Feminism and Psychoanalysis (Freudian Critiques) PDF

Preview

Summary

Feminism and In the same essay cited above, Freud writes that “psychoanalysis does not try to describe Psychoanalysis what a woman is – that would be a task NATALIE KATE KAMBER it could scarcely perform – but sets about Deakin University, Australia enquiring how she comes into being, how a woman dev...

Description

Accelerat ing t he world's research.

Feminism and Psychoanalysis (Freudian Critiques) Natalie K Kamber

Related papers

Download a PDF Pack of t he best relat ed papers 

Woman as T heory and T heory-Maker in t he Early Years of Psychoanalysis Anna Borgos

Fear and envy: Sexual difference and t he economies of feminist crit ique in psychoanalyt ic discourse Jose Brunner Kriel 2011 Imagining t he mad woman_ Applying t he narrat ive imaginat ion, psychoanalysis and feminis… Johanet Kriel-de Klerk

Feminism and Psychoanalysis NATALIE KATE KAMBER Deakin University, Australia

Freudian 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 inluenced by unconscious drives and ordered by symbolic structures that are beyond the ield of individual agency. It is commonly assumed that any relationship between feminism and psychoanalysis would have to be founded on peridious ground. For example, in Sigmund Freud’s lecture on “Femininity,” while discussing the “riddle of femininity” (Freud 1968 [1933], 116) or of sexual diferentiation, Freud impeaches women as “the problem” (Freud 1968 [1933], 113), all the while exculpating his female audience from this indictment by ofering the hope that they are “more masculine than feminine” (Freud 1968 [1933], 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. his entry explains 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 Simone de Beauvoir, Karen Horney, Juliet Mitchell, Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and Jessica Benjamin; Sigmund Freud’s work on psychoanalysis has ofered feminists challenges, revolutionized theories, and patriarchal targets.

In the same essay cited above, Freud writes that “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” (Freud 1968 [1933], 116). In employing the term “bisexual,” Freud refers to the structure of the sexual instinct, not a relation to a sexual object; thus, the bisexual child is one who psychically is not yet either a man or a woman, whose instinctual life functions prior to sexual diference. Freud here portrays femininity as one trajectory of the Oedipal complex and indicates that sexed identity is a fragile achievement rather than a natural given or essence. By circumscribing the terrain on which the psychoanalytic account of sexual diference moves, and by seeing unresolved, even unresolvable, riddles where others might see the work of nature or culture, Freud problematizes any causal, seamless, or direct tie between sex, sexuality, and sexual diference. Psychoanalytic inquiry does not it comfortably with, and even unsettles, biological theories of sex and sociological theories of gender, thus also complicating the sex–gender distinction as it has oten been formulated in feminist debates. While sex and gender are sometimes construed in feminist theory in terms of the contrast between biology and culture – or nature and nurture – Freud’s theory, as discussed below, challenges these dualisms, developing an account of the sexual drive that traverses the mental and the physical, and undergoes idiosyncratic vicissitudes rather than assuming a uniform anatomical or social shape. Whatever the hazards of Freud’s writings on women, then, his work explores in new ways the meaning and possibilities of sexed identity.

he Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss471

2

F E M I N I SM A N D PSYC HOANALYSI S

Freudian psychoanalysis demonstrates the open-endedness of the body since, according to Freud, male and female children have little diferentiation at birth. Rather, it is the Oedipal complex that separates them into their socially respective roles, with the position of the girl/woman falling below that of the boy/man. While it is not the mission of feminism to campaign for the return of equivalence to the sexes as alluded to by Freud, the body is no longer a natural entity as dominantly assumed. he Oedipal complex largely demonstrates the psychical diferences that exist between the sexes and, interestingly, Freud did not ailiate his theories with biology. In this sense, it was through the body that Freud demonstrated the ways that phallocentrism ixes and writes upon bodies. herefore, it is necessary to rethink and reconigure the oedipalized body, seeing as it is a body that is ixed in patriarchy. his was one of the main feminist critiques of Freud and it is what this entry will focus upon. Speciically, the Oedipal complex locates the very psychical reproduction of patriarchy and explains the structure of sexual roles in Western society. Although Freud had no feminist intent in his writings, feminists have managed to ind his work useful. he dilemma facing contemporary feminism, which is identiied as post-1995 feminism committed to corporeality and diference, is that psychoanalysis proposes explanations for the reproduction of patriarchy and its rigid sexual roles. he goal of contemporary feminism is to break away from the circularity of the Oedipal complex and into new ways of thinking. he writings of these feminist authors, and the incorporation of Luce Irigaray’s work on sexual diference, have helped to dismantle the circularity and dominance of the Oedipal complex by introducing a struggle for new ideas related to thinking of diference and becoming as ways of thinking and living. Feminism has in turn critiqued

Freudian psychoanalysis while at the same time addressing whether it is feasible to move beyond its dominance, or if it is necessary to work within its framework with its given theories regarding the two sexes. he works of past and contemporary feminists ofer ways of theorizing the problem that is encountered by the Oedipal complex: the reproduction of patriarchy. Feminism is a broad term and there are many diferent kinds of feminism. he feminism referred to in this entry is a contemporary feminism that is committed to diference, particularly sexual diference as well as corporeality. While there is a vast body of work comprised of many disparate positions that might fall within the framework of psychoanalytic feminism, what can be seen as mutual is a descent from, respect for, and some minimal borrowing of Freudian accounts of the unconscious. Any legitimate psychoanalytic theory must in the very least provide an account of the unconscious and its bond with sexuality. However, it is precisely this descent that has also provided a barrier to feminist deployment, seeing as Freud is sometimes supericially read as profering misogynist explanations of psychic structure, which is understood to reduce and diminish the diversity of individual women’s experiences into a prescribed and predictable formula that will it within its own theoretical parameters. Nonetheless, Freud’s discussion – and hypotheses concerning hysteria, the Oedipal complex, female sexuality and femininity, and women’s role in civilization – have provided the volatile grounds for contention and, in turn, for feminist re-articulation. Before any of the multiple articulations of psychoanalytic feminism can be discussed in more detail, we must irst establish the historical and conceptual roots from which they arise. Since a great deal of psychoanalytic feminist theory is speciically concerned with revising the Oedipal narrative of Freud, this entry devotes

F E M I N I SM A N D PSYC HOANALYSI S

particular attention to Freud’s theories of the Oedipal complex and how they pertain to feminist theory and criticism. FREUD AND THE PROBLEM OF FEMININITY Freud recognized that he spoke about femininity in ways that did not always sound friendly to women. he most obvious reason for his animosity is his failure to grasp the cultural and historical speciicity of his own insights. Freud writes as if the women in analysis with him embodied eternal femininity. Yet any clearheaded reading of his descriptions of women will ind massive evidence of the time-bound nature of his views. he Oedipal complex is central to Freud’s writings with regard to familial relations and also sexuality and sexual diference. It is through his writings on the Oedipal complex that the diferences between boys and girls become clear, and sometimes not so clear. What Freud does maintain is that femininity cannot be grasped from a biological or conventional perspective (Freud 1968 [1933], 114). Another way of putting this is that sexual diference is centrally concerned with psychical reality rather than material reality, with the realm of fantasy rather than nature or culture. he Oedipal story is the story of psychic development, the story of how we become subjects and in becoming subjects, how we become sexually diferentiated. According to Freud, both boy and girl begin in the same pre-Oedipal place, that is, emotionally attached to the mother. It is because of this initially shared position that Freud declares that the little girl is a little man, meaning that the infant is not yet sexually diferentiated. It is for this reason also that Freud upholds the idea of a single, “masculine” libido. In Freud’s view, the libido is not neutral because its original object of desire is the mother and this desire for the

