Woman Is a Woman as a Result of Certain Lack of Characteristics

Introduction
Luce Irigaray is one of the important, but not easy, writers to read. Understanding her requires a familiarity not just with philosophy but also with linguistics and psychoanalysis. And readers must be prepared to decode dense texts that are jungles of double meaning and eccentric syntax. Yet her difficult texts are in fact examples of the kind of feminine writing as a way of deconstructing the “traditional” ways of men, which is part of the mechanism of the oppression of women. At the core of Irigaray’s writings, language, which is the cause of oppression, is the very thing, or the very instrument that would also in turn revive and liberate us.

Irigaray claims that “women cannot be women and speak in a sensible coherent manner” given the condition of an order that entails one part of humanity “having a hold over the other.” Sexual difference is perpetuated by the culture, culture in turn is perpetuated by language, and hence, language perpetuates sexual difference. What accounts then for the fact that women find it so difficult to speak and to be heard as women is that sexual or gender difference is not so clear. If people, especially the feminists, are fighting for equality, Irigaray tells us that recognizing sexual difference is itself equality because “the demand to be equal presupposes a point of comparison. To whom or to what do women want to be equalized?” “Women’s exploitation is based upon sexual difference; its solution will come only through sexual difference.” To fight or demand for equality is not to try to remove or hide the differences between men and women but rather to bring it into the open. Women could not have an authentic “women’s discourse” without acknowledging the presence of men. The same holds true to men; they could not have an authentic male discourse if they disregard the existence of women.

In most of the societies throughout history, men have been having hold over the women and so women as subjects are not recognized (or often not recognized) as such, and language played a vital role in here. Irigaray suggests that there should be a kind of development which is collective, that is, there has to be a language transformation, or the changing of the laws of language in order for cultural transformation to occur that may lead to the recognition of women as subjects and not mere objects – someone who is always been “the Other.” To perpetuate and recognize sexual difference is to affirm one’s identity, so in order for women to be able to affirm themselves as an “I” is to recognize that there is the “You” or the male. The same holds true with the male; they do not actually have a truly authentic identity as subjects unless they don’t recognize the presence of the other – not as an object, but also a subject. There can be no “ako” without “ikaw.”

In this essay then, I will be presenting the common characteristics attributed to women by the famous theorist in the field of psychology, Sigmund Freud and the psychoanalytic tradition(s), which is accepted and perpetuated by the society whether consciously or not, that has long been alienating women but have lurked only as a shadowy presence. I shall also endeavor to present Irigaray’s responses to Freud and/or that of the psychoanalytic traditions’ claims in juxtaposition with my own stance.

Unless women tries to embrace the other half of humanity and consider the other’s own horizon also, they cannot be recognized as such and be able to speak in a coherent manner and vice versa. Male’s social experiences are better understood by including female social experiences, and female’s social experiences are also better understood by acknowledging that of males. I shall therefore treat the subject matter as objective as possible to the best I can, hoping that this essay will itself serve as an example of an authentic women's discourse. Nonetheless, all the quotes in the discussion proper in this essay are taken from Luce Irigaray’s Speculum of the Other Woman, unless otherwise another source is indicated.

An Ex-orbitant Narcissism
Freud (and/or the society to a greater extent) “attribute a larger amount of narcissism to femininity which also affects women’s choice of object, so that to be loved is stronger need for them than to love.”[p.113] But Irigaray asks, does woman really have the option of “loving” or “being loved” in the first place? In the psychoanalytic tradition, the sexual development of women is purely about repression as they used patriarchal terms only in defining women that goes on to denigrates women. Right from the start, particularly in the phallic stage, Freud already poisoned or tried to poison for that matter, the little girl’s identity wherein the little girl has always already been a little boy by claiming that her clitoris is but a penis-equivalent because all the terms used and accorded to her comes from the phallocentric currency. So that in the discussion of the castration complex, the potency of the penis is itself at stake because it has always been the point of reference of identity, essence, and sexuality, as if the potency of what is there is everything that is seen. Women’s narcissism can be traced back to Freud’s discussion of women as a “castrated male.”

