On the Relation Between Feminism and Psychoanalysis

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Essay aus dem Jahr 2009 im Fachbereich Didaktik - Englisch - Landeskunde, Trinity College Dublin - The University of Dublin (Department of English), Veranstaltung: Critical and Cultural Theory, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: In her article Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression, Bell Hooks claimsthat the major problem within feminist discourse is the inability to either arrive at aconsensus of opinion about what feminism is or accept definition(s) that could serveas points of unification. Without agreed upon definitions, feminism lacks a soundfoundation on which to construct a theory or engage in overall meaningful praxis.Presumably it is also due to this internal vagueness in definition that feminismturned to other, more or less related, schools of thought such as Marxism, sciencestudies or psychoanalysis in order to stabilize itself in the academic world.From all liaisons with the above mentioned (and many other) analytic fields that feminismentered, I find psychoanalysis to be the most natural, as feminism, for all itsdifficulties in definition, explicitly aims to end sexist oppression4. In order to do so, itneeds to closely analyse sex, sexes, and gender(s), for which it lacks a methodologicalapparatus of its own. Whereas in other disciplines that feminists have tried to reshapefor their purposes (i.e. sciences more concerned with societal problems, such aspolitics) the argument for gender neutrality or irrelevance can be more easily sustainedby traditionalists, the advantages of a feminist psychoanalytic approach aresubstantial, as Nancy Chodorow5 argues: [...]

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