Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:03 08 October 2013 Feminist Review Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:03 08 October 2013 CONTENTS Editorial 1 ‘The Trouble Is It’s Ahistorical’: The Problem of the Unconscious 3 in Modern Feminist Theory Rosalind Minsky Feminism and Pornography 11 Kate Ellis Barbara O’Dair and Abby Tallmer Who Watches the Watchwomen? Feminists Against Censorship 15 Gillian Rodgerson and Linda Semple Pornography and Violence: What the ‘Experts’ Really Say 25 Lynne Segal The Woman in My Life: Photography of Women 35 Selected by Mica Nava Splintered Sisterhood: Antiracism in a Young Women’s Project 45 Clara Connolly Woman, Native, Other 55 Pratibha Parmar interviews Trinh T.Minh-ha Out But Not Down: Lesbians’ Experience of Housing 63 Jayne Egerton Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:03 08 October 2013 Poems 75 Gloria Evans DaviesÉva TóthBatya Weinbaum iii Oxford Twenty Years On: Where Are We Now? 85 Lorraine Gamman and Gilda O’Neill The Embodiment of Ugliness and the Logic of Love: the Danish 91 Redstocking Movement Lynn Walter Reviews Angela McRobbie on New Times 111 Ann Rossiter on Woman-Nation-State 115 Letters 119 Noticeboard 125 Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:03 08 October 2013 Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:03 08 October 2013 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Feminist Review is published three times a year by a collective based in London, with help from women and groups all over the UK. The Collective: Alison Light, Alison Read, Annie Whitehead, Avtar Brah, Catherine Hall, Clara Connolly, Dot Griffiths, Erica Carter, Gail Lewis, Helen Crowley, Inge Blackman, Kum-Kum Bhavnani, Loretta Loach, Lynne Segal, Mary McIntosh, Mica Nava, Naila Kabeer, Sue O’Sullivan. Correspondence and advertising For contributions and all other correspondence please write to: Feminist Review, 11 Carleton Gardens, Brecknock Road, London N19 5AQ. For subscriptions and advertising please write to: David Polley, Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Contributions Feminist Review is happy to discuss proposed work with intending authors at an early stage. We need copy to come to us in our house style with references complete and in the right form. We can supply you with a style sheet. Please send in 4 copies plus the original (5 copies in all). In cases of hardship 2 copies will do. Bookshop distribution in the USA Inland Book Company Inc., 22 Hemingway Avenue, East Haven, CT 06512, USA. Copyright © 1990 in respect of the collection is held by Feminist Review. Copyright © 1990 in respect of individual articles is held by the authors. PHOTOCOPYING AND REPRINT PERMISSIONS Single and multiple photocopies of extracts from this journal may be made without charge Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:03 08 October 2013 in all public and educational institutions or as part of any non-profit educational activity provided that full acknowledgement is made of the source. Requests to reprint in any publication for public sale should be addressed to the Feminist Review at the address above. ISSN number 0141–7789 ISBN 0-203-98582-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-05274-2 Print Edition vi Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:03 08 October 2013 Editorial Recent political developments nationally and internationally are generating discussion and re-evaluation within the editorial collective of Feminist Review, as elsewhere, and we are now in the process of considering how these might change the journal. A longer editorial statement, the result of our thinking about these questions, will be published in the next issue. In the meantime, we would like to signal to our readers our plan for a special issue to be published in the autumn of 1991. Provisionally entitled ‘Shifting Territories’, it will anticipate the emergence of a new European identity and the quincentenary of the ‘discovery’ of the Americas in 1992. ‘Territory’ is more than a geographical metaphor, and we hope that contributions to this special issue of Feminist Review will explore changes in the political, theoretical and imaginative mapping of feminism, socialism and anticolonialism throughout the world. Territory’ also encompasses our physical world and the deterioration of the environment. How should we respond to these major transformations? How should they be understood? What new intellectual and creative possibilities do they offer? How have these changes been represented? What are their political implications? Feminism has long been a critic of the old order. Can it regain the political and intellectual initiative? We would welcome submissions for this special issue on ‘Shifting Territories’ and would like to remind readers that we are always on the lookout for contributions