Why does women then tend to submit so readily to the idea of her castration when in the first place she has nothing, that is, she don’t have a penis to be castrated? Irigaray tells us that it is because of the power and activity attached to the penis. The women/girl cannot gaze at her genitals because unlike the penis, it is not protruding; it is hidden. The gaze itself shows the potency of something, which is the penis, which would lead the difference itself on the part of the girl/woman. This realization now leads to the envy of penis because it is easily seen by the eye whereas hers is not, hence it goes on to imply that somehow the woman doesn’t have an identity or an “I” to affirm to. The woman doesn’t have the penis and that means, according to Freud and/or the Psychoanalytic tradition, that the woman doesn’t have that power and acknowledgement given to the males who are “blessed” to have it. The girl’s or women’s awareness of castration through the gaze tells her that she is nothing, a no-thing; that she has no being nor truth at all so that in order for her to develop her sexuality or affirm her identity, she has to maintain her penis-envy or at least to have a “neutral libido.” According to Freud there is no such thing as female libido or female desire because her genitals cannot be represented. This then goes on to imply that female sexuality can only be made visible through the male sexuality - to continuously envy the penis.

Moreover, women’s submission so easily to the idea of her castration has something, or shall I say, a lot to do with the conditioning of her of the society who has given much importance to penis, which is always said to be the point of reference of identity, essence, and sexuality. Since women don’t have a penis, this means she has no identity, no essence, no sexuality, so that in order for her to have all these, she has to maintain her envy of the males’ genital. In order to affirm herself then, she has to desire her father who has the penis. But then since her father could not seduce her, she has to desire or look for another man that could impregnate her and bear her a son who could give, provide, and satisfy her longings - the son then somehow soothes the mother’s penis-envy.

Irigaray goes on to respond; “femininity is actually instigated by a wave of passivity, by transformations of the little girl’s early instincts into instincts ‘with a passive aim’ and by perpetuating the ‘object’ pole. When it really comes down to it, then, woman will not choose, or desire, an ‘object’ of love but will arrange matters so that a ‘subject’ takes her as his ‘object.’’’[p.113] Right from the very start Freud has always already been implying, or directly been saying for that matter, that the ‘only’ desirable ‘object’ is always the penis, the phallus, by keep on repeating that a little girl will become woman only in terms of lack, absence, default, and every ‘negative’ terms that his system could attach to women. Thus, women tend to be narcissistic only in a phallic currency; a one-sided approach as a repercussion of women. Women now just tend to follow the phallic standards for what they impose of what woman should be. “She is mutilated, amputated, humiliated…because of being a woman.”[p.113]

The Vanity of a Commodity
Freud claims, “the effect of penis-envy has a share, furthermore, in the physical vanity of women, since they are bound to value their charms more highly as a late compensation for their original sexual inferiority.”[p.112] But, here again, Irigaray asks if in the first place women have a choice or any choice for that matter, of being or not being in vain about her body if they have to correspond to the “femininity” expected of her. Does not women’s sexual “usefulness” depend on her concern of the quality or “property” of her body? As I have always observed, it is true that there are more women, as compared to men, who devout more time attending to their physical attractiveness. Now, can we blame them? The psychoanalytic tradition or Freud for that matter imposed that it is only the penis that is desirable. Now since women does not have it, they then come to conclude that women has to continuously envy the penis. “Thus, ‘femininity’ is caught in a vicious circle; because she doesn’t have ‘it,’ she must wish to have ‘it’ since ‘it’ is the guarantor of sexual exchange…”[p.114] and women have to have that penis, if they have to satisfy their longings, then they have to be conscious and concern themselves to their physical attributes – if she is to be a desirable “object” and if man is to want to possess her. Many women then cherishes physical beauty so much and disguises themselves of all those make-ups and lipsticks and cosmetics, etcetera, if she is to be desirable to men, if she is to have “her penis.” “Her body transformed into gold to satisfy his auto-erotic, scoptophiliac, and possessive instincts….”[p.115]

Now what about those women who do not concern themselves so much on physical attractiveness? Taking Freud’s assessment, perhaps these women have not yet realized their “true sexuality” or that they are to be considered perverts because according to him, women’s sexuality is made realized only through men’s sexuality so that women must and should and will have to continuously desire the penis – to continuously desire man – to desire “to be loved” rather than to love. And for her to compensate her inferiority she has, as it were to be in vain of beauty, of her physical attractiveness. However, if we get away from the psychoanalytic traditions, we can say that women who do not augment herself must actually be “superior” or at least someone who must have been able to discover or affirm her identity and sexuality as a woman by acknowledging her own essence as a human person, and not only and only through male sexuality. I have nothing against women who are in vain of physical attractiveness but I would appreciate them more, even if they still want to wear those cosmetics and the like provided that they do it as a matter of self-expression and not only because of wanting to be attractive in the eyes of men, to flirt, to seduce him; that is, to “transform” her body into gold to satisfy men’s auto-erotic and possessive instinct. Every woman must recognize herself as a sexual being and must be liberated from all sexual repressions.

