{"id":273,"date":"2019-05-28T09:14:16","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T09:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engp10.epgpbooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/?post_type=chapter&p=273"},"modified":"2019-05-29T04:31:18","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T04:31:18","slug":"feminism-and-psychoanalysis-helen-cixous-luce-irigaray-spectre-of-lacan","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/engp10\/chapter\/feminism-and-psychoanalysis-helen-cixous-luce-irigaray-spectre-of-lacan\/","title":{"rendered":"Feminism and Psychoanalysis: Helen Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Spectre of Lacan"},"content":{"raw":"
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In this module, I will be providing a brief background on Feminism and Psychoanalysis which would help you with your understanding of Psychoanalytical Feminism. H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cixous and Luce Irigaray are French Feminists who worked closely with Psychoanalysis, especially with the theories of Psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. Lacan\u2019s concept of the \u2018Mirror stage\u2019 is significant to gain a perspective, on why French Feminists link their theories to Lacan\u2019s work. Both Cixous and Irigaray, are influenced by Lacan\u2019s work but at the same time they view some of his concepts in a critical light. It would be interesting to see how feminism can be linked to a distinct field of psychoanalysis to show, how sexual difference initiates in the pre-oedipal stage itself; and Language, laws, norms etc. are biased towards men giving women a secondary status in the society.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

INTRODUCTION TO FEMINISM<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Feminism <\/strong>is characterized by significant political movements, range of ideologies, far- reaching social revolutions, each being driven towards a sole objective: to align women\u2019s personal and political status with that of men. The aim was not to displace the patriarchal centre with the Feminist model but to empower women to formulate an identity in the society through: gaining the right to vote, being a part of productive labor1, to receive education, achieve reproductive rights, and to own property.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Feminist movement has been divided into three stages called the Three Waves of Feminism<\/strong>. The First Wave <\/strong>was synonymous with the Women\u2019s Suffragette Movements. In the Second wave<\/strong>, Women were not only influenced by, but also participated in the contemporaneous Civil Rights Movement of the 1960\u2019s. It was a reaction to the Post World War domestication of women, limiting their involvement to household chores. Betty Friedan, with her book The Feminine Mystique, <\/em>(1963) is often credited with starting this wave of Feminist movement\u00a0which focused on issues like sexuality, marriage, reproductive right, workplace environments and physical and sexual violence. Gender and Sexuality is central to the <\/span>Third wave <\/strong>ideology. It addressed the issues surfacing in the second wave: mere appropriation and often misappropriation of women who were outside the domain of the white upper middle class. The focus was on individualized identity and giving a voice the subaltern2 women who were excluded from the feminism movement. Began in 1990\u2019s, the movement continues to simmer even today. For instance, the \u201cSlut Walk\u201d in 2011 and the present time Queer movements taking place in different parts of the world.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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The Critical Approaches of the 1980\u2019s can be studied as three stages<\/strong>. In the first stage, women drew from the approaches of other kinds of criticism: Marxism, Structuralism, Psychoanalysis, Linguistic, etc. In the second stage, a greater emphasis was laid on reconstruction of female experience, the movement was no longer limited to attacking male supremacy. In the third stage, efforts were directed at: rewriting Women\u2019s history and creating a New Canon of Women\u2019s Writing.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOANALYSIS<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Psychoanalysis was founded by Sigmund Freud; Interpretation of Dreams <\/em>(1899) was one of his most notable works. Psychoanalysis employs theories and methods to delve into one\u2019s Unconscious: repressed thoughts and experience, supressed emotions and latent desires. Psychoanalysis stems from the theory of the Unconscious which attempts to examine the links between Sexuality and Subjectivity3. Psychoanalytic Criticism and Literature, assist at gaining insight into the covert meaning of a text and author\u2019s hidden motifs and also, at times, the author\u2019s fixations and childhood traumas.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Jacques Lacan <\/strong>(1901-1981), French Psychoanalyst, influenced many distinct fields like Post Structuralism, Feminism, Marxism, Film Theory, etc. Lacan represents his own work as a \u201creturn to Freud\u201d and attempts to bring the understanding of Structural Linguists, Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jakobson; and Structural Anthropologist Levis Strauss, into the realm of Psychoanalysis. His most influential work was \u201cThe Mirror Stage <\/strong>as Formative of the I function as Revealed in the Psychoanalytic Experience\u201d. Lacan thinks \u201cUnconscious is structured like language\u201d. For Lacan, \u201cThree Orders<\/strong>\u201d of one\u2019s mental disposition are responsible in the construction of one\u2019s Identity, which are:<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The Imaginary Phase<\/strong>, also called the Pre-Oedipal Phase is when an infant identifies, for the first time, with his\/her image reflected in the mirror. The infant at the age of six months possesses no identity. There is no difference between self and the other. H\/She constructs an image, mostly an idealized image, an illusion, a product of his imagination which may not match the real self, which lacks mobility and even proper motor and speech skills. The child is oblivious to the powerful dominant culture that will separate the infant from the mother. It is for the first time a child formulates an understanding of his or her body. It is through this process of identification which aids in the formation of Ego4.