Multicultural Feminist Therapy

SUMMARY

Psychological theory needs to be representative of the full range of human experience by being based in the experience of all groups of people. The women honored in this chapter, Jean Lau Chin, Lillian Comas-Diaz, Oliva Espin, Beverly Greene, and Monica McGoldrick, are all feminist therapists, researchers, scholars, clinicians and writers who have directed some substantial portion of their professional attention toward understanding the critical nature of minority and dominant group status on the development of psychological and feminist therapy theory. Together, their professional contributions and personal stories provide a powerful understanding of the nature of the intersection of race, culture     

Mental Health Matters

Abstract

This article discusses the epistemological biases and therapeutic risks of overly-medicalized and deterministic approaches to women's psychological problems. Constructivist and feminist perspectives are used to illuminate the essentially political enterprise of naming psychological distress, and to argue the necessity of feminist theories of psychotherapy. These too, however, must be critically examined for deterministic assumptions which emphasize pathology or victimization, thereby limiting recognition of women's agency, and capacity for resistance and change. One alternative model is Adler's Individual Psychology. This humanistic approach is neither medicalized nor deterministic, assumes human freedom and pur-posefulness, emphasizes the dialectic interaction of the individual and society, and is philosophically committed to gender equality.     

For Now We See Through In Vitro Darkly; But Then Face to Face: An Alternative Theological Perspective on In Vitro Fertilization

Abstract

This article uses the techniques of discourse analysis to highlight the ways in which official Church documents on IVF have eclipsed from view the desires, dilemmas and pastoral needs of women seeking treatment for infertility. Furthermore, this analysis reveals how an overriding concern for the embryo has also curtailed debate upon the wider social context in which the procedures of the biomedical community are located. It is argued that the insights generated through feminist debates concerning an ‘ethics of care’ can effectively challenge the androcentric ‘rights’ perspectives enshrined in the moral teaching of the churches. The attention to context generated within this feminist ethical framework would provide a more effective means of challenging the commercial activities of the biotechnology industry than is currently employed.     

Dis-Illusioning Psychology: Epistemology and the Contextual Psychology of Ellyn Kaschak

ABSTRACT

Ellyn Kaschak is a pioneer feminist therapist whose contributions to feminist theory, practice, education, and advocacy have spanned the globe over the past 40?+?years. From being a founder of one of the first feminist counseling services in the country in the early 1970s, Kaschak has influenced decades of feminist, family and multi-cultural therapists through her teaching and countless others through her feminist epistemology and theory development and the Mattering Map. This article describes Kaschak’s life and work and the lasting contributions she has made to the field of feminist psychology.     

The Amazing Life and Times of Oliva Espín

ABSTRACT

Oliva Espín is a prolific feminist and multicultural writer and psychologist who has significantly contributed to feminist therapy throughout her career. This biographical article highlights her many contributions to feminism, feminist psychology, and humankind.     

Interactions entre règles sociales de santé publique : étude des liens entre le port du masque et les règles routières en temps de crise sanitaire

IntroductionThe health crisis that France has experienced since the beginning of 2020 has justified the introduction of new health rules requiring changes in behaviour. The context of the implementation of these health rules, instituted very recently and for a limited period of time, raises the question of their perception and respect among the population.ObjectiveMobilising the social developmental psychology, the objective of this article is to explore inter-individual differences in the perception of these health rules measured through the wearing of masks. It aims also at studying the links between these perceptions with the experience of the health context and the perception of other legal public health rules, apprehended through some road safety rules.MethodThe questionnaire survey, carried out during the second confinement with a representative sample of 4999 people, made it possible to measure the experience of the health context, the internalisation of the rules and their justifications, the usefulness of the rules and the perception of the legal system.ResultsThe results show the links between internalisation, the type of arguments used to justify it for wearing a mask and for road rules respectively, as well as the links between internalisation and the perception of the legal system. They also show that women use moral and prudential arguments more to justify their internalisation of rules and that they have internalised the traffic rules (but not the wearing of masks) more than men.ConclusionThese results show that the perception of the rule of wearing a mask is more related to the general perception that individuals have of the legal system and other legal public health rules involving the relationship with others than to the context in which these rules were put in place.     

