Political Philosophy and the Patriarchal Unconscious: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Epistemology and Metaphysics

Abstract

The denial and repression of early infantile experience has had a deep and largely unexplored impact on philosophy. This repressed material shapes by its very absence in consciousness the way we look at and reflect upon the world. The repression of early infantile experience and the oppression of women are linked by the fact that women (and only women) "mother," that is, assume primary responsibility for the physical care and psychological nurturance of young children. While there is considerable variation in the extent to which men participate in child care, to my knowledge there is no known society in which men assume the primary responsibility for the care of children under six.1 However, the negative consequences of this fact, boh for the status of women and for psychological development, may be mitigated by a number of factors including the extent of male participation in child care, the degree to which the household is isolated from other social functions (such as production), the rigidity of the distinction between public and private life, and the degree to which women are permitted to participate in socially valued tasks other than child rearing. The philosophers discussed below represent "pure case" examples, since they each lived in an historical period in which these mitigating factors were largely absent.