Cornell, Drucilla : Rutgers the State University of New Jersey
Drucilla Cornell is Professor of Law, Political Science, and Women's Studies at Rutgers University. She is the
author of numerous books, including The Imaginary Domain: A Discourse on Abortion, Pornography, and Sexual Harassment
and Transformations: Recollective Imagination and Sexual Difference. She has also edited and coedited
several books, including Feminism and Pornography (forthcoming) and Deconstruction and the Possibility
of Justice (with Michel Rosenfeld and David G. Carlson).
Review
Endorsement:
"True to a revolutionary vision of feminist politics, in this courageous and fascinating book Drucilla Cornell
challenges everyone to rethink feminist theory in ways that interrogate and transform the discourse so that it
offers an inclusive paradigm for liberation."
--bell hooks
Princeton University Press
March, 2000
Summary
How can women create a meaningful and joyous life for themselves? Is it enough to be equal with men? In this
provocative and wide-ranging book, Drucilla Cornell argues that women should transcend the quest for equality and
focus on what she shows is a far more radical project: achieving freedom. Cornell takes us on a highly original
exploration of what it would mean for women politically, legally, and culturally, if we took this ideal of freedom
seriously--if, in her words, we recognized that "hearts starve as well as bodies." She takes forceful
and sometimes surprising stands on such subjects as abortion, prostitution, pornography, same-sex marriage, international
human rights, and the rights and obligations of fathers. She also engages with what it means to be free on a theoretical
level, drawing on the ideas of such thinkers as Kant, Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Hegel, and Lacan.
Cornell begins by discussing what she believes lies at the heart of freedom: the ability for all individuals to
pursue happiness in their own way, especially in matters of love and sex. This is only possible, she argues, if
we protect the "imaginary domain"--a psychic and moral space in which individuals can explore their own
sources of happiness. She writes that equality with men does not offer such protection, in part because men themselves
are not fully free. Instead, women must focus on ensuring that individuals face minimal interference from the state
and from oppressive cultural norms. They must also respect some controversial individual choices. Cornell argues
in favor of permitting same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, for example. She presses for access to abortion
and for universal day care. She also justifies lifestyles that have not always been supported by other feminists,
ranging from staying at home as a primary caregiver to engaging in prostitution. She argues that men should have
similar freedoms--thus returning feminism to its promise that freedom for women would mean freedom for all.
Challenging, passionate, and powerfully argued, Cornell's book will have a major impact on the course of feminist
thought.
Table of Contents
Preface: The Imaginary Domain
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 Introduction: Feminism, Justice, and Sexual Freedom
Chapter 2 Freed Up: Privacy, Sexual Freedom, and Liberty of Conscience
Chapter 3 Nature, Gender, and Equivalent Evaluation of Sexual Difference
Chapter 4 Adoption and Its Progeny: Rethinking Family Law, Gender, and Sexual Difference
Chapter 5 What and How Maketh a Father? Equality versus Conscription
Chapter 6 Troubled Legacies: Human Rights, Imperialism, and Women's Freedom
Chapter 7 Feminism, Utopianism, and the Role of the Ideal in Political Philosophy