Patriarchal power as unjust: tyranny in seventeenth-century Venice

ABSTRACT

In the debate about the worth of women in sixteenth and seventeenth century Italy three pro-woman authors of the period, Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, and Arcangela Tarabotti, developed analyses of male power, particularly as embodied in husbands and fathers. I argue that these analyses identify the wrong of patriarchal power by construing it as a kind of tyrannical rule, in which the tyrant acts in his own interest and fails to recognize the equality (or superiority) of those over whom he rules. Fonte, Marinella and Tarabotti offer similar accounts of the motives and practices of tyrannical men, but differ in their arguments for the moral equality of the sexes – Fonte and Tarabotti base that claim on natural liberty and freedom of the will, whereas Marinella focuses on the intellectual and moral superiority of women grounded in physiology. Two conclusions follow from their arguments: (i) that the rule of men over women is illegitimate and unjust and (ii) that women are better suited than men to legitimate political rule. Although these works have not often been treated as philosophical, their analyses of male tyranny constitute contributions to feminist political philosophy.     

The structure of the trilingual lexicon

Abstract

Two experiments were performed with trilingual subjects, for whom Arabic was the first language and Hebrew and English were then acquired. The first experiment employed a tnhgual Stroop colour naming test to measure the different interference effects among the three languages. In the second experiment, a trilingual picture—word naming paradigm was used to compare picture naming and translations in the three languages. The results of the two experiments indicate a coordinate relationship between Hebrew and English, and a compound relationship between eacb of these two languages and Arabic. The pattern of these relationships gives support to the suggestion that the relationship between the representations of the different languages should be seen from a developmental perspective.     

Particularity and Perspective Taking: On Feminism and Habermas's Discourse Theory of Morality

Seyla Benhabib's critique of Jürgen Habermas's moral theory claims that his approach is not adequate for the needs of a feminist moral theory. I argue that her analysis is mistaken. I also show that Habermas's moral theory, properly understood, satisfies many of the conditions identified by feminist moral philosophers as necessary for an adequate moral theory. A discussion of the compatibility between the model of reciprocal perspective taking found in Habermas's moral theory and that found in Maria Lugones's essay “Playfulness,‘World’‐Travelling, and Loving Perception” reinforces the claim that his moral theory holds as yet unrecognized promise for feminist moral philosophy.     

Modern Moral Conscience

ABSTRACT

The article challenges the individualism and neutrality of modern moral conscience. It looks to the history of the concept to excavate an older tradition that takes conscience to be social and morally responsive, while arguing that dominant contemporary justifications of conscience in terms of integrity are inadequate without reintroducing these social and moral traits. This prompts a rethinking of the nature and value of conscience: first, by demonstrating that a morally-responsive conscience is neither a contradiction in terms nor a political absurdity; second, by suggesting how a morally-responsive conscience can be informed by the social world without being a mere proxy for social power or moribund tradition.     

A Feminist Examination of Boot Camp Prison Programs for Women

Abstract

Penal law in the United States reflects a strict moral ideology. This moral philosophy has dictated the laws that govern women and the punishments that they receive. Therefore, correctional programming for women has been focused on punishment and has not addressed the needs and problems of women inmates. Boot camp programs (shock incarceration), a low-cost, short-term alternative to traditional prison programming, are one example of such programming. Correctional boot camps teach discipline and responsibility by “breaking down and building up” inmates so that they will no longer commit crimes. However, the assumption that female offenders commit crimes because they are lacking in discipline and responsibility has not been substantiated by research. In addition, feminist therapy theory is not consistent with some boot camp practices. This paper will examine the social context of female criminality and the resulting implications for prison programming for women, and boot camp practices will be examined in the context of feminist therapy practices.     

Foundations of the human sciences 1 : Beyond reductionism: The emerging holistic paradigm in education

Abstract

Modern educational theory and practice are grounded in an objec‐tivistic, reductionistic world view, particularly a “natural science” conception of human development. Holistic education is a radically non‐reductionistic approach based upon a person‐centered, ecological, global and spiritual world view. As such, the holistic paradigm is an alternative not only to the scientistic reductionism of the modern age, but also to the intellectual reductionism of postmodern thought. Holistic education is a humanistic as well as spiritual critique of the dominant culture.     

Progressive Politics: Liberalism,Humanism, and Feminism in Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach

Abstract

A purely theoretical analysis of Martha Nussbaum’s basis of the capabilities approach in feminist (rather than more broadly liberal humanist) justice yields a philosophical project that may appear inconsistent, if not incoherent. However, I suggest in this paper that when the reader considers the project’s very concrete aims, there surfaces an intelligible reason for the apparent incongruities between her feminist and liberal commitments. Since even a capabilities approach rooted in feminist justice is itself radical and must win political support in order to be implemented, I suggest that Nussbaum’s basis of the approach in feminist justice can perhaps be understood as a canny attempt to win support for her project on politically popular grounds, using the rhetoric of sex and social justice that has already been embraced by current economic powers. Once arguments based on morally irrelevant differences between sexes are politically endorsed, it will perhaps be easier to argue for the directly parallel moral irrelevance of differences based on accident of birth into the underdeveloped world.     