to the journal. Feminist Review is often seen as an academic journal despite the fact that we publish a wide range of pieces: some of these are by established authors, others by newcomers; they vary also in terms of length, style, medium and approach. We hope in future to increase the proportion of nonacademic writing in the journal and would like to point out that we consider for publication all work (and this includes visual work) on themes that are interesting and pertinent for feminists. Contributors should bear in mind in their treatment, the contested nature of feminism and socialism as concepts, as well as the pervasiveness of Anglocentrism and racism. This issue of Feminist Review is not a ‘special’ or ‘theme’ issue in that its contents cover a range of subjects. We have, however, included three articles on pornography and censorship since, with the growing public visibility of the antipornography campaign, this has again become a contentious and topical question. Several of the articles in Perverse Politics: Feminist Review No. 34 and in Feminist Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:03 08 October 2013 Review No. 35 also addressed this matter. We have decided to reprint in this issue, No. 36, part of the introduction to the US publication Caught Looking: Feminism, Pornography and Censorship (Ellis et. al., 1988) because it seemed both highly relevant and an indication of the similarity between recent developments in this country and in the United States. We also include in this issue an article by Clara Connolly which sets out and explores some of the contradictions that can occur in antiracist practice, in this instance in the context of youth work with 2 FEMINIST REVIEW young women. The politics of antiracism, which are rendered increasingly complex as we take on board the implications of fundamentalism, will also be addressed by some of the contributors to the next issue of Feminist Review, No. 37. Another special feature of the current issue is the reproduction of visual images from an exhibition of photographic and mixed-media work by and about women. We hope to see more of such work in future issues. Rosalind Minsky, in a challenging piece, examines theories of the unconscious and their implications for feminist theory and practice. Jayne Egerton, in her article, draws attention to the specific housing need of lesbians. Two of the other pieces that we publish here reflect on the feminism of the late sixties and early seventies. One is about the twentieth anniversary of the first Women’s Liberation conference at Ruskin College, Oxford, the other about Redstockings, the Danish Women’s Liberation group whose members engaged with many of the same ideas and forms of political practice as other Women’s Liberation groups of that moment. We also publish in this issue an interview with Trinh T.Minh-ha, Vietnamese American feminist, in which she talks with Pratibha Parmar about her work as film-maker and author. Yet another feature of this issue are the letters. We would like to emphasize how important we feel it is for Feminist Review to receive feedback, to be a forum, the site for an exchange of ideas, and we hope that the flow of correspondence will continue; likewise with recommendations for reviews. Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to inform our readers that we are pleased to be able to welcome to the Feminist Review editorial collective Alison Read, Avtar Brah, Gail Lewis and Inge Blackman as new members. Reference ELLIS, Kate, JAKER, Beth, HUNTER, Nan, O’DAIR, Barbara and TALLMER, Abby (1988) editors Caught Looking: Feminism, Pornography & Censorship, Seattle: Real Comet Press. Downloaded by [Central Uni Library Bucharest] at 01:03 08 October 2013 ‘THE TROUBLE IS IT’S AHISTORICAL’: The Problem of the Unconscious in Modern Feminist Theory Rosalind Minsky Many people have a problem with psychoanalytical theory because it is grounded in the concept of the unconscious. They find this concept distasteful and justify their distaste on the basis of two fundamental criticisms: that they can find no empirical evidence for it and that it is ahistorical. In this paper I want to begin by looking briefly at what I think constitutes evidence for the unconscious and then move on to consider the charge of it being ahistorical and examine what this charge really means. I shall then argue that rejection of the unconscious on these grounds is part of a more serious problem for the production of feminist knowledge of the personal—the problem of anxiety often experienced as distaste. A feminist knowledge which can theorize the link between sociology and psychoanalytic theory—integrate social and psychical reality—may only be possible if we can find a way of moving beyond anxiety to an integration of our own personal social and psychical dimensions in the form of insight.