The (feminine) unconscious

Abstract

Ever since Anglo-American feminist critics first exposed the masculine bias and misogyny of the work of Sigmund Freud to a general readership,1 it has been fashionable in Anglo—American feminist circles to reject not only Freud but the whole area of psychoanalysis. Whilst I am not suggesting that Freud and psychoanalytic theory have been universally or uncritically adopted by French feminism,2 Freud is widely taught as part of a general philosophy course in French schools, and the insights and mode of thinking of psychoanalysis imbue the work of a number of French feminist theorists and writers. As Hélène Cixous argues in Writing Differences,3 Freud’s description of human development and the unconscious offers crucial insights into the way patriarchy operates to construct us as men and women. The recent French interpreter of Freud, Jacques Lacan, has re-read Freud’s theory to highlight the role of language in self-identity, and his work thus also has a bearing on French feminism.