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A review by charredtoast
The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination by Jessica Benjamin
5.0
Reading this book felt like both being on a really fun rollercoaster— things whizzing by (aka, large academic fields I have no big background in haha), the wind in my hair, the thrill and excitement!— AND this sense crouching on the ground, looking at very small rocks and examining them slowly in the palm of my hand...
What an extremely strange way to feel while reading a book. Not sure I've ever felt that way before, that sense of thrill, excitement, and extreme rigor. The fact that reading this took about 30-40 hours was also a part of this experience.
Though I'm sure a lot of it went over my head, and structurally, I'm going to miss things explaining this to others, this is a book I never... thought I would have been able to read, and I am surprised how enjoyable that was. It was also really satisfying to see that a lot of the "random" undirected reading of papers I've been doing over the past 10~ months was useful! And Benjamin helped give me context for all of those readings in her book, too, since it was mercifully written for someone without any psychoanalytic background.
I feel somehow internally changed, and yet I cannot say exactly how yet.
I will say that it was extremely gratifying to see my intense and healing experiences with my psychoanalytically-leaning therapist mirrored in this book.
I am also just so happy someone out there decided to sit down and think about how to rigorously integrate psychoanalysis and feminism, as I've come to really love what I've discovered in psychoanalysis thus far. I partially read this because I was concerned about some of the... misogynistic whiffs I was getting from some of the classical Freudian work I'd been reading about, and wondered if psychoanalysis could be "saved" theoretically for me... and I'm really glad to say that yes, this book has certainly made me feel that, even if not everybody agrees about it (even within the feminist and psychoanalytic umbrellas), there are at least a group of people that have found a way through this theoretical framework that is redemptive and with plenty of room for truthful paradox.
I have no idea if this is a book that others would enjoy, but I feel compelled to say: thank you Jessica Benjamin, for writing this book that has been so helpful to me at this very strange and particular phase of my life.
What an extremely strange way to feel while reading a book. Not sure I've ever felt that way before, that sense of thrill, excitement, and extreme rigor. The fact that reading this took about 30-40 hours was also a part of this experience.
Though I'm sure a lot of it went over my head, and structurally, I'm going to miss things explaining this to others, this is a book I never... thought I would have been able to read, and I am surprised how enjoyable that was. It was also really satisfying to see that a lot of the "random" undirected reading of papers I've been doing over the past 10~ months was useful! And Benjamin helped give me context for all of those readings in her book, too, since it was mercifully written for someone without any psychoanalytic background.
I feel somehow internally changed, and yet I cannot say exactly how yet.
I will say that it was extremely gratifying to see my intense and healing experiences with my psychoanalytically-leaning therapist mirrored in this book.
I am also just so happy someone out there decided to sit down and think about how to rigorously integrate psychoanalysis and feminism, as I've come to really love what I've discovered in psychoanalysis thus far. I partially read this because I was concerned about some of the... misogynistic whiffs I was getting from some of the classical Freudian work I'd been reading about, and wondered if psychoanalysis could be "saved" theoretically for me... and I'm really glad to say that yes, this book has certainly made me feel that, even if not everybody agrees about it (even within the feminist and psychoanalytic umbrellas), there are at least a group of people that have found a way through this theoretical framework that is redemptive and with plenty of room for truthful paradox.
I have no idea if this is a book that others would enjoy, but I feel compelled to say: thank you Jessica Benjamin, for writing this book that has been so helpful to me at this very strange and particular phase of my life.