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The Fourth Wave of Feminism: Psychoanalytic Perspectives

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/15240650903228187

1940-9206

Diana Diamond,

Family Dynamics and Relationships

Abstract The discussion focuses on the ways in which the 3 panelists in their lives and work embody fourth wave feminism, which combines politics, psychology, and spirituality in an overarching vision of change. Jane Fonda's emphasis on the importance of making narratives of gender a central organizer for personal and societal transformation, Hedda Bolgar's insistence that psychoanalysts recognize the complex dialectic between unconscious dynamics and sociocultural realities in order not to conflate conflicts rooted in social inequalities with individual issues, and Sue Shapiro's understanding of the ambiguous role of individual therapy in situations of historical and social trauma such as the tsunami in Indonesia are all examples of fourth wave feminism in practice. The unfinished business of the first 3 waves of feminism—that is, the inequalities that persist in the political and personal spheres—are discussed with the idea that these unfinished agendas will contribute to the fourth wave, in which social action and spiritual/psychological practice converge. Notes 1Violence against women is now a major public health problem despite the fact that women's advocacy groups have been working for 2 decades to halt the epidemic of gender-based violence (http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats/html). A groundbreaking study by the World Health Organization, in which 24,000 women were interviewed in 15 sites in 10 countries, showed that 1 in 5 women has been sexually abused, between 15 and 71% of women reported sexual or physical abuse by a husband or partner, about 5,000 women are murdered in the name of honor every year, and trafficking of women and girls for forced labor and sex is widespread (www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs239/en/index.html). 2In 2009 the number of women serving in the U.S. Senate is 17, whereas the number of women in the House of Representatives is 74 (http://women'sissues.about.com/od/milestonesadvancements/a/congress2009.html). 3Recent investigations have challenged this idea of an "opt-out Revolution." In 2008 Congress issued a report titled, "Equality in Job Loss: Women are Increasingly Vulnerable to Layoffs During Recessions," which suggests that mothers are not leaving the workforce to stay home with children but because women were particularly hard hit by the recession of 2001 in which the percentage of jobs lost by women exceeded those of men (Warner, Citation2008). Other recent investigations suggest that it is possible that women will outnumber men in the workforce because the majority of those who have been laid off recently are male, whereas the proportion of women working has changed little since the recession started. Current surveys of payroll data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that women constituted 49.1% of the workforce (if excluding farm workers), whereas the workforce participation of men ages 25 through 54 has dropped from 96% in 1953 to 86.4% in 2008. However, women still earn 80 cents on each dollar that men earn (http.//www.nytimes (2009/02/06) business/06 women.html). These studies suggest that it is not clear whether women are leaving the workforce to stay home with children or whether they are being forced out by the weakness of the labor market. Additional informationNotes on contributorsDiana Diamond Diana Diamond, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology in the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, the City University of New York; Senior Fellow, Personality Disorders Institute, Weill Medical Center of Cornell University; and the coeditor of Attachment and Sexuality (Taylor and Francis Group, 2007).