{{Short description|Australian-British feminist academic}} {{Use British English|date=August 2014}}{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}} {{Infobox writer | name = Lynne Segal | image = | imagesize = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1944|03|29|df=y}} | birth_place = [[Sydney]], [[Australia]] | death_date = | death_place = | nationality = [[Australian nationality law|Australian]] and British | ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = [[University of Sydney]] (BA)<br />University of Sydney (PhD) | alma_mater = | period = 1987–present | language = English | genre = | subject = Psychology, gender studies, feminism | movement = | notableworks = ''[https://archive.org/details/whyfeminismgende0000sega Why feminism?: gender, psychology, politics.]'' | spouse = | partner = | awards = | signature = | website = {{url|http://bbk.ac.uk/sps/our_staff/academic/lynne_segal}} | portaldisp = }} '''Lynne Segal''' (born 29 March 1944)<ref name="Bio" /> is an Australian-born, British-based [[Socialist feminism|socialist feminist]] academic and activist, author of many books and articles, and participant in many campaigns, from local community to international. She has taught in higher education in [[London]], England, since 1970, at [[Middlesex University|Middlesex Polytechnic]] from 1973. In 1999, she was appointed Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at [[Birkbeck, University of London]], where she now works in the School of Psychosocial Studies.<ref name="Podcast" />
==Early life== Segal was born on 29 March 1944 in [[Sydney]], Australia. Segal was born in a Jewish family to Iza and Reuben Segal, who were both physicians. Her brother Graeme is a mathematician and her sister Barbara is a baroque dancer. She studied psychology at [[University of Sydney|Sydney University]], obtaining her PhD in 1969, while becoming immersed in the anti-authoritarian milieu of the Sydney Libertarians (known as "[[Sydney Push|The Push]]"), and has always remained within the libertarian wing of Left politics.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}} She became pregnant in 1969 and married her husband, the artist [[James Clifford (artist)|James Clifford]], who later came out as gay.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cadwalladr |first=Carole |date=7 December 2008 |title=It's been a long journey - and we're not there yet |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/dec/07/women-equality-rights-feminism-sexism-women-s-liberation-conference |access-date=16 May 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Cooke |first=Rachel |date=1 February 2015 |title=Lynne Segal: 'The language of sex is still phallocentric' |newspaper=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/01/lynne-segal-violence-against-women-men-insecure |access-date=20 May 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Segal |first=Lynne |date=2 November 2013 |title=A groovy kind of love: from sex in the 60s, to sex in your 60s |newspaper=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/02/sex-in-60s-free-love-lynne-segal |access-date=20 May 2022}}</ref>
==Activism== She emigrated to London in 1970 and for the next decade her main energies went into grass roots politics in [[Islington|Islington, North London]], helping to set up and run a women's centre, an alternative newspaper, the ''Islington Gutter Press'', and supporting [[Anti-racism|anti-racist politics]]. It was a decade in which the extra-party Left was on the ascendant, but divided structurally and ideologically.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}
In 1979, the three friends, Segal, [[Sheila Rowbotham]] and [[Hilary Wainwright]] wrote ''Beyond the Fragments'',<ref name="Fragments" /> arguing for broader alliances among trade unionists, feminists and left political groups. Its argument quickly won a large following leading to a major conference in [[Leeds]], Yorkshire, in 1980 and a second edition in 1981. In 1984, publisher [[Ursula Owen]] invited her to join the [[Virago Press|Virago]] Advisory Board and write an appraisal of the state of feminism, resulting in her first book, ''Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism''.<ref name="FutureFemale" /> This book reached a broad audience, with its questioning of gender mythologies, whether of women's intrinsic virtues, or men's inevitable rapaciousness, which had been appearing in the work of many popular feminist writers in the 1980s.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}
Reflecting her socialist feminist milieu, Segal argued that feminists always needed to confront the ubiquitous negation of the "feminine", but women's battles could neither be reduced simply to battles with men, nor solved purely by revaluing the "feminine".<ref name="Violence" /> All Segal's consequent books have argued for a more inclusive form of [[left-feminism]], arguing for a more compassionate and egalitarian world.<ref name="Family" /><ref name="Exposed" /><ref name="Agendas" /><ref name="WhyFeminism" /> Her next book, ''Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men'',<ref name="SlowMotion" /> rejected the equating of "[[male sexuality]]" with "male violence", noting the complexity of forces generating very differing patterns of masculinity across time and place. Discussing the volatile fluidity of sexual experience, the same theoretical perspectives appeared in ''Straight Sex: The Politics of Pleasure''.<ref name="Straight" /> There she deconstructs the notion of male activity and [[female passivity]] that underpin normative understandings of heterosexuality, and serve to shore up the language and practices of male dominance. In 2007, Segal published ''Making Trouble: Life and Politics, a Political Memoir'',<ref name="Trouble" /> covering her generation of post-war activists, pondering what has become of their politics in the grimmer, more divided world of the 21st century.
