In the chapter Feminist Poststructuralism & Psychoanalysis, Chris Weedon questions whether or not femininity is a permanent psycho-sexual theory or if it is indeed changeable if viewed from a historical and cultural perspective requiring the process of psychoanalysis to produce this theory. Weedon demonstrates how the Freudian and Lacanian theories have become footholds in the discussion of femininity, feminism and sexuality within a patriarchal society. The theories brought forward by Freud and Lacan focus on castration anxiety and the Oedipal complex illustrating how each has become very powerful within the psyche of human beings. In addition, the phallus represents control, power and authority and without it, such as in the case of women, there is a lack of power and control. They suffer from penis envy and have a need to fill the lack, that is, the lack of desire they cannot seem to satisfy. One feminist perspective he discusses in particular focuses more on the pre-Oedipal complex with the mother. According to Chodorow, in the pre-Oedipal complex there has been no “gender acquisition” meaning femininity of an infant has “not been repressed by patriarchy and women have not yet become man-made” (p. 54). In addition to this, other feminist scholars separate the female body and its libido and sexuality from men giving her her own power and authority. However within this chapter and in the reading by Segal there seems to exist a tension between feminism and psychoanalysis. On the one hand women want to be women but wish to resist the social construction and meaning of ‘the feminine’ but they also want to “deconstruct and critique” (Segal, p. 66) the ideas of the feminine.
Throughout these articles I came across quiet a bit of information I was unfamiliar with and some I was at least familiar with but uneducated about. In fact, one thing that stood out to me was how many times I have watched various Hitchcock films and yet never really noticed how much he relied on Freud’s theory. A term that I was unfamiliar with was mimesis. Mimesis, as I understand it, is the imitation or representation of a person or of the self. Segal refers to Irigaray’s concept of mimesis as “imitating, affirming, performing the ‘feminine’” (Segal, p. 66). Women are instructed to fight the feminine by re-evolving the definition of ‘the feminine’ by making [women] “truly unreadable in terms of gender categories… the more unreadable you become, the better” (p. 66). I’m not sure I agree with this. The term feminine has roots that refer to feminine qualities or women collectively. The Latin word for female was femina meaning “she who suckles”. Medieval Latin used the term femella and in the Twelfth Century we see the Old French term femelle. It wasn’t until the mid-Fourteenth Century that we see the word femina changed to female, to mirror its masculine counterpart, male. So I can’t help but wonder if it is even possible to continue the gender debate if we continue to refer to women as females, a word altered to reflect its masculine counterpart rooted in patriarchal values. Encouraging women to imitate or perform their femininity are we are adding insult to injury by asking them to be unreadable because in doing so we ignore the separation of woman from man and continue the notion of dominance through the phallus by being neither feminine nor masculine but unknown. Is being unreadable another way of being submissive or is it indeed a way to re-invent and reconstruct the world of the feminine?
These readings are very informative to my research and indeed my every day life. As a woman I am constantly faced with situations I struggle to reconcile. There are so many man-made rules of how a woman should present herself. But within these rules is the constant question of is this for him/them or me? There is constant analysis of my own psyche. My research focus is on women who work in a hyper-masculine world and I want to examine what qualities they display and the experiences, motivations, and challenges they face. I believe it will be important for me to differentiate between feminine and female because the later is a socially constructed word to fit within a patriarchal society while the former refers to qualities or women collectively.