The Woman

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In psychoanalysis, “The Woman” (La femme) designates a theoretical construct that cannot be reduced to biological sex, gender identity, or sociological categories. Rather than referring to empirical women, the term names a structural position within the symbolic economy of desire and jouissance. While Sigmund Freud approached femininity as a problem of psychosexual development and sexual difference, Jacques Lacan radically reformulated the question, asserting that “The Woman does not exist” (La femme n’existe pas), meaning that no universal signifier can represent woman as such within the symbolic order.[1]

In Lacanian theory, “The Woman” marks a limit concept—the point at which symbolic representation fails and encounters the Real. The notion is inseparable from Lacan’s theories of sexual difference, jouissance, and the non‑relation between the sexes, and it plays a decisive role in his later teaching, particularly in Seminar XX: Encore (1972–1973).[1]

A fundamental distinction must therefore be drawn between “woman” as a grammatical or social category and “The Woman” as a logical impossibility. Whereas masculine positions in Lacan’s theory are structured by universality and exception, the feminine position is characterized by non‑totalization (pas‑toute). This non‑totalizable position opens onto a mode of jouissance that exceeds phallic regulation and symbolic inscription.[2]

Within psychoanalysis, femininity thus traverses all three Lacanian registers:

  • the Imaginary, where feminine identity is shaped by images, identifications, and ego ideals;
  • the Symbolic, where sexual difference is articulated through signifiers such as the phallus and the Name‑of‑the‑Father;
  • the Real, where feminine jouissance appears as an excess irreducible to signification.[3]

Freud on Femininity and Sexual Difference

Sigmund Freud’s engagement with femininity unfolds gradually across his work and is marked by a persistent sense of theoretical difficulty. Although Freud never formulated a single, unified theory of “The Woman,” his investigations into sexual difference, psychosexual development, and female sexuality laid the groundwork for later psychoanalytic debates.

In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Freud proposed that infantile sexuality is fundamentally bisexual and that sexual difference emerges through complex developmental pathways rather than biological destiny.[4] He argued that both boys and girls begin with a primary attachment to the mother, with the phallus functioning as the central organizing signifier of sexual difference.

Freud’s later writings increasingly focused on the female Oedipus complex, emphasizing phenomena such as penis envy, castration anxiety, and the girl’s eventual turn away from the mother toward the father. In his lecture on Femininity (1933), Freud famously acknowledged the limits of psychoanalytic knowledge, remarking that femininity remained a “dark continent” for psychology.[5]

According to Freud, the girl’s recognition of anatomical difference initiates a series of psychic consequences: resentment toward the mother, penis envy, and the wish for a child as a symbolic substitute for the phallus.[5] While these formulations were later criticized for biological reductionism, Freud insisted that his theory concerned psychical representations rather than anatomical facts.

Freud repeatedly emphasized his own uncertainty on the matter. In Analysis Terminable and Interminable (1937), he reiterated that the question of femininity posed limits to analytic mastery, signaling a structural impasse rather than a merely empirical gap.[6] It is precisely this impasse that Lacan would later radicalize by transforming Freud’s empirical difficulties into a logical and structural claim.

Lacan’s Structural Reworking of “The Woman”

Jacques Lacan’s reformulation of femininity constitutes one of the most radical departures from Freudian metapsychology. Rather than attempting to complete Freud’s theory of woman, Lacan reframed the problem at the level of symbolic logic. His famous axiom—“There is no such thing as The Woman”—does not deny the existence of women, but asserts that woman cannot be represented by a universal signifier within the symbolic order.[1]

This claim emerges from Lacan’s rethinking of the phallus not as an organ or attribute, but as a signifier of lack that structures desire and sexual difference. In “The Signification of the Phallus” (1958), Lacan argued that sexual positions are determined not by anatomy, but by one’s relation to the phallic signifier.[7]

By the time of Seminar XVIII and Seminar XX, Lacan had moved beyond structural linguistics toward formal logic and topology. In this later teaching, sexual difference is no longer articulated through complementary roles but through asymmetrical logical positions. The masculine side is governed by universality and exception, while the feminine side is defined by non‑all (pas‑toute), meaning that it is not wholly subjected to the phallic function.[1]

Lacan’s assertion that “The Woman does not exist” thus names a structural gap in the symbolic order. There is no signifier that can totalize or exhaust femininity, and this absence is what opens the possibility of a jouissance beyond phallic regulation.[8]

The Sexuation Graph and Logical Formulations

Lacan's Formulas of Sexuation

The formulas of sexuation as proposed by Lacan in *Seminar XX: Encore* are structured into two columns representing two distinct logical positions—**masculine** and **feminine**—in relation to the phallic function. These are not biological categories, but logical positions concerning jouissance and the symbolic order.

