Sigmund Freud and Sexuality - Essay Example

? Textual Analysis Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist credited to have founded the discipline of psychoanalysis; his views and use of psychoanalysis in female analysis brought forward several theories about the female gender. His theories lie on what he termed as complex where a boy regard his mother as his property, his views on women stirred debate and controversy among the philosophers of his age (Appignanesi & Zarate, 2007 p15). In his paper titled the psychical consequences of anatomical differences, Sigmund refers to women as people, who opposed to progress, receive passively and they contribute nothing to their own (Thurschwell, 2009 p18). Penis envy Penis envy, according to Freud is the reactions of a young woman to her sexuality in her psychosexual development, in phallic stage, which lasts approximately from 3- 6 years. The libidinal focus is concentrated on the genitals, libido, which Freud explains, as the most powerful force in the human brains, is usually concentrated in other parts of the body before the phallic stage such as the oral stage where the main desire of the child is to eat (Freud & Brill, 2010 p52). In the phallic stage, a child concentrates more on the sexual reproductive organs with the penis becoming the organ of interest; he called this obsession Oedipus complex for boys and Electra complex for girls. In this stage, the child develops sexual feeling towards her female parent but the girl discovers that she cannot have vaginal sex with her female parent because she does not have the male reproductive organs (Freud & Strachey, 2010 p65). This realisation makes her to desire a penis and the power that come with it and she is now more attracted to his father from whom she hopes to get a penis, this is what Freud referred to as penis envy (Sofroniou, 2010 p12). The girl blames her mother for a lack of penis, which she sees as a punishment, and this shifts her sexual focus from her mother to the father, this desire for the father makes her wish to replace her mother which makes the girl to copy her mother. In replacing her mother, the girl see her actions will be punished someday and as a way of avoiding that punishment he shift her sexual desires to other men, the penis envy that a girl develops in the early age is turned into a desire for a male child in later stages of her development. Seduction theory In one of Sigmund Freud lectures he talked about ‘ The Aetiology of Hysteria’, in this theory, Sigmund Freud used information that he had collected from 18 individuals where he concluded that sexual abuses in childhood days caused people to have Hysteria (Freud, Whiteside & Freud 2007 p87). This theory did not last for a long time and he withdrew it and formed another one, which attributed hysteria and other neuroses and illnesses to sexual fantasies. His knowledge about women in those times was very limited however, he contributed a lot as men of those times thought women do not to harbour any sexual desires leave alone acknowledging that sexual fantasies caused hysteria in women. When Freud was writing these theories, the society’s attitude toward women was that classified them as a weaker sex and they were only important as parents and relatives, their main function was procreation (Bloom & Hobby 2009 p56), Some critics of Sigmund Freud theories were his fellow psychoanalysts who did not support his theory of penis envy as a primary female reaction rather as a secondary reaction. Freud, refused to agree with them and insisted on penis envy as a primary female reaction, other psychoanalysts like Jacques Lacan, took up Freud’s theory and developed it in what he called the penisneid in the unconscious of women. Juliet Mitchell supported Freud’s idea of penis envy, in which man is not the basis, but on the phallus, this opened the field of phallogocentrism to debate (Tong, 2009 p15). Feminists have also criticized Freud’s view where they have argued that penis envy and the whole idea of psychoanalysis uses assumptions are anti feminist, patriarchal and misogynistic that tend to display women as less and deformed men (Freud, 2007 p32). A psychoanalyst from Germany, who also used childhood experiences in psychological development of humans responded with ‘womb envy’ as an emotional response to ‘ penis envy’ , Clara Thompson in her paper ‘ women and penis envy’ reformulated penis envy to social envy that viewed the social perspective of women being of a weaker gender to men. Luce Irigaray is who is a philosopher and a French feminist has authored papers on feminism that have countered the phallagocentrism ideas that were brought forward by Sigmund Freud, some of the themes that he discussed in his papers include: Mimesis Luce Irigaray used Mimesis to dispute most of the stereotypes that follow women; she argues that in refuting the stereotypes that the society has directed toward women, they should resubmit themselves to those stereotypes in order to question them. She gave an example where if women are viewed as illogical then they should analyse their ‘illogicalness’ logically which makes the claims of women being illogical void of any reasoning (Cahill & Hansen, 2008 p54). Irigaray believes that overcoming the negative perceptions about women does not happen by ignoring those perceptions, rather it is through exposing them and calling into question the rationality behind those perceptions, this way, women will be able to refute those stereotypes easily. Irigaray sees that asking after the other through mimesis will be the only way to force a change in perceptions, he argued from the position of the marginalised group in order to challenge the power of the misconceptions of a certain stereotype by showing that it is just a fabrication with no factual basis (Bainbridge, 2008 p89). Secondly, to show how the woman has been has been marginalised by showing that the stereotype is false or by encouraging and empowering the women to speak and thirdly to change the perception that the society has had towards the female gender. Novel language and utopian ideals Luce Irigaray although suggesting that the stereotypes on women should be changed