Drucilla Cornell. At the Heart of Freedom: Feminism, Sex and Equality. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. xvi + 254 pp. $62.50, cloth, ISBN 978-0-691-02897-2.

Reviewed by Avital H. Bloch

Published on H-Women (April, 2000)

At the Heart of Freedom: Feminism, Sex, and only proposes a feminist theory of rights, but also Equality is 's latest contribution in a set of legal reforms and hope for social change. her series of works on feminist jurisprudence Cornell centers her book on a concept she published throughout the last decade. Cornell, a calls the "imaginary domain" and the principle of professor of law, political science, and women's freedom on which it rests: "The freedom to create studies at , has approached the ourselves as sexed beings, as feelings and reason‐ relationship between feminism and law by focus‐ ing persons, lies at the heart of the ideal that is the ing on the issues of and justice, imaginary domain" (p. ix). This concept is not feminist culture and theory, and postmodern the‐ new, as Cornell had frst developed it in her previ‐ ory of ethics. ous book The Imaginary Domain.[1] It ofered the Along with scholars of women and gender principle of the imaginary domain as an answer studies during the last two decades, Cornell un‐ to three problems that haunt the relationship be‐ derstands contemporary feminist thought as in‐ tween sex and equality and with which feminism separable from the recent approaches in cultural has been struggling for the last decades: abortion, and . In this theoretical set, especial‐ pornography, and sexual harassment. At the ly as it relates to gender, she anchors political phi‐ Heart of Freedom contributes more topics to the losophy and legal thought. She intends to follow discussion of feminist politics, no less controver‐ her own dictate: "To give symbolic form to what is sial and, in some aspects, even broader. Work, being claimed in actuality is part of the role of adoption, family, parenthood, and prostitution in ideals in " (p. 178). Cornell ad‐ the United States, and human rights in postcolo‐ dresses the realities of law, culture, social struc‐ nial and non-Western countries, are treated as ture, and politics by tying together philosophy, le‐ gender issues that afect a wide range of people's gal studies, and gender thinking. Thus, she not lives and to which, therefore, the law and feminist politics must give satisfactory answers. H-Net Reviews

The author's mission is to analyze gender is‐ ory of rights misses the protection of what is elab‐ sues by bypassing the obstacles formal equality orated at the imaginary domain. feminism has encountered. She argues with liber‐ The imaginary domain is the space where the al feminists about expectations to eliminate all emotional, imaginative, spiritual, and aesthetic diferences between men and women in order to self is expressed and recreated. In this view we achieve legal equality. This quarrel with the equal imagine ourselves as "sexuate beings" turned to‐ rights feminist movement is not new in academic ward particular objects of desire. Through the feminism. Cornell, for example, echoes historian sexuate expression we claim ourselves as our Joan Wallach Scott's discussion on the history of own persons. In this space a complete sense of French feminism in Only Paradoxes to Ofer. Scott identity is found and intimate life is determined. emphasizes the constant contradictions of femi‐ Cornell draws from psychoanalytical thought to nists in their long battle to reconcile sexual difer‐ emphasize how the body and the libido are pro‐ ences and universal equality for women as citi‐ jected in the imaginary domain. She counts on zens.[2] psychoanalytic works of Freud and Lacan, and on In Cornell's opinion as well, feminists have neurologist Oliver Sacks and feminist scholar failed to consider crucial diferences between Nancy Chodorow.[3] women -- sexual, racial, economic, national, reli‐ These theorists show the importance of the gious. Attempts to claim equality with men, to body's image, integrity, senses, and libidinal de‐ whom citizenship has been attached, cause injus‐ lights, and how, by projecting the body, the indi‐ tice for women when they do not ft into the male vidual comes out to the world. At any point in ideal. time, the way we orient ourselves as sexuate be‐ Moreover, such feminism essentializes men. ings dictates how we feel, think, and behave. The Here Cornell refers to the educated, professional, imaginary domain is as much a site for aesthetic middle-class feminists of her generation. Since the expression. Cornell borrows from female writers 1970s they have aspired to equalize rights with such as bell hooks and Virginia Woolf to illustrate men, as they have known and perceived them: of the necessity of such space as it is analogous to the same social class and cultural orientation. Woolf's image of the "room of one's own.[4] It Other women, however, have been left out. To in‐ means a locus where, through narration and tegrate all women into an equal right justice sys‐ resymbolization, a woman claims her own person tem requires an articulation of a new defnition of as independent of men.[5] gender diferences. The attempt to accommodate liberal femi‐ This involves a change that that considers nism to diferences involves adjusting liberalism more than the simple biological diferences be‐ to contemporary postmodernist thought. Thus, tween men and women. It should respond to a sit‐ Cornell utilizes recent concepts that problematize uation feminists have ignored: "the reality that gender identifcation beyond the previous liberal- 'hearts' continue to starve" (p. ix). What must be modernist binary defnitions. In the articulation added to feminist liberalism is the notion of per‐ of the imaginary domain, she replaces themes of sons as sexed creatures. This idea, which takes permanent entities, clear boundaries, and im‐ into account the matters of the heart, should be posed meanings for thoughts about constant in‐ the source for the understanding of gender and stability, multiplication, and fuidity. diference and on it any discussion of rights must In perceiving the process that takes place in be based. The book's title, At the Heart of Free‐ the imaginary domain as a process of becoming, dom, conveys the idea that what the feminist the‐ Cornell echoes other gender theorists. She refers

