1976 Year I, n. 3

Editorial, pp. 7-8

A presentation of the articles collected in this issue, all dealing with the difficulty of defining a scientific methodology which would bring women, as subjects of knowledge, to an understanding of the female being as a scientific object.

MORSELLI DAVOLI Graziella, Towards a new Theory of Knowledge, pp. 9-19

Feminist thinking today is betaking itself, with enlightened faith and with no preconceived ideas as to method, into the field of the social sciences, not with the aim of stating a new ideology but in a search for suitable methodological tools and for ideas which are more consistent with woman's experience. In order to establish the practical and theoretical relationship of woman with the world the essential characteristics of feminine culture must be defined in scientific terms. Within anthropological definition of "things feminine" there is discernible a theory of knowledge which is already in a position to set forth its first postulates. One concerns the relationship between the specific and the global (the culture of woman and human culture), and when fully understood liberates woman from all metaphysical absolutes and allows her to avoid being alienated by being used as an object. The other postulate concerns the act of knowing being carried out doubly, in two directions, using the two-way thought process of feminine consciousness, referring outwards to "the other", and reflecting inwards onto itself.

CONTI ODORISIO Ginevra, The Theory of Matriarchy in Hobbes, pp. 21-33

There has been widespread debate around the theory of matriarchy. Part of contemporary feminism bases its claims for women on a presumed golden age of matriarchy. Recourse to such a remote and ephemeral past to legitimise these claims is quite superfluous. The theory of matriarchy was used by Hobbes in a historical perspective for quite other ends: to woman in the state of nature is confined control over her son, in civilised society the father exercises this control. An analysis of Hobbes' political theories brings to light many interesting aspects of his thinking: sex equality and the sex war, woman's subjection deriving from a legislative system created by men, the use of the "contract" to make legitimate the absolute power of man over woman.

GARDINER Jean - HIMMELWEIT Susan - MACKINTOSH Maureen, Domestic Work and surplus Value, pp. 35-53

This article is the combined work of the Political Economy of Women Group for the 1975 Conference of Socialist Economists. The authors, having analysed the Marxist theories of value, approach the problem of the relationship between domestic work and the capitalist mode of production. The housewife's work is not regarded as a distinct mode of production. It is included within the capitalist production relations, but the distinction between domestic work and paid work is carefully made. Factory work pre-supposes co-operation between workers who are doing the same work at the same time in the same place. This is not true for domestic work, which is done "in parallel" by housewives and therefore in isolation. The nature of housework does not change even where we are considering a family in which both husband and wife are working. It is women's isolation at home in the productive process which deprives them of power in the general field of production. The authors suggest that for further study on this theme there should be an analysis of salary differences between men and women. Though domestic work is indispensable to production in the capitalist system - it's role in producing and maintaining the work force is fundamental - it is being progressively socialised. But it must also be born in mind that, in exchange for State-provided substitutes and aids to domestic work (laundries, convenience foods etc. etc.) women have provided capital with cheap labour power. The authors insist that the political value of this socialisation of domestic work lies in the opportunity it gives to the women to shed their subsidiary role in the production process.

SCARCIA AMORETTI Biancamaria, Woman and Islam, pp. 55-77

The passage from an archaic type of religion to a monotheistic culture and religion, with the consequent profound changes in the pre-existing order of things, is of great importance to the position of woman. Under Islam, man and woman are theoretically equal before God, but they are not equal before each other. The spiritual values of the Islamic world play their role in justifying male privilege and in persuading woman that her role as a second class creature is a positive one. As for sexuality, although in Muslim thinking sexual pleasure is a good thing, for the man it is but a restorative, an oasis of recuperation, in no way a fulfilment of himself. Hence sex comes to be considered as woman's sphere of action. Here, too, she appears in a lower category, socially useless, tied to this destiny by her menstrual cycles. (menstrual impurity). The various political attempts in different Islamic countries to solve the problem of Muslim women have so far had few practical results. The number of women working in various political institutions and organisations in the different countries is continually on the increase, but the task of transforming the value set upon and the meaning given to woman as a human being still remains to be undertaken.