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Phallus acts as a \u201cmaster signifier\u201d5 and is the centre of the second stage called Symbolic Order<\/strong>. The child is introduced to the Father, the \u201cBig Other\u201d, a paternal figure of authority, who sets the norms and the rules of Law and Language. Phallus is a representational determinant of the sexual difference in its presence\/absence. Castration, functions as another symbol, at forcing the child to step into the symbolic stage governed by the Law of the Father. The Child has to let go of the bond with the mother and set out to acquire the concepts of Language and meet socio-cultural expectations dictated by the Father. However Lacan says, Phallus is not symbolic of the male organ penis, as sexual difference, for him, is beyond biological.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

In Shyam Selvaduria\u2019s novel The Funny Boy <\/em>(1994), <\/em>for instance, the protagonist Arjie wasn\u2019t introduced to the \u2018Law of the Father\u2019 until his aunt embarrasses him in front of the entire family for being dressed up like a girl. Arjie, who was close to his mother, loved to see her get dressed and took immense joy in playing \u2018ghar-ghar\u2019 with the girls, had been oblivious to the \u2018symbolic order\u2019 until the moment when, for the first time, the anger in his father\u2019s eyes makes him aware of the socio-cultural norms existing at the very centre of Patriarchal society which Arjie must conform to. Religion, Education, Legal and Scientific discourse are all a part of patriarchal structure.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Real Order<\/strong>, for Lacan, is incomprehensive since Language fails to define the experience. It\u2019s not placed in opposition to Imaginary Phase but beyond the Symbolic Order. Lacan views this stage as pre-imaginary, symbolizing completeness which was later lost as Language comes into existence. It continues to surface in our lives against which our fluid fantasies and Linguistic structure fail. It is often read as traumatic as it makes one realize the materiality of our existence.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The Major Divisions <\/strong>within Feminist Literary Criticism are: Anglo-American, British and French Feminism.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

French Feminism <\/strong>is theoretical, influenced by the poststructuralists: Lacan, Derrida and Foucault. French feminists deal more closely with the issue than literature, representing the reality not the literary text. Major Figures of French Feminism were: H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cixous, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. They sought for a language free from any bias. \u201cL'ecriture feminine\u201d (meaning Feminine Writing) was H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cixous\u2019 main concern. French feminists focused on how female physiology can guide Women\u2019s Writing because the realm of the Body is free from social and gender conditioning. However, the above notion can be problematic as Femininity itself is a social construct. For French Feminists, Psychoanalytic\u00a0theory is also significant, particularly, the work of Lacan, who\u2019s work acts as a powerful influence and at the same time becomes an object of critique. French feminists are keen at examining and deconstructing the very system of Binary opposition, that has placed women against men, and the other binaries which have upheld this model.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

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For French Feminist Theorist, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cixous<\/strong>, the key issues of Feminist Criticism are: the Unconscious; Bisexuality and \u201cL'ecriture Feminine\u201d. Central to Cixous theory is Feminine Writing and the phrase \u201cL'ecriture Feminine\u201d was coined by Cixous herself. Her important critical works, Laugh of Medusa <\/em>and \u201cSorties\u201d were published in 1975. While the former builds up a psychoanalytical interpretation of the Greek mythology to challenge the patriarchy, the latter, works on establishing a connection between Women\u2019s desire and Women\u2019s language.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Patriarchy, for Cixous, exists in a cultural and historical context with active power relations. She draws from the work of Jacques Lacan, who attempts to connect language, psyche and sexuality through a) Imaginary Phase which is representative of Feminine mother and Body; and b) Symbolic order which upholds the Law of the Father characterized by Language and Sexual Differentiation.