’t feel old,” most older informants proclaim. That affirmation tells us much about the stigma surrounding old age. It tells us also about the temporal vertigo we face as we age if contemplating the multiplicity of continuities and discontinuities over time. Ageing is of interest to those who have always been skeptical about any notion of the “true self,” allowing us to puzzle over how the account the old give of themselves—if anyone is still listening—will rely upon their ability to incorporate differing versions of the self, woven into the volatilities of memory and fantasy. I explore some of the radical ambiguities in the speech or writing of those thinking about ageing. While pondering the fluctuating ties between younger and older selves, I also venture into the hazards of desire in old age and the apparently contrasting situation of ageing men compared with ageing women. Old age may no longer be the condition that dare not speak its name, but it remains the identity about which most prefer to stay silent.

Reluctant Citizens: Between Incorporation and Resistance

There is no doubting the discursive prominence of notions of ‘citizenship’ nowadays. Yet, in many ways, this might seem rather strange, when ‘citizenship’ has such a dubious genealogy. Once upon a time, we might agree, notions of ‘citizenship’ were identical with notions of ‘freedom’. Certainly, that is how we were taught to imagine the activities of the free man in the Greek city-state, or early Roman republic. Such a man would participate, to varying degrees, in the public life and protection of his city — whether as senator, soldier, priest, judge, athlete, or performing other activities for maintaining the affairs of his city. But that time is not now. In the foreground, were we to conjure up scenes of civic life from classical antiquity, the very first thing we might detect is all the hours and energy the free man was able to assign to the polis. In the background, were we to look behind the public forums, was the huge level of maintenance performed by slaves, servants, women and foreigners, themselves excluded from civic life (Balot, 2009). Moreover, as the political philosopher Michael Walzer suggests, even by the first century AD, ‘citizenship’ was already becoming the more passive or formal affair it is in modernity, where it provides the framework of rights and duties within nation-states, but not any requirement for active political participation (Walzer, 1983).