Redefining Public and Private

Redefining Public and Private

"Public and private are imbedded within a dense web of associational meanings and intimations and linked to other basic notions: nature and culture, male and female... The content, meaning, and range of public and private vary with the exigencies of each society's existence and turn on whether the virtues of political life or the values of private life are rich and vital or have been drained, singly or together, of their normative significance."

The mantra of second wave feminism, "the personal is political," signifies the first attempt to break down the gendered division between the private sphere attributed to women and the public sphere of men. There is no clear origin of this public/private division; it could have been, as Germaine Greer humorously suggests, "while the male-hunter-gatherer strolled along burdened with no more that his spear and a throwing stick, his female mate trudged along after him carrying their infant, their shelter, their food supplies and her digging stick." It appears that, from the moment of human interaction and language, and its implicit category making of social divisions, women have always been associated with the private, and men with the public.

From the beginning of first wave feminism and the fight for women's suffrage, women have been using politics to enter the public realm of men, thus challenging the stark division between public man and private woman. A goal of the feminist movement has been to create equality between the sexes, both in the public and private spheres of life. In doing so, the gendered spaces of men and women have become blurred and, because of the linkage between public/private and man/woman, respectively, the division between pr...

... middle of paper ...

...ssion, and Abortion: Women Who Oppose Abortion Rights in the Name of Feminism." Feminist Nightmares: Women at Odds, Feminism and the Problem of Sisterhood. Ed. Susan Ostrov Weisser and Jennifer Fleishner. New York: New York University Press, 1994. 159-188.

Regan, Priscilla M. Legislating Privacy: Technology, Social Values, and Public Policy. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

Siltanen, Janet and Michelle Stanworth. "The politics of private woman and public man." Women and the Public Sphere. Eds. Janet Siltanen and Michelle Stanworth. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1984. 185-208.

Woolf, Virginia. Three Guineas. New York, NY: Harcourt, Inc., 1938.

Young, Iris. "Pregnant Embodiment." Body and Flesh: A Philosophical Reader. Ed. Donn Welton. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1998. 274-290.