Feminist Consciousness and Lonergan's Intentionality Analysis

Abstract

Feminist consciousness, in whichever descriptive manner it is used, denotes an emerging reality based on women's experience of oppression and women's struggle into freedom, dignity and identity. Since there is no content of experience that is universal and normative for every woman or for all women, how is it possible to speak of "women's experience" as the ground from which to begin the struggle and as a norm to guide the vision of freedom to realization? Genuine self-knowledge is one critical and comprehensive constituent of feminist consciousness that proceeds from women's experience. Intentionality analysis, as articulated in the work of Bernard Lonergan, is an invitation to self-knowledge and self-appropriation that, if it is received and if it is achieved, contributes to the integrity of women's life-project. Through explaining basic terms and relations I will differentiate feminism, consciousness and women's experience while sustaining their interrelationship. This article is an affirmation of the truth that intentional feminist consciousness, evoking our own women's experience, constitutes liberative praxis.