Reconsider the Liaison Between Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies: Hysteria and Fetishism as Two Cases in Point
Date Issued
2005-07-31
Date
2005-07-31
Author(s)
DOI
932411H002090
Abstract
This project seeks to reconsider the contributions of psychoanalysis to modern
feminism/gender studies by scrutinizing the debates over whether psychoanalysis can
serve as a pertinent interpretative framework to address the issues of sexuality and
sexual difference. As we know, while some critics cast no doubt on the clinical
effectiveness of psychoanalysis, some look askance at its validity for its proclivity to
condoning or reinforcing the male-dominated compulsory heterosexuality. For
example, the Lacanian assmption “Woman does not exist”(la femme n’existe pas),
which points to the impossibility of defining women, sounds dubious for some
feminists as it runs the risk of further excluding women from the symbolic. Instead
of directly addressing the long-standing debates, this project takes fetishism and
hysteria as two cases in point to reconsider the liaison between feminism and
psychoanalysis. As there are more and more feminists who believe that fetishism
and/or hysteria can be employed to deconstruct the phallogocentric psychoanalytic
theory, it is necessary to probe into how they approach these two clinical structures
from a gendered perspective. Do hysterical women successfully debunk the
patriarchal discourse as they constantly refute the analysts’interpretation of their
symptoms and seem to prove themselves good at exposing the lack of the big Other?
Do fetishists know well how to disavow the unwelcome reality and thus have the
potential to destabilize the patriarchal imposition such as normative sexual division?
Aiming to examine whether the feminist re-readings are instrumental in locating the
lacunae in psychoanalysis or sometimes they themselves should be faulted for
misreading Freud’s and Lacan’s theories, this project not only explores fetishism and
hysteria as psychoanalytic concepts but also penetrate into feminists’gendered
readings of them. Can the structure of hysteria shed light on our understanding of
woman’s desire? Will female fetishism effectively subvert patriarchy without falling
prey to aggressive transference? Should women choose between being hysterics and
fetishists in order to subvert the patriarchal structure? Is it possible that women may
start from their “impossible”position to appropriate the feminine jouissance and
further, to challenge the rigid symbolic order? If the questions can be explored more
thoroughly, I believe the old debates concerning the ambivalent connection between
penis and phallus, between the traumatic woman and the real, impossible woman, will
be resolved to a great extent. Under such circumstances, the liaison between
psychoanalysis and feminism and the related controversies, hopefully, may be pursued
in a more fruitful way.
Subjects
psychoanalysis
gender studies
hysteria
fetishism
object a
SDGs
Publisher
臺北市：國立臺灣大學外國語文學系暨研究所
Type
report
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