She has a son, Zim Segal, working in web technology. Segal has lived in Islington, North London, since she arrived from Sydney. Since 2000, she has worked, as a secular Jew, with [[Jews for Justice for Palestinians]], [[Independent Jewish Voices]] and [[Faculty for Israeli–Palestinian Peace]] (FFIPP) engaged in efforts to end the [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict|Israeli occupation of Palestinian land]] and create a just [[Israeli–Palestinian peace process|peace between Israel and Palestine]].<ref name="Bio" />
==Political views== Segal is a [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] member of the [[Islington North (UK Parliament constituency)|Islington North]] [[Constituency Labour Party]],<ref name="jewishvoiceforlabour">{{cite web |url=http://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/jvl/a-jvl-statement-on-the-current-attacks-on-jeremy-corbyn/|title=A statement from Jewish Labour members on the current attacks on Jeremy Corbyn|publisher=[[Jewish Voice for Labour]]|date=26 March 2018|access-date=1 June 2018}}</ref> in the Highbury East branch.<ref name="theguardian3">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/05/antisemitism-on-the-left-and-jeremy-corbyn|title= Antisemitism on the left and Jeremy Corbyn |newspaper=The Guardian|date=5 April 2018|access-date=2 June 2018}}</ref>
==Bibliography== ===Books=== *{{cite book | last1 = Rowbotham | first1 = Sheila | author1-link = Sheila Rowbotham | last2 = Segal | first2 = Lynne | last3 = Wainwright | first3 = Hilary | author3-link = Hilary Wainwright | title = Beyond the fragments : feminism and the making of socialism (2nd ed.)| publisher = Merlin Press | location = London | year = 1981 | isbn = 9780850362541 }} *{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = What is to be done about the family | publisher = [[Penguin Books|Penguin]] in association with the Socialist Society | location = Harmondsworth | year = 1983 | isbn = 9780140065961 }} *{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Is the future female? : troubled thoughts on contemporary feminism | publisher = Virago | location = London | year = 1987 | isbn = 9780860686972 }} *{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = The Past Before Us: Twenty Years of Feminism | year = 1989 | publisher = Feminist Review | isbn = 9780415037525}} *{{cite book | last1 = Segal | first1 = Lynne | last2 = McIntosh | first2 = Mary | author2-link = Mary Susan McIntosh | title = Sex exposed : sexuality and the pornography debate | publisher = Rutgers University Press | location = New Brunswick, N.J | year = 1993 | isbn = 9780813519388 }} *Segal, Lynne. ''Does pornography cause violence? The search for evidence'' in {{cite book | last1 = Church Gibson | first1 = Pamela | last2 = Gibson | first2 = Roma | title = Dirty looks : women, pornography, power | publisher = [[British Film Institute]] (BFI) Publishing | location = London | year = 1993 | isbn = 9780851704043 }} *{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Straight sex : rethinking the politics of pleasure | publisher = University of California Press | location = Berkeley | year = 1994 | isbn = 9780520200012 }} *{{cite book | editor-last = Segal | editor-first = Lynne | title = New sexual agendas | publisher = Macmillan | location = Basingstoke | year = 1997 | isbn = 0333675681 }} *{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Why feminism? : gender, psychology, politics | publisher = [[Polity (publisher)|Polity]] | location = Cambridge | year = 1999 | isbn = 9780745623474 | url = https://archive.org/details/whyfeminismgende0000sega }} *{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Slow motion : changing masculinities, changing men | publisher = [[Palgrave Macmillan]] | location = Basingstoke | year = 2007 | isbn = 9780230019270 }} *{{cite book |last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Making trouble : life and politics | publisher = [[Serpent's Tail]] | location = London | year = 2007 | isbn = 9781852429379 }} *{{cite book |last1 = Segal | first1 = Lynne |author2=[[Elaine Showalter]] (Introduction) | title = Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Ageing| publisher = [[Verso Books]] | location = London | year = 2013| isbn = 9781781681398}} *{{cite book|last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Radical Happiness : Moments of Collective Joy| publisher = Verso Books | location = London | year = 2017 | isbn = 9781786631541}} *{{cite book|last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care| publisher = Verso Books | location = London | year = 2023 | isbn = 9781804292945}}
===Articles=== *{{cite journal |last=Segal |first=Lynne |date=1992 |title=Feminism and fatherhood |journal=The School Field |volume=3 |issue=1/2 |pages=95–118 |issn=0353-6807}} *{{cite news | first =Lynne | last =Segal | title =Boys' success at school is undermined by the same competitive machismo that dominates the ideas of many male academics. | url =http://www.proquest.co.uk/en-UK/catalogs/databases/detail/pq-hist-news.shtml | newspaper = The Guardian, Education | date = 16 January 2001 | access-date =15 June 2013 | location=London }} *{{cite news | first =Lynne | last =Segal | title =We would all be better off if academics wrote fewer but better books, argues Lynne Segal. | url =http://www.proquest.co.uk/en-UK/catalogs/databases/detail/pq-hist-news.shtml | newspaper = The Guardian, Education | date = 13 February 2001 | access-date =15 June 2013 | location=London }} *{{cite news | first =Lynne | last =Segal | title =Getting beyond truisms is still the greatest task facing psychology. | url =http://www.proquest.co.uk/en-UK/catalogs/databases/detail/pq-hist-news.shtml | newspaper = The Guardian, Education | date = 13 March 2001 | access-date =15 June 2013 | location=London }} *{{cite news | first =Lynne | last =Segal | title =Where have all the radicals gone? | url =https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/apr/10/highereducation.uk1 | newspaper = The Guardian, Education | date = 10 April 2001 | access-date =15 June 2013 | location=London }} *{{cite news | first1 =Simon | last1 =Baron-Cohen | first2 =Lynne | last2 =Segal | title =Sex on the mind (e-mail exchange). | url =https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/may/03/science.comment | newspaper = The Guardian | date = 3 May 2003 | access-date =15 June 2013| location=London }} *{{cite journal |last=Segal |first=Lynne |date=2014 |title=Temporal Vertigo: The Paradoxes of Ageing |journal=Studies in Gender and Sexuality |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=214–222 |doi=10.1080/15240657.2014.939022 |s2cid=143705554 |issn=1524-0657}}
==References== {{Reflist| refs= <ref name="Bio">{{cite news | first =Julie | last =Bindel | author-link = Julie Bindel | title =Confessions of a troublemaker. | url =https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/mar/02/biography.gender | newspaper = The Guardian | date = 2 March 2007 | access-date =15 June 2013 | location=London }}</ref> <ref name="Fragments">{{cite book | last1 = Rowbotham | first1 = Sheila | author1-link = Sheila Rowbotham | last2 = Segal | first2 = Lynne | author2-link = Lynne Segal | last3 = Wainwright | first3 = Hilary | author3-link = Hilary Wainwright | title = Beyond the fragments : feminism and the making of socialism (2nd ed.)| publisher = Merlin Press | location = London | year = 1981| isbn = 9780850362541 }}</ref> <ref name="Family">{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = What is to be done about the family | publisher = [[Penguin Books|Penguin]] in association with the Socialist Society | location = Harmondsworth | year = 1983 | isbn = 9780140065961 }}</ref> <ref name="FutureFemale">{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Is the future female? : troubled thoughts on contemporary feminism | publisher = [[Virago Press|Virago]] | location = London | year = 1987 | isbn = 9780860686972 }}</ref> <ref name="Exposed">{{cite book | last1 = Segal | first1 = Lynne | last2 = McIntosh | first2 = Mary | title = Sex exposed : sexuality and the pornography debate | publisher = Rutgers University Press | location = New Brunswick, N.J | year = 1993 | isbn = 9780813519388 }}</ref> <ref name="Straight">{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Straight sex : rethinking the politics of pleasure | publisher = University of California Press | location = Berkeley | year = 1994 | isbn = 9780520200012 }}</ref> <ref name="Agendas">{{cite book | editor-last = Segal | editor-first = Lynne | title = New sexual agendas | publisher = Macmillan | location = Basingstoke | year = 1997 | isbn = 0333675681 }}</ref> <ref name="WhyFeminism">{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Why feminism? : gender, psychology, politics | publisher = Polity | location = Cambridge | year = 1999 | isbn = 9780745623474 | url = https://archive.org/details/whyfeminismgende0000sega }}</ref> <ref name="Violence">Segal, Lynne. ''Does pornography cause violence? The search for evidence'' in {{cite book | last1 = Church Gibson | first1 = Pamela | last2 = Gibson | first2 = Roma | title = Dirty looks : women, pornography, power | publisher = [[British Film Institute|British Film Institute (BFI) Publishing]] | location = London | year = 1993 | isbn = 9780851704043 }}</ref> <ref name="SlowMotion">{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Slow motion : changing masculinities, changing men | publisher = [[Palgrave Macmillan]] | location = Basingstoke | year = 2007 | isbn = 9780230019270 }}</ref> <ref name="Trouble">{{cite book | last = Segal | first = Lynne | title = Making trouble : life and politics | publisher = [[Serpent's Tail]] | location = London | year = 2007 | isbn = 9781852429379 }}</ref> <ref name="Podcast">{{cite podcast|url=http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1272 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070904203205/http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1272|archive-date=2007-09-04|title=Raewyn Connell on Lynne Segal RIHSS Key Thinkers Public Lecture Series |url-status=unfit |website=The University of Sydney |host=[[Raewyn Connell]] |date=14 September 2006 |access-date=15 June 2013 }}</ref> }}
==External links== *[http://www.bbk.ac.uk/sps/our_staff/academic/lynne_segal Lynne Segal's Birkbeck] home page * Dave Hill, [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/dec/11/gender.uk1 "The truth about men and women"], ''Guardian Unlimited''. Interview 11 December 2000 * John Barker, [http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/making-trouble/ Review of ''Making Trouble''], ''[[3:AM Magazine]]'', 2007
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Segal, Lynne}} [[Category:1944 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:20th-century British women writers]] [[Category:Academics of Birkbeck, University of London]] [[Category:Australian academics]] [[Category:Australian emigrants to the United Kingdom]] [[Category:Australian people of Jewish descent]] [[Category:Australian socialists]] [[Category:British people of Jewish descent]] [[Category:British socialists]] [[Category:Feminist studies scholars]] [[Category:Labour Party (UK) people]] [[Category:Socialist feminists]] [[Category:University of Sydney alumni]] [[Category:Writers from Sydney]]