2 H-Net Reviews to Judith Butler's Gender Trouble and Bodies that of rights for women's but also for all sexual identi‐ Matter, and shares ideas with Scott and feminist ties --gays and lesbians -- who are ignored by the political philosopher Seyla Benhabib.[6] Each ap‐ legal system and the mainstream culture. proaches sexual and gender identifcation as a The frst target in this project is Kant. His narrative, an unfxed process and a journey with principles have been central for Cornell, but she endless possible results. Identities are created and tries to adapt his Enlightenment philosophy to the re-produced by refecting each other just as they contemporary multicultural reality.[8] From Kant, mirror the dominant "normative" system and its Cornell adopts the concept of right as the source ideological construction. of representation of sexuate diferences, but Kan‐ Through the "sexual imago" of the body and tianism does not include rights for women as free psyche people can defne themselves anew -- not and equal persons and rules out their member‐ only historicized by context, but also based on ship in the moral community of persons. In as their free aspirations. Gender entity, therefore, much as Kant has inspired American liberal should no longer be seen as stable or as simply philosopher John Rawls, with whom Cornell basi‐ bound to two biological sexes. In this regard, like cally agrees, she seeks to adapt Rawls's A Theory Butler, Cornell critiques the Belgian-French of Justice and Political Liberalism to feminism.[9] philosopher Luce Irigaray, whose work she other‐ In this context women must be recognized as wise cites favorably.[7] free persons and sexuate beings. Cornell points to Cornell questions Irigaray's distinction only the right of people to claim equality and freedom between two sexes and her perception of women to exercise their imaginary domain and live as as the only persons who are dismissed by the sexuate beings the way they choose. She urges us dominant masculine normative regime. Cornell "to 'see' that there is a prior moral space of evalu‐ agrees with Butler that Irigaray fails to recognize ation of the entities" in moral procedures, even diferences among women in order to see the ex‐ before any egalitarian theory is agreed upon (p. clusion of non-heterosexual positions, and to ac‐ 15). According to this notion, women are persons knowledge an endless variety of identities and as an initial matter. They should not lose the free‐ practices. dom attached to this status because of the choices Since Cornell conceives the imaginary do‐ they make. As free persons, women must not be main as a fundamental part of identity formation automatically compared to heterosexual males that enables individuals "to share in life's glories" and thus able to claim only rights given to hetero‐ (p. x), protecting it is a matter of moral and legal sexual men. Theory of rights ought to allow them right in any society that calls itself liberal. It can‐ to be evaluated for their sexuate diferences from not be displaced even if other rights are already males, and among themselves, as expressed in the gained and its freedom must be included in any process of the imaginary domain, and yet as equal gender thought about freedom. persons. Through the ideal of the freedom of the imag‐ In regard to the adaptation of the law to sexu‐ inary domain as a gender concept, Cornell actual‐ ality and gender, Irigaray infuences Cornell. Iri‐ ly accommodates the American liberal tradition garay requires that the law acknowledge the exis‐ of "pursuit of happiness" to gender and sexuality. tence of two sexes and guarantee women's rights She reinforces gender and sexual equality in the and civil identity as a sexed identity that is difer‐ liberal system as a matter of moral and legal right. ent from men.[10] But since Cornell recognizes Her project is to engender political philosophy al‐ more possible identities her concept of rights em‐ together, adapting it to the requirements not only braces them as well.