Lacan's Formulas of Sexuation
Masculine Side Feminine Side
∀xΦ(x)

(All subjects are under the phallic function)

¬∀xΦ(x)

(Not all subjects are under the phallic function)

∃x¬Φ(x)

(There exists an exception not under the phallic function)

¬∃x¬Φ(x)

(There is no exception outside the phallic function)

"The Father" as the exception that guarantees the function "The Woman" as not-all (pas-toute); no universal representation
Phallic jouissance only Phallic + supplementary jouissance

(jouissance féminine)

Notes
  • Φ(x) = "x is submitted to the phallic function"
  • The masculine side is structured by a universal submission to the phallic function, but requires the existence of an exception (the "Name-of-the-Father").
  • The feminine side is characterized by the absence of such an exception and the logic of the not-all (pas-toute)—allowing for a form of jouissance beyond the phallic (jouissance féminine).

Lacan’s most systematic articulation of sexual difference appears in the formulas of sexuation, introduced in Seminar XX: Encore. These formulas are presented as two columns—commonly referred to as the “masculine” and “feminine” sides—but Lacan repeatedly emphasized that they do not correspond to biological sex or gender identity.[1]

On the masculine side, all subjects are submitted to the phallic function, with the exception of one who is not (the logical exception that grounds universality). On the feminine side, there is no exception, but also no totalization: woman is not‑all subject to the phallic function.[2]

This logical configuration leads to two decisive consequences:

  1. There is no universal Woman—only singular women.
  2. Woman has access to a supplementary jouissance, beyond the phallus.

This supplementary enjoyment, later termed feminine jouissance, is not opposed to phallic jouissance but exceeds it. It cannot be fully articulated in language and is experienced as both ecstatic and unsettling.[3]

Lacan explicitly warned against interpreting the formulas of sexuation sociologically or normatively. They are formal inscriptions designed to articulate the impossibility of the sexual relation—the fact that no signifier can write the relation between the sexes as a harmonious whole.[1]

5. Feminine Jouissance and the Real

One of the most consequential aspects of Lacan’s later teaching is his theorization of feminine jouissance—a form of enjoyment that escapes the confines of the symbolic and exceeds the phallic function. In Seminar XX: Encore, Lacan distinguishes between phallic jouissance, which is structured by language and subject to castration, and “other jouissance” (jouissance autre) experienced by women “not all” submitted to the phallic function.[1]

This “other jouissance” is unspeakable, unlocalizable, and excessive—a mode of enjoyment that borders on mystical experience. Lacan famously compares feminine jouissance to the ecstatic rapture of Christian mystics, such as Saint Teresa of Ávila, suggesting that it emerges at the point where signification fails and the body is seized by a Real that cannot be symbolized.[1]

“Woman has a supplementary jouissance in relation to the phallic jouissance, precisely because she is not-whole in this function. [...] She does not know it, but she experiences it—that’s what one can say of feminine jouissance, and it’s what makes for the charm of the mystic” [1]

In Lacanian topology, this Real jouissance marks the limit of the symbolic—a place where language falters and the subject encounters the Real of the body. Feminine jouissance thus reconfigures the analytic conception of the drive, desire, and the subject, situating woman as a privileged site of the Real’s irruption into speech.[8]

6. "The Woman" and the Phallic Function

Central to Lacan’s logic of sexuation is the concept of the phallic function. The phallus, as a signifier of lack and symbolic castration, regulates subjectivity and sexual difference. To be “under the phallic function” is to be subject to the law of signification, where desire is mediated by the Other.[7]

On the masculine side, the subject is wholly inscribed in this function, albeit with an exception. On the feminine side, however, Lacan posits that the subject is “not all” (pas-toute) under the phallic function. This formulation does not imply an absence or deficiency but rather a surplus—a relationship to enjoyment that is not delimited by symbolic law.[2]

Lacan summarizes this idea in his axiom: “The Woman does not exist”. This is a logical proposition, not a claim about actual women. It expresses the fact that no universal function or signifier can encapsulate what woman is. As such, “The Woman” is not a particular person or role but a logical placeholder for what escapes totalization.[3]

This rejection of universal womanhood has deep implications for both theory and clinic: it breaks with any essentialist notion of femininity and highlights the structural impossibility of fully representing the feminine within phallocentric discourse.

