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====Dora Case====
[[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>
===Hysteria===
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?".
===Feminine Position===
This is true for both [[male]] and [[female]] [[hysteric]]s.<ref>{{S3}} p.178</ref>
===Feminine Sexuality===
[[Lacan]] returns to the question of [[femininity]] in 1958, in a paper entitled "Guiding remarks for a congress on feminine sexuality."<ref>{{L}} (1958d) "Propos directifs pour un congrès sur la sexualité féminine", in {{E}} pp. 725-36</ref>
In this paper he notes the impasses which have beset psychoanalytic discussions of [[feminine]] [[sexuality]], and argues that [[woman]] is the [[Other]] for both [[men]] and [[women]].
===Feminine ''Jouissance''===
[[Lacan]]'s most important contributions to the debate on [[femininity]] come, like [[Freud]]'s, late in his work.
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) "Conférence à Genève sur le symptôme", ''Les Block-Notes de la psychanalyse'', Brussels.</ref>
===Not-All===
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) ''Télévision'', Paris: Seuil, 1973 [''Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment'', ed. Joan Copjec, trans. Denis Hollier, Rosalind Krauss and Annette Michelson, New York: Norton, 1990]. p.64</ref>
==="Woman is a Symptom of Man"===
[[Lacan]] goes on in 1975 to state that "a woman is a symptom."<ref>{{L}} (1974-5: ) ''Le Séminaire. Livre XXII. RSI, 1974-75'', published in ''Ornicar?'', nos. 2-5, 1975. [[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]].
===Feminist Theory===
[[Lacan]]'s remarks on [[woman]] and on [[feminine sexuality]] have become the focus of controversy and debate in feminist theory.
Feminists have divided over whether to see [[Lacan]] as an ally or an enemy of the feminist cause.
Some have seen his theories as providing an incisive description of patriarchy and as a way of challenging fixed concepts of sexual identity.<ref>e.g. Mitchell , Juliet and Rose, Jacqueline (eds) (1982) ''Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the école freudienne'', London: Macmillan.</ref> Others have argued that his concept of the [[symbolic order]] reinstates patriarchy as a transhistorical given, and that his privileging of the [[phallus]] simply repeats the alleged misogynies of [[Freud]] himself.<ref>Gallop, Jane. (1982) ''Feminism and Psychoanalysis: The Daughter's Seduction'', London: Macmillan. ; Grosz, Elizabeth. (1990) ''Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction'', London and New York: Routledge.</ref>
==References==
