and Continental philosophy. She is an interdisciplinary thinker who
works between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and linguistics. Originally
a student of the famous analyst Jacques Lacan, Irigaray's departure
from Lacan in Speculum of the Other Woman, where she critiques the
exclusion of women from both philosophy and psychoanalytic theory,
earned her recognition as a leading feminist theorist and continental
philosopher. Her subsequent texts provide a comprehensive analysis and
critique of the exclusion of women from the history of philosophy,
psychoanalytic theory and structural linguistics. Irigaray alleges
that women have been traditionally associated with matter and nature
to the expense of a female subject position. While women can become
subjects if they assimilate to male subjectivity, a separate subject
position for women does not exist. Irigaray's goal is to uncover the
absence of a female subject position, the relegation of all things
feminine to nature/matter, and, ultimately, the absence of true sexual
difference in Western culture. In addition to establishing this
critique, Irigaray offers suggestions for altering the situation of
women in Western culture. Mimesis, strategic essentialism, utopian
ideals, and employing novel language, are but some of the methods
central to changing contemporary culture. Irigaray's analysis of
women's exclusion from culture and her use of strategic essentialism
have been enormously influential in contemporary feminist theory. Her
work has generated productive discussions about how to define
femininity and sexual difference, whether strategic essentialism
should be employed, and assessing the risk involved in engaging
categories historically used to oppress women. Irigaray's work extends
beyond theory into practice. Irigaray has been actively engaged in the
feminist movement in Italy. She has participated in several
initiatives in Italy to implement a respect for sexual difference on a
cultural and, in her most recent work, governmental level. Her
contributions to feminist theory and continental philosophy are many
and her complete works present her readers with a rewarding challenge
to traditional conceptions of gender, self, and body.
1. BIOGRAPHY
In a 1993 interview with Margaret Whitford, Luce Irigaray specifically
says that she does not like to be asked personal questions. She does
not want opinions about her everyday life to interfere with
interpretations of her ideas. Irigaray believes that entrance into
intellectual discussions is a hard won battle for women and that
reference to biographical material is one way in which women's
credibility is challenged. It is no surprise that detailed
biographical information about Irigaray is limited and that different
accounts conflict.
What remains constant between accounts is that Luce Irigaray was born
in Belgium in 1932. She holds two doctoral degrees-one in Philosophy
and the other in Linguistics. She is also a trained and practicing
psychoanalyst. She has held a research post at the Centre National de
la Recherche Scientifique de Paris since 1964. She is currently the
Director of Research in Philosophy at the center, and also continues
her private practice. Perhaps the most well known fact of Irigaray's
life-which Irigaray herself refers to in the opening of je, tu,
nous-is her education at, and later expulsion from, the Ecole
Freudienne de Paris (Freudian School of Paris). The Ecole Freudienne
was founded by the famous psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Irigaray
trained at the school in the sixties. In 1974, she published the
thesis she wrote while studying at the school, Speculum, de l'autre
femme, translated into English as Speculum of the Other Woman. This
thesis criticized-among philosophical topics-the phallocentrism of
Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The publication of this thesis
gained her recognition, but also negatively affected Irigaray's
career. She was relieved of her teaching post at the University of
Vincennes and was ostracized by the Lacanian community. In spite of
these early hardships, Irigaray went on to become an influential and
prolific author in contemporary feminist theory and continental
philosophy. In addition to her intellectual accomplishments, Irigaray
is committed to active participation in the women's movement in both
France and internationally-especially in Italy. Several of her later
texts are dedicated to her work in the women's movement of Italy. She
is still actively researching and publishing.
2. IRIGARAY'S PROJECT
Irigaray argues that, since ancient times, mothers have been
associated with nature and unthinking matter. Further, Irigaray
believes that all women have historically been associated with the
role of "mother" such that, whether or not a woman is a mother, her
identity is always defined according to that role. This is in contrast
to men who are associated with culture and subjectivity. While
excluded from culture and subjectivity, women serve as their
unacknowledged support. In other words, while women are not considered
full subjects, society itself could not function without their
contributions. Irigaray ultimately states that Western culture itself
is founded upon a primary sacrifice of the mother, and all women
through her.
Based on this analysis, Irigaray says that sexual difference does not
exist. True sexual difference would require that men and women are
equally able to achieve subjectivity. As is, Irigaray believes that
men are subjects (e.g. self-conscious, self-same entities) and women
are "the other" of these subjects (e.g. the non-subjective, supporting
matter). Only one form of subjectivity exists in Western culture and
it is male. While Irigaray is influenced by both psychoanalytic theory
and philosophy, she identifies them both as influential discourses
that exclude women from a social existence as mature subjects. In many
of her texts, Irigaray seeks to unveil how both psychoanalytic theory
and philosophy exclude women from a genuine social existence as
autonomous subjects, and relegate women to the realm of inert,
lifeless, inessential matter. With this critique in place, Irigaray
suggests how women can begin to reconfigure their identity such that
one sex does not exist at the expense of the other. However, she is
unwilling to definitively state what that new identity should be like.