through mimesis process, she however declined to give the definitions on feminism saying that will interfere with the women’s process of defining themselves. She, however, agreed to provide the materials to women to help them in defining themselves that include concepts from both religion and the body through novel use of new words or creation of new word to utopian ideals. An example, which she gave, was that of a transcendental God that emphasised male dominance even in religion and culture, she suggested that instead of relying on a religion that had a transcendental God, the society should construct a divinity that makes sense and is transcendental. Some of the utopian ideal that Luce suggested was civil laws that would ensure women have achieved social existence; she gave an example of a law to protect virginity of women so that they can have control of their own sexuality or those protecting mother daughter relationships. Mother daughter relationships Luce Irigaray argues that in as much as it is important to change the cultural norms, it is also important to take care of relationship between women especially between mothers and daughter, which is usually turbulent. She explains this using the Greek mythology of Zeus to show how the relationship between mothers and daughters are and how men exchange women as if they are commodities in a market place (Stone, 2006 p62). She acknowledges that not only has the society to solve the issues relating to women in the social and political arena globally, but the changes should begin with women and how they relate among themselves. She adds that the mothers should emphasize on their daughter to perceive themselves as unique and subject to their own definition of themselves only, which also require language work. Language Lucy Irigaray, acknowledge that for one to be a subject of a culture, he must first belong to it, she argued that the society must change the language for the women subjectivity to be included in the culture. In order to prove her claims, she conducted a research in the western cultures where she found out that the general speech patterns that are specific to each gender but women do not occupy a subject position in the language, she found out that most women were not enthusiastic to occupy the subject positions in conversations. In English language, Irigaray explains the dominance of masculine terms in plural or neuter form of the English language; masculine terms refer to important things such as sun and God while female names refer to less important things. In her research, Irigaray found out that daughters engaged in inter subjective conversations with their mother in which the mothers were not enthusiastic to engage in. This made her conclude that women were not subject in the same way as men, she advocates for women and men to view each other in language as irreducible object and this will only happen when women learn to take place of the subject and men learn to dialogue with other subjects Aust, 2010 p15). Ethics In discussing ethics, Irigaray divided the discussion into four sections in which she engaged with male philosophers, in the first part where she engaged with Aristotle and Plato , she argues that ethical love is independent of bearing children and both the man and woman should have places of themselves hat are open to each other but not superior. The second section she argues with Descartes and Spinoza where she states that ethical love cannot occur where there is no respect and honour for the irreducible difference of the other party, the third section there is no philosopher whom she argues with and she says the infinite is important for any ethical love to exist. The fourth section she argues with Merleau Panty and Levinas where she says that in order for ethical relationships to take place, men must overcome the fear of the womb and therefore create their identity, women this will open up more space for the women to create their own (Irigaray 2010 p 18). Some of the criticism that Luce Irigaray faces is that she uses strategic essentialism where she opines that behaviour follows from biology and United States of America opposed her works since they were trying to negate the strides that women had made politically and socially. Material feminists have also criticized Luce on that he has concentrated more on psychological aspects of oppression and neglecting social and material oppression, the argument is that Irigaray uses psycho analytic view which although she has used it critically it does not include materialism which is one of the key concerns of feminism. References Appignanesi, R. & Zarate, O. (2007). Introducing Freud. Thriplow, Icon. Aust, L. (2010). The irreducible other: the second sex meets this sex which is not one : women, subjectivity, and ethics in Beauvoir and Irigaray. Saarbru?cken, VDM Verlag Dr. Mu?ller Bainbridge, C. (2008). A feminine cinematics: Luce Irigaray, women and film. Basingstoke [England], Palgrave Macmillan. Bloom, H., & Hobby, B. (2009). Human sexuality. New York, NY, Bloom's Literary Criticism. Cahill, A. J., & Hansen, J. L. (2008). Luce Irigaray. London [u.a.], Routledge. Freud, S. (2007). Collected works of Sigmund Freud: three contributions to the theory of sex, and dream psychology. Charleston, SC, BiblioBazaar. Freud, S., & Brill, A. A. (2010). Sigmund Freud collected writings: the basis of psychoanalytic psychology. [Seattle, Wash.], Pacific Publishing Studio. Freud, S., & Strachey, J. (2010). An outline of psychoanalysis. Blacksburg, VA, Wilder Publications. Freud, S., Whiteside, S., & Freud, S. (2007). Deviant love. London, Penguin Irigaray, L. (2010). Ethical gestures toward the other. Poligrafi. 15(57), 3-23. SALAMON, G. (2010). Assuming a body: transgender and rhetorics of materiality. New York, Columbia University Press. Sofroniou, A. (2010). The misinterpretation of Sigmund Freud. [Raleigh, N.C. ], Lulu Com. Stone, A. (2006). Luce Irigaray and the philosophy of sexual difference. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Thurschwell, P. (2009). Sigmund Freud. London, Routledge. Tong, R. (2009). Feminist thought: a more comprehensive introduction. Boulder, Colo, Westview Press. Read More