Men, women, passion and power - Marie Maguire

Psychoanalytic theory has often found it difficult to come to terms with issues of power within gender relations. Both theory and clinical practice have tended to replicate the cultural idealization of men and the denigration of women, splitting masculinity and femininity between the sexes in a way which depletes both. In Men, Women, Passion and Power, Marie Maguire argues that it is only when psychoanalysis integrates the male and female in its theorizing that the possibility of a more balanced and fluid psychological relation between the sexes will emerge. Making detailed use of case material, she introduces the reader to the contemporary debates about sexuality and explores them with sensitivity from a feminist viewpoint. Looking at such topics as false memories of sexual abuse, perverse sexuality, homosexuality, pornography and bulimia, she shows how current thinking is trammelled by sexist, homophobic and culturally biased assumptions about gender identity and sexual orientation. She concludes that only when a feminist perspective has been truly integrated into theory will the psychoanalytic project realize its full radical potential.