Irigaray refrains from prescribing a new identity because she wants
women to determine for themselves how they want to be defined. While
both philosophy and psychoanalytic theory are her targets, Irigaray
identifies philosophy as the master discourse. Irigaray's reasons for
this designation are revealed in Speculum of the Other Woman where she
demonstrates how philosophy-since Ancient times-has articulated
fundamental epistemological, ontological, and metaphysical truths from
a male perspective that excludes women. While she is not suggesting
that philosophy is single-handedly responsible for the history of
women's oppression, she wants to emphasize that the similar type of
exclusion manifest in both philosophy and psychoanalysis predates the
birth of psychoanalysis. As the companion discourse to philosophy,
psychoanalysis plays a unique role. While Irigaray praises
psychoanalysis for utilizing the method of analysis to reveal the
plight of female subjectivity, she also thinks that it reinforces it.
Freud attempts to explain female subjectivity and sexuality according
to a male model. From this perspective, female subjectivity looks like
a deformed or insufficiently developed form of male subjectivity.
Irigaray argues that if Freud had turned the tools of analysis onto
his own discourse, then he would have seen that female subjectivity
cannot be understood through the lenses of a one-sex model. In other
words, negative views of women exist because of theoretical bias-not
because of nature. Through her critiques of both philosophy and
psychoanalytic theory, Irigaray argues that women need to attain a
social existence separate from the role of mother. However, this alone
will not change the current state of affairs. For Irigaray is not
suggesting that the social role of women will change if they merely
step over the line of nature into culture. Irigaray believes that true
social change will occur only if society challenges its perception of
nature as unthinking matter to be dominated and controlled. Thus,
while women must attain subjectivity, men must become more embodied.
Irigaray argues that both men and women have to reconfigure their
subjectivity so that they both understand themselves as belonging
equally to nature and culture. Irigaray's discussions of mimesis,
novel language and utopian ideals, reconfiguring the mother/daughter
relationship, altering language itself, ethics, and politics are all
central to achieving this end.
3. INFLUENCES
Irigaray's interdisciplinary interests in philosophy, psychoanalysis,
and linguistics underscore that her work has more than one influence.
Two main discourses that maintain a strong presence throughout her
work are psychoanalysis, with Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan as its
representatives, and philosophy. Insofar as Lacanian psychoanalysis
works out of a background in structural linguistics, both Lacan and
Irigaray also focus on language. Irigaray engages with philosophy,
psychoanalysis and linguistics in order to uncover the lack of true
sexual difference in Western culture.
a. Psychoanalysis
Irigaray states on the opening page of An Ethics of Sexual Difference
that each age is defined by a philosophical issue that calls to be
thoroughly examined-ours is sexual difference. Sexual difference is
often associated with the anatomical differences between the sexes.
However, Irigaray follows the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in
understanding sexual difference as a difference that is assigned in
language. While Irigaray is critical of Lacan, she is influenced by
Lacan's interpretation of Freud's theory of subject formation.
Freud's work has served as a starting point for diverse psychoanalytic
theories such as drive theory, object relations theory, and ego
psychology. Lacan interprets Freud's work from a background in
structural linguistics, philosophy, and, of course, psychoanalysis. Of
particular importance to Irigaray's work is Lacan's claim that there
are two key moments in the formation of a child's identity: the
formation of an imaginary body and the assignation of sexual
difference in language. Freud introduces the idea of an imaginary body
in The Ego and the Id, in the section of the same name, when he
describes the ego (self-consciousness) as neither strictly a psychic
phenomenon nor a bodily phenomenon. Freud believes that an ego is
formed in reference to a body, such that the manner in which an infant
understands his or her selfhood is inseparable from his or her bodily
existence. However, the body that an infant attributes to him or
herself is not objectively understood-it is the mind's understanding
of the body. This means that a person's understanding of his or her
own body is imbued with a degree of fantasy and imagination. In his
famous essay "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I," Lacan expands
Freud's comments on the bodily ego into a theory about imaginary
anatomy. Lacan states that the first of two key moments in subject
formation is the projection of an imaginary body. This occurs in the
mirror stage at roughly six months. As a being who still lacks
mobility and motor control, an infant who is placed in front of a
mirror (another person can serve here as well, typically the mother)
will identify with the unified, idealized image that is reflected back
in the mirror. While the image in the mirror does not match the
infant's experience, it is a key moment in the development of his or
her ego. Rather than identify with him or herself as a helpless being,
the child choose to identify with the idealized image of him or
herself. Lacan believes that the element of fantasy and imagination
involved in the identification with the mirror image marks the image
as simultaneously representative and misrepresentative of the infant.
While the body of the mirror stage is key to the infant's identity, it
is also only an interpretation of his or her biological existence. In
other words, according to Lacan, one's understanding of one's body
occurs only in conjunction with an organization in language and image
that begins in the mirror stage, and is further complicated by the
next stage of ego formation-entrance into the Symbolic order. Irigaray
agrees with Lacan that how we understand our biology is largely
culturally influenced-thus does she accept the idea of an imaginary
body. Irigaray employs the Lacanian imaginary body in her discussions
about Western culture's bias against women. Irigaray argues that, like
people, cultures project dominant imaginary schemes which then affect
how that culture understands and defines itself. According to
Irigaray, in Western culture, the imaginary body which dominates on a
cultural level is a male body. Irigaray thus argues that Western
culture privileges identity, unity, and sight-all of which she
believes are associated with male anatomy. She believes that fields
such as philosophy, psychoanalysis, science and medicine are
controlled by this imaginary. Three examples from her work illustrate
her view. In Speculum of the Other Woman, Irigaray addresses Freud's
claim in his essay "Femininity" that little girls are only little men.
