Luce Irigaray refuses to give autobiographical details as it prevents her being boxed or categorised by a
- focus on her appearance/relationship with Sartre;
- using her personal to discredit her political
- reduces political commitments to emotional problems
- presents her as a cold, uncaring female politician, i.e. not a woman
- bluestocking, ie unfeminine
Contrasted with male intellectual creativity and audacity.
The mother/daughter relations are conflictual, marked by ambivalence, especially when a woman is outstanding in some way.
LI says
Identity M/F is enacted via self positioning in language: speech and interaction, not writing. Lacan says patriarchy only has the male position, anything else is defective or castrated man.
1. Men see themselves as subjects in language. Women are self effacing; give precedence to men/world.
So if men think it is all about them, their masculinity, therefore the world revolves around them. I know I can be self-effacing, although I don't think I give precedence to men or the world. But I know I am a tiny cog in a bigger environment. But in the workplace, I certainly did not give precedence to the men, and they saw me as a challenge, partly because I did not sleep with them or drink with them - therefore refusing to be defined by their preferred role for my gender.
2. "I" by women is not necessarily feminine.
This makes me continue to wonder about the definition of feminine. To me it is not about being frilly, or gentle. Nor about procreation. But my definition of "I" includes activities and roles that historically were not feminine - managing a bank account; earning a salary that could support a family; owning my own home; holding a job that involved managing staff who were diverse by gender, race, age, faith, orientation. My "I" did not involve having a family. But I believe most men probably define women by lower earnings, producing babies, needing to be provided for. Does this mean women become 'object'? I think it does.
3. Women are familiar with being the vehicle of men's representation. Their self representation is largely absent.
I wonder how many female self portraits there are, compared to male? I have also recently read Laura Mulvey, where she concludes that cinema (usually created by a male director) trains women to view themselves (when sitting passively in the cinema) through the male gaze.
4. Women engage in dialogue; men privilege relations with the world and the object. Women privilege interpersonal relations. Does this go back to women being the child bearers/carers and men being the hunter/gatherer?
5. Women are not more emotional than men - their language effaces the expression of their subjectivity. So does this mean women need to change how they use language?
6. Women are less abstract than men and more contextual. (Not sure about how this statement is validated or what this means)
Socially determined linguistic practices creates sexual differences in the creation of messages and self positioning in language.
Critique of Freud and Lacan
1. These initiators of psychoanalysis was unaware of historical and philosophical determinates of their own discourse.
2. Psychoanalysis is governed by unconscious fantasies which are unanalysed.
3. Patriarchal - blind to own discourse.
All western culture rests on the murder of the mother (Oedipus complex).
LI's critique of patriarchy stresses death drive. Women's death drives are unsymbolised - destructive to both men and each other. (What is a death drive?)
Don't discard the Male/Female binary before the Female has acceded to identity and subjectivity. She stresses the creative power of the imagination. "Who are you?"
I agree that the M/F binary is useful. There is a lot of discussion around at present rejecting the m/f binary, but for my research purposes it is just a diversion. It is enough for me to get my head around the impact of being female, rather than male.
p190 Woman-Woman society
Few sexual models are ethical, especially porn and psychoanalysis. Men have socio-cultural power. Genotype-phenotype distinction.
Lots of reading is good. I conclude I know very little!
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