7. The Feminine Position and Subjectivity

While Lacan links the feminine position to structural non-totality and supplementary jouissance, he explicitly detaches this position from anatomical sex. One's place on either side of the sexuation graph depends not on biology, but on one’s position in relation to the phallic function and the Other’s desire.[2]

Thus, a biologically male subject may occupy a feminine position, and vice versa. The feminine is defined logically, not empirically. What characterizes this position is a different relation to speech, desire, and enjoyment—a position of openness to the Other and to that which cannot be symbolized.[8]

Moreover, Lacan identifies woman as being in the position of the Other, in the sense that she embodies alterity. She is not merely the object of male desire but the site of a jouissance and knowledge that cannot be assimilated within the male-centered symbolic.[1]

This view challenges traditional psychoanalytic accounts of sexual complementarity and instead posits a radical asymmetry. Sexual difference is not based on binary opposition, but on the impossibility of any complete relation—a point Lacan formulates in his well-known dictum: “There is no sexual relation” (il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel).[1]

8. Clinical and Ethical Implications

Lacan’s logic of sexuation and his account of “The Woman” have profound clinical implications, particularly in the treatment of neurosis, perversion, and psychosis. In the clinical structure of hysteria, for instance, the subject often seeks to embody the object of the Other’s desire, playing out a drama of seduction and misrecognition.[9]

In this context, “The Woman” may function as an idealized or inaccessible figure—an object-cause of desire (objet petit a) whose elusive nature sustains the neurotic’s fantasy. The hysterical subject, often aligned with the feminine position, asks: “What is a woman?”—a question that conceals the deeper question of what the Other desires.[10]

Lacan’s teaching also reframes love as a response to the impossibility of the sexual relation. In Encore, he famously states: “Love is what supplements the lack in the sexual relation.”[1] Within this framework, woman’s jouissance is not reducible to fantasy or demand but is situated as a real experience that destabilizes the subject’s relation to the Other.

In terms of the analytic act, the feminine position may offer a model for ethical openness to the Real. Analysts, regardless of gender, are called upon to occupy a position of “not-all”—to renounce totalizing knowledge and sustain the subject’s encounter with their own limit.[9]

9. Critical Perspectives and Feminist Engagements

Lacan’s conception of “The Woman” has sparked extensive debate, especially among feminist theorists. Critics such as Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Judith Butler have questioned the phallocentric assumptions of Lacanian theory and its symbolic privileging of masculine norms.[11]

Irigaray, for example, critiques Lacan’s alignment of woman with lack and absence, arguing that psychoanalysis reproduces a masculine economy of desire that excludes female subjectivity.[12] Kristeva proposes a semiotic model that emphasizes maternal signification as a pre-symbolic foundation for subjectivity.[13]

On the other hand, Lacanian feminists such as Joan Copjec and Slavoj Žižek argue that the non-all logic of “The Woman” actually subverts patriarchal universalism by affirming the irreducibility of sexual difference.[8] For Copjec, “The Woman” names the limit of the symbolic, a position that resists commodification and challenges normative accounts of gendered identity.

Rather than rejecting Lacan, these thinkers engage his work as a resource for rethinking sexual difference, jouissance, and subjectivity beyond essentialist or identitarian frameworks.

10. Conclusion: The Woman as Logical Function and Real Limit

In Lacanian psychoanalysis, “The Woman” is not a person, identity, or role—but a logical function that names the limit of symbolic inscription and the possibility of a Real jouissance. Her inexistence as a universal signifier is not a negation, but a structural feature of the symbolic order.

She embodies a non-totalizable relation to enjoyment, structured by the not-all logic of the feminine position, and opens onto an experience of the Real that cannot be captured in language. As such, “The Woman” remains central to Lacan’s formulation of sexual difference, the non-relation, and the ethics of psychoanalysis.

This concept continues to influence contemporary psychoanalytic thought, feminist theory, and clinical practice—serving both as a problematic and a resource for thinking subjectivity at its limit.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Lacan, Jacques, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XX: Encore, trans. Bruce Fink, W.W. Norton, 1998, p. 72.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Fink, Bruce, The Lacanian Subject, Princeton University Press, 1995, pp. 105–110.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Evans, Dylan, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Routledge, 1996, pp. 61–63.
  4. ↑ Freud, Sigmund, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, SE VII, Hogarth Press, 1953, pp. 125–130.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Freud, Sigmund, “Femininity,” New Introductory Lectures on Psycho‑Analysis, SE XXII, Hogarth Press, 1964, p. 134.
  6. ↑ Freud, Sigmund, “Analysis Terminable and Interminable,” SE XXIII, Hogarth Press, 1964, pp. 252–253.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Lacan, Jacques, “The Signification of the Phallus,” in Écrits, trans. Bruce Fink, W.W. Norton, 2006, pp. 575–584.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Copjec, Joan, Read My Desire, MIT Press, 1994, pp. 201–205.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Fink, Bruce, A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 116–119.
  10. ↑ Laplanche, Jean, and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, The Language of Psycho-Analysis, Norton, 1973, pp. 471–474.
  11. ↑ Butler, Judith, Bodies That Matter, Routledge, 1993, pp. 49–52.
  12. ↑ Irigaray, Luce, This Sex Which Is Not One, Cornell University Press, 1985, pp. 23–33.
  13. ↑ Kristeva, Julia, Desire in Language, Columbia University Press, 1980, pp. 133–135.
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