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Thinking Gender
Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression
Bartky draws on the experience of daily life to unmask the many disguises by which intimations of inferiority are visited upon women. She critiques both the male bias of current theory and the debilitating dominion held by notions of "proper femininity" over women and their bodies in patriarchal culture.
Hardcover
First published November 20, 1990
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About the author
Sandra Lee Bartky
14 books43 followersSandra Lee Bartky was a professor emeritus of philosophy and gender studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her main research included feminism and phenomenology. Her notable contributions to the field of feminist philosophy include the article, "The Phenomenology of Feminist Consciousness".
Bartky held s a BA, MA and PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and studied at University of Bonn and the University of Munich, both of which are in Germany, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1997, Bartky received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humanities, from New England College.
(from Wikipedia)
Bartky held s a BA, MA and PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and studied at University of Bonn and the University of Munich, both of which are in Germany, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1997, Bartky received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humanities, from New England College.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 27, 2010
A fantastic examination of internalization and micro-politics, and an excellent counterpart to MacKinnon's more macro-level (and prescriptive) theorization.
July 26, 2014
Bartky is one my very favorite feminist philosophers. This book includes the often anthologized "Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power," but it also includes a number of essays on other relevant topics including feminine narcissism, shame and emotional labor. She always brings me to new understandings of my own practices of self love, body image and epistemology of self.
September 24, 2024
the best women’s studies book i’ve read so far. i love the way bartky writes and the topics she explores. i am am obsessed with chapter five of this book as it discusses the comparison between panopticon and women’s bodies. so interesting and i could talk about it forever!
March 10, 2016
What’s taught in university Women’s Studies
The nature of works like Bartky’s are the very definition of religious claims to truth, i.e. claims that cannot be refuted. As feminist theory is an area of study not science, its authors make claims which by making them alone suffice to make them true. Bartky engages in so many suppositions as though they were critically derived conclusions, the reader finds dismissal hard to avoid. For example, Bartky submits without substantiation that all humans are born bisexual. And her support of this claim? Not given. Bartky’s supposition flies in the face of biology and common sense but it does expose her underlying support of social constructivism: the idea all is nurture, there is no nature, society creates boys and girls. Thus, males can be reengineered into more feminine creatures for the “safety” of females. Despite that males of all species tend to be aggressive as dictated by biology, this is a clinical ailment from the perspective of social constructivism, to be expunged through psychological manipulation without regard to consequences. “I argue,” says Bartky, “that sexual fantasy, not just sexual behavior, should be made the object of moral justification.” But who’s to be in charge of thought control? The answer is, Bartky, her comrades at the university, and Congress.
Bartky notes the objectification of women as indication of a sexist, suppressive society. But men are objectified as well, for their wealth, height, intelligence, appearance, items of display from expensive cars to big houses, or lack of these. (The genetic program that drives males of all species to exhibit resources which females look for to support offspring.) Though male oppression is not her topic, does that make society sexist and suppressive of males? Or is society simply a large-scale inflection of biology? Of course behaviors of both genders needs steering, but for Bartky only males are to be bridled, converted into something males can never be. In short, males are The Villain, to be treated as such.
Human nature’s desire to emphasize “us versus them” as a means to unity loses none of its charm with Bartky. Until feminists theorists such as Bartky see themselves as heroic, rather than in terms of our modern currency as victims, they will continue to blame, seek vengeance, and demand certain payments and consideration from others. In America, victim status carries significant rewards, including a freedom from challenge. Consequently, Bartky and so much of Women’s Studies at the university gets a free ride. One effect of Bartky’s work may be net reductions in male/female relations with associated depressions in fertility rate. As the planet doesn’t need more humans, this may be a positive outcome of her program.
The nature of works like Bartky’s are the very definition of religious claims to truth, i.e. claims that cannot be refuted. As feminist theory is an area of study not science, its authors make claims which by making them alone suffice to make them true. Bartky engages in so many suppositions as though they were critically derived conclusions, the reader finds dismissal hard to avoid. For example, Bartky submits without substantiation that all humans are born bisexual. And her support of this claim? Not given. Bartky’s supposition flies in the face of biology and common sense but it does expose her underlying support of social constructivism: the idea all is nurture, there is no nature, society creates boys and girls. Thus, males can be reengineered into more feminine creatures for the “safety” of females. Despite that males of all species tend to be aggressive as dictated by biology, this is a clinical ailment from the perspective of social constructivism, to be expunged through psychological manipulation without regard to consequences. “I argue,” says Bartky, “that sexual fantasy, not just sexual behavior, should be made the object of moral justification.” But who’s to be in charge of thought control? The answer is, Bartky, her comrades at the university, and Congress.
