Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies’ Workshop “Breaking Idols, Embracing Doubts. From Idolatrous to Sceptical Attitudes” 14-15th May 2024
Idolatry in modern times has been conceptualized as the annihilation of the hiatus between reality and the symbolization process of a culture, as Emil Fackenheim once wrote. In this regard, then, the efforts of Italian Second Wave Feminism to debunk the patriarchal system by creating a new symbolic order can be understood as a cultural struggle to reject a sociopolitical form of idolatry: the idea that patriarchal languages, concepts, structures, and beliefs are one with reality.
Italian Second Wave Feminism is rooted in Luce Irigaray’s Theory of the Sexual Difference, referring in particular to her feminist interpretation of the Lacanian concept of “symbolic order”. The symbolic represents the cultural and political structure of power relations expressed in language. The more a symbolic is hierarchical, focused on the point of view of a privileged social group, the more it tries to present itself as natural and inevitable – in other words, it grows more and more idolatrous. The patriarchal symbolic is highly hierarchical and has been hegemonic for centuries. Deconstructing its assumptions and beliefs has always been one of the fundamental aims of Feminism. However, feminist philosophers face a deep epistemological problem: how is it possible to radically change the symbolic, while being immersed in it?
By delving into the early works by Adriana Cavarero and Comunità Filosofica Femminile Diotima of Verona, this paper will show how Teresa of Avila’s and Marguerite Porete’s writings helped Italian feminist philosophers trace a path to overcome the problem and give life to a different symbolic order.
Caterina Diotto 