Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!Anonymous
From: Anonymous@ecsvax.uncecs.edu
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: lacan
Message-ID: <5636@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 23 Oct 88 13:54:44 GMT
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A friend writes about Lacan:

First of all, he is a freudian. Of the classic school that brought us
Penis Envy -- the stupifying phallocentric theory that the discovery
of her lack of a penis deals every little girl a massive shock that
from which she never recovers without analysis. Also of the school
that denies the reality of sexual abuse of children (particularly 
female children), preferring to think that stories of it are
fantasies of little girls with oedipal problems.

Freud's basic methodological insight was reasonable --
self-examination of dreams can reveal unconscious conflicts. It just
never occurred to him to ask a woman to do the same instead of
deciding a-priori what her conflicts were gonna be.

According to Sherry Turkle's book on Lacan, he is / was a specialist
in what I would call intellectial nihilism. He delights (in what may
be a singularly French phenomenon) in demonstrating that nothing
works. In particular, that the "self" or "ego" is a bourgoise myth.

I haven't time to go dig out the book and extract some juicy morsels,
but I suggest that the rest of you find it before devoting any
braincells to his theory on language and gender.

My personal opinion is that this theory is nothing more than very
thinly disguised sexism. Only someone who has never kept a house could
imagine that there isn't plenty of logical cognition in traditional
women's work. Who do you think figured out how to can vegetables?  Sew
clothing?

Further, the opposition of emotions/feelings and logic is also false.
Situations involving emotions, connections, and relationships are as
logical as everything else, but they are COMPLEX.  The false
distinction results from equating simple and simple-minded.

"Whenever someone proves that women are `different,' I check to
see that I still have my wallet.'