3

mother is connected to masculinity. However, Freud does acknowledge that in the libido’s most primordial stages, there can be no sexual distinction. It is not until children pass through the Oedipal complex that they can be said to have a genital organization, one that is acquired through a relation to castration, the last stage in sexual development (following oral, anal, and phallic stages). hus, during infancy, both children are seen as “little men,” their desire deined by the terms of a single masculine libido. Freud is confused by the way that femininity comes about, hence he referred to it as “the riddle of femininity.” By referring to the riddle of femininity, this also suggests that Freud understands sexual identity not as a natural pre-given anatomical essence, but rather as a form of individuation and diferentiation achieved through the complex interaction between the bodily drives and one’s parents/family. However, the story of the boy follows a logical and steady trajectory since he retains his phallic pleasure and, although he must displace the immediate object of his desire, he can nonetheless look forward to substitute objects. he boy’s Oedipal attachment to the mother follows unremittingly from a pre-Oedipal attachment until it is brought to an end by the threat of castration from the father. At the conclusion of the Oedipal complex, the boy identiies with the father, establishes a super-ego, and abandons the immediate object of desire with the promise that he will one day possess a similar object modeled on the mother. Yet the girl’s Oedipal complex is necessarily more complicated as it is a secondary formation instigated by a break from the pre-Oedipal relation to the mother. Freud theorized that it is the understanding that the beloved mother is castrated that incites the little girl to redirect her love toward her father. Which is to say that, for the girl, castration does not resolve the Oedipal complex but instead

4

F E M I N I SM A N D PSYC HOANALYSI S

causes her to enter it, and for this reason Freud claims that it is never wholly brought to a conclusion or demolished, thus – in his view – accounting for girls’ weaker superegos and lesser capacity for sublimation. he girl rejects her mother not in fear but in disdain and envy for what the mother does not possess. On the other hand, the father does not represent a threat (she inds herself already castrated) or the prospect of a fulilled desire in the future (the only replacement for the missing penis is a child of her own), in the same way as he does for the boy who can identify with him and hope eventually to possess what he does. In turn, the only promise the father ofers is as a shelter from loss, a loss that is represented by the mother who bears this loss and who is consequently responsible for the girl’s own. In the girl’s Oedipal scenario, the father stands for the virility of desire itself, which she herself lacks but might reclaim through another man’s ofer to have a child. In the trajectory of the girl’s Oedipal complex, femininity is realized as the desire to be the object of masculine desire itself. Sexual diference is important both socially and politically and in turn Freud’s theories of sexuality and the unconscious involve not only individual psychology but also the constitution of social life. Sexuality and sexual identity are formed in ambivalent relation to others and pervade the bonds of civilization and throughout all social relations. In turning his attention to broader cultural questions, Freud proposed a story of the origin of political structures that correlates with his understanding of the individual psyche. To appreciate the political signiicance of the Oedipal complex, it is useful to locate it more broadly within the scope of Freud’s understanding of group psychology. In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Freud challenges any clear-cut opposition between group and individual psychology and claims

that from the beginning human infancy is completely immersed in a world of others (Freud 1968). Identiication and love shape the core of identity and are “social phenomena”; therefore, social relations are themselves premised on developments that occur within the family. It is thus important not to separate individual from group psychology or to assume that there is some kind of social instinct independent of the drives that motivate the individual. FEMINIST CRITICISM OF PSYCHOANALYSIS Even in Freud’s own circle, not all analysts agreed with his evaluation and, in turn, women’s sexuality and the roles of castration and penis envy were debated, notably among Karl Abraham, Ernest Jones, Helene Deutsch, and Karen Horney. Horney (1924, 25–60), in particular, argued for an intrinsic feminine disposition that is not simply a secondary formation premised on castration and also took issue with the alleged efects of penis envy and women’s assumed feelings of inferiority. She said that women’s feelings of inferiority originated not in their recognition of their own “castration” but rather in the realization of their social subordination. hus, Horney proposes that women believe the lie ingrained in them by men that they like being exclusively feminine. he “healthy” woman, then, is one who will move beyond her absolute femininity to embrace an ideal self that will include both masculine and feminine traits. Horney posited that as soon as women learn to view themselves as men’s equals, society would have little if any power over them. For Horney, the theory of penis envy will be reined by an enquiry of the symbolic and psychological meaning of body and its origin. In addition to this reinement, another insight in Freud’s theory that is further developed in Horney’s reading is that the

