Public - private; rational - personal

ENANGEL who-is-at cityu.edu.hk
Wed, 17 Jul 1996 14:58:12 +0800

Hi fellow xmca-ers (members of mind-culture-activity discussion list),

Some time ago, there was some discussion on xmca on this topic, e.g.,
"what's public and could go on to xmca, what's private, and should go to a
private channel", what's "rational" and "objective", "scientific", what's
"personal", or "emotional". What's a public voice, and what's a private
voice, etc..

I'm interested in continuing with this discussion, and hope that there's
someone out there who would also be interested in taking up these issues
or in discussing the implications and ideological sources of our
understandings of these notions (e.g., public, private, rational, personal,
emotional, etc.).

My sense of it is that the "public" vs. "private" and "rational" vs.
"personal, emotional" divisions are not neutural but ideologically laden,
and women are usually placed in the arenas of "private", "emotional",
"household", etc. (see C. Luke, 1992). Dorothy Smith's analysis also shows
that the capitalist economic mode and "division of labour" assign women
to the "private", "personal", "household" space, and women's concerns and
experiences are marginalized as non-public, non-rational, non-scientific,
"emotional", "personal", "private", etc..

I see many links between these ideologies and women's marginalization in
the academic circles; women's works and presentations can easily get
criticized as being "too emotional", "too intimate", "too personal", etc..

It doesn't mean that women's works are not rigourous, are not grounded in
data and evidence; it may be that the criteria to establish what counts as
data and evidence tend also to be one-sided and usually subscribe to a
male's world view (epistemological and ontological assumptions grounded in
male experiences).

I understand that this can be controversial, and I welcome your sharing of
your views.

Cheers,
Angel
-----------------------
Angel Lin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dept of English
City University of Hong Kong
Tat Chee Ave., Kln., Hong Kong
phone: (852) 2788-8122
fax: (852) 2788-8894
e-mail: enangel who-is-at cityu.edu.hk