Bartky notes the objectification of women as indication of a sexist, suppressive society. But men are objectified as well, for their wealth, height, intelligence, appearance, items of display from expensive cars to big houses, or lack of these. (The genetic program that drives males of all species to exhibit resources which females look for to support offspring.) Though male oppression is not her topic, does that make society sexist and suppressive of males? Or is society simply a large-scale inflection of biology? Of course behaviors of both genders needs steering, but for Bartky only males are to be bridled, converted into something males can never be. In short, males are The Villain, to be treated as such.
Human nature’s desire to emphasize “us versus them” as a means to unity loses none of its charm with Bartky. Until feminists theorists such as Bartky see themselves as heroic, rather than in terms of our modern currency as victims, they will continue to blame, seek vengeance, and demand certain payments and consideration from others. In America, victim status carries significant rewards, including a freedom from challenge. Consequently, Bartky and so much of Women’s Studies at the university gets a free ride. One effect of Bartky’s work may be net reductions in male/female relations with associated depressions in fertility rate. As the planet doesn’t need more humans, this may be a positive outcome of her program.
July 11, 2014
I am grateful for Bartky’s work. I don’t agree with all of it, and it has its typical white feminist “there are no black feminists in the world that I could cite” moments, but she does an excellent job of identifying the tyranny of patriarchy without bashing men. She describes its various outposts in women’s heads. Chapter one is about how being a feminist demands raising one’s consciousness. Chapter two appropriates Fanon to argue that women are also colonized with no mention of how they participated in colonizing. The first three chapters build up the concept of alienation, which is the focus of chapter three. Chapter four declares that feminine masochism is not okay because it’s an extreme example of the seductiveness of domination but the process of un-desiring is murky and perhaps still impossible. Chapter five shows how women are under a patriarchy Panopticon surveillance so that they see themselves as men see them and are constantly monitoring their behavior and adornment. Chapter six surveys shame and guilt and how women feel it more often than men because they feel themselves to be inadequate by their own standards. Through education examples Bartky argues that those standards are remnants of societal oppression and thus what women see as problems with themselves are problems with the society in which we live. Chapter seven is where I started and is actually my favorite. Emotional labor hurts women especially when its unreciprocated and especially when silence is a moral compromise about issues with which they clearly disagree. At the very least, one can say that silence is a patriarchal affliction that Bartky totally eschews in this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 30, 2020
I wish more male philosophers would read texts "like these."
June 7, 2018
Academically and personally challenging.
March 15, 2017
It's very short (just over 100 pages) and an easy read. Just a nice, concise restatement of ideas we are already familiar with. The essay on foucault and femininity is the most interesting one but nothing groundbreaking altogether.
August 15, 2016
Bartky does an excellent job in this book of teasing out some of the more sinister psychological underpinnings of the oppression of women as experienced by women. I appreciate how she focuses most of the book on "micro-oppression" of sorts, or on the emotional oppression experienced by women in close proximity to or in intimate relationships with men. I underlined so many moments in the book, and I felt buoyed by her acknowledgement of the pains of even the most subtle emotional degradation in relationships between men and women.
A weakness of the book is that she makes many ignorant and appropriative references to Black liberation movements as a comparison with women's liberation. While one could do so in the admirable and worthy spirit of acknowledging that all oppression and domination operate with similar strategies (and she does do this, thankfully), Bartky reveals in addition to that a damaging sort of illiteracy and ignorance when it comes to race. For example, in acknowledging her racial status as a white woman and the often racist history of white feminist movements, she absolves herself of responsibility by saying her instances of racism are "unintended", or that racism "infects" much feminist writing. To that I would respond a) that intent is not an excuse for harm, but merely a feeble explanation that should be acknowledged inwardly rather than performatively, and b) that "infect" as it is metaphorically used here is an ableist notion that absolves someone of the responsibility of victimizing another, since as a metaphor it implies that the perpetrator (of whatever, but here specifically of racism) is herself a victim--but a victim of a "disease."
With this problem of unexamined racism in mind, I wrote many "corrective" notes in the margins of this book. If I recommend the book to anyone--and I likely will--I will surely recommend my own personal scribbled-upon copy, since I disputed some of her points along race in a way that would continue to allow her wonderful insights to be appreciated, while at the same time encouraging a fair amount of necessary suspicion and critique.
