Phallocentrism

Last updated

Phallocentrism is the ideology that the phallus, or male sexual organ, is the central element in the organization of the social world. [1] Phallocentrism has been analyzed in literary criticism, psychoanalysis and psychology, linguistics, medicine and health care, and philosophy.

Contents

First phase

The term was coined in 1927 by Ernest Jones, as part of his debate with Freud over the role of the phallic stage in childhood development, when he argued that "men analysts have been led to adopt an unduly phallocentric view". [2] [3] Drawing on the earlier arguments of Karen Horney, [4] Jones, in a series of articles, maintained the position that women were not disappointed creatures driven by penis envy. Instead, this belief was itself a theoretical defense against castration anxiety. Freud, however, remained unmoved in his opposition to the Horney/Jones thesis, [5] and his was the predominant psychoanalytic position after that, though some like Janet Malcolm would modify his position to the effect that "Freud's concept, of course, is... a description of phallocentrism, not a recommendation of it". [6]

Second phase

Jacques Lacan added a linguistic turn to the debate with his article "The Signification of the Phallus" (1958/65), arguing that the phallus was not a part-object, an imaginary object, or a physical organ, but rather "the signifier intended to designate as a whole the effects of the signified... this signifying function of the phallus". [7]

Jacques Derrida challenged his thesis as phallocentric, and the charge was taken up by second-wave feminism, [8] extending the focus of protest from Lacan to Freud, [9] Psychoanalysis, and male-centered thinking as a whole: [10] the way that "[t]he phallus, the center of meaning, became man's identity with himself... a masculine symbolic". [11]

However, conflict arose within feminism over the issue. [12] Some French feminists, seeing phallocentrism and feminism as two sides of the same coin, sought to make a postphallicist breakthrough. [13] Others, like the English feminist Jacqueline Rose, while accepting that "Lacan was implicated in the phallocentrism he described," [14] nevertheless considered his analysis important for understanding how women were constituted as a split subject in society.

Third phase

From a postcolonial perspective, however, such theoretical debates revealed the irrelevance of first-world feminists, with their phallocentric preoccupations, to the ordinary life of the subaltern woman in the Third World; [15] and third-wave feminism, with its concern for the marginalized, the particular, and for intersectionality, has also broadly seen the theoreticism and essentialism of feminism's earlier concern for phallocentrism as irrelevant to daily female experience. [16] Gayatri Spivak suggests that feminism needs to negotiate with phallocentrism, and phallocentrism must negotiate with feminism. [17]

See also

Related Research Articles

Feminist film theory is a theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory influenced by second-wave feminism and brought about around the 1970s in the United States. With the advancements in film throughout the years feminist film theory has developed and changed to analyse the current ways of film and also go back to analyse films past. Feminists have many approaches to cinema analysis, regarding the film elements analyzed and their theoretical underpinnings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacques Lacan</span> French psychoanalyst and writer (1901–1981)

Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris, from 1953 to 1981, and published papers that were later collected in the book Écrits. Transcriptions of his seminars, given between 1954 and 1976, were also published. His work made a significant impact on continental philosophy and cultural theory in areas such as post-structuralism, critical theory, feminist theory and film theory, as well as on the practice of psychoanalysis itself.

Psychoanalytic literary criticism is literary criticism or literary theory that, in method, concept, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud.

Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field now overlaps with queer studies and men's studies. Its rise to prominence, especially in Western universities after 1990, coincided with the rise of deconstruction.

Psychoanalytic film theory is a school of academic thought that evokes the concepts of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The theory is closely tied to Critical theory, Marxist film theory, and Apparatus theory. The theory is separated into two waves. The first wave occurred in the 1960s and 70s. The second wave became popular in the 1980s and 90s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Mulvey</span> British feminist film theorist

Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist and filmmaker. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She previously taught at Bulmershe College, the London College of Printing, the University of East Anglia, and the British Film Institute.

In critical theory and deconstruction, phallogocentrism is a neologism coined by Jacques Derrida to refer to the privileging of the masculine (phallus) in the construction of meaning. The term is a blend word of the older terms phallocentrism and logocentrism.

Jouissance is a French language term held untranslatable into English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Gallop</span> American professor (born 1952)

Jane Anne Gallop is an American professor who since 1992 has served as Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she has taught since 1990.

Juliet Mitchell, Lady Goody is a British psychoanalyst, socialist feminist, research professor and author.

