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[[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) "[[Works of Sigmund Freud|The Psychogenesis of a Case of Female Homosexuality]]", 1920a. [[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) ''[[Works of Sigmund Freud|The Question of Lay-Analysis]]'', 1926e. [[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) ''[[Works of Sigmund Freud|New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis]]'', 1933a. [[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'', 1933a. [[SE]] XXII, 116</ref></blockquote>
==Jacques Lacan==
===Women as Objects of Exchange===
The occasional statements on the [[subject]] which occur in [[Lacan]]'s [[Works of Sigmund Freud|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>[[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strauss, Claude]]. ''[[The Elementary Structures of Kinship]]'', Boston: Beacon Press, 1969 [1949b].</ref>
<blockquote>"Women in the real order serve . . . as objects for the exchanges required by the elementary structures of kinship."<ref>{{E}} p.207</ref></blockquote>
[[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]]:
<blockquote>For her, there's something insurmountable, let us say unacceptable, in the fact of being placed in the position of an [[object]] in the [[symbolic order]], to which, on the other hand, she is entirely subjected no less than the man.<ref>{{S2}} p.262</ref></blockquote>
====Dora Case====
===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 "[[woman|What is a woman?]]".
===Feminine Position===
This is true for both [[male]] and [[female]] [[hysteric]]s.<ref>{{S3}} p.178</ref>
The term "[[woman]]" here refers not to some [[biology|biological ]] essence but to a position in the [[symbolic order]]; it is synonymous with the term "[[feminine position]]".
[[Lacan]] also argues that "there is no symbolisation of woman's sex as such", since there is no feminine equivalent to the "highly prevalent symbol" provided by the [[phallus]].<ref>{{S3}} p.176</ref>
This symbolic dissymmetry forces the [[woman]] to take the same route through the [[Oedipus complex]] as the boy, i.e. to [[identify]] with the [[father]].
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}} p.176</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) "[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Propos directifs pour un congrès sur la sexualité féminine]],"1958d, 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]].
<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>
===Feminine ''Jouissance''===
[[Lacan]]'s most important contributions to the debate on [[femininity]] come, like [[Freud]]'s, late in his work.
In the [[seminar]] of 1972-3, [[Lacan]] advances the concept of a specifically [[feminine]] ''[[jouissance]]'' which goes "beyond the phallus";<ref>{{S20}} p.69</ref> this ''[[jouissance]]'' is "of the order of the infinite," like mystical ecstasy.<ref>{{S20}} p.44</ref>
[[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|Woman does not exist]]" (''la femme n'existe pas''),<ref>{{L}} (1973a) ''[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Télévision]]'', Paris: Seuil, 1973 [''[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment]]'', ed. Joan Copjec, trans. Denis Hollier, Rosalind Krauss and Annette Michelson, New York: Norton, 1990]. p.60</ref> which he here rephrases as "[[woman|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) "[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Conférence à Genève sur le symptôme]]", 1975b. ''Les Block-Notes de la psychanalyse'', Brussels.</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) ''[[Works of Jacques Lacan|Télévision]]'', Paris: Seuil, 1973 [''[[Works of Jacques Lacan|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 "a [[woman|woman is a symptom]]."<ref>{{L}} (1974-5) ''[[Seminar XXII|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]].