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The emphasis on women as persons and our sexual diference" (p. 23). Legal solutions for members of the moral community of persons is justice must be separated from disagreements crucial. Being recognized as a free person implies about the characteristics of diferences. The state that a woman represents herself. As initially free, must not dictate or privilege any self-representa‐ a woman is not granted rights, but rather claims tion of intimate life and the institutions it is based them as hers. Not being defned as a free person on. means being represented by men -- as the patriar‐ Perhaps even more than Rawls, the legal the‐ chal system dictates -- and thus the denial of a orist has been a signifcant woman's right to represent her imaginary do‐ source for Cornell. Dworkin's ideas about equality main. Cornell insists that this negation is not a provide her with the ethical justifcation for the small matter since failure to achieve it limits the protection of the imaginary domain: each person ways a woman can claim herself in society. When is unique and has an intrinsic value. Each is a woman's sexual existence is not in her own uniquely responsible for his or her life, values, hands she becomes "socially dead" (p. 21). and conscience, including the decisions about life The same applies to lesbians and gay males. as a sexuate being. The freedom of the imaginary Under the heterosexual patriarchy they sufer domain is ethically anchored in the notion of free‐ lack of legal recognition as free women and men, dom of conscience, where we claim ourselves as a and therefore, are not self-represented. Cornell's source of what is good. Dworkin's liberal "discon‐ fundamental argument for rights is summed up in tinuity thesis" about the separation of the right the following sentences: "We need to be recog‐ from the good demands that an individual's con‐ nized as the source of our own evaluations and cept of the good can be claimed as a right but can representations of how we are to live out our sex‐ not be imposed on others. uality. In this way the imaginary domain is consis‐ Like Dworkin, Cornell is careful to distinguish tent with the priority that political liberalism between individualism and the uniqueness of the gives to liberty" (p. 19). The way people wish to individual as a source of values. Both reject indi‐ represent their sexuate being cannot be used to vidualism as a freedom that is omnipotent and de‐ deny them rights. Moreover, expressions of the tached from reality. Here, again, one can identify imaginary domain may not be dictated or encour‐ gender theorists' understanding of experience aged by the state or the law. and identity as constantly historicized. Shaping Patriarchy is inconsistent with the ideal of the diferences of ethical judgement -- and the free‐ sanctuary of the imaginary domain, and Cornell's dom that allows the process -- is a personal theory constitutes the foundations of an anti-pa‐ process that is anchored in and is relational to triarchal project. Taking such decisions away available ideologies, politics, and values. The ad‐ from the state and the law implies overcoming vantage of placing the individual conscience the patriarchal order's male heterosexual ideolo‐ process in a contested social and political environ‐ gy. But the purpose of the freedom of the imagi‐ ment is that vulnerability of individuals in that nary domain is also to prevent any other ideology personal route is acknowledged and so their om‐ about sexuality to be enforced. nipotence is reduced. Cornell insists that the right of a person can‐ Cornell believes that ideological competition not depend upon any opinion about what the na‐ over the judgments of representations of the ture of being a woman or being a homosexual. imaginary domain will more efectively support Her theory "does not seek to make law the main the right of representation. For a theorist who vehicle for restructuring the current meaning of aims at anchoring her theory in pragmatism and

