Luce Irigaray

Theories of Subjectivity
Irigaray maintains that the theories of subjectivity developed by Freud and Lacan are bound to their theories of sexuality. Irigaray argues against the masculine-gender-based idea of subjectivity: "Irigaray believes that women are not adequately represented by existing symbolic sytems. She argues that they are not given a proper place in a patriarchal world" (Green and LeBihan, 346).

In his theory on sexuality, Freud states that femal sexuality is based on a lack. He claims that both male and female children desire the mother, but the female lacks the phallus that is necessary if the mother is to be satisfied. The little girl feels inferior and takes a passive role. For Lacan, identity is structured in gender terms, and the woman serves as "the other." In Lacan's system, the phallus is the priveleged signifier and holds the meaning-making power. Neither the male nor the female possess the phallus, but the male is able to identify with it more easily. Because these theories on sexuality are bound to the theories of subjectivity, Irigaray concludes that in the patriarchical world, female subjectivity is based on a lack.

According to Irigaray, social order determines sexual order. In patriarchal society, the males are the “producer subjects and agents of exchange” and the females are the “commodities” (Irigaray 192). The economy as a whole is based on homosexual relations because all economic exchange takes place between men. In this society “woman exists only as an occasion for mediation, transaction, transition, transference, between man and his fellow man, indeed between man and himself” (Irigaray 193). As soon as a woman has any sort of relationship with another woman, she is masculine. Sexuality, and therefore subjectivity, is a product of the symbolic order.

“Female homosexuality has eluded psychoanalysis” (Irigaray 196), and Irigaray criticizes Freud for what she beleives to be an incorrect description of female homosexuality. Female relationships—both social and sexual —do exist, but these relationships are “recognized only to the extent that [they are] prostituted to man's fantasies” (Irigaray 196). Irigaray proposes that if women as commodities refuse to “go to market,” the basis of the patriarchal society would be broken.

Irigaray's main point is that one patterns oneself to fit the proper gender role which are determined by the sexual order of the society that is, in turn, established by the social order.