CONWAY K. Jill, Co-education and Separation: Woman in the American University, pp. 79-97

Historically, in the USA, the principle of co-education was not accepted, as is generally believed, in order to better the condition of women and to change the relationship between the sexes. Its true scope was utilitarian - to prepare a body of teachers, at minimum cost, for the school system. If co-education has failed to bring about effective equality with men this is because there has been no thorough debate on the relation between women admissions and study programmes, between women students and research, between women graduates and employment possibilities in American society. The role of the educated woman has become that of applying her culture in service activity and of transmitting it to the young. Women must therefore win positions in the Faculties which will allow them to give real content to co-education, to develop fuller courses of study, more suited to the needs of the women students. However, there are various risks in setting up special women's courses. One is that women teachers may be relegated to subjects of marginal importance from the University's point of view. It must also be remembered that in many subjects which concern women the level of studies is low and texts outdated. At the present time, there are about 1,300 women's courses in 1,000 universities and colleges in the U.S., obviously not all at the same level. Thorough study is needed if a new orientation is to be given to disciplines which have been built up on male experience. The author hopes that the next decade will see a vigorous effort, working within present structures, in order to bring them in closer correspondence with woman's needs.

MORREALE Maria Teresa,The Findings of a German feminist of the last Century on Nietzsche and Woman, pp. 99-117

The author, in her short introduction to the writings of Hedwig Dohm on "Nietzsche and Woman", emphasises that even the most recent Nietzche studies have thrown but little light on the great German philosopher's relationships with the women with whom he came into contact: his mother, his sister, his friends (Lou Andreas Salome, Malvida von Meyseburg). But the position he takes up in the course of his writings, when he expresses judgements on the essence of woman, is even more disconcerting. He disapproves of any form of culture or of emancipation for woman, stating categorically that woman should remain the exclusive property of man, and any refinement she undergoes is solely to appease the male and the better to beget children. German culture of that time (and not only German culture) nurtured plenty of similar viewpoints, but what is striking is that Nietzsche, the great innovator in science and in morality, the declared enemy of any philistinisrn, on the woman question did not hesitate to line up beside the most reactionary and conservative, never for one moment allowing himself to be touched by the critical doubts, the pleas for change and for clarification from voices such as those of John Stuart Mill, Hedwig Dohm and the early German feminists. Hedwig Dohm's article, which appeared first in the Berlin journal "Die Zukunft" in 1898, follows in translation.

MBILINYI J. Marjorie, Tanzanian Woman: Past and Present, pp. 119-140

The example of women in Tanzania is taken to illustrate their place in African society over time and their response to conditions which confront them to-day. It seems possible that men-women contradictions have arisen independently of, or prior to, the development of capitalism. Capitalist forces, however, have exploited these contradictions and accentuated them. In fact the role of women, like that of men, in any society is dependent upon how they fit into the production process. Social values and attitudes arise out of the social structure which is based on that process. A woman's place in a subsistence agricultural economy is not the same as her place in a money oriented, cash crop economy. The power and independence she might have had in the former, as she had a semi-autonomous role as a producer and distributor of goods, is rapidly disappearing in the latter. Therefore, to change the role of the woman so that she can participate fully and equally in economic development will ultimately require fundamental changes in the economy. Full-scale capital accumulation in the hands of the people and a programme of rural industrialisation will provide the only kind of institutional framework within which the emancipation of women is possible. Women must participate to the struggle against underdevelopment, but while engaged in this struggle, they must become aware of the contradictions peculiar to their lives and take action to remove these contradictions at the same time in order to realise fully their abilities and potentialities.

CERRONI Umberto, from The Man-Woman Relationship in Bourgeois Society, pp. 141-153
BUTTAFUOCO Annarita, Notes from a Woman Historian, pp. 154-159

In this number, "Confrontations" presents excerpts from "The Man-Woman Relationship in Bourgeois Society" by Umberto Cerroni. As a marxist he advances a theoretical explanation for this relationship which is based on Engels but which does not accept all his theses. "The Dialectics of Affection" and "Eros in History" are concerned with Engel's position and the development of his thesis on the historicity of Eros. Love is not absolute, always and everywhere the same. Indeed the ancient Eros is very different from the modern one. Modern Eros, writes Cerroni, if we look at modern love poetry, is the result of the progressive isolation and anxiety which surrounds modern man. Indeed the economic and psychological alienation, which followed on the birth and development of capitalism, sows doubts on every certainty, including the certainty of affection. In order to study this process of the historical transformation of the Eros, Cerroni suggests three approaches: the dialectics of the sexes, the dialectics of institutions, the dialectics of affections. In her "Notes from a Woman Historian" Annarita Buttafuoco takes up this theme, and asserts that many disciplines should express themselves on this historical process of the Eros. As far as History is concerned, states Annarita Buttafuoco, it has been the lack of methodology which heretofore has prevented work on this field, so important for the understanding of men and women. The whole history of sentiment has remained unexamined (though in France there are certain interesting studies, for example, on religious sentiment). Even so, according to Buttafuoco, only through the closest collaboration between the historian and the cultural anthropologist is it possible to study and to understand the interplay, the communication of feelings and sentiments - these escape the traditional historian - and thus to discover the essence of woman through the study of love.