She argues that Freud could not understand women because he was
influenced by the one-sex theory of his time (men exist and women are
a variation of men), and expanded his own, male experience of the
world into a general theory applicable to all humans. According to
Irigaray, since Freud was unable to imagine another perspective, his
reduction of women to male experience resulted in viewing women as
defective men. Another example is found in "Cosi Fan Tutti," (in This
Sex Which Is Not One) where Irigaray argues that Lacan's ahistorical
master signifier of the Symbolic order-the Phallus-is a projection of
the male body. Irigaray argues that Lacan failed to diagnose the error
of his predecessor, Freud, and similarly understood the world-and
especially language-in terms of a one-sex model of sexuality and
subjectivity. Although Lacan claims that the Phallus is not connected
to male biology, his appropriation of Freud renders this claim false.
A final example is found in "The Mechanics of 'Fluids'" (also in This
Sex Which Is Not One) where Irigaray argues that science itself is
biased towards categories typically personified as masculine (e.g.
solids as opposed to fluids). Irigaray believes that if women are not
understood in Western culture, it is because Western culture has yet
to accept alternate paradigms for understanding them. While selfhood
begins in the mirror stage with the imaginary body, it is not
solidified until one enters the Symbolic order. According to Lacan,
the Symbolic order is an ahistorical system of language that must be
entered for a person to have a coherent social identity. The Phallus
is the privileged master signifier of the Symbolic order. One must
have a relationship to the Phallus if one is to attain social
existence. According to Lacan, infants in the mirror stage do not
differentiate between themselves and the world. For example, an infant
views him or herself as continuous with his or her mother, and this
understanding of the mother-child relationship organizes the infant's
world. However, as the infant matures, he or she becomes aware that
his or her mothers' attention is not wholly directed toward the infant
in a reciprocal manner. The mother participates in a larger social
context dominated by the Symbolic order. The infant fantasizes that if
he or she could occupy the role of the Phallus-the master signifer of
that Symbolic order-he or she could regain the full attention of the
mother. However, this is impossible. In exchange for giving up this
fantasy-which the Father demands of the child in the Oedipus
complex-the infant gains his or her own relationship to the Phallus.
The infant must break with the mother (nature, pre-symbolic) in order
to become a subject (culture, symbolic order). One among many unique
claims of Lacan's is that the infant acquires sexual difference in his
or her relationship to the Phallus. According to Lacan, sexual
difference is not about biological imperative (e.g. if you have a
penis you are male, if you have a vagina you are female), it is about
having one of two types of relationship to the Phallus-having or being
the Phallus. Hence, in the Lacanian view, the body as humans
understand it is something that is constructed in the mirror stage,
and sexually differentiated in the entrance to the Symbolic order.
Irigaray critically appropriates this radical description of sexual
difference. She discusses the linguistic character of sexual
difference in a manner similar to Lacan in This Sex Which Is Not One.
Irigaray is more concerned with how culture-and language as a product
of culture-understands sexual difference and subjectivity than with
arguing that truths about sexual difference or subjectivity emerge out
of biology itself. However she distances herself from Lacan in two key
manners. First, Irigaray disagrees with Lacan's depiction of the
Symbolic order as ahistorical and unchanging. Irigaray believes that
language systems are malleable, and largely determined by power
relationships that are in flux. Second, Irigaray remains unconvinced
by Lacan's claims that the Phallus is an ahistorical master signifier
of the Symbolic order that has no connection to male anatomy. In "Cosi
Fan Tutti," she argues that the Phallus is not a purely symbolic
category, but is ultimately an extension of-and reinforcement
of-Freud's description of the world according to a one-sex model.
According to Irigaray, the Phallus as the master signifier (that can
be traced back to male anatomy) is evidence that the Symbolic order is
constructed and not ahistorical.
b. Philosophy
Irigaray is also influenced by her extensive study of the history of
philosophy. Texts such as Speculum of the Other Woman and An Ethics of
Sexual Difference demonstrate her command of the philosophical canon.
Speculum of the Other Woman discusses the elision of all things
feminine in traditional thinkers such as Aristotle, Descartes, Kant,
and Hegel. An Ethics of Sexual Difference also discusses the elision
of the feminine, but specifically from the perspective of ethical
relationships between men and women. An Ethics of Sexual Difference
addresses thinkers as diverse as Plato, Merleau-Ponty, Spinoza, and
Levinas. Irigaray is also writing a series of texts devoted to the
four elements. The elemental works Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche
and The Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger are sustained
discussions of the exclusions implemented by key male philosophers.
No one philosopher can be identified as influencing Irigaray. She
appropriates from various thinkers while maintaining a critical
distance. For example, her method of mimesis resembles Derridian
deconstruction. However, she also criticizes Derrida's deconstruction
of the category "woman" (see Derrida's Spurs) in Marine Lover. As
another example, she agrees with Heidegger that every age has a
concept that underlies and informs its beliefs, but is radically
unknown to it. For Heidegger it was "Being," for Irigaray it is
"sexual difference." Like Heidegger, she wants to investigate the
concept that Western culture takes to be self-evident in order to show
that it is unknown to us. However she is critical in The Forgetting of
Air in Martin Heidegger of Heidegger's exclusion of women. One can
also find Levinasian (An Ethics of Sexual Difference), Hegelian (I
love to you) or Marxist (This Sex Which Is Not One, "Women on the
Market") undertones in Irigaray's discussions of ethics and
dialectical thinking. While she is clearly influenced by the history
of philosophy, her own project of creating a new space for redefining
women does not permit her to privilege any one philosophical approach.
4. Major Themes
a. Mimesis
Irigaray describes herself as analyzing both the analysts and the
philosophers. Perhaps the most famous critical tool employed by
Irigaray is mimesis. Mimesis is a process of resubmitting women to
stereotypical views of women in order to call the views themselves
into question. Key to mimesis is that the stereotypical views are not
repeated faithfully. One example is that if women are viewed as
illogical, women should speak logically about this view. According to
Irigaray, the juxtaposition of illogical and logical undermines the
claim that women are illogical. Or if women's bodies are viewed as
multiple and dispersed, women should speak from that position in a
playful way that suggests that this view stems from a masculine
economy that values identity and unity (e.g. the penis or the Phallus)
and excludes women as the other (e.g. lack, dispersed, or "nothing to
see"). This type of mimesis is also known as strategic essentialism.
Irigaray's essay "This Sex Which Is Not One," in the text of the same
name, provides several clear examples of this method.
According to Irigaray, the very possibility of repeating a negative
view unfaithfully suggests that women are something other than the
view expressed. Irigaray repeats the views because she believes that
overcoming harmful views of women cannot occur through simply ignoring
the views. True to the methodology of psychoanalysis, she believes
that negative views can only be overcome when they are exposed and
demystified. When successfully employed, mimesis repeats a negative
view-without reducing women to that view-and makes fun of it such that
the view itself must be discarded. Irigaray's wager in utilizing
mimesis with regard to female subjectivity is as follows. Male
dominance has defined Western culture for centuries. If a new form of
subjectivity comes into being out of the death of the modern,
transcendental subject, and we have never really investigated or
mimetically engaged with the deformed, female form of subjectivity
that accompanied and sustained the male form, then what would prevent
the logic of master/subject/male and slave/other/female from repeating
itself? According to Irigaray, the logic will not be altered until we
call attention to the fact that subjectivity has changed before when
male dominance has not. We must ask after the feminine other. Irigaray
believes that only by asking after the other through mimesis will it
be possible to affect a paradigm shift. Irigaray therefore speaks from
the silenced position of women in order to (a) challenge the authority
of either the negative view or the repression by revealing that
position to be nothing more than a fabrication (b) show how the
woman/body has been excluded by either revealing the stereotypical
view to be false or by inciting the excluded woman/body to speak and
(c) thereby force a shift in the conception of female subjectivity and
the body. Irigaray employs mimesis because she believes that a 'second
sex' cannot exist in its own right (or with a positive form of
identity as opposed to being viewed as a deformed version of male
identity) until we have not only challenged, but also passed back
through the oppressive formulation of sexual difference in
contemporary Western culture.
b. Novel Language and Utopian Ideals
While the goal of mimesis is to problematize the male definition of
femininity to such a degree that a new definition of and, ultimately,
an embodied subject position for women can emerge, Irigaray says in
her earlier work that she will not prescribe in advance either the
definition or the subject position. In This Sex Which Is Not One,
Irigaray clearly indicates that she will not redefine femininity
because it would interfere with women redefining themselves for
themselves. Further, she believes that she cannot describe the
feminine (e.g. female subjectivity, the female imaginary body) outside
of the current, male definitions without further disrupting the male
definitions of women. A new definition for women has to emerge out of
a mimetic engagement with the old definitions, and it is a collective
process.
Irigaray is, however, willing to provide material to help ignite the
process of redefinition. The material she offers varies from new
concepts about religion and bodies-expressed through both the novel
use of existing words and the creation of new words-to utopian ideals.
One example of a new concept that she puts into play through novel
language is her discussion of the sensible/transcendental and female
divinity. Irigaray introduces these concepts in order to disrupt male
dominance in religion. Irigaray follows Feuerbach in interpreting the
divine as an organizing principle for both identity and culture.
Religion is thus viewed as caught up in power and culture. Irigaray
specifically targets male dominated religions that posit a
transcendental God. She believes that these religions reinforce male
dominance and the division of the world into male/subject and
female/body. She suggests that in place of a religion that focuses on
a transcendent God, we construct a divinity that is both sensible and
transcendental. In other words, given the connection between religion
and culture, and the manner in which the mind/body split has fallen
out along gender lines, why not propose a vision of divinity that will
help Western culture overcome its dualisms and prejudices about those
dualisms. Irigaray is not prescribing the sensible/transcendental as a
new religion to be implemented and followed, but merely placing it in
circulation as a creative impetus for change. An example of utopian
ideals can be found in Sexes and Genealogies, thinking the difference,
and je, tu, nous. In these texts, Irigaray describes civil laws that
she believes would help women achieve social existence (mature
subjectivity) in Western culture. In one law she suggests that
virginity needs to be protected under the law so that women have
control over their own sexuality. She also describes new ways in which
the mother/daughter relationship should be legally protected, and
outlines how mothers and daughters can communicate with each other so
that female subjectivity can be further developed. When these texts
were first published, these views were widely interpreted as
suggestions intended to initiate discussions between women (utopian
ideals) and not as prescriptions for social change. While Irigaray's
later work has complicated this interpretation, it is still widely
accepted.
c. Mother/Daughter Relationships
According to Irigaray, while it is necessary to alter cultural norms,
it is equally as important to address the problematic nature of
individual relationships between women-especially the mother/daughter
relationship. To emphasize how mother/daughter relationships are
sundered in contemporary Western culture, Irigaray turns to Greek
mythology. For example, she discusses the myth of Demeter, the goddess
of the earth (agriculture), and her daughter Persephone. In the myth,
Zeus, Persephone's father, aids his brother Hades, king of the
underworld, to abduct the young Perspephone. Hades has fallen in love
with Persephone and wants her to be queen of the underworld. When
Demeter learns that her daughter is missing, she is devastated and
abandons her role as goddess of the earth. The earth becomes barren.
To reestablish harmony in the world, Zeus needs Demeter to return to
her divine responsibilities. Zeus orders Hades to return Persephone.
However, Persephone is tricked into eating a pomegranate seed that
binds her to Hades forever. Under the persuasion of Zeus, Hades agrees
to release Persephone from the underworld for half of each year.
Irigaray reads this myth as an example of both a positive
mother/daughter relationship, and the success of men at breaking it
apart. Demeter and Persephone love each other and Demeter strives to
protect her daughter. However, in this myth they are ultimately at the
mercy of the more powerful males. The myth is also an example of men
exchanging women as if they were commodities. Zeus conspires with his
brother and, in effect, gives his daughter away without consulting
either Persephone or Demeter. Irigaray believes that myths tell us
something about the deterioration of the mother/daughter relationship
and the manner in which men have traditionally controlled the fate of
women-whether they are wives, daughters, sisters, or mothers. Irigaray
utilizes myth to suggest that mothers and daughters need to protect
their relationships and strengthen their bonds to one another.
The need to alter the mother/daughter relationship is a constant theme
in Irigaray's work. While she believes that women's social and
political situation has to be addressed on a global level, she also
thinks that change begins in individual relationships between women.
Thus she stresses the need for mothers to represent themselves
differently to their daughters, and to emphasize their daughter's
subjectivity. For example, in je, tu, nous, Irigaray offers
suggestions for developing mother-daughter relationships such as
displaying images of the mother-daughter couple, or consciously
emphasizing that the daughter and the mother are both subjects in
their own right. Changing relationships between mothers and daughters
also requires language work.
d. Language
Since Irigaray agrees with Lacan that one must enter language
(culture) in order to be a subject, she believes that language itself
must change if women are to have their own subjectivity that is
recognized at a cultural level. She believes that language typically
excludes women from an active subject position. Further, inclusion of
women in the current form of subjectivity is not the solution.
Irigaray's goal is for there to be more than one subject position in
language.
In order to prove that language excludes women from subjectivity,
Irigaray conducted research that links the exclusion of women from
subjectivity in Western culture to the speech patterns of men and
women. She concluded that general speech patterns specific to each sex
do exist and that women often do not occupy the subject position in
language. She argues that in language experiments, women were less
willing to occupy the subject position. Referring to the French
language as a clear example-even though she believes that the
structure of the English language does not exempt it from sexism-she
discusses the dominance of the masculine in both the plural and the
neuter, which takes the same form as the masculine. Irigaray argues
that objects of value, such as the sun or God, are typically marked
with the masculine gender while less important objects are feminine.
Since language and society mutually affect each other, Irigaray
believes that language must change along with society. Failure to see
the importance of changing language is an impediment to real change.
According to Irigaray, it is crucial that women learn to occupy the
position of "I" and "you" in language. Irigaray views the "I" and the
"you" as markers of subjectivity. In her text I love to you, Irigaray
describes how she determined that women do not occupy the subject
position. She conducted an experiment where she gave her subjects a
noun (e.g. enfant) and asked her test subjects to use the noun in a
sentence as a pronoun (il or elle). The majority of both men and women
consistently chose "il". She noted in another experiment, where she
gave a sequence that implied the use of "elle" (e.g. robe-se-voir),
that both sexes avoided using "elle" (she) and "elle se" (she herself)
as an active subject. In contrast, when she gave a sequence that
implied the use of il as a subject, it was almost always used.
Further, Irigaray discovered that young girls seek an intersubjective
dialogue with their mothers, but that their mothers did not
reciprocate. Irigaray concludes from her research that women are not
subjects in language in the same way as men. She believes that men and
women do not produce the same sentences with similar cues, they use
prepositions differently, and they represent temporality in language
differently. Irigaray seeks for men and women to recognize each other
in language as irreducible others. She argues that this cannot happen
until women occupy the subject position, and men learn to communicate
with other subjects. Irigaray believes that a language of
'indirection' could help bring this to fruition. She describes this in
her book I love to you. The title itself is an example of this
language of indirection. Saying "I love to you" rather than "I love
you" is a way of symbolizing a respect for the other. The "to" is a
verbal barrier against appropriating or subjugating the other.
Speaking differently in this manner is an integral part of Irigaray's
general project to cultivate true intersubjectivity between the
genders. However, she does not put forth a definitive plan for
implementing this change in language.
e. Ethics
While ethics is a constant theme throughout her work, Irigaray's text
An Ethics of Sexual Difference is devoted to this theme. In this text,
Irigaray intertwines essays of her own on the ethics of sexual
difference with dialogues that she has created between herself and six
male philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Merleau-Ponty
and Levinas. Irigaray groups the dialogues into four sections that
each begin with an essay of her own about sexual difference and love.
Her own essay signals what themes she will address with regard to each
of the philosophers she discusses. Irigaray utilizes her analyses of
the male philosophers to discuss the following themes which are
essential to her ethics: creative relationships between men and women
that are not based in reproduction, separate 'places' for men and
women (emotional and embodied), wonder at the difference of the other,
acknowledgement of finiteness and intersubjectivity, and an embodied
divinity.
In the first section, which engages Plato and Aristotle, Irigaray
emphasizes that an ethical love relationship must be creative
independent of procreation, and that both men and women need to have a
place for themselves (be embodied individuals) that is open to, but
not subsumable by, the other. In the second section, using Descartes
and Spinoza, she argues that ethical love cannot occur between men and
women until there is respect and wonder for the irreducible difference
of the other, and an admittance and acceptance of one's finiteness. In
the third section, in which there is no engagement with a male
philosopher, Irigaray describes how the infinite is essential to love
between men and women. She believes that it is unethical that women
have not had access to subjectivity, and that the universals of our
culture have been dominated by a male imaginary. She says that ethics
requires that men and women understand themselves as embodied
subjects. In the fourth and final section, Irigaray discusses
Merleau-Ponty and Levinas. She argues that if ethical relationships
are to occur between men and women, men must overcome nostalgia for
the womb. Thus will they develop their identity, and open up a space
for women to create their own. Further, Irigaray believes that we must
think both otherness and divinity in conjunction with embodiment. She
believes that separating mind and body is unethical insofar as it
perpetuates the division in culture between man/mind and woman/body.
Ethics involves thinking of otherness and divinity in terms of the
sensible/transcendental. At the end of her An Ethics of Sexual
Difference, it is clear that Irigaray does not believe that Western
culture is ethical, and that the primary reason is its treatment of
women and nature. She believes that nothing short of altering our
views of subjectivity, science, and religion can change this
situation. Men and women must work together to learn to respect the
irreducible difference between them. Women must become full subjects,
and men must recognize that they are embodied. Further, ethical love
relationships are based in respect for alterity and creativity outside
of reproduction. Her text I love to you, which focuses on both
language and ethics, is a clear example of how her discussion of
ethics can also be developed from a Hegelian perspective.
f. Politics
Irigaray refuses to belong to any one group in the feminist movement
because she believes that there is a tendency for groups to set
themselves up against each other. When groups within the women's
movement fight each other, this detracts from the overall goal of
trying to positively alter the social, political, and symbolic
position of women. Irigaray models solidarity among women in her
unwillingness to belong exclusively to one group.
Irigaray is particularly active in the feminist movement in Italy.
Texts such as I love to you, Democracy Begins Between Two, and Two Be
Two were all inspired by and, at various moments, give accounts of
Irigaray's experience with the Italian women's movement. An example of
Irigaray's most recent collaborations with Italy, and a testimony to
her commitment to her ideas, is her collaboration with the Commission
for Equal Opportunities for the region of Emilia-Romagna. She was
invited by this region to educate its citizens about her political
ideals. Her text, Democracy Begins Between Two, was a part of that
collaboration insofar as it was the theoretical work behind her role
as adviser. In that text she also describes how she and Renzo Imbeni
co-authored a "Report on Citizenship of the Union." This report argued
for rights based on sexual difference and was submitted to the
European Parliament for ratification.
5. Criticisms
a. Strategic Essentialism
Irigaray's use of strategic essentialism has been criticized as
essentialism itself-or of endorsing the belief that social behavior
follows from biology. The appearance of her translated work in the
United States was met with great opposition. She was read as further
naturalizing women at a time when women were benefiting both
politically and socially from arguing that biology did not matter.
