Micro-Politics: Agency in a Postfeminist Era

265 Pages·1994·15.03 MB·English

by  Patricia S. Mann

Micro-Politics
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Micro-Politics
Agency in a
Postfeminist Era
Patricia S. Mann
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Copyright 1994 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-
copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
2037 University Avenue Southeast, Minneapolis, MN 55455-3092
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mann, Patricia S.
Micro-politics : agency in a postfeminist era / Patricia S. Mann.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8166-2048-2 (alk. paper). - ISBN 0-8166-2049-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Feminist theory. 2. Social sciences —Philosophy. 3. Gender identity —
Philosophy. 4. Postmodernism — Social aspects. I. Title.
HQ1190.M35 1994
305.42'01-dc20 93-28965
CIP
The University of Minnesota is an
equal-opportunity educator and employer.
To the family and friends who have been there for me in so
many ways.
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introductory Reflections 1
i. Origins of This Postmodern, Postfeminist Project 1
ii. Why a Theory of Agency? 5
iii. Toward a Definition of Agency 9
iv. Putting a Theory of Gendered Agency to Work 13
v. Historicizing This Theory of Individual Agency 18
vi. On the Ultra-Social Status of Postfeminist Theory 23
vii. Renegotiating Agency: Seizing the
Micro-Political Moment 25
viii. Summary Thoughts 31
1. Love and Injustice in Families 33
i. Toward a Dynamic Conception of the Private Sphere 34
ii. Equality and Rights within Liberal Families? 37
iii. Marxism and Material Relations of Power in the Family 42
iv. "Women and Children and Slaves," said Plato 44
v. Aristotle and Patriarchal Benefactors 52
vi. Surd Behavior and Problems of Familial Identity 54
vii. Acting beyond Unjust Identities 61
2. Glancing at Pornography: Recognizing Men 62
i. The Feminist Debate over Pornography 63
ii. An Interactive Model of Sexual Agency 67
iii. Freudian Stories, Worldly Mothers, Gendered
Disengagement, and Pornography 73
iv. Jacques Lacan and Women's Desires for Recognition 78
v. Vital Feminist Glances: Painting Ourselves into
the Picture 86
vii
viii Contents
3. Cyborgean Motherhood and Abortion 90
i. Interpersonal Agency: Rethinking Our Paradigms
of Action 91
ii. Foundations of the Abortion Controversy 94
iii. Traditional Maternal Narratives Compromise Abortion
Justifications 100
iv. Carol Gilligan: Rethinking Gendered Categories of
Moral Agency 105
v. A Cyborgean Theory of Procreative Agency 109
vi. The Interpersonal Agency of Cyborgean Parents 114
vii. Postfeminism and the Waning of a Maternal Identity 117
4. A Genealogy of Individualism 120
i. A Gendered Genealogy 120
ii. Reenacting Individualism after a Second Unmooring 124
iii. Public Dimensions of Liberal Agency 131
iv. The Incorporated Male Family Self 136
v. Familial Unmooring: Individuals Reengaging 141
vi. Beyond Liberal Notions of Agency 148
5. Agency and Politics in a Postfeminist Decade 156
i. Toward An Embodied Micro-Politics 156
ii. An Intersectional Analysis of Military Mothers 163
iii. When Anita Hill Went to Washington: Passions
Are Political 172
iv. The Micro-Politics of Sexual Harassment 180
v. On Trial: The Patriarchal Grammar of Sexual Desire 189
vi. Becoming Civil about Sex 196
vii. An Ultra-Social Agency 205
Epilogue: Engaging on a Postfeminist Frontier 208
Notes 213
Index 245
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank many people for dialogue and encouragement over
the years during which I was writing this book. Without the following
friends and colleagues my ideas would surely not have evolved into their
present form: Jane Roland Martin, Tom Rockmore, Elayne Rapping, Alan
Olson, Leonard Harris, Chris Costan, Margaret Walker, Lee Quinby,
Mary Katherine Wainwright, Carole Cole, Milton Fisk, Sohnya Sayres,
Stanley Aronowitz, David Weissman, Barrie Karp, Betsy Shevey, Rosa-
mond Rhodes, Ruth Spitz, Ann Snitow, Terry Cochran, Biodun Iginla,
Ann Klefstad, Jane Marcus, and my CUNY Women's Studies graduate
students.
I would also like to extend thanks to the following groups for provid-
ing me with the intellectual give and take without which I might never
have figured out my proximate place in the academy: the New York Insti-
tute of Humanities Seminar, "Sex, Gender, and Consumer Culture"; the
Legal Theory Workshop of Columbia University; the CUNY Women's
Studies Colloquium; the NYU Colloquium for the Study of Law, Philos-
ophy, and Social Theory; the Society for Philosophy and Public Affairs
of NYC; the Philosophy Colloquium of the Graduate Center of CUNY;
the Social Text Collective; the Baruch Colloquium for Philosophy, Poli-
tics, and the Social Sciences; the New York Institute of Humanities Semi-
nar on Psychoanalysis and Sexual Difference; and the Karl Jaspers Society
of North America.
I am also grateful on a daily basis for the complexly woven micro-
political fabric of NYC; I cherish its streets and its schools, its uncountable
public and private nooks, spaces, and moments for engaging with
strangers and friends. It is my beloved terrain of social analysis, and my
home.
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