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Cixous places Feminine writing in the Pre-Oedipal\/ Imaginary Phase <\/strong>with a positive outlook. Feminine or Imaginary can be employed to disrupt the Language of Oppressive Father. She chooses Pre-oedipal phase since the infant is in a state of innocence, not yet conditioned by the dominant culture. There is time during this phase, to cultivate oppositional boundaries prior to being classified as Masculine or Feminine within the system of Binary Opposition6. She is critical of the model of Binary Opposition that has given Women the status of the \u2018other\u20197. They find the structure of western thought reflected in the binary opposition: presence\/absence, masculine\/ feminine, order\/ chaos, language\/ silence,\u00a0speech\/writing where one is valued more than the second. The problem of essentialism8 is inherent to the dichotomy of presence\/absence. To overcome these binaries, she uses the approach of employing excess, for instance the laughter in <\/span>The Laugh of Medusa<\/em>. The laugh then stands to redeem women and liberate them from the shackles created by men in the history of male mythology.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Another subject important to Cixous is \u201cJouissance<\/strong>\u201d9 which for her operates in the realm of Female imagination, outside the patriarchal sphere. \u201cJouissance\u201d is a source of pleasure beyond the male hegemony and outside the established substructures in the form of norms, laws, grammar, etc. She perceives it as a source of Women\u2019s Writing, displacing the Law of the Father thereby providing an expression to women.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Like the above concept, the notion of the unconscious <\/strong>space too, persists outside the culture. The unconscious is associated with femininity and repression. Imperialistic metaphors which are used for colonized lands such as \u201cdarkness\u201d, tend to be associated with women like Medusa, who was once a beautiful young priestess. From a woman of Desire, she was reduced to a monstrous woman, who was said to have snakes in place of hair, and was feared to be even looked at. The abysmal portrayal of Medusa, remarks Cixous, is framed within the purview of the Male Gaze. The reasons for her condition are looked at as irrelevant and often erased. Metaphors of conflict, imagery of violence and war feature in the writings of Cixous. Even the title, \u201cSorties\u201d, means a battle which Cixous herself is fighting through her writings. It is challenging enough to write, and to write as a woman may pose to be a struggle connected to class and race too. Therefore, otherness is not solely based on the criterion of gender.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Bisexuality <\/strong>plays with the boundary and because of the ambiguity surrounding this sexuality, it is often seen as a threat to the model of binary opposition. The idea of Bisexuality is drawn\u00a0from the theory of Lacan, Freud and even Derrida. It is not like Androgyny, a combination of sexes which Virginia Woolf propagates but rather a displacement of the dual category of masculine and feminine and to be able think beyond this division. Cixous proposes bisexuality especially for women, as they have been conditioned to accept the role assigned\u00a0 to them.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Cixous encourages women to \u201cthink differently<\/strong>\u201d about their histories, to invent another history with their own language that is free from any bias. Feminine writing is a physical act of writing with one\u2019s bodies and the metaphor of childbirth is also used to describe this creative process of writing. Both Cixous and Irigaray, combine the elements of patriarchal system, and language found in Lacan\u2019s Symbolic Order to form Phallogocentricism10. The child must separate from the mother to enter the phase of symbolic order. Cixous argues: a) how would a woman be able to write if she, continuously, is made to submit before the male hegemony. b) Why women are made to, not only move away from her mother, but also their body. Female sexuality is smothered. The Female body and her sexuality cannot be represented in phallogocentricism. c)Why women must undergo a lot of changes before taking up the subject position in the symbolic order. She is made to accept the symbolic order of the Phallus. She fails to find expression in an alien tongue, a male-centric language which is not her own. Women are conditioned to use male language from which they are excluded.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Feminists say women are at the margins of symbolic order, and their language is more free- flowing, closer to the imaginary phase with no fixities in contrast to the stable, absolute and ordered language of men. Each form of language is representative of their respective social status. \u201cWomen must write herself\u201d and \u201cWoman must write woman\u201d, says Cixous, referring to the creation of feminist structure, and providing an expression to their individual experience. She advises women to choose writing poetry over realistic prose<\/strong>. Cixous herself is known to write in poetic language. A novel represents an established structure\u00a0usually in the absolute masculine language. Poetry, on the other hand, has no fixed meanings and sees a fluid associations with \u2018signifiers\u2019. It is also closer to the realm of the unconscious.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Like men write with their penis, women must find a female-centred sexuality too so their pleasure can be located. Most women, says Cixous, speak and write from masculine position. There exists no feminine writing because anything feminine is typified as a lack, to be repressed. Feminine Writing, proposes Cixous, can serve as a Rupture11 or break, that will indicate symbolic structure is not the only structure.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Feminine Writing is transformative in nature. At the first level, the individual self finds an expression, as women attempt to find their sexuality. On the second level, women stop reproducing Phallogocentricism in their work, and speak and write through their bodies, to take up the role of an active subject and give up being passive.