Difference between revisions of "Woman"
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====Dora Case==== | ====Dora Case==== | ||
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[[Lacan]]'s analysis of the [[Dora]] case makes the same point: what is unacceptable for [[Dora]] is her position as object of exchange between her [[father]] and Herr K.<ref>{{L}} 1951a</ref> | [[Lacan]]'s analysis of the [[Dora]] case makes the same point: what is unacceptable for [[Dora]] is her position as object of exchange between her [[father]] and Herr K.<ref>{{L}} 1951a</ref> | ||
| Line 41: | Line 40: | ||
===Hysteria=== | ===Hysteria=== | ||
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In 1956, [[Lacan]] takes up the traditional association of [[hysteria]] with [[femininity]], arguing that [[hysteria]] is in fact nothing other than the question of [[femininity]] itself, the question which may be phrased "What is a woman?". | In 1956, [[Lacan]] takes up the traditional association of [[hysteria]] with [[femininity]], arguing that [[hysteria]] is in fact nothing other than the question of [[femininity]] itself, the question which may be phrased "What is a woman?". | ||
===Feminine Position=== | ===Feminine Position=== | ||
| − | |||
This is true for both [[male]] and [[female]] [[hysteric]]s.<ref>{{S3}} p.178</ref> | This is true for both [[male]] and [[female]] [[hysteric]]s.<ref>{{S3}} p.178</ref> | ||
| Line 57: | Line 54: | ||
===Feminine Sexuality=== | ===Feminine Sexuality=== | ||
| − | [[Lacan]] returns to the question of [[femininity]] in 1958, in a paper entitled "Guiding remarks for a congress on feminine sexuality."<ref>{{L}} 1958d</ref> | + | [[Lacan]] returns to the question of [[femininity]] in 1958, in a paper entitled "Guiding remarks for a congress on feminine sexuality."<ref>{{L}} (1958d) "Propos directifs pour un congrès sur la sexualité féminine", in {{E}} pp. 725-36</ref> |
In this paper he notes the impasses which have beset psychoanalytic discussions of [[feminine]] [[sexuality]], and argues that [[woman]] is the [[Other]] for both [[men]] and [[women]]. | In this paper he notes the impasses which have beset psychoanalytic discussions of [[feminine]] [[sexuality]], and argues that [[woman]] is the [[Other]] for both [[men]] and [[women]]. | ||
| Line 64: | Line 61: | ||
===Feminine ''Jouissance''=== | ===Feminine ''Jouissance''=== | ||
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[[Lacan]]'s most important contributions to the debate on [[femininity]] come, like [[Freud]]'s, late in his work. | [[Lacan]]'s most important contributions to the debate on [[femininity]] come, like [[Freud]]'s, late in his work. | ||
| Line 76: | Line 72: | ||
As is clear in the original French, what [[Lacan]] puts into question is not the noun "[[woman]]", but the definite article which precedes it. | As is clear in the original French, what [[Lacan]] puts into question is not the noun "[[woman]]", but the definite article which precedes it. | ||
| − | In French the definite article indicates universality, and this is precisely the characteristic that [[women]] [[lack]]; [[women]] "do not lend themselves to generalisation, even to phallocentric generalisation."<ref>{{L}} 1975b</ref> | + | In French the definite article indicates universality, and this is precisely the characteristic that [[women]] [[lack]]; [[women]] "do not lend themselves to generalisation, even to phallocentric generalisation."<ref>{{L}} (1975b) "Conférence à Genève sur le symptôme", ''Les Block-Notes de la psychanalyse'', Brussels.</ref> |
===Not-All=== | ===Not-All=== | ||
| Line 83: | Line 79: | ||
To press home the point, [[Lacan]] speaks of [[woman]] as "[[not-all]]" (''[[not-all|pas-toute]]''<ref>{{S20}} p.13</ref>); unlike [[masculinity]], which is a universal function founded upon the phallic exception ([[castration]]), [[woman]] is a non-universal which admits of no exception. | To press home the point, [[Lacan]] speaks of [[woman]] as "[[not-all]]" (''[[not-all|pas-toute]]''<ref>{{S20}} p.13</ref>); unlike [[masculinity]], which is a universal function founded upon the phallic exception ([[castration]]), [[woman]] is a non-universal which admits of no exception. | ||
| − | [[Woman]] is compared to [[truth]], since both partake of the logic of the [[not-all]] (there is no such thing as all [[women]]; it is impossible to say "the whole truth."<ref>{{L}} 1973a: 64</ref> | + | [[Woman]] is compared to [[truth]], since both partake of the logic of the [[not-all]] (there is no such thing as all [[women]]; it is impossible to say "the whole truth."<ref>{{L}} (1973a) ''Télévision'', Paris: Seuil, 1973 [''Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment'', ed. Joan Copjec, trans. Denis Hollier, Rosalind Krauss and Annette Michelson, New York: Norton, 1990]. p.64</ref> |
==="Woman is a Symptom of Man"=== | ==="Woman is a Symptom of Man"=== | ||
| − | + | [[Lacan]] goes on in 1975 to state that "a woman is a symptom."<ref>{{L}} (1974-5) ''Le Séminaire. Livre XXII. RSI, 1974-75'', published in ''Ornicar?'', nos. 2-5, 1975. [[Seminar]] of 21 January 1975.</ref> | |
| − | [[Lacan]] goes on in 1975 to state that "a woman is a symptom."<ref>{{L}} 1974-5 | ||
