Nelson argues the best we can hope for in a nonsexist society is to revalue those feminine qualities that have previously been devalued. I argue that those qualities are the result of a sexist construction of gender categories, and that a nonsexist society would have no reason to preserve them.

This essay engages in a debate with Nancy Fraser and Dorothy Leland concerning the contribution of Lacanian-inspired psychoanalytic feminism to feminist theory and practice. Teresa Brennan's analysis of the impasse in psychoanalysis and feminism and Judith Butler's proposal for a radically democratic feminism are employed in examining the issues at stake. I argue, with Brennan, that the impasse confronting psychoanalysis and feminism is the result of different conceptions of the relationship between the psychical and the social. I suggest Lacanian-inspired feminist (...) conceptions are useful and deserve our consideration. (shrink)