Luce Irigaray

 

Of course, it's impossible for each individual to create the whole of History. But I do think that any individual, a woman or a man, can and must recreate her or his personal and collective history. For this to be accomplished, everyone's body and opinions must be respected. Everyone should be able to be aware of her or his obligations, the judge of his or her own decisions. No one ought to believe. The psychic and psychological phenomenon generates dangerous artificial powers. Belief destroys identity and responsibility and goes against what experience teaches. It often further reinforces those historical gaps or oversights, whether these are exercised in the economy of discourses or in the systems of images that go with them. (April, 1987)

The issue, then, is one of whether our civilizations are still prepared to consider sex as pathological, a flaw, a residue of animality, or if they are finally mature enough to give it its human cultural status. (June, 1987)

From Je, Tu, Nous