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Feminine speech is not objective. It blurs the binaries like Order\/ Chaos, Speech\/Text. Since Feminine writing is closer to the realm of real, there is a union with the maternal body. With the phrase \u201cwhite ink\u201d, Cixous hints at the other mediums which Feminine writing can experiment with, like \u2018milk\u2019 in the above reference to \u201cwhite ink\u201d, song, bodies, etc. Cixous also uses the term \u201cslippery\u201d to describe Feminine writing and how it cannot be defined. Feminine writing is greater than the existing Phallogocentric system and cannot be therefore enclosed in a structure.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

French Feminist Theorist, Luce Irigaray<\/strong>, engages with interdisciplinary works from Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Linguistic fields of study. Speculum of the Other Women <\/em>(1974) is Irigaray\u2019s most acclaimed work and is a fundamental contribution to the field of Feminist Theory. Here, Irigaray deconstructs Psychoanalysis and brings forth the underline\u00a0male ideology embedded in the Psychoanalytical model itself. She was a student of the Jacques Lacan, and she is known to work closely with the concept of Psychoanalysis, to build on Feminist Criticism. She draws a lot of her ideas from Lacan, and is critical of some of his theories too. In <\/span>Speculum<\/em>, she critiques the phallocentric ideology in the work of both Freud and Lacan. She assesses the exclusion of women from the realm of Philosophy, Psychoanalytical Theory and Structural Linguistics. This is reminiscent of the exclusion of women from the socio-political domain, and erasure of women and their contributions from the historical context and literary works.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Lacan privileges the Male body by employing the Phallus, as the core of his Symbolic Order. Symbolic of \u201cThe Law of the Father\u201d, Phallus is represented as a sign of Male Power or Female lack. Irigaray is critical of Lacan\u2019s monolithic and sexist model of Gender Difference, solely based on the presence\/absence of Phallus, as she attempts to displace Lacan\u2019s Phallocentric discourse. Lacan\u2019s rigid sexual differentiation stems out of the system of Binary opposition, that requires to be deconstructed. Man\/Woman, Presence\/Absence, Superior\/Inferior among the other binaries places one at a dominant position to the \u2018other\u2019.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

For Irigaray, biology is culturally defined. Lacan\u2019s Imaginary Phase reflects the Western culture\u2019s bias against women because in the western culture, the imaginary body which dominates at a cultural level, is the Male Body, thereby, defining the women as the \u2018other\u2019 With the entrance of the Big O, that is the paternal figure, the infant realizes the need for social existence thereby, moving into the Symbolic order, where the infant is aware of the sexual difference and moves away from the mother, in order to acquire a set of rules governing the language, the law and the patriarchal society in general.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Irigaray distances herself from Lacan\u2019s following arguments. Firstly, from Lacan\u2019s representation of Symbolic Order as ahistorical12. Symbolic order, argues Irigaray, is not\u00a0ahistorical but rather a construct to reinforce Male Supremacy. Secondly, she was not convinced in Lacan\u2019s description of Phallus, that it has no connection with Male anatomy. For Irigaray, Phallus is not Symbolic but is rather an extension of Freud\u2019s \u201cOne-Sex\u201d Model.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Language <\/strong>is integral to both Lacan and Irigaray. Structural Linguistics becomes a backdrop in Lacan\u2019s theory of Psychoanalysis. In, An Ethics of Sexual Difference<\/em>, Irigaray states, the sexual difference rests in language and not anatomical difference. The linguistic disposition of sexual difference is also discussed in The Sex which is Not One <\/em>in a similar manner as Lacan does. Language plays a significant role in sustaining the supremacy of Men. The object of Power and Value for instance God, Irigaray argues, is represented as masculine that in turn, would also influence religion which is further linked to culture. Language, is seen as a product of culture, both of which acknowledge the sexual difference. There is, therefore, a need to disrupt the male language which is upholding the dominant patriarchal supremacy. Speech patterns of men and women, she says, have been studied to find women are excluded from the subject position and their inclusion in the existing subjectivity is no solution. There is a need to reconstruct the identity of women, autonomous of the pre-established standard framed by male hegemony. It is however difficult, to define femininity since women have been denied a voice and have failed to create a language of their own. Femininity has always been defined through the Gaze of men, and their experiences have been appropriated through phallocentric language. Women are wrongly projected in symbolic order. Man is the set parameter, a touchstone against whom women\u2019s identity and their roles are designed.