F E M I N I SM A N D PSYC HOANALYSI S

formation of the gendered ego is always to be contextualized in the early development within family and parental relations. In addition to Freud’s explanation of the desire for the father, Horney points out that the fathers’ observable authority and superior status in the family also play a part in the early ego formation of the child. As with many later feminist criticisms of Freud, Horney attempted to reclaim female sexuality, and in turn an authentic form of the “feminine” itself, by imploring a genuinely independent nature and instead holding “culture” accountable for the subordinate status of women. However, by advocating the primacy of biological and social forces, Horney denies the idea that is central to Freud’s hypothesis, the psychical realm of representation that is the “unconscious.” Later, Simone de Beauvoir addressed the discourse of psychoanalysis in he Second Sex (Beauvoir 1989 [1949]), dedicating an early chapter to her distrust of “he Psychoanalytic Point of View” (Beauvoir 1989 [1949], 38–52). She argues that Freud has not thought through the social origins of masculine and paternal power and privilege and in turn considers his theory to be an insuicient elucidation of woman’s otherness. She claims that if women envy men, it is simply because of their social power and privilege, and not because of anatomical superiority. In the opening of the chapter, Beauvoir states that “psychoanalysis ofers a perspective which she does ‘not intend to criticize as a whole’” (Beauvoir 1989 [1949], 38), especially since it does accept that “no factor becomes involved in the psychic life without having taken on human signiicance” (Beauvoir 1989 [1949], 38); however, she questions both its dogmatic reliance on deinite elements of development and its “embarrassing lexibility on a basis of rigid concepts” (Beauvoir 1989 [1949], 38). Like Horney, Beauvoir renounces Freud’s idea that there is only one, masculine, libido and

5

no feminine libido. Beauvoir reads Freud’s account of penis envy critically and implores that the causality be turned around. Beauvoir argues that “the little girls’ covetousness, when it exists, results from a previous evaluation of virility” (Beauvoir 1989 [1949], 41). he penis does not enjoy a mysterious signiicance; it is rather the symbolizing object of the social situations that are faced by many individuals. For the little girl, “the place the father holds in the family, the universal predominance of males, her own education – everything conirms her in her belief in masculine superiority,” and it is this social disadvantage that reminds her of her comparative biological deicit – that of castration – and in turn takes the biological to be the cause of the psychical and the social (Beauvoir 1989 [1949], 43). On the contrary, “it is not the lack of the penis that causes this complex, but rather the total situation; if the little girl feels penis envy it is only as the symbol of privileges enjoyed by boys” (Beauvoir 1989 [1949], 43). If the girl feels incomplete compared with a boy with a penis, it is not because the penis is in itself signiicant, but that the girl is mapping her sense of inferiority onto the sheer diference between penis and castration. In a way, both Horney and Beauvoir make eforts to reine – or perhaps reclaim – Freud’s theory, by introducing psychical and social dimensions to the theory of penis envy, and providing diferent possible explanations for the envy that Freud observes. he penis, for them, carries more psychical, symbolic, and social signiicance within a patriarchal society and family, and the inferiority felt by women is due to the social and historical symbolic meaning of the penis, namely the social superiority of men. In this way, Freudian theory is opened up to other possibilities than biological determinism, and serves as a resource for relecting upon the connection between the individual psyche

6

F E M I N I SM A N D PSYC HOANALYSI S

and one’s social positioning. In other words, psychoanalysis assigns to women the same destiny of self-division and conlict between subjectivity and femininity that adheres to social precepts and biological norms. Psychoanalysis renders the characteristics of femininity and subjectivity as incompatible and disparate paths. Women might be able to be full subjects with agency, but only at the expense of their femininity. Or they...