Logo

Synopsis Since the publication of Freud essays, “Femininity” and “Feminine Sexuality”, there has been an interest hitherto unknown in the psycho-analytic community, a question about the feminine subjectivity, self, and sexuality. According to Freud the foundation of gendered identity is the castration complex. Since the publication of the above essays the question that raged in the psycho-analytic community, is this: if the fear of castration leads one to adopt a gendered identity, then how can a woman ever develop her identity as a woman, she does not have a phallus to be castrated. While the first part of the book deals with this issue and problem of explaining the feminine identity via the theory of castration complex, the second part is a response to this Freudian notion of castration complex as the bedrock of gendered identities. Feminists like Luce Irigary and Julia Kristeva have shown that Freud’s theory of castration complex cannot be used to explain gendered identities because it is entirely based on the idea that the phallus is the only sex organ. The book deconstructs this phallo-centric idea and shows that the phallus is a fetish and really does not hold any true power in society except what we give it culturally. The positive point in this theory is that, if women’s oppression is cultural and not natural then the current situation can be changed via social revolution. Ultimately a book on feminine sexuality encompasses all genders and aim at surpassing the oppression of everyone’s desire.