"Finally, a definitive study that debunks one of Freud's most damaging myths--that women are inherently masochistic--...offers healthier ways...to view female behavior." MS. Magazine "Concrete, convincing...sensible...revolutionary, calling for nothing short of a revision in our thinking about women..." Philadelphia Inquirer "...not a quick-fix pop psychology do-it-yourselfer but a thoughtful examination of a persistent, self-defeating myth." Chicago Tribune "...outstanding scholarly debunking of [an] extremely damaging cultural belief...it contains valuable lessons for...the mental health professions." Readings "So convincing are her arguments...that often one is left wondering how on earth such theories could ever have been taken seriously." Morning Star, London

Frigga Haug, one of Germany’s best-known feminist and Marxist critics, develops here a profound challenge both to women’s oppression and to what she sees as women’s ‘collusion’ in that oppression. Rejecting the essentialism of much feminist writing today, along with the denial of subjectivity that still permeates Marxism, Haug explores the connections between Marxist theory and the emancipation of women, a project which necessarily involves, as she explains, “diverting a powerful and long-standing anger into detective work.” Under the headings of Socialization, Work and Politics, she combines the fruits of these investigations with the influential “memory-work” she has pioneered with women’s collectives, to throw startling new light on a wide range of themes and issues: personal ethics and public morality; daydreams, domesticity and consumerism; privatization, new technologies and the restructuring of the workplace; the evolution of women’s politics in Germany; the future of socialist feminism in the wake of Communism’s collapse. Above all, this is a book which strives to find new links between the micro-politics of daily life and the evolving structures of capitalism. “If we could find out why and when our hopes for life were buried,” Haug argues, “then we could try to take our history in our own hands.” Beyond Female Masochism provides the materials, and inspiration, to do just that.

Soon after publication in 1985, The Myth of Women's Masochism became one of the most influential works in women's psychology. Paula Caplan rejects the accepted wisdom that women enjoy pain and abuse, and argues that, on the contrary, much of the pain women endure is to avoid further, or worse, treatment. Women stay with abusive husbands in order, for instance, to protect themselves and their children from the greater suffering of poverty. She makes the point that the quintessentially feminine traits of nurturing, patience, and self-denial are not pathological, as is often stated. Her book confronts the myth of women's masochism as it affects every aspect of women's lives; it challenges psychiatry to change the way it percieves women; and it offers women a positive new view of themselves. In the new preface to this edition, Paula Caplan regrets that most of the data still apply, and speculates why that is. She also provides an update on the views of the American Psychiatric Association on women's masochism, theerby revealing much about the condition of women in our civilization. The Myth of Women's Masochism is likely to remain relevant for some time, a key text for women's studies courses and a source of confidence for women themselves.

Theoretically and representationally, responses to heterosexual female masochism have ranged from neglect in theories that focus predominantly or only upon masochistic sexuality within male subjects, to condemnation from feminists who regard it as an inverted expression of patriarchal control rather than a legitimate form of female desire. It has commonly been understood as a passive form of sexuality, thus ignoring the potential for activity and agency that the masochistic position may involve, which underpins the crucial argument that female masochism can be conceived as enquiring ethical activity. Taking as its subject the works of Jane Campion, Catherine Breillat, Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier as well as the films Secretary (Steven Shainberg), Dans Ma Peau (Marina de Van), Red Road (Andrea Arnold, 2006) Amer (Hélène Cattat and Bruno Forzani), and Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh), Female Masochism in Film avoids these reductive and simplistic approaches by focusing on the ambivalences and intricacies of this type of sexuality and subjectivity. Using the philosophical writings of Kristeva, Irigaray, Lacan, Scarry, and Bataille, McPhee argues that masochism cannot and should not be considered aside from its ethical and intersubjective implications, and furthermore, that the aesthetic tendencies emerging across these films - obscenity, extremity, confrontation and a transgressive, ambiguous form of beauty - are strongly related to these implications. Ultimately, this complex and novel work calls upon the spectator and the theorist to reconsider normative ideas about desire, corporeality, fantasy and suffering.

Theoretically and representationally, responses to heterosexual female masochism have ranged from neglect in theories that focus predominantly or only upon masochistic sexuality within male subjects, to condemnation from feminists who regard it as an inverted expression of patriarchal control rather than a legitimate form of female desire. It has commonly been understood as a passive form of sexuality, thus ignoring the potential for activity and agency that the masochistic position may involve, which underpins the crucial argument that female masochism can be conceived as enquiring ethical activity. Taking as its subject the works of Jane Campion, Catherine Breillat, Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier as well as the films Secretary (Steven Shainberg), Dans Ma Peau (Marina de Van), Red Road (Andrea Arnold, 2006) Amer (Hélène Cattat and Bruno Forzani), and Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh), Female Masochism in Film avoids these reductive and simplistic approaches by focusing on the ambivalences and intricacies of this type of sexuality and subjectivity. Using the philosophical writings of Kristeva, Irigaray, Lacan, Scarry, and Bataille, McPhee argues that masochism cannot and should not be considered aside from its ethical and intersubjective implications, and furthermore, that the aesthetic tendencies emerging across these films - obscenity, extremity, confrontation and a transgressive, ambiguous form of beauty - are strongly related to these implications. Ultimately, this complex and novel work calls upon the spectator and the theorist to reconsider normative ideas about desire, corporeality, fantasy and suffering.

This volume provides an integrative theory firmly grounded in current psychology of the self, and offers a fresh, compelling account of one of psychology's most enigmatic behavior patterns. Professor Baumeister provides comprehensive coverage of historical and cross-cultural theories and empirical data on masochism and presents recent, original data drawn from a large data set of anonymous masochistic scripts of fantasies and favorite experiences. Drawn from the latest social psychological research and theories, Professor Baumeister returns the emphasis to the original and proto-typical form of masochism -- sexual masochism - - and explains these phenomena as a means of releasing the individual from the burden of self-awareness. It is the first volume to present a psychological theory compatible with the mounting evidence that most masochists are not mentally ill nor does masochism derives from sadism. Instead, Professor Baumeister finds that masochism emerges as an escapist response to the problematic nature of selfhood and he attempts to foster an understanding of sexual masochism that emphasizes both "escape from self" and "construction of meaning" hypotheses. The book is directed at all those interested in the self and identity in paradoxical behavior patterns and in the construction of meaning, presenting specific clinical recommendations.