Three important notes about this file

AT Emancipatory

Their approach fails- doesn’t challenge the structures which are the root cause of exclusion

Squire 02- PhD candidate in women’s studies (Sarah, “The Personal and the Political: Writing the Theorist’s Body,” Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 17, No. 37, 2002//MGD)

One example of a poststructural approach to experience is that of feminist historian Joan Scott, who has critiqued the use of experience as a foundational concept located within a ‘realm of reality outside of discourse’.3 In examining appeals to experience in corrective accounts of normative history, Scott identifies the ways in which experience is viewed as an incontestable form of evidence which rests upon a referential notion: ‘what could be truer, after all, than a subject’s own account of what he or she has lived through?’4 Previously ignored standpoints are often taken as transparently self-evident once ‘uncovered’, making visible (and thus truthful, given a scopophilic epistemological frame) kinds of experience otherwise unrecognised. This view of experience, while politically cogent, leaves unchallenged the assumptions and practices which excluded different experience in the first place.5 Evidence for difference is established, Scott argues, but not how that difference is constructed and constituted within subjects.

Personal politics create binaries amongst personal experiences that do not fit a political mold- turns exclusion

Squire 02- PhD candidate in women’s studies (Sarah, “The Personal and the Political: Writing the Theorist’s Body,” Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 17, No. 37, 2002//MGD)

In this kind of approach, attention is drawn to the discursive processes which ‘position subjects and produce their experiences’.6 Experience is, in this instance, not something that is possessed—package-like—by individuals, but something that is produced in the construction of individuals themselves. Feminism, as with other social movements, has been organised around experience as a unifying commonality that establishes women’s identity and agency, and hence their political and theoretical legitimacy. However, to view experience in this way necessarily excludes other forms of experience—notably differences among and within women—as well as leaving unproblematised the historically and culturally situated ways in which we come to understand our experiences. The point here is not that experience isn’t important, but—to put it more bluntly—how it is that we experience our experience. Experience cannot be viewed outside of, or prior to, particular discursive moments. The theorisation of experience therefore needs to be one that does not merely make experience visible as in a literal rendition of a previously excluded or overlooked difference (such as in bringing to light the different experiences of women who practise eating disorders). The deployment and interpretation of ‘the personal’ should not be that which renders it as singular and atemporal, or as outside of the practice of theory. Rather, reference to personal experience needs to encompass a critical interrogation of its own articulation.

Personal Subjugation Module

Turn- claiming the political is personal heists social responsibility onto individuals- deflects guilt onto the victim

Tobach 94- PhD in comparative psychology from NYU (Ethel, “ . . . Personal is Political is Personal is Political . . .” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 50. No. I , 1994. pp. 221-244//MGD)

If Hawkesworth (1987) is correct, and as it appears to me from the comments by people about the meaning of the slogan, she is, how did the slogan come to deemphasize the political and emphasize the personal? Several processes may have been involved: 1. The severe effects of sexism on individuals’ mental and physiological state required some form of relief and the small group discussions were reasonable vehicles for seeking relief. This could be used without the consequences (payment, record of having sought help) of seeking professional help. Many women seek or are put in therapeutic positions whether they wish it or not. This happens, for instance, when women are in prison or when they are dealing with social agencies or private physicians. These are usually situations in which the personal problem is seen as the responsibility of the individual rather than the result of societal problems. 2, It was difficult to develop political programs that would unite women for effective action. The personal activity was in the end easier. 3. It was difficult to develop action programs (political) in the academic setting without endangering the futures of the students and the faculty. Examination of the feasibility of developing a personal/political aspect to feminism in academia is needed.

Personal politics fail- subject the person, rather than the ideology, to repression

Tobach 94- PhD in comparative psychology from NYU (Ethel, “ . . . Personal is Political is Personal is Political . . .” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 50. No. I , 1994. pp. 221-244//MGD)

I was also reminded of the slogan that integrated the individual and society. When I first heard the slogan “personal is political,” it rang a clarion note of validity for personal, political, and scientific activity. It epitomized the uniquely human process of conscious activity, an aspect of behavioral evolution I have been studying (Tobach, 1974, 1981, 1988, 1991b). It reflected a commitment that I and political co-workers have struggled to realize and understand. It reminded me of examples of the integration of the political and personal in the field of research in which I had earned my living. Above all, it presented a way to formulate approaches to problems and to problem solving. I wish to tell three narratives that exemplify the issues inherent in the slogan. Each of the narratives illustrates the interconnectedness of the personal (as exemplified in the intellectual, scientific, or academic labor of the individual) with the societal significance of that labor. The second and third narratives explicate the centrality of history-the need for vigilance to understand the implications of scientific work for societal policies and practices. It is the general applicability of the persona Upolitica1 concept that brings the narratives together. The three narratives are as follows: 1. Feminism in academia. It was feminist theory and practice that produced the slogan. The origins and contemporary status of the slogan are discussed. 2. Comparative psychology, ethology, and sociobiology. This narrative focuses on the use of science to support repressive policies. It also raises questions about the responsibility of scientists for human welfare. 3. The T. C. Schneirla narrative demonstrates the ever present danger of espousing unpopular theories in a repressive, or potentially repressive, atmosphere.


No solvency- all people would have to have the same personal experiences

Tobach 94- PhD in comparative psychology from NYU (Ethel, “ . . . Personal is Political is Personal is Political . . .” Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 50. No. I , 1994. pp. 221-244//MGD)

The forms, the policies, and the practices of government typically reflect the biases of those who have the power to determine the politics. To envision that governments can be changed to reflect the personal experiences of those who have been without power is a radical idea. It indicates a relation of forces that is somehow different from the typical description based on forms of society (slaveowning, feudal, monarchical, republican), or of class relations, or of religion. Rather it speaks to some universal experience that underlies all the politics and all the states, that could apply not only to the condition of women but to the consciousness of all those who suffered from the genocidal practices of states against groups of people because of their race or ethnicity as well.