More precisely, a [[woman]] is a [[symptom]] of a [[man]], in the sense that a [[woman]] can only ever enter the psychic economy of men as a [[fantasy]] [[object]] (a), the [[cause]] of their [[desire]]. | More precisely, a [[woman]] is a [[symptom]] of a [[man]], in the sense that a [[woman]] can only ever enter the psychic economy of men as a [[fantasy]] [[object]] (a), the [[cause]] of their [[desire]]. | ||
===Feminist Theory=== | ===Feminist Theory=== | ||
| − | |||
[[Lacan]]'s remarks on [[woman]] and on [[feminine sexuality]] have become the focus of controversy and debate in feminist theory. | [[Lacan]]'s remarks on [[woman]] and on [[feminine sexuality]] have become the focus of controversy and debate in feminist theory. | ||
Feminists have divided over whether to see [[Lacan]] as an ally or an enemy of the feminist cause. | Feminists have divided over whether to see [[Lacan]] as an ally or an enemy of the feminist cause. | ||
| − | Some have seen his theories as providing an incisive description of patriarchy and as a way of challenging fixed concepts of sexual identity.<ref> | + | Some have seen his theories as providing an incisive description of patriarchy and as a way of challenging fixed concepts of sexual identity.<ref>Mitchell, Juliet and Rose, Jacqueline (eds) (1982) ''Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the école freudienne'', London: Macmillan.</ref> |
| + | |||
| + | Others have argued that his concept of the [[symbolic order]] reinstates patriarchy as a transhistorical given, and that his privileging of the [[phallus]] simply repeats the alleged misogynies of [[Freud]] himself.<ref>Gallop, Jane. (1982) ''Feminism and Psychoanalysis: The Daughter's Seduction'', London: Macmillan. ; Grosz, Elizabeth. (1990) ''Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction'', London and New York: Routledge.</ref> | ||
| − | + | ==See Also== | |
| + | {{See}} | ||
| + | * [[Castration]] | ||
| + | * ''[[Jouissance]]'' | ||
| + | || | ||
| + | * [[Libido]] | ||
| + | * [[Sexual difference]] | ||
| + | || | ||
| + | * [[Sexual relationship]] | ||
| + | * [[Symptom]] | ||
| + | {{Also}} | ||
==References== | ==References== | ||
Revision as of 22:57, 21 August 2006
| French: femme |
Sigmund Freud
Masculine and Feminine Psychical Characteristics
Freud's account of sexual difference is based on the view that there are certain psychical characteristics that can be called "masculine" and others that can be called "feminine", and that these differ from each other significantly.
However, Freud constantly refuses to give any definition of the terms "masculine" and "feminine", arguing that they are foundational concepts which can be used but not elucidated by psychoanalytic theory.[1]
Masculine Paradigm
One feature of this opposition is that the two terms do not function in an exactly symmetrical way.
Masculinity is taken by Freud as the paradigm; he asserts that there is only one libido, which is masculine, and that the psychical development of the girl is at first identical to that of the boy, only diverging at a later moment.
"What Does Woman Want?"
Femininity is thus that which diverges from the masculine paradigm, and Freud regards it as a mysterious, unexplored region, a "dark continent."[2]
The "riddle of the nature of femininity" comes to preoccupy Freud in his later writings, and drives him to ask the famous question, "What does woman want?"[3]
Masculinity is a self-evident given, femininity is a zone of mystery:
Psychoanalysis does not try to describe what a woman is -- that would be a task it could scarcely perform -- but sets about enquiring how she comes into being, how a woman develops out of a child with a bisexual disposition.[4]
Jacques Lacan
Development of Thought
Apart from a few remarks on the function of the mother in the family complexes,[5] Lacan's pre-war writings do not engage with the debate on femininity.
Women as Objects of Exchange
The occasional statements on the subject which occur in Lacan's work in the early 1950s are couched in terms derived from Claude Lévi-Strauss; women are seen as objects of exchange which circulate like signs between kinship groups.[6]
"Women in the real order serve . . . as objects for the exchanges required by the elementary structures of kinship."[7]
Lacan argues that it is precisely the fact that woman is pushed into the position of an exchange object that constitutes the difficulty of the feminine position:
For her, there's something insurmountable, let us say unacceptable, in the fact of being placed in the position of an object in the symbolic order, to which, on the other hand, she is entirely subjected no less than the man.[8]
Dora Case
Lacan's analysis of the Dora case makes the same point: what is unacceptable for Dora is her position as object of exchange between her father and Herr K.[9]
Being in this position of exchange object means that woman "has a relation of the second degree to this symbolic order."[10]
Hysteria
In 1956, Lacan takes up the traditional association of hysteria with femininity, arguing that hysteria is in fact nothing other than the question of femininity itself, the question which may be phrased "What is a woman?".