4 H-Net Reviews social responsibility, this is a signifcant point. It implies shifting the struggle for equal rights -- to reinforces Cornell's call to conduct the debates gain what society owes all its members on the about sexual values out of the legal system, while communal level in order to maintain happy pri‐ insisting that the system itself guarantee the vate life -- once again to the political arena. rights for all to not only take part in the debates We may also understand the political signif‐ but express their sexuate being regardless of cance Cornell gives to the publicization of the pri‐ agreement upon its value. vate sphere as knowledge about certain options Indeed, as social notions, conscience and the and categories of the sexuate being hitherto de‐ freedom of the imaginary domain must not imply spised and silenced. In a recent polemical ex‐ privacy. Cornell criticizes liberal feminists' re‐ change, Cornell discusses the importance of the liance on privacy ever since the Supreme Court realm of "publicness" as taken from Kant's "sen‐ established privacy rights for sexual freedom in sus communis aestheticus." Within this realm the cases of Griswold (1965), regarding the use of people articulate their subjective aesthetic judge‐ contraceptives, and Roe v. Wade (1973), regarding ments in a shared community. abortion. Cornell departs from this argument, The public domain is important precisely be‐ proposing to separate privacy from the protection cause the subjective of the imaginary domain is of the imaginary domain. She maintains that self- created in this sphere. The communication about representation of the sexuate being has goals be‐ the subjective that takes place in public illumi‐ yond the boundaries of the private. nates the opinion of others and in an endless Precisely because the imaginary domain is process brings about actual changes in law and based in conscience and is personality-defning eventually determines the nature of the commu‐ and primary for people's happiness, it must be al‐ nity.[12] Scott explains the process, which Cornell lowed and tolerated in the public space, just like describes as knowledge, based on visualization any other conscientious expression. For people gained in the public domain. Once people see hid‐ who live openly with their choices to be left alone, den experiences of desire and they apprehend privacy is not an option in some matters of the them not as naturalized but as recreated and re‐ sexuate being, such as parenting, pregnancy, and, lated to the context we all live in, then legitimacy as Cornell argued in her previous book, abortion. and emancipation of the Others may be gained. Those activities and conditions require social sup‐ [13] port and public access to information and ser‐ The book frst examines prostitution as an il‐ vices.[11] The right to pursue happiness implies lustration of the problematic of the private and inclusion in the community and the legal system the public in their relationship with the imagi‐ not only of heterosexual women, but also lesbians nary domain. Cornell proceeds from the contro‐ and gays and women who deviate from the as‐ versy in the feminist movement in the 1970s over cribed social designs. They have the right as well whether to regulate, legalize, unionize, or ban to express the aspects of their private lives in pub‐ prostitution. Although the controversy has cur‐ lic without sufering loss of legal rights and social rently lost it urgency for feminists, for Cornell it is dismissal. a subject that can be successfully used to formu‐ Signifcantly, Cornell brings back to feminism late her arguments about the imaginary domain. the New Left ideal of the private as the political in Discussing prostitution's morality is especially its broad sense. She politicizes the private when useful because the topic touches on controversial she states that persons' private domain requires images about men, women, and sex. Moreover, if public recognition, protection, and support. This her argument functions for the freedom of wom‐

5 H-Net Reviews en whom the culture normally disdains, it can nell helps to break down the paradigm of the easily be applied to others. "separation of spheres," which gender scholars Consistent with the book's main statement, have used in recent decades. She rethinks another Cornell locates the heart of the issue in the prosti‐ paradigm that has been even more anchored in tute as a person. Historical studies of prostitution gender politics and scholarship: the distinction in the United States and Europe, which Cornell between naturally inscribed and culturally con‐ uses, demonstrate that prostitutes, more than oth‐ structed gender diferences. Patriarchal ideologies er women in patriarchal society, have been repre‐ determine "natural" and essentialist diferences sented by men, controlled by the state, and ex‐ and force female permanent identities. But Cor‐ cluded from the moral community of persons. nell also observes the incapacity of contemporary feminism to successfully address the problem. It Cornell believes that despite what seems as either universalizes diferences-as is the case with the violation of their body integrity, prostitutes "diference feminism" -- or ignores them for the are initially persons who possess the right to rep‐ sake of formal equal rights. resent their imaginary domain as sexuate beings in their occupation. It is their right, not the right Cornell seeks a way to amend the Second of the state, to decide what prostitution really Wave feminists. According to her, they have been means to them and how it serves them in their reluctant to accept female anatomy as women's own lives. Based on the ideal of the freedom of destiny, preferring theories of social and cultural the imaginary domain, it is these women's right to construction of gender and formal equal rights articulate their own meaning of prostitution, in‐ based upon them. At the same time, she chal‐ cluding the experience and the identity related to lenges the diference feminists, represented by it. Those may difer from the defnitions of im‐ such scholars as psychologist Carol Gilligan and morality and self-destruction society usually as‐ philosopher Sara Ruddick, who value women's signs to the profession. special biological and psychological attributes.[15] By looking closer at prostitutes' lives, Cornell Commenting on the dilemma of the alleged discovers the possibility that in their work they contradiction, Irigaray explained how the bina‐ may recreate their body integrity and identity fol‐ ries of body and meaning are part of the "phallo‐ lowing a history of child sexual abuse, for exam‐ gocentric economy" that regulates sexuality. But‐ ple -- regaining a "primordial sense of self" (p. 54). ler's response is to approach the materiality of sex Although seen as "public women," such process of and body not as oppositional to discourse, but as abstraction through the reimagination of their simultaneous to it. Sexual diferences operate in sexual being in their work is at the same time per‐ the material body and through its formulation as sonal, and thus moral. Therefore, prostitutes must an inscriptional space. In line with their concep‐ not be excluded from the moral community of tion of the inseparability of biology and meaning, persons, nor their work prohibited. In promoting Cornell pronounces the imaginary domain as pre‐ the legal recognition and moral justifcation of cisely the site for the signifcation of the body. prostitution, Cornell situates herself with scholars While she debates with feminist politics and who have begun transforming the views on pros‐ thought, Cornell argues more with male philoso‐ titution, looking at the prostitute as an agent, phers who have not taken gender sufciently, or worker, and a woman who performs "emotional at all, into account. By addressing their argu‐ labor".[14] ments, she demonstrates the possibility of recon‐ In fusing the public and the private realms of ciling nature and rights. In regard to the question self- representation of gender and sexuality, Cor‐ whether inequalities that result from nature

