Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery and Women's Agency (Studies in Feminist Philosophy)

## Abstract In patriarchal cultures, people internalize cultural gender imagery that enshrines procreative heterosexuality and relations of domination and subordination between men and women. Once internalized – i.e., embedded in people's cognitive and emotional infrastructure – this imagery shapes, though it does not determine individual identity. Discernable in perception, imagination, desire, reflection, judgment, and choice, internalized gender imagery not only affects individual self‐knowledge and self‐definition but also affects people's conception of human nature and hence their political principles and ideals. As a result of their ubiquity and potency, patriarchal stereotypes of womanhood interfere with women's self‐determination or, in other words, their autonomy. The book canvasses and critiques a wide range of toxic gender imagery pertaining to issues that are central to women's individual identities, e.g., mother hood, recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse, and beauty ideals. Because women (and men) typically appropriate culturally entrenched tropes, mythic tales, and pictorial images to develop their self‐portraits and self‐narratives, resisting and supplanting patriarchal discursive regimes are crucial to women's agency. It is incumbent on feminists, then, to combat the pernicious effects of these representations of womanhood through a discursive politics that crafts and broadcasts emancipatory gender imagery and that complements feminist demands for equal rights and improved material conditions. Feminist discursive politics have already made some headway, for contemporary psychoanalytic theory and other representational practices provide illustrations of how emancipatory imagery might look. If this discursive campaign is unsuccessful, patriarchal cultures will continue to undercut women's ability to chart their own courses in their day‐to‐day lives, and feminist social and economic gains will be vulnerable to residual misogyny, backlash, and reversal. Contents......Page 12 ONE: Gender Identity and Women's Agency: Culture, Norms, and Internalized Oppression Revisited......Page 16 1. Internalized Oppression, Identity, and Individuality......Page 18 2. Subordination's Challenge to Autonomy Theory......Page 24 3. Voice and Choice: A Feminist View of Autonomy......Page 29 4. Patriarchal Cultures, Gender Normalization, and Women's Self-Determination......Page 36 TWO: The Rush to Motherhood: Pronatalist Discourse and Women's Agency......Page 43 1. Women's Testimony......Page 46 2. The Scope of Autonomy: Can/Should Motherhood Decisions Be Autonomous?......Page 54 3. Pronatalist Discourse—Matrigyno-idolatry......Page 60 4. À la Recherche des Voix Perdues: Pronatalist Discourse and Discursive Insurgency......Page 64 THREE: Gendered Models of Social Relations: How Moral and Political Culture Closes Minds and Hearts......Page 71 1. Images of Social Relations: The Social Contract versus the Mother and Child......Page 74 2. Imaginary Underpinnings of Mother-Child Relations......Page 77 3. Refiguring Mother-Child Relations......Page 82 4. The Inconclusiveness of Moral and Political Theorizing......Page 88 FOUR: The Family Romance: A Fin-de-Siècle Tragedy......Page 91 1. The Controversy over Recovered Memory......Page 93 2. Figurations of Sexuality and the Family:The Cultural Cache......Page 96 3. Figuring One's Life......Page 99 4. The Family Romance and Feminist Politics: Cultural Critique and Social Change......Page 104 5. The Family Romance and Feminist Reclamation: Obstacles and Prospects......Page 107 FIVE: Lure and Allure: Mirrors, Fugitive Agency, and Exiled Sexuality......Page 112 1. Narcissus and Narcissa: A Founding Tale and Its Repressed Double......Page 114 2. Narcissus (a Translation): The Visual Culture of Feminine Narcissism......Page 119 3. Narcissus Meets Oedipus (the Sequel): Psychoanalysis, Agency, and Heterosexism......Page 128 4. Narcissa (a Pitch for an Adaptation): The Need for Feminist Reconstruction of Narcissistic Identity and Agency......Page 132 5. Narcissa in Rehab (a Free Translation): Feminist Artists Revision the Woman at Her Mirror......Page 140 6. Narcissa Unbound: Anticipating an Authentic Narcissism for Women......Page 157 SIX: Miroir, Memoire, Mirage: Appearance, Aging, and Women......Page 161 1. Miss Lonelyhearts' Guide to Identifying with the Stranger in the Mirror......Page 162 2. The Self, Representation, and Beauty: A Trio of Dubious Postulates......Page 168 3. Facing up to Scary Heterogeneity: The Limits of Becoming and the Feminization of Death......Page 175 SEVEN: Live Ordnance in the Cultural Field: Gender Imagery, Sexism, and the Fragility of Feminist Gains......Page 180 1. Sexism According to Cognitive Psychology: Conceptualization and Inference......Page 182 2. Sexism According to Psychoanalysis: Desire and Emotion......Page 185 3. Overcoming Sexism?......Page 192 4. Culture, Sexism, and Feminism......Page 197 Notes......Page 206 References......Page 226 C......Page 238 K......Page 239 S......Page 240 Z......Page 241 C......Page 242 M......Page 243 S......Page 244 W......Page 245
How do patriarchal representations of gender impact on women's lives? What about their effects on men's attitudes toward women? How can the deleterious effects of this hostile cultural environment be overcome? These are the principal questions Gender in the Mirror poses.
Culturally prevalent imagery of feminine sexuality, beauty, and motherhood worms its way into women's subjectivity and agency. By providing authoritative language in which women describe themselves and project their lives into the future, this imagery constrains their self-determination. By reinforcing sexism in men, it undermines women's equality and jeopardizes feminist gains.
Resisting these pernicious influences requires personal as well as cultural change. Women need to acquire self-reading and self-direction skills that enable them to articulate their needs in their own terms and to enact their own life stories. Gender in the Mirror defends a theory of self-determination that makes sense of women's capacity to find their own voices and rewrite their self-narratives. But feminist goals cannot be met unless patriarchal cultural contexts are reconfigured -- unless emancipatory gender imagery supplants patriarchal representations of womanhood. Gender in the Mirror proposes alternative imagery of feminine sexuality, beauty, and motherhood and advances an account of feminist discursive politics that takes on the challenge of neutralizing patriarchal imagery. Diana Meyers' book is about the cultural imagery of women and how, once it is internalised, it shapes perception, reflection judgment and desire. What diverse women are like and how individual women go about conducting their lives are issues that go to the heart of feminism.