Lynne Segal (born 29 March 1944)
is an Australian-born, British-based
socialist feminist
Socialist feminism rose in the 1960s and 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist movement and New Left that focuses upon the interconnectivity of the patriarchy and capitalism. However, the ways in which women's private, domestic, and public roles ...
academic and activist, author of many books and articles, and participant in many campaigns, from local community to international. She has taught in higher education in London, England since 1970, at
Middlesex Polytechnic
Middlesex University London (legally Middlesex University and abbreviated MDX) is a public research university in Hendon, northwest London, England. The name of the university is taken from its location within the historic county boundaries of ...
from 1973. In 1999 she was appointed Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at
Birkbeck, University of London, where she now works in the School of Psychosocial Studies.
Early life
Segal was born on 29 March 1944 in Sydney, Australia. Segal was born in a Jewish family to Iza and Reuben Segal, who were both physicians. Her brother Graeme is a mathematician and her sister Barbara is a baroque dancer. She studied psychology at
Sydney University, obtaining her PhD in 1969, while becoming immersed in the anti-authoritarian milieu of the Sydney Libertarians (known as '
The Push'), and has always remained within the libertarian wing of Left politics. She became pregnant in 1969 and married her husband, the artist
James Clifford, who later came out as gay.
Activism
She emigrated to London in 1970 and for the next decade her main energies went into grass roots politics in
Islington, North London, helping to set up and run a women's centre, an alternative newspaper, the ''Islington Gutter Press'', and supporting
anti-racist politics. It was a decade in which the extra-party Left was on the ascendant, but divided structurally and ideologically.
In 1979, the three friends, Segal,
Sheila Rowbotham
Sheila Rowbotham (born 27 February 1943) is a British socialist feminist theorist and historian. Early life
Rowbotham was born on 27 February 1943 in Leeds (in present-day West Yorkshire), the daughter of a salesman for an engineering company a ...
and
Hilary Wainwright
Hilary Wainwright (born 1949) is a British sociologist, political activist and socialist feminist, best known for being a co-editor of '' Red Pepper'' magazine.
Early life and education
Wainwright's father was the Liberal MP Richard Wainwr ...
wrote ''Beyond the Fragments'',
arguing for broader alliances among trade unionists, feminists and left political groups. Its argument quickly won a large following leading to a major conference in
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...
, Yorkshire, in 1980 and a second edition in 1981. In 1984, publisher
Ursula Owen invited her to join the
Virago
A virago is a woman who demonstrates abundant masculine virtues. The word comes from the Latin word ''virāgō'' ( genitive virāginis) meaning vigorous' from ''vir'' meaning "man" or "man-like" (cf. virile and virtue) to which the suffix ''-ā ...
Advisory Board and write an appraisal of the state of feminism, resulting in her first book, ''Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism''.
This book reached a broad audience, with its questioning of gender mythologies, whether of women's intrinsic virtues, or men's inevitable rapaciousness, which had been appearing in the work of many popular feminist writers in the 1980s.
Reflecting her socialist feminist milieu, Segal argued that feminists always needed to confront the ubiquitous negation of the 'feminine', but women's battles could neither be reduced simply to battles with men, nor solved purely by revaluing the 'feminine'.
All Segal's consequent books have argued for a more inclusive form of
left-feminism
Socialist feminism rose in the 1960s and 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist movement and New Left that focuses upon the interconnectivity of the patriarchy and capitalism. However, the ways in which women's private, domestic, and public roles ...
, arguing for a more compassionate and egalitarian world.
Her next book, ''Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men''
rejected the equating of '
male sexuality
Human male sexuality encompasses a wide variety of feelings and behaviors. Men's feelings of attraction may be caused by various physical and social traits of their potential partner. Men's sexual behavior can be affected by many factors, incl ...
' with 'male violence', noting the complexity of forces generating very differing patterns of masculinity across time and place. Discussing the volatile fluidity of sexual experience, the same theoretical perspectives appeared in ''Straight Sex: The Politics of Pleasure''.
There she deconstructs the notion of male activity and
female passivity that underpin normative understandings of heterosexuality, and serve to shore up the language and practices of male dominance. In 2007 Segal published ''Making Trouble: Life and Politics, a Political Memoir,''
covering her generation of post-war activists, pondering what has become of their politics in the grimmer, more divided world of the 21st century.
She has a son, Zim Segal, working in web technology. Segal has lived in Islington, North London since she arrived from Sydney. Since 2000, she has worked, as a secular Jew, with
Jews for Justice for Palestinians,
Independent Jewish Voices
Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is an organization launched on 5 February 2007 by 150 prominent British Jews such as Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, historian Eric Hobsbawm, lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman, Lady Ellen Dahrendorf, film director Mike ...
and
Faculty for Israeli–Palestinian Peace
Faculty may refer to:
* Faculty (academic staff), the academic staff of a university (North American usage)
* Faculty (division), a division within a university (usage outside of the United States)
* Faculty (instrument), an instrument or warra ...
(FFIPP) engaged in efforts to end the
Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and create a just
peace between Israel and Palestine.
Political views
Segal is a
Labour Party member of the
Islington North
Islington North () is a constituency in Greater London represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1983 by Jeremy Corbyn. He served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition from 2015 to 2020. Cor ...
Constituency Labour Party
__NOTOC__
A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency.
In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliamentary constituenc ...
,
in the Highbury East branch.
Bibliography
Books
*
*
*
*
*
*Segal, Lynne ''Does pornography cause violence? The search for evidence'' in
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Articles
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
References
External links
Lynne Segal's Birkbeckhome page
* Dave Hil
"The truth about men and women" ''Guardian Unlimited'' Interview 11 December 2000
* John Barke
Review of ''Making Trouble'' 3:AM Magazine, 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:Segal, Lynne
1944 births
Living people
Australian academics
Australian socialists
Australian emigrants to the United Kingdom
Australian people of Jewish descent
Academics of Birkbeck, University of London
British socialists
British people of Jewish descent
Feminist studies scholars
Socialist feminists
University of Sydney alumni
20th-century British women writers
Writers from Sydney
Labour Party (UK) people