Luce Irigaray: the (un)dutiful daughter of psychoanalysis. A feminist ‘moving through and beyond’ the phallogocentric discourse of psychoanalysis. (original) (raw)
In this paper, I tried to sketch out Luce Irigaray's ambiguous relationship with the tradition of western psychoanalysis. I evaluated her critiques on Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, and defended the idea that she succeeds at transcending the many feminist evils of psychoanalysis as a tradition, by feminizing the psychoanalytical practice.
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Feminism and Psychoanalysis (Freudian Critiques)
This entry will discuss psychoanalytic feminism, not feminist psychoanalysis . Psychoanalysis develops a theory of the unconscious that ineluctably links sexuality and subjectivity together. In doing so, it reveals the ways in which our sense of self - as well as our political loyalties and attachments - are influenced by unconscious drives and ordered by symbolic structures that are beyond the field of individual agency. It is commonly assumed that any relationship between feminism and psychoanalysis would have to be founded on perfidious ground. For example, in Sigmund Freud's lecture on ‘Femininity,’ while discussing the “riddle of femininity” (Freud 1968 [1933], 116) or of sexual differentiation, Freud impeaches women as “the problem” (113) all the while exculpating his female audience from this indictment by offering the hope that they are “more masculine than feminine” (117). We can see why many feminists have been wary both of the gendered biases contained in Freud's theories and of the overt content of his claims. This entry will explain how and why feminist theory has, nonetheless, undertaken a serious re-reading of Freud and developed careful analyses of his fundamental concepts, working out their limits, impasses, and possibilities. It can be seen through the writings of such feminist writers as Juliet Mitchell, Jacqueline Rose, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray; Sigmund Freud’s work on psychoanalysis has offered feminists challenges, revolutionized theories, and patriarchal targets.
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