Feminism, Psychology and Matters of the Body

Abstract

Psychology's renewed interest in the body, even within feminist theory, has brought with it several philosophical and theoretical challenges. These challenges stem mainly from questions about how to celebrate a return to the body when conceptions of the meaning of `woman' have been tied historically to women's bodies. That is, for feminists, any return to the body requires a two-fold examination. It requires first an inquiry into the part of reigning epistemological assumptions in psychology's fastening of women's bodies to women's psyches, and its construction of women's psychological problems as rooted in their bodies. And, second, it necessitates attention to those ways in which women's bodies have confronted age-old mind-body splits. Only by this twinned appreciation of the body both as the site of oppression and as the possibility for emancipation can feminists move beyond repeating yet another variation of woman as body.