Freud and Femininity

Today my interest was sparked when, for my reading in my literary theory class, we were studying Derrida and Freud. I had never studied much psychology before and Freud's theories on sexuality (that seemed more gendered than not) and Derrida's deconstruction of them were fascinating. The hierarchical binary between male/female privileging the male over female is explained by Freud in sexuality. Psychoanalysis, then, not only privileges male over female, but describes female as a deviant of what is male--the supplement, but not one in and of itself.

Freud among other things, describes female psychology in terms of penis envy. The idea that a woman is not a creature with a vagina, but instead defined as a creature without a penis relegates her to the margins of what is "masculinity." Freud goes onto say that "the little girl is a little man" until she realizes her lack of a penis. Female psychology, then, is defined by the feminine envy of the male organ which she "lacks."

Of course one can situate Freud's need to establish masculine dominance over feminine "lack" in terms of the historical need for male superiority--Derrida does something interesting with the binary, though, and use Freud's own terms to subvert the binary to read female/male where men are the derivative of women.

Freud's latent use of female bisexuality (the little girl is a little man) shows her potential for more than just the feminine. This does not mean she is actually a man, but instead, Freud uses these terms to build his own superiority of men over women. Derrida says that since women have two sexual organs--the clitoris and the vagina--it is the male sexuality that is really inferior--or a particular variant of the woman.

I realize that while these theories seem very abstract, the ideas that they embody are part of the dialogue that has shaped how we view men and women today--in taking Derrida's reversal of the hierarchy one can do a few things: 1) privilege women over men 2) disregard the binary or 3) try to work with both parts of the binary. Some feminists have tried to discuss female superiority to men, whereby just creating another binary which in and of itself is problematic. Disregarding the idea of gender relations and these embedded hierarchies, though, is also problematic as you disregard the problems that it can produce. We would do well, then, to recognize the fact that binaries such as male/female (or even female/male) exist, and try to find a place in which both can be expressed. As Derrida says "reduce the gap between these two unsynthesizable projects without sacrificing one to the other; as far as one can tell, it will be necessary for some time to continue the struggle on both fronts at once."

The question is: how much time will it take?