Gender as Perspective: The On-going Psychoanalytic Privilege of the Penis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Psychoanalysis requires a rigorous assessment of the implications of gender in our theories and practice. There are two parts to this problem: one is a lack of recognition about gender and gender difference that has already been produced in psychoanalytic theorizing; the other is the insidious life of sexism on an unconscious level. I contend that current construction of psychoanalytic theories, particularly subjectivity, is marked by and depends upon profoundly problematic assumptions about gender, subjectivity, and knowledge itself. This problem might be reduced to an unacknowledged male perspective, or what I call masculinism. Masculinist perspective is an invisible lens that presents a wholly gendered and subjective experience as objective reality. A brief summary of a few feminist theories is presented, as well as speculation about the persistent resistance to gender discourse and a need to analyze that resistance. Most psychoanalytic theories fail to recognize this unconscious privilege of the penis which underlies our understanding of human nature and the impact it has on our lives.