Lacan and French feminism: The story of a (non) relation

Abstract

This paper presents French feminist theories of the 1970s, especially regarding the use and interpretation they have made of Lacanian psychoanalysis, such as what we consider to have been the epistemological attitude that Lacan adopted at that moment. Substantially influenced by Derrida and poststructuralism, Irigaray and Cixous make their criticisms of the theoretical psychoanalytic arsenal that supposedly matched the patriarchal model, while conceiving a kind of subversive writing with political aspirations. Also for this purpose, Montrelay and Kristeva offer a consistent theoretical support to this movement. Wittig, marked by Marxism, interprets Lacanian concepts as determined by heterosexual mentality as a political regime. We think that Lacan, attentive to the feminist enthusiasm of this period, chooses to develop his theory of sexuation and dedicates itself to the formalization of the aphorism "There is no sexual relation".