6 H-Net Reviews should be included in a theory of justice, Cornell ner's pragmatism, but she also rejects transcen‐ criticizes Thomas Nagel. She rejects his notion dental truths. She believes that the law has to take that there are natural limits on women that might into consideration realities of life and politics to eventually be acknowledged as unsurpassable, functionally resolve questions of justice. Never‐ and therefore society has to consider them as be‐ theless, Cornell searches for answers in ethics in yond the reach of justice. Cornell realizes the dis‐ order to prevent exactly those damages to the advantages of biological diference for females, imaginary domain that might be caused by soci‐ but she will not give in to the argument of nature ety's pragmatic interests. as to accept Nagel's view of woman as priori un‐ To illustrate how the idea of equivalent evalu‐ equal to men. ation may serve as a solution to the defciencies of Cornell prefers Rawls's philosophy because formal equal rights feminism, At the Heart of he accepts woman's equal status to men as an ini‐ Freedom discusses the issue of female reproduc‐ tial matter and prior to any attempt to change the tive capacity and equality in the workplace. Cor‐ causes of inequality. But she adds to Rawls the nell draws on the Supreme Court case of Johnson principle of "equivalent evaluation" of biological Controls (1990), which revolved around steriliza‐ diferences. It means accepting natural difer‐ tion as company policy. It required sterilization ences in the way the imaginary domain processes for women of childbearing age as a condition for their representation in a form of choices. Society keeping their high-salaried job in the company is required to maintain rights and provide goods battery production facility, because workers were that enable individuals to maintain the freedom exposed to lead that could cause birth defects. of sexuate being along with diferences. If women Cornell supports the Court's decision that the as biologically diferent are recognized as free practice discriminated against women: The com‐ persons, in practical terms of law and policy, they pany could not decide for the women that repro‐ can demand legislation that aims to bring them duction was more important to them than their closer to initial equality with men. economic power. The Court expected women to In Cornell's approach, what is evaluated as be responsible for their sexuate lives and their diferences is subject to open, pluralistic, and free freedom to reject motherhood despite the domi‐ political contest. In treating diferences the legal nant expectations of society. Exercising the notion system should rely on evaluations only after they of equivalent evaluation of diference means not have been selected through public debates, rather only accepting a woman's free choice about her than the courts and the law dictating them with imaginary domain without harming her equal no sufcient social acceptance. Liberal publicness rights because of an alternative she chooses-ei‐ is the locus for the processing political ideas, ther pregnancy or her decision against it. It also meaning that the courts cannot replace public de‐ requires reforms accommodating the workplace bates and politics to bring about change. to such choices. In this view, and throughout the book, one Cornell's conviction about the importance of can sense the infuence of philosophical pragma‐ freedom for intimate matters brings her to a dis‐ tism on Cornell. She tries to reach beyond moral cussion on the family. Current family laws demon‐ philosophy and adjust it to the more extreme strate that the "gender trouble" is not merely a pragmatist school of "law and economics" in legal woman's issue. It is created when people -- wom‐ studies, most accented by the legal thinker en or men, at the mainstream or at the margins of Richard Posner.[16] Cornell is more in line with society -- are not given the free space to exercise postmodernist neo-pragmatism, than with Pos‐ the imaginary domain. It is true for prostitution,

