Professional paper

The Private/Public Dichotomy from the Female Perspective

Marija Škrlec ; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Zagreb

Abstract

Private and public are Greek categories, and the whole history between the classical antiquity and present can be viewed through their bipartition: e.g. one – many, right – left, male – female, rational – non-rational, logic – emotions/passions, culture – nature, active – passive, objective – subjective, good – evil, light – darkness, form – substance, public – private. Thinking in dichotomies is what is called black-and-white characterization in literature, but human consciousness has, not perceiving the restraint of this kind of thinking, mostly accepted the line of least resistance in creating its worldview. In the course of this simplification it has disregarded the fact that categorization leads to tyranny. From a feminist point of view, the key dichotomy in the development of male – female relations is private/public. The work deals with different (negative) consequences of this dichotomy and attempts to solve them towards the conclusion that there is a single principle to life – neither male nor female, neither black nor white.

Keywords

dichotomy; public; human rights; patriarchy; private; gender; sex

Hrčak ID:

61634

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/61634

Publication date:

3.11.2010.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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