A weakness of the book is that she makes many ignorant and appropriative references to Black liberation movements as a comparison with women's liberation. While one could do so in the admirable and worthy spirit of acknowledging that all oppression and domination operate with similar strategies (and she does do this, thankfully), Bartky reveals in addition to that a damaging sort of illiteracy and ignorance when it comes to race. For example, in acknowledging her racial status as a white woman and the often racist history of white feminist movements, she absolves herself of responsibility by saying her instances of racism are "unintended", or that racism "infects" much feminist writing. To that I would respond a) that intent is not an excuse for harm, but merely a feeble explanation that should be acknowledged inwardly rather than performatively, and b) that "infect" as it is metaphorically used here is an ableist notion that absolves someone of the responsibility of victimizing another, since as a metaphor it implies that the perpetrator (of whatever, but here specifically of racism) is herself a victim--but a victim of a "disease."
With this problem of unexamined racism in mind, I wrote many "corrective" notes in the margins of this book. If I recommend the book to anyone--and I likely will--I will surely recommend my own personal scribbled-upon copy, since I disputed some of her points along race in a way that would continue to allow her wonderful insights to be appreciated, while at the same time encouraging a fair amount of necessary suspicion and critique.
March 15, 2015
Femininity and Domination contains seven essays written over 15 years.
At its best, Bartky's writing articulates ideas about gender and power which rocked my world, and which I think are completely relevant in the world today.
I found a lot to think about in all of the essays, but for me, "Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power," "Shame and Gender," and "Feeding Egos and Tending Wounds: Deference and Disaffection in Women's Emotional Labor" were perhaps those which most dramatically shifted my perceptions.
I found the essay on feminine masochism to be the weakest, as perhaps is evidenced by the fact that Bartky herself finished it with a few paragraphs entitled "Instead of a Conclusion."
Bartky's essays are very much a hammering out of ideas, and as such, display her own cognitive process in trying to understand the world in which we live.
Ultimately, Femininity and Domination isn't perfect, but that's not what it's about. What it is, is a sincere, important, and at times brilliant re-thinking of the power dynamics which in a very real way undermine women's lives today.
At its best, Bartky's writing articulates ideas about gender and power which rocked my world, and which I think are completely relevant in the world today.
I found a lot to think about in all of the essays, but for me, "Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power," "Shame and Gender," and "Feeding Egos and Tending Wounds: Deference and Disaffection in Women's Emotional Labor" were perhaps those which most dramatically shifted my perceptions.
I found the essay on feminine masochism to be the weakest, as perhaps is evidenced by the fact that Bartky herself finished it with a few paragraphs entitled "Instead of a Conclusion."
Bartky's essays are very much a hammering out of ideas, and as such, display her own cognitive process in trying to understand the world in which we live.
Ultimately, Femininity and Domination isn't perfect, but that's not what it's about. What it is, is a sincere, important, and at times brilliant re-thinking of the power dynamics which in a very real way undermine women's lives today.
December 21, 2020
One of my favourite pieces of feminist philosophical works so far. It's one of those books that makes you start to see the world around you in terms of it.
July 6, 2022
Wish I would’ve taken a specific sociology class on feminism, this was great and a completely different direction on the material I’ve read before. But it’s also so much easier for me to read when it’s not assigned lmao
Fav quotes
“Foucault tends to identify the imposition of discipline upon the body with the operation of specific institutions, e.g., the school, the factory, the prison. To do this, however, is to overlook the extent to which discipline can be institutionally unbound as well as institutionally bound.”
“Because of the interlocking character of modes of the oppression, I think it is highly unlikely that any form of oppression will disappear entirely until the system of oppression as a whole is overthrown.”
“We women cannot begin the re-vision of our own bodies until we learn to read the cultural messages we inscribe upon them daily and until we come to see that even when the mastery of the disciplines of feminism produce a triumphant result, we are still only women.”
Fav quotes
“Foucault tends to identify the imposition of discipline upon the body with the operation of specific institutions, e.g., the school, the factory, the prison. To do this, however, is to overlook the extent to which discipline can be institutionally unbound as well as institutionally bound.”
“Because of the interlocking character of modes of the oppression, I think it is highly unlikely that any form of oppression will disappear entirely until the system of oppression as a whole is overthrown.”
“We women cannot begin the re-vision of our own bodies until we learn to read the cultural messages we inscribe upon them daily and until we come to see that even when the mastery of the disciplines of feminism produce a triumphant result, we are still only women.”
June 17, 2025
An absolute must-read for anyone getting into feminist theory. I wish I had picked this up sooner (it was on my TBR for ages), this collection of essays has so many moments of eye-opening analysis in it.
My personal favourite among the seven essays would be On Psychological Oppression, but there really isn't a weak one in the collection.
My personal favourite among the seven essays would be On Psychological Oppression, but there really isn't a weak one in the collection.
August 27, 2025
A lot of good insights
But feminism should not talk about patriarchy only through the ‘patriarchal’ subject. Bartky’s discussion is limited. I do think at least in some places such limitation is a fault.