7 H-Net Reviews an institution despised by the dominant moral all. For lesbian couples, the book defends the legal system, as it is true for the family, the institution adoption by one woman of the child her partner which American society struggles to preserve. bares without the biological mother losing her In regard to the family, Cornell identifes the rights as a mother. basic issue in the way motherhood is perceived. Not privileging biological gender, gay men According to the author, when the imaginary do‐ and same sex couples must also enjoy equal legal main is given its freedom, gender is fuid enough rights as adoptive parents. Furthermore, not ben‐ to shift away from the ordinary reference to efting the sexual aspects for parenting either, women as mothers, a role the state and patriar‐ Cornell proposes custody of children and parental chal conventions assign only to females. Here, responsibility that may be separated from the sex‐ Cornell draws on Irigaray in her conclusion that ual couple. People with various sexual prefer‐ society idealizes women as mothers and nurtur‐ ences must be able to organize their sexuality and ers that it does not even permit them to process love relations and keep the legal right of family themselves their own female identity. In Cornell's association in any type of marriage or domestic vocabulary this identifcation deprives women of partnership. The state cannot enforce any form of the freedom to process the experience of mother‐ family as the good family nor prefer the hetero‐ hood in their imaginary domain and disallows sexual and monogamous nuclear family. We them to arrive at any conclusions about their sex‐ should be able to imagine "brave new families" uate identity that might contradict those that soci‐ (p. 128). ety ascribes. An entire chapter of the book is dedicated to The book challenges fxed defnitions of gen‐ criticism of what is known as the "fathers' move‐ der and family roles and criticizes family law sub‐ ment" and its polemic against new gender and ject to dominant ideologies. Cornell's far-reaching family ideals. Cornell is especially critical of the answer changes in the structure of the family. Fol‐ movement's wish to reapply patriarchy according lowing Martha Fineman's radical suggestions to to the "good family men" image. Threatened by destroy the marital model for the family, Cornell feminism and driven to protect heterosexuality also advocates non-traditional families.[17] In and the place of men as a sperm and sexual such families roles will be defned minimally by source in a conventional family, Cornell contends the law, and will not be limited to biological par‐ that these groups want to restore the rigid gender enting or even to intimate association among par‐ division to fulfl the father's role.[18] According to ents. That means that persons outside of the wife- Cornell, the movement is not about men playing mother defnition will be legally and publicly ac‐ an active role in children's lives. Instead, their cepted as parents. Thereby no longer privileging program refects unhappiness with the freedom either a specifc gender or genetic relations and of the imaginary domain of others, and is a dis‐ redefning motherhood. guise of patriarchy. In fact, Cornell has no patience for the prefer‐ Again, like other matters of intimate life, the ence of the ordinary mother-child metaphor, solution to making men's positive role in the fami‐ which she considers psychoanalytically a myth, ly possible may not be found in legislation. Loyal since the goal is the eventual separation between to the idea that "love cannot be legislated" (p. 150), mother and child. Moreover, reducing the signif‐ Cornell proposes to provide men with a non- pa‐ cance of progeny for parenting in the heterosexu‐ triarchal alternative vision of masculinity, that al culture, she advocates the possibility of parent‐ they may process in their own imaginary domain. ing by more than one mother or not by women at This can be achieved through the Lacanian in‐

8 H-Net Reviews sight about the separation of the child from the formal equality, which is especially difcult to mother and the imposed identifcation of the fa‐ achieve in patriarchal postcolonial communities. ther in patriarchal society. Later, the boy-man is She includes in Rawls's design the equivalent subordinated by father's substitutions, which con‐ evaluation of female sexual diference. stantly threatens his masculinity and is a constant This evaluation would be based on specifc source to his anxiety. norms of each society and on political contest in If feminists introduce men to the idea of the them. The practice of genital mutilation, for exam‐ re-creation of identities in the free imaginary do‐ ple, is inconsistent with the equivalent evaluation main, males may be able to resolve their anxiety for women because of the gravity of the bodily in the existing patriarchal gender structure pre‐ harm. But in Cornell's opinion, the fght for the cisely by revolting against it. As alternative cultur‐ abolition of this procedure should be left to the al options are ofered, they are added to the broad women living in those societies. She is aware, context of the existing free market place of ideolo‐ therefore, of patriarchal norms that might be in‐ gies, where the re- imagined sexuate being is ternationally acceptable but insists on a certain made. minimum. The least is for women, lesbians, and The last chapter of the book shifts the focus gays to be permitted equal and fearless participa‐ from the United States to postcolonial societies tion in the political debates so they can advance and developing countries. Cornell deals with the their interpretation of the imaginary domain. question of the validity of the imaginary domain Cornell relies upon Algerian writer Frantz as a Western liberal principle for a universal fem‐ Fanon for help in justifying and hoping for inist human rights agenda to be applied in places change toward recognition of more equality in where traditionalists try to re-establish patriar‐ postcolonial nations. Fanon saw national libera‐ chal hierarchies. tion struggle not as a return to the precolonial cul‐ The ultimate reason for her discussion of the ture but rather as a cultural process in which de‐ imaginary domain lies in its wider applicability. colonized people reimagine the nation.[20] This But the appreciation of postcolonial theory in the parallels the process that takes place in the imagi‐ academic environment may also urge Cornell to nary domain as Cornell articulates it for individu‐ engage in the discussion of the hegemony on lib‐ als. She claims that freedom struggles in those eral philosophy. It is not surprising that Benhabib countries include the ideal of freedom of sexuate also explores the same question. They connect being to women, gays, and lesbians. feminist theory to the global, exploring a concept As much as the imaginary domain is not total‐ of identity that would respond to women's move‐ itarian, neither it is "a bad utopian ideal" (p. 174). ments in the world and address concerns about If the problem is to make equal rights pragmati‐ the future and the past of their societies.[19] cally acceptable for people who fear to risk the co‐ For that undertaking Cornell relies on Rawls's hesiveness of their postcolonial communities, Cor‐ demand for liberal tolerance toward certain non‐ nell acknowledges that the idea of rights should liberal notions. In what he calls "overlapping con‐ be inspired by indigenous sources rather than by sensus," Rawls pragmatically suggests that all na‐ subjective Western liberalism. Supporting her tions would accept basic norms of human rights claim that sympathetic notions of equality can be that are universal for all of them, without the deployed in a consensus, she uses the example of need to agree on their philosophical or theological Surinam female activists who adopt ideas from justifcation. Cornell adds the missing gender and their Creole spirituality. postcolonial dimensions. Rather than universal

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The book, however, does not ofer a solution ings, facilitates a broader universalistic feminist where traditions lack appropriate sources to sup‐ thinking. As the "imaginary domain feminism" port rights so as to initiate Fanon's reimagination has room in it to accommodate all aspects of dif‐ journey. It is not clear how change can be expect‐ ferences among sexuate beings, feminism's uni‐ ed other than by political struggles to at least win versality is extended to become an idea that also the hearts and minds of "reasonable people" (p. embraces all men. 175) regarding the necessity to expand the free‐ As such, feminism can ofer answers to dom of the imaginary domain. broader questions of rights and freedoms in soci‐ Cornell believes that, especially by including ety, not merely to those involving women. What Dworkin's "discontinuity thesis," the freedom of specifcally stand out in At the Heart of Freedom the imaginary domain becomes an advantageous are the responses the imaginary domain and its model for the purpose of promoting human rights theory of justice give issues that arise for gay men in postcolonial societies. What makes it basically and lesbian women. As Cornell addresses prob‐ right in the democratic United States is also what lems that go beyond the ordinarily known gender makes it suitable elsewhere. Even when its prag‐ diferences, she connects feminism with persons matic minimalism is exercised, it still refects an who are neither women nor heterosexuals. The aspiration to rights and equality as central to poli‐ political implication of that may be an alliance tics. among heterosexual women, lesbians, and gays, The freedom of the imaginary domain implies with a signifcant scholarly extension of a public recognition of diferences that does not stronger link between gender theory and queer necessarily endorse or enforce any alternative theory. forms of sexuate being as better or forces anyone Notes to change. And lastly, this freedom also allows [1]. Drucilla Cornell, The Imaginary Domain: what Benhabib requires from feminism: "the ca‐ Abortion, Pornography, and Sexual Harassment pacity to generate meaning over time so as to hold (New York and London: Routledge, 1995). past, present and future together.[21] [2]. Joan Wallach Scott, Only Paradoxes to Of‐ Cornell presents ways that women can over‐ fer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Cam‐ come diferences among themselves-sexual, cul‐ bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996). tural, religious, and national- through something [3]. Jacques Lacan, Escris: A Selection (New that resembles a universal identity of the female York and London: W. W. Norton, 1977); Oliver but that overcomes gender essentialism. Indeed, Sacks, "The Disembodied Lady," in The Man Who At the Heart of Freedom reveals a new preoccupa‐ Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical tion with universality after a period in which Tales (New York: Summit Books, 1970); Nancy scholars, obeying postmodernism's dictates, have Chodorow, Femininities, Masculinities, Sexuali‐ been focusing on fragmentation. Cornell demon‐ ties: Freud and Beyond (Lexington: University of strates a universalistic capacity of postmodernism Kentucky Press, 1994). and especially respect for the universal in femi‐ nism. Thus, she joins Benhabib in viewing the em‐ [4]. bell hooks, Bone Black: Memories of Girl‐ powerment of women's political agency as "the hood (New York: Henry Holt, 1996); Virginia vocation of the feminist theorist.[22] Woolf, A Room of One's Own (London: Harcourt Brace, 1929). Furthermore, this book is important because the imaginary domain, defned by the relation‐ [5]. Seyla Benhabib looks at the construction ship between body and psyche for all human be‐ of identity as a continuous process of narration.

