Authenticity, Autonomy and Interdependence: Reopening the Debate on Feminist Relationality

By Barbara Wilde

Between the myth of radical independence and the fear of emotional entanglement, a third relational space emerges — interdependence. In this article, I seek to reopen the debate on feminist intimacy by critically challenging Lonzi’s dichotomous view of autonomy as achievable only through separation.

Instead, I argue that authenticity is not a solitary conquest but a shared practice, and that autonomy, far from shrinking in the presence of the other, can in fact be expanded, refined, and strengthened through interdependent connection.

Cala Lanzi - Self-Portrait (2021, Belgium)

1. Lonzi’s Separatist Authenticity: The Artistic Self versus the Relational Subject

Carla Lonzi – through her Self-Portrait and the later dialogues in Vai pure – advances a radical position: that authenticity demands an uncompromising choice between the “artistic self” and the “relational self”. When artistic creation becomes, as she describes, a “metabolism” of life, capable of reorganising daily existence around the demands of the work, intimate relationships become subordinate. If, as she writes, a partner is “ready to betray the reasons of the relationship in order to replace them with the reasons of the work,” the very foundation of authentic love collapses.

Within this framework, the partner’s vocation becomes a threat, a rival to the integrity of the bond. Authenticity is achievable only through separation; divergence can only produce fracture. Lonzi’s concept, therefore, equates difference with incompatibility and proposes that relational authenticity is possible only when two subjects share an identical orientation of values, priorities, and existential commitments.

It is a powerful but profoundly separatist stance.

2. The Anthropological and Psychological Limitations of Separatist Authenticity

This understanding, however, sits uneasily with anthropological and psychological evidence. Across the majority of human societies, relationships do not flourish because partners resemble one another, but because they negotiate their differences within a structure of interdependence.

Interdependence theory – widely used in the study of close relationships – demonstrates that relational well-being emerges when individuals maintain a clear sense of self while actively engaging in mutual influence, cooperation, and emotional exchange. It is not sameness that sustains intimacy, but the capacity to navigate divergence without perceiving it as a threat.

From this vantage point, authenticity does not require ideological purity or existential symmetry. It requires the ability to remain oneself in the presence of the other, and to allow the other to remain other.

3. Interdependence: A More Complex and Feminine-Centred Relational Paradigm

Viewed through the lens of the sacred feminine – a worldview that honours complexity, relationality and the dynamic interplay of forces – interdependence offers a more expansive and inclusive model of intimacy.

It proposes that:

• Difference is not a deficit but a source of relational richness.

• Authenticity is not conditional on uniformity, but on the courage to coexist with divergence.

• Autonomy and connection are not mutually exclusive, but mutually enhancing.

• Love is not a static agreement, but an evolving negotiation of needs, desires and paths.

  
  

Within this paradigm, artistic or vocational intensity does not automatically undermine a relationship. Rather, it becomes one of the many elements to be integrated into the shared relational field.

4. A Critical Assessment: Why Lonzi’s Model Is Conceptually Restrictive

While Lonzi’s stance was historically significant – offering a feminist refusal of artistic objectification and asymmetrical power – it now appears limiting in several respects:

• It presents relational divergence as inherently destructive rather than potentially generative.

• It reinforces a binary between independence and love that is neither psychologically accurate nor culturally universal.

• It risks promoting a form of feminist orthodoxy that equates liberation with withdrawal, rather than with co-creation.

• It neglects the possibility that authenticity may emerge precisely from the dialogue between distinct inner worlds, not from their parallel separation.

  
  

In short, it offers liberation through subtraction, rather than expansion.

5. Reopening the Academic Debate: Key Questions

A genuine academic debate requires that we interrogate the assumptions underlying Lonzi’s position:

1. Can two vocations coexist without one subordinating the other? What relational competencies are required to make this possible?

2. Is interdependence culturally universal or culturally specific? How do different societies conceptualise relational authenticity?

3. Does authenticity require existential alignment, or does it thrive on negotiated difference?

4. Can relational life itself become a site of creativity rather than an obstacle to it?

These questions point towards a more nuanced, culturally informed and psychologically grounded understanding of intimacy.

6. A Provocative Conclusion: Authenticity Is Not a Monologue but a Dialogue

If Lonzi’s separatist authenticity was a necessary intervention in her historical moment, it should not be mistaken for a definitive model of feminist relationality.

A contemporary perspective – particularly one that integrates the sacred feminine – calls for a more generous and complex approach.

Interdependence offers such a framework: a vision of intimacy grounded in mutual recognition, negotiated autonomy, and the capacity to hold difference without collapsing into conflict or withdrawal.

Authenticity, in this light, is not the triumph of the solitary self but the art of sustained dialogue, where two sovereign individuals co-create a relational space without erasing their individuality.

This is the debate worth re-opening. This is the feminist horizon worth reclaiming.