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==Sigmund Freud==
===Masculine and Feminine Psychical Characteristics===
[[Freud]]'s account of [[sexual difference]] is based on the view that there are certain psychical characteristics that can be called "[[masculine]]" and others that can be called "[[feminine]]", and that these differ from each other significantly.
However, [[Freud]] constantly refuses to give any definition of the terms "[[masculine]]" and "[[feminine]]", arguing that they are foundational concepts which can be used but not elucidated by [[psychoanalytic theory]].<ref>{{F}} (1920a: ) "The Psychogenesis of a Case of Female Homosexuality", [[SE]] XVIII, 171</ref> ------------
===Masculine Paradigm===
One feature of this opposition is that the two terms do not function in an exactly symmetrical way.
[[Masculinity]] is taken by [[Freud]] as the paradigm; he asserts that there is only one [[libido]], which is [[masculine]], and that the psychical development of the girl is at first identical to that of the boy, only diverging at a later moment.
==="What Does Woman Want?"===[[Femininity]] is thus that which diverges from the [[masculinity|masculine paradigm]], and [[Freud]] regards it as a mysterious, unexplored region, a "dark continent."<ref>{{F}} (1926e: ) ''The Question of Lay-Analysis'', [[SE]] XX, 212</ref>
The "riddle of the nature of femininity" comes to preoccupy [[Freud]] in his later writings, and drives him to ask the famous question, "What does woman want?"<ref>{{F}} (1933a: ) ''New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis'', [[SE]] XXII, 113</ref>
[[Masculinity]] is a self-evident given, [[femininity]] is a zone of mystery:
<blockquote>[[Psychoanalysis]] does not try to describe what a [[woman]] is --that would be a task it could scarcely perform --but sets about enquiring how she comes into being, how a [[woman]] develops out of a [[child]] with a bisexual disposition.<ref>{{F}} (1933a) ''New Introductory Lectures on Psycho--------Analysis'', [[SE]] XXII, 116</ref><blockquote>
===Women as Objects of Exchange===
The occasional statements on the [[subject]] which occur in [[Lacan]]'s work in the early 1950s are couched in terms derived from [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]]; [[woman|women]] are seen as objects of exchange which circulate like [[sign]]s between kinship groups.<ref>[[Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strauss, Claude]]. 1949b</ref>
[[Lacan]] argues that it is precisely the fact that [[woman]] is pushed into the position of an exchange object that constitutes the difficulty of the [[feminine position]]:
[[Lacan]]'s analysis of the [[Dora]] case makes the same point: what is unacceptable for [[Dora]] is her position as object of exchange between her [[father]] and Herr K.<ref>{{L}} 1951a</ref>
Being in this position of exchange object means that [[woman]] "has a relation of the second degree to this symbolic order."<ref>{{S2}} p.262; {{S4}} p.95-6</ref>
In 1956, [[Lacan]] takes up the traditional association of [[hysteria]] with [[femininity]], arguing that [[hysteria]] is in fact nothing other than the question of [[femininity]] itself, the question which may be phrased "What is a woman?".
This is true for both [[male]] and [[female]] [[hysteric]]s.<ref>{{S3}} p.178</ref>
However, this is more [[complex]] for the [[woman]], since she is required to take the [[image]] of a member of the other sex as the basis for her [[identification]].<ref>S3, 176</ref>
[[Lacan]] returns to the question of [[femininity]] in 1958, in a paper entitled "Guiding remarks for a congress on feminine sexuality."<ref>{{L}} 1958d</ref>
<blockquote>"Man here acts as the relay whereby the woman becomes this Other for herself as she is this Other for him."<ref>{{Ec}} p.732</ref></blockquote>
[[Lacan]]'s most important contributions to the debate on [[femininity]] come, like [[Freud]]'s, late in his work.
[[Women]] may experience this ''[[jouissance]]'', but they know nothing about it.<ref>{{S20}} p.71</ref>
==="Woman Does Not Exist"===
It is also in this [[seminar]] that [[Lacan]] takes up his controversial formula, first advanced in the [[seminar]] of 1970-1, "Woman does not exist" (''la femme n'existe pas''<ref>{{L}} 1973a: 60</ref>), which he here rephrases as "there is no such thing as Woman" (''il n'y a pas La femme''<ref>{{S20}} p.68</ref>).
As is clear in the original French, what [[Lacan]] puts into question is not the noun '"[[woman']]", but the definite article which precedes it.
In French the definite article indicates universality, and this is precisely the characteristic that [[women]] [[lack]]; [[women]] "do not lend themselves to generalisation, even to phallocentric generalisation."<ref>{{L}} 1975b</ref>
===Not-All===Hence [[Lacan]] strikes through the definite article whenever it precedes the term ''[[femme]]'' in much the same way as he strikes through the '''A ''' to produce the [[symbol]] for the [[bar]]red [[Other]], for like [[woman]], the [[Other]] does not [[exist]].
To press home the point, [[Lacan]] speaks of [[woman]] as "[[not-all]]" (''[[not-all|pas-toute]]''<ref>{{S20}} p.13</ref>); unlike [[masculinity]], which is a universal function founded upon the phallic exception ([[castration]]), [[woman]] is a non-universal which admits of no exception.
[[Woman]] is compared to [[truth]], since both partake of the logic of the [[not-all]] (there is no such thing as all [[women]]; it is impossible to say "the whole truth."<ref>{{L}} 1973a: 64</ref>
[[Lacan]] goes on in 1975 to state that "a woman is a symptom."<ref>{{L}} 1974-5: [[Seminar]] of 21 January 1975</ref>
More precisely, a [[woman]] is a [[symptom]] of a [[man]], in the sense that a [[woman]] can only ever enter the psychic economy of men as a [[fantasy]] [[object]] (a), the [[cause]] of their [[desire]].
[[Lacan]]'s remarks on [[woman]] and on [[feminine sexuality]] have become the focus of controversy and debate in feminist theory.
