Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!rshapiro@bbn.com
From: rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Effects of Lacan, Cisoux, etc., on women's position
Message-ID: <5848@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 16 Nov 88 01:03:16 GMT
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In article <5845@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> PALEPINK@CC.UTAH.EDU writes:
>First, I haven't read Lacan, but the two people I know
>who've read *all* of her say that she doesn't really
>say that language is inherently masculine...

Jacques Lacan is (or was? is he still alive?) male, a fact which may 
or may not be relevant.

What IS relevant is the distinction between "prescription" and
"description". Most feminist psychoanalysis I've read (I assume 
this is what "Lacanian feminism" means) considers Freudian/Lacanian
psychoanalysis to be *descriptive*  -- if Lacan claimed that women
are barred from the Symbolic, this is a description of what 'feminine'
means, here and now. It is NOT a prescription that things should or
must be this way. The goal is to understand what 'femininity' and
'masculinity' have come to mean, not to make claims about the 
essence of women and men (essentialism being the cardinal sin from
this perspective).