Feminism and Psychoanalysis (Freudian Critiques) (original) (raw)

Cautionary Tales: Between Freud and Feminism

Constellations, 1999

Feminists have often turned to psychological knowledge in search of an adequate theory of gender, despite the ambiguous relationship psychology, in all its manifestations, has always had with politics. Mainstream psychology, with its theorizing of "individual differences" and popularizing of behavioral technologies, has long been a target of radical critique-which has made not the slightest blip in the steady growth of psychological "expertise" that, since 1945, has saturated Western culture with programs for individual change and development. Such programs have even played a part in encouraging collective political aspirations for subjective growth and renewal. Nonetheless, psychology's disciplinary project-one of treating all social conflict as amenable to individual solutions through the acquisition of skills and enlightenment-points more in the direction of its welldocumented role in producing agents of pacification than to practical help for personal liberation. 1 It has been precisely psychology's task in the modern world, as Derrida (glossing Foucault) has commented, to mask "a certain truth of madness … a certain truth of unreason." 2 As academic psychology's disdained yet closest rival, psychoanalysis has had a somewhat different cultural trajectory. Far richer in contradiction, far gloomier in social outlook, far more contentious in cultural debate, psychoanalysis (at least, in its classical form) promises not solutions to social conflicts, but a heightened awareness of their tragic inevitability. Traditionally, it has preferred to flaunt, rather than disavow, the conservative side of its reflections on the links between subjectivity and the "maladies" of modernity. Its pessimism of the intellect produces its own paralyses for those who wish to transform the links it describes (and helps reinscribe) between knowledge and power, sexed identity and social hierarchy. Certainly, feminism's relationship with psychoanalysis has always, and rightly, been troubled. Enthusiasm for and denunciations of Freud have preoccupied feminist agendas in almost equal measure. Such polarization is hardly surprising, if we try dispassionately to figure the contradictions-the seductions and the disappointments-of psychoanalytic narratives as they have been applied to our understanding of sexual difference. For that is the terrain, perhaps unfortunately, on which we so often encounter them today, and which I will be covering here. I say unfortunately, because it is here that psychoanalysis has moved farthest from what some of us see as its central strength: its potentially subversive individualism. The narratives grounding psychoanalytic theories of sexual difference have looked far from subversive to

Riding the waves of feminism: Psychoanalysis and women’s liberation

Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 2016

Eras of feminism differ in the programs, campaigns and critiques advanced, and in the sense of what is at stake. Taking up the identity of feminist has always meant weathering projections-attempts to induce shame, insults to one's sexual identity, and attacks upon one's femininity or basic adequacy as a woman. But feminist commitments also carry a range of moral and ethical dilemmas. This paper considers what psychoanalysis has to offer in working through conflicts that arise in feminist activism, focusing on three recurring dilemmas where struggles for recognition and moral authority carry ethical implications.

Sex and Gender in the Notion of Sexuality in Psychoanalysis

2018

The significance of the distinction drawn between sex or biological attributes and gender identity cannot be overstated. This distinction has been a crucial point of departure for feminist criticism of male dominance, for it shows that gender identity and sexual orientation are socially or historically defined and therefore changeable. One of the most decisive modes of how ideologies (patriarchal and phallocratic ideologies in this case) subject and qualify " individuals " so that they " recognize " themselves in them, is by telling them, making them recognize what is possible and impossible, by creating their sense of the mutability of what exists (Therborn, 1980). From a more theoretical point of view this line of demarcation has also brought into focus sexuality as an area in which systematic inequalities between men and women are played out. And rather than confine themselves to exploring and describing instances of power relations as they manifest themselves in cultural products with a " sexual theme " feminist theorists like J. Mitchell (1975) had tried to analyse and explain if possible how sexuality itself is constructed and implicated in wider ideological relations. In her endeavour Mitchell turned to psychoanalysis and as supporting evidence she drew upon Lévi-Stauss's anthropological studies. Her book " Psychoanalysis and Feminism " was unique when first published and broke new ground, if not by anything else, at least by the very deed of appropriating Freud's work, which had been the object of a sustained hostility, particularly among American radical feminism, claiming that " psychoanalysis is not a recommendation for a patriarchal society, but an analysis of one (Mitchell, 1975, p. xv). This ambiguity as to the value of psychoanalysis for feminism shows perhaps the pertinence of Foucault's assertion that a discourse cannot have a stable and uniform tactical function, but, as it consists of a multiplicity of discourse elements, it can be the stake of diverse strategies (Foucault, 1976, p. 133). What I shall try to examine is whether elements of psychoanalytic discourse can be unambiguously appropriated and used in order to make clearer and substantiate the very general and all-inclusive claim that gender identity and sexual relations and practices are psychically, socially and culturally defined. Also I shall examine the extent to which Freud managed to clarify the connection between the somatic and the psychical.

Fear and envy: Sexual difference and the economies of feminist critique in psychoanalytic discourse

Science in Context, 1997

This essay examines Freud's construction of a mythical moment during early childhood, in which differences between male and female sexual identities are said to originate. It focuses on the way in which Freud divides fear and envy between the sexes, allocating the emotion of (castration) fear to men, and that of (penis) envy to women. On the one hand, the problems of this construction are pointed out, but on the other hand, it is shown that even a much-maligned myth may still provide food for thought.

Freud's Femininity and Twentieth Century Feminism

Freud's theory of female sexuality begins with the Oedipus complex, in which Freud divides his theory on infantile sexuality along the lines of gender. The status of female genitalia is solidified by the castration complex and penis envy; which fundamentally imply that firstly, males fear the loss of their genitalia on sight of the female organ, and secondly that females are jealous or envious of the male phallus. It follows that Freud's definition of female sexuality as that of a lack of phallus appears to biologically separate femininity and masculinity in accordance with sex; insofar that young girls acknowledge their 'inorganic inferiority' through penis envy. This, seemingly controversial, aspect of Freud's theory has been adapted by Melanie Klein a psychoanalyst who suggested that it is the male, rather, that possess a lack: the lack of a womb. Freud's theory of femininity could be seen to discord with more contemporary theories that deviate from traditional conceptions of masculinity and femininity such as Judith Butler's who argues against any 'theory that restricts the meaning of gender in the presuppositions of its own practice sets up exclusionary gender norms within feminism.'Freud's theory of femininity becomes even more divisive amongst feminists due to the absence of clarity when he discusses the female condition; it is not clear whether the femininity that he theorises is a form of essentialism, or not.

At the crossroads: feminism, psychoanalysis, politics

Psychotherapy and Politics International, 2004

Feminism, psychoanalysis, and politics have evolved together. This paper situates their interimplicated evolution in the intellectual shift from dualism to multiplicity, from binary toward pluralism. The method used is to replace dualities with triads, to move from ‘either/or’ to ‘both/and’, to bring The Third into play. Accordingly, the tale is told at the conjunction of personal, political, and theoretical discourses. Three concepts – paradox, contingency, and dialectics – limn this triple crossroads: feminism as cultural, personal, and intellectual; psychoanalysis as a clinical, theoretical, and social practice; politics as subjective, historical, and contextual. Copyright © 2004 Whurr Publishers Ltd.