Feminism and The Oedipus Complex - Luce Irigaray

Luce Irigaray

In Freud's model there is no place for femininity unless it is related to masculinity. Luce Irigaray, a student of Jacques Lacan, disagrees with the thoughts about the importance of the penis and phallic for women. She hypothesizes that the reason the penis is privileged in Freud’s model is that it is visible. This is also the reason that male sexuality is based, in early Lacanianism, on having (a penis) and female sexuality is based on lack. In Freud’s paradigm, female desire is the desire for a baby to substitute for penis, thus female pleasure is derived from reproduction. Irigaray disagrees: “How can we accept that the entire female sexuality is being controlled by the lack and envy of the penis?” Female sexuality is not solely related to reproduction, but neither is it less valuable in reproduction, and thus it should not hold less social power. Furthermore, she says that Freud is forgetting the mother-daughter relationship. To enter the Oedipus-complex, a girl must hate her mother. Irigaray says this view makes it impossible for a girl to give meaning to the relationship with her mother.