Feminism and the

Power of Love
Interdisciplinary Interventions
Edited by Adriana García Andrade, Lena Gunnarsson and Anna G. Jónasdóttir
Routledge, 2018
Chapter 1
The Power of Love: Towards an Interdisciplinary and
Multi-Theoretical Feminist Love Studies
Lena Gunnarsson, Adriana García Andrade, Anna G.
Jónasdóttir

u In this introductory chapter the editors situate the book’s diverse

interventions by sketching the contours of the emerging field of Feminist Love
Studies. This is done within the context of a broader interdisciplinary turn to
love. They highlight some differences as well as overlaps between the
contributions in light of the varying theoretical and disciplinary backgrounds
of the authors. In addition, love as a method of producing knowledge is
discussed in relation to the collaborative process behind the book.
Part 1. QUESTIONING LOVE AND POWER
Chapter 2
The Difference that Love Power Makes
Anna G. Jónasdóttir, Senior Professor of Gender Studies,
Örebro University, Sweden

u In this chapter Jónasdóttir addresses two questions: first, what difference

“love” and “love power” make, relative to “sexuality,” in her historical-
materialist theory of formally-equal patriarchy; and second, related to her
interest to promote interdisciplinary and multi-paradigmatic feminist love
studies, what the conditions of possibility are for conversing fruitfully about
research, love research included, across chronically conflicting paradigmatic
boundaries. She accounts for some important problems in feminist theory and
in the materialist conception of history which, she argues, her love theory has
solved, and briefly discusses difficulties and possibilities of comparing notes
across paradigms.
Chapter 3
Alienation in Love: Is Mutual Love the Solution?
Ann Ferguson, Professor Emerita, Philosophy and Women,
Gender, Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts
Amherst, USA

u Ferguson argues that the contemporary love ideal of romantic love represents
a form of alienated love infused with male dominance and heteronormativity.
However, changes in what she calls the “affective economy” of the neoliberal
capitalist, racist, patriarchal order have also promoted the emergence of the
gender egalitarian ideal of mutual love. The only viable way to resolve this
conflict in love ideals is to support both individual and collective resistance
against all of the domination structures that intersect to perpetuate romantic
love, in order to set up the social conditions that can allow more people to
achieve the values of mutual love.
Chapter 4
What Has Happened to the Feminist Critique of
Romantic Love in the Same-sex Marriage Debate?
Renata Grossi, Dr. in Law, Law School University of
Technology Sydney, Australia

u Feminists have long argued that romantic love is oppressive. It is perplexing

therefore to see it being adopted as a political strategy for the legal
recognition of same-sex marriage. When considered in the contexts of
patriarchy, the public and private divide, the institutions of marriage and
family, it is seen as reinforcing women’s disadvantage. But romantic love is
also associated with an ability to subvert patriarchy, to a re-scripting of
women’s lives, and with an ability to create autonomy, freedom and equality.
The chapter attempts a more nuanced critique, potentially making romantic
love more compatible with progressive political goals.
Part 2. LOVE AND AFFECT
Chapter 5
Love as Affective Energy: Where Feminist Love
Studies meets Feminist Affect Theory
Margaret E. Toye, Associate Professor in Women and Gender
Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada

u Toye argues that a more interested dialogue between the concurrent

emerging fields of “feminist love studies” and “feminist affect studies”
could lead to new theories of love. She identifies “affective energy,” as a
common concept and a productive meeting place to begin the
conversation. As examples, she compares Lucy Goodison’s appeals to
ground feminist theories of love in discourses of energy with Patricia
Clough’s theories of affective psychic, social, and informational
energies. The chapter concludes with Teresa Brennan’s gendered affect
theory of “energetics” as a potential bridge between both fields, and with
Toye’s provisional definition of “love as affective energy.”
Chapter 6
From Murderous Love to Worldly Love: Reflections
on Explanations of Men’s
Violence Against Women
Kathleen B. Jones, Professor Emerita in Women’s Studies,
San Diego State University, USA

u What relevance, if any, does contemporary affect theory have to the analysis
of love? Using the situation of dyadic deaths (murder followed by suicide), or
“murderous love,” Jones evaluates the impact of the “affective turn” on
understanding the energetics of love and power in interpersonal relations,
and connects the analysis to efforts to develop a more politicized concept of
love as “worldly love.”
Part 3. TOGETHERNESS AND ITS FORMS
Chapter 7
Towards Socio-Political Meanings of Love and Non-
monogamous Bonding in Europe
Justyna Szachowicz-Sempruch, Dr. in Comparative
Literature, Robert B. Zajonc Institute for Social Studies,
University of Warsaw, Poland

u Reclaiming love from its monogamous liaison, Sempruch explores important

affinities between Marxist feminists’ definitions of ‘red love’ and
trans/feminist ideals of interconnectedness, solidarity and care that
challenge the nuclear family model. The analysis involves her research on
contemporary non-monogamous love bonding in Poland (2013-2016) with a
focus on polyamory. She argues that these newly emerging love bonding ideals
are compelling not only in terms of their symbolical revolutionary meanings,
but foremost as actual socio-emotional transformations of the family
structure in the twenty-first century.
Chapter 8
Lovers and their World: The Invisible Ties We Share
Adriana García Andrade and Olga Sabido Ramos, Professors
in Sociology, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México

u García-Andrade and Sabido-Ramos examine heterosexual romantic love from a

relational perspective and use the We pronoun to formulate the dependencies
this liaison creates. They propose this affective bond generates its own
meanings (Sinn), which have to do with something more than what one or
both lovers feel. The conclusion reached is that, in contemporary western
societies, the We loving relationship is characterized by four types of ties,
namely: identity, membership, bodily-emotional, and erotic-sexual bonds.
These can help to understand – from a sociological viewpoint – why people
still strive to have a loving relationship within an individualistic self-absorbed
society.
Chapter 9
Silent Love: On Irigaray’s Suggestion of Cultivating
Sexual Difference
Silvia Stoller, University Docent in Philosophy, University of
Vienna, Austria

u Luce Irigaray is considered the main representative of difference feminism. In

her attempts to establish an ethics of sexual difference, she has repeatedly
come up with unusual proposals. One of her unique ideas is the cultivation of
silence. Despite the significance this topic has in the writings of Luce Irigaray,
it still appears to be underrepresented in the scope of feminist academic
research. In this chapter Stoller not only deals with the role of silence in
regard to a theory of sexual difference, but also demonstrates why Irigaray
depicts silence as a possibility for a loving culture of two gendered subjects.
Chapter 10
Love, Feminism and Dialectics – Repairing Splits in
Theory and Practice
Lena Gunnarsson, Ph.D. in Gender Studies, Lund University,
Sweden
u Gunnarsson highlights how dialectics can shed light on the relation between
love and dominance, foregrounding the crucial role that ontological tensions
play in self–other relating. Drawing on Roy Bhaskar’s dialectical critical realist
philosophy, she expands on Jessica Benjamin’s analysis of male dominance, as
well as other feminist work, and elaborates on the necessity of living-with
rather than seeking to escape constitutive tensions in order to be able to live
non-oppressively and sustainably with one another. Gunnarsson also
demonstrates how dialectics can account for the fact that life-enhancing
impulses are often co-enfolded in oppressive practices and elaborates on the
implications that this has for the prospect of transformation.