Psyche of Feminism: Sand, Colette, Sarraute

Conclusion-The Psyche of Feminism

Conclusion The Psyche of Feminism In recent discussions of the cunent state of felninism, 1 contemporary feminist thought is largely divided between an "old guard" primarily concerned with equality, and a "new guard" associated with various "posts" (-modern, -colonial, -feminist). The post- group challenges the stable identity of "women," while the old guard widens its eyes in alarm at the inverted commas, attentive as it is to the struggles of real women. This polarization may be no more than the residue of a split soon to be left behind by a third stream in feminist thought, a stream that has internalized both the political urgency of the "olds" and the attention to difference of the "posts," personified by feminists who have assumed their rights, but at the same time eschew egalitarian feminism as hopelessly mired in naIvete or a chimerical ideal of equality. This, I would hazard, is one reason why we hear much less being said about "women's rights" today. It is also why this is not something to deplore. As long as feminists remain within the discourse of the "fight for equality," we will inevitably be placing ourselves in the irresponsible position of those who are demanding more pieces of an unacceptable pie. But on the other hand, as long as we continue to react sCOlufully against egalitarian feminism, we are wasting time trying to throw off and repudiate a tradition that has undeniably been an influence on our thinking. If it has accepted its "rights" and if it assumes difference to be of paramount importance, then what is the direction of feminism? The short and inadequate answer to this question is: psychoanalysis . I put it so bluntly in order to emphasize one simple point that has run through this book. Namely, that feminismwhether in the form of a plea for equality, a rebellion, a 163 Conclusion movement, or an interpretation-is psychoanalytic. It is concerned to articulate a relation, some relation, between the sexes, and in so doing must and does confront the primary questions of desire, enjoyment, and the tendency toward the shattering of the self that Freud called the death drive. But to say that feminism is inherently psychoanalytic is, as I argued in the introduction , also to assert that psychoanalysis is necessarily feminist, concenled as it is with the hUlllan psyche as sexual and sexed. What reading Sand, Colette, and Sarraute helps to bring home is just this inextricable tie between·the two ·discourses. Their writing, as I have tried to show, also offers an enrichment of our feminist and psychoanalytic claims. Sand's Marcie, the female character without a destiny, perceptible only through glimpses provided by her male interlocutor, suggests, as does the character Lelia, an extension, into the realm of affect, of Lacan's dictum concerning the existence of WOlnan. The anlbiguously nlaternaljouissance of Colette's Charlotte, and of the narrator herself, further complicates the Freudian understanding of femininity, and adds to the possible interpretations of Irigaray's feminine. And Sarraute'schaotic self, a we that cannot unite and yet cannot but acknowledge its apparent solidity in the face of others, would seem to beg the question of sexual difference. In fact, her "subject" verges on another sort of ground, one that is equally impOltant for both fenlinism and psychoanalysis: that of the self's continual dissolution and bilth. I began with an exploration of the relationship (actual, possible , and imagined) between feminism and psychoanalysis. The Introduction reviews the history of their entanglement and then argues, through a reading of Lacan and Irigaray's respective articulations of sexual difference, for the centrality of a radical psychoanalysis to feminist thought, especially to felllinist attempts to reconfigure or reimagine, in ethical terms, relations between men and women, masculine and feminine. It may be asked whether or not I need Lacan's thought for this work, and it might even be suggested that Lacan gets in my way when it comes to thinking about a feminist ethics. The importance of Lacan for this book comes down, I think, to his insistence on the nonexistence of Woman with a capital W. Now, it could be argued that this point hardly needs Lacan to 164 Conclusion make it. Indeed, I get there with Aristotle, too, or with Wittig or lrigaray. Possibly even with Sand, who argues against capital WWoman's exclusion from Being. My answer is that Lacan does this in tandeln with a...