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.
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Translator’s Introduction
Preface
LOVE AND VIOLENCE
1. The Body and the Polis
2. Loving Mothers
3. The Circle of Men
4. The Disquieting Slumber of the West
5. The Unstoppable Revolution
Notes
Index
About the author
Lea Melandri is one of Italy’s best-known feminist thinkers and activists. She is the author of many books and continues to write and advocate for women’s rights. In 2012, she was awarded by the city of Milan the
Ambrogino d’oro, one of the city’s highest honors.
Antonio Calcagno is Professor of Philosophy at King’s University College at Western University, Canada. He the editor of
Contemporary Italian Political Philosophy and the coeditor (with Inna Viriasova) of
Roberto Esposito: Biopolitics and Philosophy, both also published by SUNY Press.
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