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Irigaray states that Sexual Differentiation <\/strong>is not a dominant system but a cultural practice where in, politics, history, literature, law, tradition act as agents which strengthen and empower it further. Irigaray also hints at the new possibilities Sexual Differentiation can offer, if women start speaking differently, thereby making it conceivable to change the\u00a0meaning of being a woman itself. Irigaray herself, is known for her unique writing style which is named as \u201cMimesis\u201d. It is a ploy she employs, to question the clich\u00e9d and stereotypical nuances which target women. She argues that, there is no need to ignore or repress these views but to challenge them and put them through thorough scrutiny. This strategy of readdressing and replying to male dominance is referred as \u201cStrategic Essentialism\u201d. This style challenges authority by responding to biased perspectives against women as being false, which assists in the emergence of a new female subjectivity. In <\/span>The Sex which is Not One<\/em>, she discusses how one cannot redefine femininity outside the male definition and how the new definition would have a mimetic involvement with the old definition.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Irigaray gives an expression to her Utopian Ideals <\/strong>in Sexes and the Genealogies<\/em>. She discusses the concept of protection of virginity as a patriarchal construct, a means to guard feminine sexuality, placing women in a position of a mere \u201cfacilitator\u201d for the gratification of men. Also, the mother-daughter relationship must be protected so as to further develop female subjectivity. However, this relationship is under threat, right since the infant is moving from the imaginary stage to the symbolic order, where the child has to let go of the mother in fear of castration and thereafter, adopt the newly introduced cultural norms taught by the Father Irigaray\u2019s essay \u201cWhen the Goods Get Together\u201d <\/strong>from The Sex Which is Not One <\/em>is a Marxist Feminist critique on the commodification of women in an Economy dominated by Men, reflecting the western cultural psyche itself, presented earlier in Lacan\u2019s Symbolic order. The essay discusses the Utilitarian philosophy adopted by Men at trading women like mere goods. The capitalist set up is controlled and driven exclusively by men. Trade of products, services and even women takes place among men. Drawing on Psychoanalysis, the question arises thus, that why is this \u2018Homosexual\u2019 relationship (among men) allowed to\u00a0proliferate in a capitalist culture, in the same society where Homosexuality is regarded as a taboo, going against the symbolic order set by the paternal figure. Also, the system of Binary opposition fails to provide room for \u2018play\u201914 as it may create a Third Space, creation of which would lead to the breakdown of the established structure. However, this masculine relationship shared among men in the market is seen as an exception, working closely with the \u201cIdeological State Apparatus\u201d15 to culturally establish themselves as the Idealized Imaginary body. Women are not provided with the space for homosexual engagements which for Irigaray, can be a space, for allowing female libidinal economy to exist. Instead, women are limited to the territory of heterosexuality wherein they are assigned not productive roles like men, but only reproductive roles instead. Female sexuality exists only in relation to male sexuality as earlier established. It is understood as \u2018lacking\u2019 the power of participating in auto-eroticism or homoeroticism and are made to internalize her passive sexual role against sexually active men. Women need to subvert their subordinate status by overthrowing the repressive language, the conditioned means of sexual pleasure dictated by Phallogocentricism, and instead split and be the \u2018sex which is not one\u2019: not one with the dominant male oppressor.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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According to Irigaray, there is a need to liberate both Feminine and Masculine from every constraint allowing them to create a sexual difference independent of the nature and culture held by each other. Being two different beings, a dual arrangement by forming, two different paths, must exist in the culture for both to grow distinctly without being hindered by any norms or intimidated by a set parameter.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

SUMMARY<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

French feminists, Cixous and Irigaray, attempt to work with the theories of Lacan as they try to overthrow the existing structure, not by replacing it with another, instead, they provide\u00a0alternative solutions, to bring a New model which can displace the singular Male model of Lacan\u2019s Symbolic order. They are not arguing for the inclusion of Feminine structure in the present subjectivity, instead they want the Feminine structure to co-exist as independent from the male model. Psychoanalytic Feminist theory of Cixous discusses Bisexuality, Unconscious and Feminine writing while Irigaray focuses mainly on Language and Sexual difference. Language plays an essential role in their critique of Lacan: while Cixous places Feminine writing in imaginary phase, Irigaray places it in the symbolic realm. Cixous advocates poetry over prose and she herself has a Poetic style of writing. Like men write with their penis, Cixous suggests women to find their female-centric sexuality. She asks women to \u2018think differently\u2019 to quit writing like men. Irigaray sees positive potential in Sexual differentiation. She encourages women to \u2018speak differently\u2019. She herself uses a different style of writing called \u2018mimesis\u2019 to subvert the male order. Both reject the model of Binary opposition, central to the meaning of Phallus in Lacan\u2019s theory, because it gave women the secondary status in the society.<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\nGLOSSARY<\/strong>\r\n