Abstract

This chapter discusses Luce Irigaray's uneasy relationship with the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and Jacques Lacan, an uneasiness which mirrors her relationship with the trajectory of Western philosophy, which she both appropriates and tries to destabilize. In 'Female Sexuality', first published in 1931, Freud argues that boys and girls develop along the same lines until their third year. Irigaray criticizes Freud for making woman's reproductive capacity the most central aspect in his account of female sexuality. Like Freud, Lacan distinguishes various phases in the development of subjectivity. For Lacan woman's role is to enable man to experience oneness, self-recognition. The chapter presents Irigaray's critique of both Freud's and Lacan's interpretations of the Fort!Da! game and shows how she starts her development of a female language from their accounts.