Psychoanalytic Feminist Perspectives

Abstract

According to psychoanalytic feminists, the root of women's oppression is deeply embedded in the human psyche. The conscious aspects of personality—for example, one's general self-concept and gender identity—are de pendent upon the stability of an unconscious organization that is completed by age three. A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Epistemology and Metaphysics, Jane Flax makes the related point that the psychosexual development of boys and girls also has epistemological and metaphysical implications. The challenge for psychoanalytic feminists is to look to the actual ways in which racially and ethnically diverse parents rear their children. To be sure, some psychoanalytic feminists have already begun to move in this direction, but their walk has only begun and may well end with entirely new versions of the Oedipus tale. Feminists must persuade psychoanalysts to formulate a theory of female sexuality that is not parasitic upon a theory of male sexuality.