Gender and Sexuality in the Garden of Eden

Abstract

Various attempts have been made to argue that the plain meaning of the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2-3 supports a feminist, or at least a woman-friendly, understanding of the gender and sexual relationships between Adam and Eve. I counter that these arguments are not convincing and are hard to square with the biblical text, by considering four central elements in the story: (1) The sexual nature of ha'adam, Adam/ the earthling at the start of our story; (2) God's ‘curse’ of Eve; (3) The meaning of the woman being a ‘helper’ to Adam; and (4) Adam's naming of the woman. I conclude that the most plausible meaning of these chapters is that Adam dominates Eve sexually and otherwise from the very moment of Eve's creation.     

Beyond reductionism: The emerging holistic paradigm in education

Abstract

Modern educational theory and practice are grounded in an objectivistic, reductionistic world view, particularly a “natural science” conception of human development. Holistic education is a radically non‐reductionistic approach based upon a person‐centered, ecological, global and spiritual world view. As such, the holistic paradigm is an alternative not only to the scientistic reductionism of the modern age, but also to the intellectual reductionism of postmodern thought. Holistic education is a humanistic as well as spiritual critique of the dominant culture.     

Revisiting Confucian Jen Ethics and Feminist Care Ethics: A Reply to Daniel Star and Lijun Yuan

At two fronts I defend my 1994 article. I argue that differences between Confucian jen ethics and feminist care ethics do not preclude their shared commonalities in comparison with Kantian. utilitarian, and contractarian ethics, and that Confucians do care. I also argue that Confucianism is capable of changing its rules to reflect its renewed understanding of jen, that care ethics is feminist, and that similarities between Confucian and care ethics have significant implications.     

Doing Ontology and Doing Justice: What Feminist Philosophy Can Teach Us About Meta-Metaphysics

Abstract

Feminist philosophy has recently become recognised as a self-standing philosophical sub-discipline. Still, metaphysics has remained largely dismissive of feminist insights. Here I make the case for the value of feminist insights in metaphysics: taking them seriously makes a difference to our ontological theory choice and feminist philosophy can provide helpful methodological tools to regiment ontological theories. My examination goes as follows. Contemporary ontology is not done via conceptual analysis, but via quasi-scientific means. This takes different ontological positions to be competing hypotheses about reality’s fundamental structure that are then assessed with a loose battery of criteria for theory choice. Such criteria make up the constitutive values of ontology (e.g. providing a unified, coherent, non-circular, simple, parsimonious total theory). These values are distinguished from contextual values of a practice: the political and moral values embedded in the social context of inquiry. Although we may be frank about some meta-metaphysical value commitments, bringing in feminist contextual values is viewed as an unacceptable move when thinking about ontological theory choice. This paper then asks: is this move unacceptable? I think not and I aim to motivate this methodological insight here by examining recent work on grounding.     

Reconsidering Ecclesiology: Feminist Perspectives

Abstract

This paper considers the task of constructing a feminist ecclesiology that rejects the binary opposition between inventing new models of the Church and maintaining a critical relation with ecclesiological traditions.

Most feminist ecclesiology has been generated out of the women-church movement and has been criticized for failing to engage deeply enough with the influential ecclesiological traditions which still shape women's experience within the Church. The creation of a critical, constructive feminist ecclesiology will enable women to participate in ecclesial self-reflection and the informed critique of patriarchal models. Essential to this process will be the self-conscious recognition that women's bodies embody the body of Christ and that they are thus engaged in the embodied performance of God's presence in the world. The traditional vehicles of word and sacrament are means of ‘speaking’ this presence that needs to be reclaimed and reinterpreted by women. Furthermore, participation in the revisioning of such performances will contribute towards subverting the gendered symbolism that has structured ecclesiological discourse in the past. The article concludes by asserting that the task of the feminist ecclesiological theologian is to reflect upon the significance of women being church in the myriad frameworks through which the Church is constituted and experienced. Women require an ecclesiological culture in which their agency and authority become apparent.     

Strategic Flirting and the Emotional Tab of Exotic Dancing

ABSTRACT

The paper uses the concept strategic flirting, an aspect of emotional labor, to challenge the dichotomous view that sex work is either exploitative or empowering for exotic dancers. The findings suggest a more nuanced understanding of the advantages of sexual power and expenditures of emotional labor. Data were gleaned from interviews with 112 female dancers in several cities. Data from dancers indicate significant support for both the sexual radical/libertarian view—that she is the dominant party in the sexual transaction—and the radical feminist view that exotic dancing has detrimental consequences. Both the feminist and sociology of emotions literatures are explored for applications to the dancers' work.