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She attaches it to the conversing psychoanalytical [13]. Joan W. Scott, "The Evidence of Experi‐ process, in which telling and retelling the subcon‐ ence," Critical Inquiry 17 (Summer 1991), pp. scious and its subtext in the present result in un‐ 773-797. settling but a new understanding of the self. This [14]. See, for example, Wendy Chapkis, Live is analogous to what takes place in the imaginary Sex Acts: women Performing Erotic Labor (New domain as Cornell explores it. See Seyla Benhabib, York and London: Routledge, 1997). "Sexual Diference and Collective Identities: The [15]. Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking (Bos‐ New Global Constellation," Signs 24 (Winter 1999), ton: Beacon Press, 1989); Carol Gilligan, In a Dif‐ 349-350. ferent Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's [6]. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer‐ and the Subversion of Identity (New York and sity Press, 1982). London: Routledge, 1990) and Bodies that Matter: [16]. See Richard A. Posner, The Problematics On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (New York and of Moral and Legal Theory (Cambridge, Mass.: London: Routledge, 1993). Cornell had collaborat‐ Harvard University Press, 1999). ed with Butler and Benhabib. See Seyla Benhabib, Judith Butler, Drucilla Cornell and Nancy Fraser, [17]. Martha Fineman, The Neutered Mother, Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange the Sexual Family, and Other Twentieth-Century (New York and London: Routledge, 1995). Tragedies (New York and London: Routledge, 1995). [7]. Luce Irigaray, Thinking the Diference: For a Peaceful Revolution (New York and London: [18]. Cornell relies on David Blankenhorn, Fa‐ Routledge, 1994). therless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem (New York: Basic Books, 1995). [8]. See also Drucilla Cornell, "Enlightening the Enlightenment: A Response to John [19]. Benhabib, "Sexual diference and Collec‐ Brenkman," Critical Theory 26 (Autumn 1999), pp. tive Identities," pp. 335-361. 128-139. [20]. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth [9]. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cam‐ (New York: Grove Press, 1963). Later Cornell uses bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971) Fanon's conditioning universality with the ending and Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia of colonial rule in order in order to correct Kant's University Press, 1993). notion of the immaturity of non-Western soci‐ eties. See Cornell, "Enlightening the Enlighten‐ [10]. Luce Irigaray, I Love to You: Sketch of a ment," pp. 136-139. Possible Felicity in History (New York and Lon‐ don: Routledge, 1994). [21]. Benhabib, "Sexual Diference and Collec‐ tive Identities," p. 353. [11]. Benhabib also emphasizes the responsi‐ bility of the community to sustain the individual [22]. Benhabib, "Sexual Diference and Collec‐ similarly to what is required in psychoanalysis. tive Identities," p. 354-356. Benhabib quotes Nao‐ For a successful process, the fragile patient needs mi Schor on the universalistic feminist interest. the analyst's support, while working to re-estab‐ See Schor, "French Feminism Is a Universalism," lish the boundaries of his or her identity. See Ben‐ difereces 7 (1), pp. 15-47. habib, "Sexual Diference and Collective Identi‐ Copyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights re‐ ties," p. 350. served. This work may be copied for non-proft [12]. Cornell, "Enlightening the Enlighten‐ educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ ment," pp. 129-131.

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Citation: Avital H. Bloch. Review of Cornell, Drucilla. At the Heart of Freedom: Feminism, Sex and Equality. H-Women, H-Net Reviews. April, 2000.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3992

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