But feminism should not talk about patriarchy only through the ‘patriarchal’ subject. Bartky’s discussion is limited. I do think at least in some places such limitation is a fault.
February 2, 2020
It got a lot better with each successive essay, but... the early ones are pretty rough.
September 27, 2022
Omg I loved this book. I love this writer and I want to write her love letters. This book was an eye opener into my relationships with men. Which made it worth reading.
August 13, 2010
A guidebook for bridging the psychic chasms...
"Each of us is in pursuit of an inner integration and unity, a sense that the various aspects of the self form a harmonious whole"
Relates transformation of the self and self-understanding to the locating of the self within the larger social ensemble as well as transformation towards a more just world...new visions of both self and society.
Feminist theory is employed to examine and exorcise "the values of a system that oppresses us are able to take up residence inside our minds". Bartky calls this psychological oppression, or psychic alienation.
"Like economic oppression, psychological oppression is institutionalized and systematic; it serves to make the work of domination easier by breaking the nature of those agencies responsible for their subjugation. This allows those who benefit from the established order of things to maintain this ascendancy with more appearance of legitimacy and with less recourse to overt acts of violence than they might otherwise require....the systematic obscuring of both the reality and agencies of psychological oppression so that its intended effect, the depreciated self, is lived out as destiny, guilt, or neurosis."
This is where it started to get really personal for me:
"Many oppressed persons come to regard themselves as uniquely unable to satisfy normal criteria of psychological health or moral adequacy...the ascription of one's inferiority to idiosyncratic or else to generic causes produces a poor self-image, our struggles are directed inward towards the self, frequently we are unable to make sense of our own impulses or feelings, we are forced to find our way about in a world which presents itself to us in a masked and deceptive fashion. Alienaton in any form causes a rupture within the human person, an estrangement from self, a "splintering of human nature into a number of misbeggoten parts."
The solution?
"The personae who affirm the body must be strengthened. Those who are introjected representatives of agencies hostile to the self must be expelled from consciousness." "We need to locate our subordination in the hidden recesses of the psyche" Bartky does not make it explicitly clear the process by which this all happens, but it's cool, because ima write feminist self-recovery theory myself. Maybe also a political phenomenology of the emotions. Dissertation what?
"Each of us is in pursuit of an inner integration and unity, a sense that the various aspects of the self form a harmonious whole"
Relates transformation of the self and self-understanding to the locating of the self within the larger social ensemble as well as transformation towards a more just world...new visions of both self and society.
Feminist theory is employed to examine and exorcise "the values of a system that oppresses us are able to take up residence inside our minds". Bartky calls this psychological oppression, or psychic alienation.
"Like economic oppression, psychological oppression is institutionalized and systematic; it serves to make the work of domination easier by breaking the nature of those agencies responsible for their subjugation. This allows those who benefit from the established order of things to maintain this ascendancy with more appearance of legitimacy and with less recourse to overt acts of violence than they might otherwise require....the systematic obscuring of both the reality and agencies of psychological oppression so that its intended effect, the depreciated self, is lived out as destiny, guilt, or neurosis."
This is where it started to get really personal for me:
"Many oppressed persons come to regard themselves as uniquely unable to satisfy normal criteria of psychological health or moral adequacy...the ascription of one's inferiority to idiosyncratic or else to generic causes produces a poor self-image, our struggles are directed inward towards the self, frequently we are unable to make sense of our own impulses or feelings, we are forced to find our way about in a world which presents itself to us in a masked and deceptive fashion. Alienaton in any form causes a rupture within the human person, an estrangement from self, a "splintering of human nature into a number of misbeggoten parts."
The solution?
"The personae who affirm the body must be strengthened. Those who are introjected representatives of agencies hostile to the self must be expelled from consciousness." "We need to locate our subordination in the hidden recesses of the psyche" Bartky does not make it explicitly clear the process by which this all happens, but it's cool, because ima write feminist self-recovery theory myself. Maybe also a political phenomenology of the emotions. Dissertation what?
June 8, 2014
Seriously, seriously dated. But you know, it was 1990 when this was published. I vaguely remember seeing SLB at a highly contentious conference session on feminist philosophy (had to be around 1992 or 1993). There was palpable anger in the room. It had to do with essentialist vs. anti-essentialist feminism, and it seemed about to get violent. Good times.
November 26, 2014
A Must-read for feminists.
September 18, 2015
3 stars and a half.
March 1, 2016
Very dated but definite good and generationally sound theories about feminism
May 18, 2009
Radical Feminism is awesome.
March 19, 2015
"While waiting for the bus, I am to suck the muscles of my abdomen in and up to lend them 'tone'."
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews