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→The real
In other words, when the [[child]] perceives the [[penis]] (a rea] organ) as [[absent]], it is only because he has a notion that it somehow should be there, which is to introduce the [[symbolic]] into the [[real]].
Thus what is [[lacking]] is not the [[real]] organ, for, [[biologically]] speaking, the [[vagina]] is not incomplete without one; what is [[lacking]] is a [[Symbolicsymbolic]] object, the [[symbolic]] [[phallus]].
Its [[symbolic]] nature is confirmed by the fact that it can be [[substituted]] by a [[child]] in the [[girl]]'s [[unconscious]]; in appeasing her [[penis envy]] by [[desiring]] a [[child]], [[Freud]] argues, the [[girl]] "[[slip]]s - along the lines of a [[symbolic]] equation, one might say - from the [[penis]] to a [[baby]]."<ref>Freud, 1924d: SE XIX, 178-9</ref>
[[Freud]] argues that the little [[girl]] blames her [[mother]] for depriving her of a [[penis]].
[[Lacan]], however, argues that it is the [[Imaginaryimaginary]] father who is held to be the [[agent]] of [[privation]].
However, these two accounts are not necessarily incompatible.
==From Girl to Mother==