Irigaray and her supporters defended her engagement with essentialist
views as a strategy. They argued that when Irigaray seeks to alter the
exclusion of the feminine by repeating or reiterating naturalizing
discourses about female bodies, she is not suggesting a return to a
lost female body that pre-exists patriarchy. Rather, she is employing
her strategy of mimesis. While many contemporary interpreters now
accept this view, strategic essentialism remains a controversial
aspect of Irigaray's work.
b. Privileges Psychological Oppression
Irigaray has been criticized-especially by materialist feminists-on
the grounds that she privileges questions of psychological oppression
over social/material oppression. The concern is that the
psychoanalytic discourse that Irigaray relies upon-even though she is
critical of it-universalizes and abstracts away from material
conditions that are of central concern to feminism. Materialist
feminists do not believe that definitive changes in the structure of
politics can result from the changes Irigaray proposes in
psychoanalytic theories of subject formation. However, Irigaray's goal
to challenge psychoanalytic theory and to change the definition of
femininity evinces an agreement with the materialist position. Both
agree that the ahistorical, overly universalized character of
traditional psychoanalytic theory must be rejected. Further, Irigaray
argues that focusing on language work and on altering allegedly
intractable structures does not mean that women have to ignore
material conditions. In This Sex Which Is Not One, Irigaray says that
simultaneous with her challenges to the symbolic order, women must
fight for equal wages, and against discrimination in employment and
education. Irigaray recognizes that it is important to find ways to
challenge the social and economic position in which women find
themselves. But focusing exclusively on women's material or economic
situation as the key to change will only-at best-grant women access to
a male social role insofar as it will not change the definition of
women. Irigaray's response to first changing material conditions would
be that it would leave the question of a non-patriarchal view of
female identity untouched. Due to the force of the oppression of
women, it is the definitions that have to be changed before women, as
distinct from men, will attain a social existence.
c. Elides Differences
Related to the materialist critique is the question of whether or not
Irigaray's psychoanalytic approach can account for real differences
between women. Irigaray often discusses a subject position for women
and a new definition of women. A common question asked of Irigaray is
whether or not a universal definition for women is desirable
considering the real differences between women. More specifically, if
Irigaray insists on a universal subject position for women, will it be
exclusively determined by first world, white, middle class women? Can
her universal successfully include the experiences of minority women,
second and third world women, and economically disadvantaged women? Or
does it create further exclusion among the excluded themselves?
Irigaray's interpreters remain divided on this question.
d. Opaque Writing Style
Irigaray is often criticized along with other French feminists, such
as Julia Kristeva, for the opacity of her writing style. Based on her
writing style, she has been dismissed as elitist. Irigaray's writing
is undeniably challenging and complex. But, the difficulty of her work
can be equally productive as it is labor intensive. Irigaray's opacity
can be viewed as fruitful when understood in conjunction with one mode
of writing that she assumes-that of an analyst. In this style of
writing, Irigaray not only will not assume the position of a
master-knower who imparts knowledge in a linear manner, she also
considers her readers' reactions to her work to be an integral part of
that work. Her alleged failure to be clear, or to give a concrete,
linear feminist theory, are invitations for readers to imagine their
own vision for the future. Like the psychoanalytic session, her texts
are a collaboration between writer (analyst) and reader (analysand).
Irigaray believes that, through writing in this style, she can take
culture as a whole as her analysand.
e. Exclusive Ethics
Irigaray's view of ethics is criticized because she describes the
quintessential ethical relationship using a man and a woman. The
question arises of whether or not Irigaray is suggesting that the
heterosexual couple is the model for ethical relationships. Since it
is unclear whether or not Irigaray's view can be applied to other
types of relationships (e.g. same sex friendships or same sex love
relationships), this point of criticism remains unresolved. Related to
this critique is a concern that Irigaray's emphasis on sexual
difference and male/female relationships also prevent her from
accounting for non-traditional family arrangements.
f. Later Work
Irigaray's most recent work raises the final point of controversy. In
her earlier work, Irigaray refuses to give a new definition of women
because she thinks that women must give it to themselves. However, in
her most recent work she has developed laws that she submitted to the
European Parliament for ratification. Irigaray's interpreters debate
about the relationship between her early work and her most recent
texts. Is there continuity between the early and the later position?
Or has Irigaray abandoned her earlier project? A spectrum of
interpretations are available with no final answer.
6. Annotated Selected Bibliography
a. English Translations
Irigaray, Luce. An Ethics of Sexual Difference. Trans. Carolyn Burke
and Gillian C. Gill. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993. (Mimetic engagement
with Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas
on the question of ethics. Irigaray elaborates here her own vision for
ethical relationships.)
Between East and West: From Singularity to Community. Trans. Stephen
Pluhácek. New York: Columbia UP, 2002. (Draws on Eastern philosophy
and meditative techniques such as yoga to suggest new approaches to
the question of sexual difference.) Democracy Begins Between Two.
Trans. Kirsteen Anderson. New York: Routledge, 2000. (Inspired by a
partnership with the Commission for Equal Opportunities for the region
of Emilia-Romagna in Italy, this text describes civil rights for women
that would grant them an equal social position to men. This text also
includes the Report on Citizenship of the Union by Renzo Imbeni. This
report was written in collaboration with Irigaray and submitted to the
European Parliament for ratification.) Elemental Passions. Trans.