The Symbolic is the order in the unconscious that gives rise to subjectivity and bridges intersubjectivity between two subjects; an example is Jacques Lacan's idea of desire as the desire of the Other, maintained by the Symbolic's subjectification of the Other into speech. In the later psychoanalytic theory of Lacan, it is linked by the sinthome to the Imaginary and the Real.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feminist views on the Oedipus complex</span> Feminist psychoanalytic response to Freuds model of gender identity

Feminists have long struggled with Sigmund Freud's classical model of gender and identity development, which centers on the Oedipus complex. Freud's model, which became integral to orthodox psychoanalysis, suggests that because women lack the visible genitals of the male, they feel they are "missing" the most central characteristic necessary for gaining narcissistic value—therefore developing feelings of gender inequality and penis envy. In his late theory on the feminine, Freud recognized the early and long lasting libidinal attachment of the daughter to the mother during the pre-oedipal stages. Feminist psychoanalysts have confronted these ideas and reached different conclusions. Some generally agree with Freud's major outlines, modifying it through observations of the pre-Oedipal phase. Others reformulate Freud's theories more completely.

In Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic philosophy, lack is a concept that is always related to desire. In his seminar Le transfert (1960–61) he states that lack is what causes desire to arise.

Barbara Creed is a professor of cinema studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of six books on gender, feminist film theory, and the horror genre. Creed is a graduate of Monash and La Trobe universities where she completed doctoral research using the framework of psychoanalysis and feminist theory to examine horror films. She is known for her cultural criticism.

Penis envy is a stage in Sigmund Freud's theory of female psychosexual development, in which young girls experience anxiety upon realization that they do not have a penis. Freud considered this realization a defining moment in a series of transitions toward a mature female sexuality. In Freudian theory, the penis envy stage begins the transition from attachment to the mother to competition with the mother for the attention and affection of the father. The young boy's realization that women do not have a penis is thought to result in castration anxiety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phallus</span> Penis-like object

A phallus is a penis, an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history, a figure with an erect penis is described as ithyphallic.

Poststructural feminism is a branch of feminism that engages with insights from post-structuralist thought. Poststructural feminism emphasizes "the contingent and discursive nature of all identities", and in particular the social construction of gendered subjectivities.

Phallic monism is a term introduced by Chasseguet-Smirgel to refer to the theory that in both sexes the male organ—i.e. the question of possessing the penis or not—was the key to psychosexual development.

Lacanianism or Lacanian psychoanalysis is a theoretical system that explains the mind, behaviour, and culture through a structuralist and post-structuralist extension of classical psychoanalysis, initiated by the work of Jacques Lacan from the 1950s to the 1980s. Lacanian perspectives contend that the human mind is structured by the world of language, known as the Symbolic. They stress the importance of desire, which is conceived of as perpetual and impossible to satisfy. Contemporary Lacanianism is characterised by a broad range of thought and extensive debate among Lacanians.

In psychoanalysis, phallic woman is a concept to describe a woman with the symbolic attributes of the phallus. More generally, it describes any woman possessing traditionally masculine characteristics.

References

  1. ↑ GradeSaver. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema Glossary | GradeSaver". www.gradesaver.com. Retrieved 2024-10-03.
  2. ↑ Quoted in K. K. Reithven, Feminist Literary Studies (1990) p. 54
  3. ↑ Roy, Suparna (2021-01-01). "Humanities Journal Book Final". St claret college Publications.
  4. ↑ P. Gay, Freud (1989) p. 520
  5. ↑ S. Freud, On Sexuality (PFL 7) p. 391-2
  6. ↑ Janet Malcolm, The Silent Woman (1995) p. 87
  7. ↑ J. Lacan, Ecrits (1997) p. 285-8
  8. ↑ J. Childers ed., The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism (1995) p. 225
  9. ↑ P. Gay, Freud (1989) p. 774
  10. ↑ E. Ermath, Sequel to History (1992) p. 172-3
  11. ↑ Andrea Nye, quoted in E. Ermath, Sequel to History (1992) p. 172-3
  12. ↑ E. Amour, Deconstruction (1999) p. 207
  13. ↑ E. Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan (2005) p. 365
  14. ↑ J. Rose ed., Feminine Sexuality (1982) p. 56
  15. ↑ P. Mackay, Kathy Acker and Transnationalism (2009) p. 94
  16. ↑ L. Heywood, Third Wave Agenda (1997) p. 135
  17. ↑ G. C. Spivak, The Post-Colonial Critic (2014) p. 147
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.