Feminine Position
This is true for both male and female hysterics.[11]
The term "woman" here refers not to some biological essence but to a position in the symbolic order; it is synonymous with the term "feminine position".
Lacan also argues that "there is no symbolisation of woman's sex as such", since there is no feminine equivalent to the "highly prevalent symbol" provided by the phallus.[12]
This symbolic dissymmetry forces the woman to take the same route through the Oedipus complex as the boy, i.e. to identify with the father.
However, this is more complex for the woman, since she is required to take the image of a member of the other sex as the basis for her identification.[13]
Feminine Sexuality
Lacan returns to the question of femininity in 1958, in a paper entitled "Guiding remarks for a congress on feminine sexuality."[14]
In this paper he notes the impasses which have beset psychoanalytic discussions of feminine sexuality, and argues that woman is the Other for both men and women.
"Man here acts as the relay whereby the woman becomes this Other for herself as she is this Other for him."[15]
Feminine Jouissance
Lacan's most important contributions to the debate on femininity come, like Freud's, late in his work.
In the seminar of 1972-3, Lacan advances the concept of a specifically feminine jouissance which goes "beyond the phallus";[16] this jouissance is "of the order of the infinite," like mystical ecstasy.[17]
Women may experience this jouissance, but they know nothing about it.[18]
"Woman Does Not Exist"
It is also in this seminar that Lacan takes up his controversial formula, first advanced in the seminar of 1970-1, "Woman does not exist" (la femme n'existe pas[19]), which he here rephrases as "there is no such thing as Woman" (il n'y a pas La femme[20]).
As is clear in the original French, what Lacan puts into question is not the noun "woman", but the definite article which precedes it.
In French the definite article indicates universality, and this is precisely the characteristic that women lack; women "do not lend themselves to generalisation, even to phallocentric generalisation."[21]
Not-All
Hence Lacan strikes through the definite article whenever it precedes the term femme in much the same way as he strikes through the A to produce the symbol for the barred Other, for like woman, the Other does not exist.
To press home the point, Lacan speaks of woman as "not-all" (pas-toute[22]); unlike masculinity, which is a universal function founded upon the phallic exception (castration), woman is a non-universal which admits of no exception.
Woman is compared to truth, since both partake of the logic of the not-all (there is no such thing as all women; it is impossible to say "the whole truth."[23]
"Woman is a Symptom of Man"
Lacan goes on in 1975 to state that "a woman is a symptom."[24]
More precisely, a woman is a symptom of a man, in the sense that a woman can only ever enter the psychic economy of men as a fantasy object (a), the cause of their desire.
Feminist Theory
Lacan's remarks on woman and on feminine sexuality have become the focus of controversy and debate in feminist theory.
Feminists have divided over whether to see Lacan as an ally or an enemy of the feminist cause.
Some have seen his theories as providing an incisive description of patriarchy and as a way of challenging fixed concepts of sexual identity.[25]
Others have argued that his concept of the symbolic order reinstates patriarchy as a transhistorical given, and that his privileging of the phallus simply repeats the alleged misogynies of Freud himself.[26]
See Also
References
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. (1920a) "The Psychogenesis of a Case of Female Homosexuality", SE XVIII, 171
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. (1926e) The Question of Lay-Analysis, SE XX, 212
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. (1933a) New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, SE XXII, 113
- ↑ Freud, Sigmund. (1933a) New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, SE XXII, 116
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Les complexes familiaux dans la formation de l'individu. Essai d'analyse d'une fonction en psychologie, Paris: Navarin, 1984 [1938].
- ↑ Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1949b
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.207
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p.262
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. 1951a
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p.262; Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.95-6
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. Trans. Russell Grigg. London: Routledge, 1993. p.178
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-56. Trans. Russell Grigg. London: Routledge, 1993. p.176
- ↑ S3, 176
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. (1958d) "Propos directifs pour un congrès sur la sexualité féminine", in Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. pp. 725-36
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p.732
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p.69
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p.44
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p.71
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. 1973a: 60
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p.68
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. (1975b) "Conférence à Genève sur le symptôme", Les Block-Notes de la psychanalyse, Brussels.
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XX. Encore, 1972-73. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1975. p.13
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. (1973a) Télévision, Paris: Seuil, 1973 [Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment, ed. Joan Copjec, trans. Denis Hollier, Rosalind Krauss and Annette Michelson, New York: Norton, 1990]. p.64
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. (1974-5) Le Séminaire. Livre XXII. RSI, 1974-75, published in Ornicar?, nos. 2-5, 1975. Seminar of 21 January 1975.
- ↑ Mitchell, Juliet and Rose, Jacqueline (eds) (1982) Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the école freudienne, London: Macmillan.
- ↑ Gallop, Jane. (1982) Feminism and Psychoanalysis: The Daughter's Seduction, London: Macmillan. ; Grosz, Elizabeth. (1990) Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction, London and New York: Routledge.
