Feminism

Luce Irigaray writes, “But this question of woman’s easy submission she must ask herself. And the answer is not so obvious” (Speculum pg. 69). Feminist theorists ask themselves this convoluted question when they attempt to destabilize any discourse that presumes to critique “woman.” So it seems “woman” is where I begin my own analysis on how feminist theory and psychoanalytic theory exist in a reciprocal relationship whereby each is forced to interact with the others examinations, suppositions, acknowledgements, attacks, and in some cases, projections. It is this battleground where feminists proclaim, “touché” as they advance and challenge (some wish to pulverize) the Father of Psychoanalysis. According to Juliet Mitchell, a native New Zealand warrior, the only stipulation of weaponry is the most obvious, but often neglected and sometimes ill-equipped comprehension of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories.

As Mitchell repudiates feminist theorists analyses of the Father (Freud) in her text, Psychoanalysis and Feminism, the reader comes to understand some of the fundamental blunders feminists have made in their attempt to reject Freud’s theory of Femininity and Female Sexuality or in some cases: the rejection of Freud the man. I must visit Freud’s theories of Femininity and Female sexuality to juxtapose the original text against its critic’s text. I will also attempt to place feminist theory as it appropriately arrives from and through the original writing. However, for the moment, a brief visit to American second-wave feminist theory is necessary in tracking the succession and ultimately the refinement of feminist theory as it travels across time and space.

Mitchell’s own critique of theorists Betty Friedan and Eva Figes is observant at best, however admittedly necessary, in exposing the inadequacies of their work. Friedan and Figes prefer to use historicism—a cultural fastening of Freud’s theories to his historical placement—a tool these...