Joanne Collie and Judith Still. New York: Routledge, 1992. (One text
in Irigaray's series of elemental works. Addresses the relationship
between men and women within the context of the elements and the
senses.) je, tu, nous: towards a culture of difference. Trans. Alison
Martin. New York: Routledge, 1993. (A series of essays that address
diverse issues such as civil rights for women and prejudices in
biology about the mother-fetus relationship.) I love to you: sketch of
a possible felicity in history. Trans. Alison Martin. New York:
Routledge, 1996. (Strategic engagement with Hegel in which Irigaray
appropriates his use of dialectic in order to describe how men and
women are both individuals and members of their gender. Also includes
an extensive discussion of the language of indirection that Irigaray
believes facilitates ethical relationships between men and women.) The
Irigaray Reader. Ed. Margaret Whitford. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991.
(Useful compilation of essays, some of which are found in the texts
listed here.) Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche. Trans. Gillian C.
Gill. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. (One text in
Irigaray's elemental series, this text is a strategic engagement with
Nietzsche and Derrida on the elision of femininity.) Sexes and
Genealogies. Trans. Gillian C. Gill. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1993. (Compilation of essays that address themes as diverse as
how to alter the psychoanalytic session to descriptions of the
sensible/transcendental.) Speculum of the Other Woman. Trans. Gillian
C. Gill. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985. (Irigaray's doctoral
dissertation. This text is a complex engagement with the history of
philosophy and psychoanalytic theory.) The Forgetting of Air in Martin
Heidegger. Trans. Mary Beth Mader. Austin: University of Texas Press,
1999. (One text in Irigaray's elemental series. This text is a
strategic engagement with the philosopher Martin Heidegger.) Thinking
the Difference: For a Peaceful Revolution. Trans. Karin Montin. New
York: Routledge, 1994. (Compilation of essays on diverse themes.
Similar in structure to je, tu, nous.) This Sex Which Is Not One.
Trans. Catherine Porter. New York: Cornell University Press, 1985.
(Compilation of essays that discuss themes as diverse as where
Lacanian theory went wrong, what mimesis is, and how to give a Marxist
critique of the exchange of women in Western culture.) To Be Two.
Trans. Monique M. Rhodes and Marco F. Cocito-Monoc. New York:
Routledge, 2001. (Later work. Further exploration of the question of
difference and alterity.) To Speak Is Never Neutral. New York:
Routledge, 2000. (Sustained discussion of language. Studying the
language of both mentally ill and normal subjects, Irigaray argues
that language is never deployed in a completely neutral manner.) Why
Different?. Trans. Camille Collins. Ed. Luce Irigaray and Sylvere
Lotinger. New York: Semiotext(e) Foreign Agent Series, 2000. (A
compilation of interviews with Irigaray about select work written in
the 80's and 90's such as Sexes and Genealogies and Language is Never
Neutral.)
b. Suggested Further Reading
Chanter, Tina. Ethics of Eros: Irigaray's Re-Writing of the
Philosophers. New York: Routledge, 1995. (Thoroughly discusses
philosophical influences on Irigaray's work. Argues that comprehending
the philosophical influences on Irigaray highlights her innovative
ideas about the now passe sex/gender distinction.)
Cheah, Pheng and Elizabeth Grosz. "The Future of Sexual Difference: An
Interview with Judith Butler and Drucilla Cornell." Diacritics, no.
28.1 (1998): 19-41. (Highlights central disagreements between
prominent feminist thinkers about Irigaray's work.) Freud, Sigmund.
Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud.
Trans. James Strachey in collaboration with Anna Freud. 24 vols.
London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1953-1974.
Freud, Sigmund. The Freud Reader. Ed. Peter Gay. NewYork: W.W. Norton
& Co., 1989. (Accessible compilation of Freud's work. Of particular
interest are "The Ego and the Id," "Femininity," "Mourning and
Melancholia," and "Three Essays On The Theory of Sexuality." For
unabridged versions of texts, consult the standard edition listed
above.) Fuss, Diana. Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature and
Difference. New York: Routledge, 1989. (Interesting discussion of
strategic essentialism. Includes a discussion of Irigaray, pp. 55-72.)
Gatens, Moira. Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power, and Corporeality. New
York: Routledge, 1996. (Useful discussion of how the imaginary body
plays out at a cultural level.) Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies:
Towards a Corporeal Feminism. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
1994. (A central text in philosophy of the body and the overcoming of
dualisms.) Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York:
W.W. Nortion & Co., 1977. (An accessible compilation of key essays in
Lacanian thought.) Feminine Sexuality. Ed. Mitchell, Juliet and
Jacqueline Rose. Trans. Jaqueline Rose. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.,
1985. (An accessible compilation of key essays by Lacan on feminine
sexuality.) Lorraine, Tamsin. Irigaray and Deleuze: Experiments in
Visceral Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. (Very
clear description of difficult aspects of Irigaray's thought.
Interesting thesis about connections with Deleuze and Guatarri.)
Schor, Naomi. "This Essentialism Which is Not One." Ed. Burke,
Carolyn, Naomi Schor, and Margaret Whitford. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1994. (Very famous and useful discussion of the
different kinds of essentialism.) Whitford, Margaret. Luce Irigaray:
Philosophy in the Feminine. New York: Routledge, 1991. (Whitford
writes about the psychoanalytic influence on Irigaray's work. Whitford
fleshes out Irigaray's appropriation of key psychoanalytic themes and
clearly explains complex aspects of Irigaray's work.)
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