Articles for DWF
Reviews for DWF
Articles for DWF
The Concept of Women's Oppression. A re-reading of Levi-Strauss' Theories
on the incest taboo and the Exchange of Women, 1977, n. 4, pp. 106-120
The author uncovers a continuing ambiguity underlying
anthropology's interpretation of women in different cultures. Woman has always
been identified closely with nature, set at the margin of culture. Certain anthropological
theories have greatly contributed to the development of an ideology which is
based on supposed male and female values.
The author proposes a critical revision of cultural anthropology as it treats of women. She is particularly strongly opposed to the idealistic interpretations of Levi-Strauss. For him "social structures" are not identical with the actual social organisation, but are related to that unconscious and unchanging "schema" which underlies all social systems and from which all social and cultural diversities are but variations. For a marxist criticism of Levi-Strauss, the material roots of such social phenomena as the prohibition of incest or the exchange of women must be identified and a materialist explanation offered.
Kinship patterns, viewed in this light, are dependent on the general patterns of production, and the original contradiction between the sexes - springing from the woman's power of reproduction - is the key to the division of labour. Hence the need for men to exert a social control over procreation, which is the basic of all masculine power. This leads us to challenge universalistic and meta-historical concepts of the oppression of women which take no account of concrete historical and socio-economic facts.
A materialist methodology is equally necessary in the study of symbols. Levi-Strauss' likening of woman to nature, seen in this light, is revealed as a mystification which helps to reinforme the hegemony of men over women.
Read
the abstracts of the whole issue
go up
The Mother's Unconscious and the theory of Personality. Critical Look at
Lacan, 1978, n. 6-7, pp. 176-188
The appearance of new social subjects - women, for instance - in the political struggle and at the level of consciousness, necessitates the formulation of a "theory of the personality" free of ideological conceptions which have arisen from past historical and scientific conditions. This new "theory of the personality" is based on a new "theory of the unconscious" which critically examines the position of the mother. Thus the mother/child relationship should be analysed in the light of needs which are historically determined or culturally induced.
The author criticise both the Freudian "theory of the libido" which is centred on the biological conception of impulses, and the theories of Lacan which developed out of Melanie Klein's "theory of objects". Although Lacan surpasses Freudian biologism, and ties the Oedipus complex to the reality of social relations, he still maintains an extremely idealistic and anti-historical approach to family relationships, and reduces the mother's symbolic function simply to phallic representation. In this way he gives sanction to woman's social inferiority.
Read
the abstracts of the whole issue
go up
Reviews for DWF
EVANS-PRITCHARD E.E., Stregoneria, oracoli e magia tra gli Azande, Milano,
Angeli, 1976
rev. by Rosaria Micela, 1977, n. 2, pp. 140-141
DOUGLAS M., Purezza e pericolo. Un'analisi dei concetti di contaminazione
e tabù, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1976
rev. by Rosaria Micela, 1977, n. 4, pp. 144-146
ARRIGHI G. - PASSERINI L. (edited by), La politica della parentela. Analisi
situazionali di società africane in transizione, Milano, Feltrinelli,
1976
rev. by Rosaria Micela, 1977, n. 4, pp. 146-148