The Shame that Demands Vicious Conformity
Freud goes on to say that “shame which is considered to be a feminine characteristic par excellence but is far more a matter of convention than might be supposed has as its purpose, we believe, concealment of genital deficiency.”[p.112] It is but alright and normal for women to be shameful, ashamed, and shy because it is a form of concealment of her genital deficiency, that she doesn’t have a penis that is regarded as nature’s masterpiece – a fine work of art – where everything considered good and beautiful and excellent are pointed to, whereas that of woman’s is deficient because she only have a penis-equivalent, clitoris. So that according to Irigaray, as her justification for women, “though her body is beautiful and she is decked out in gold for him and by him, woman will still be reserved, modest, shameful, as far as her sex organs are concerned. She will discreetly assist in hiding them…For woman’s ‘body’ has some ‘usefulness,’ represents some ‘value’ only on condition that her sex organs are hidden.”[p.115] She has to cover herself because the more she is covered the more she is desired. So she disguises herself through cosmetics, flash jewels, etc, because she, in the first place is expected to be good looking if she is to be desired. Hence, women are themselves just finding ways to sell themselves in the sexual market.

Although I agree to Irigaray’s claim, we also have to acknowledge the fact that many men now tend to be more attracted to women who are thick-faced or “makapal” enough to bare themselves naked, that is, to flaunt their flesh and body proudly with little coverings, or even without coverings for that matter like that of pornography. But then again, whether women are shameful or not, whether they bare their soul naked or not, women are still caught under the snare of phallocentric currency because they still have to be “in” for the sake of sexual economy. Yes, in earlier times the more a woman’s dress is thicker and longer the more she is prized and desired. But with the changing of society especially with the more “liberated” men and women alike in a more liberated country or places, the more a woman flaunt her navel by wearing hanging shirts, or show her arms by wearing spaghetti straps, or bare a part of her legs by wearing short pants or skirts or, to show her body’s shape by wearing fitted clothes, the more she becomes beautiful and desirable to men. That, I conclude that women’s sense of shame in Irigaray’s opposition to the psychoanalytic tradition is true only in a more traditional and conservative types of people as there are now many women who are “liberated,” at least in manner of dressing themselves, in showing the “beauty” of their body. But then again, in some way or another women are still victims of the phallocentrism because many still tend to show themselves just because it is what is considered “in” in the phallic standards.

Woman Have Never Invented Anything but Weaving
In connection to women’s sense of shame Freud goes on to claim that “women have made few contributions to the discoveries and inventions in the history of civilization; there is, however, one technique which they have invented – that of plaiting and weaving…. Nature herself would seem to have given the model which this achievement imitates by causing the growth at maturity of the pubic hair that conceals the genitals. The step that remained to be taken lay in making the threads adhere to one another, whole on the body they stick into the skin and are only matted together…we should be tempted to guess the unconscious motive to the achievement.”[p.112] Here, weaving is not only to be understood literally, as it is also symbolically equated, or at least has something to do with the pubic hair. Pubic hair could not function as concealment of penis for men because no matter how thick it would be, the penis would still be readily seen, hence recognition, hence identity as a subject, hence power. Whereas aside from being considered as protection to women’s vagina/hymen, the pubic hair also functions as concealment of their deficiency. Therefore women weaves as it were, in order to veil herself, to wrap herself, to mask herself, as if it is a necessity to do for her to restore her wholeness.

According to Irigaray however, “the contradiction is already implicit in the veil Freud talks about, in the duplicity of that veil’s function. Used to cover a lesser ‘value’ and to overvalue the fetish, it will equally serve to conceal the interest afforded by what it claims to protect from devaluation…”[p.116] There is the tendency on women’s part to fetishist the male organ by stressing the disavowal of the mother’s castration. By stressing that the mother has no penis, she (or women) is already denied of her sexual potency. Thus weaving, like the pubic hair, that is supposed to be a protection of themselves (of the vagina) still turns against women as it is still a way of adhering to the phallocentric standards for veiling (of the vagina), to wait in passivity (in weaving), to stay in the shadow (for tolerating of not being recognized in the re-production of the child).

The Very Envious Nature
“The fact that women must be regarded as having little sense of justice is no doubt related to the predominance of envy in their mental life”[p.116] as if throughout women’s life they have been envious with that of men for having a penis since it is considered as the signifier of omnipotence. Freud believed that personality is shaped by early experiences as children pass through a set sequence of psychosexual stages, one of which is the phallic stage. In this stage, the little boy’s love-object is his mother and so is the little girl, not until she is in Oedipus situation where her father will become her love-object. Irigaray claims that in the course of time, a girl has to change her object of love, from the mother to father, while her male counterpart retains his.

A little girl will become woman only in terms of lack, absence, default, etc. Upon reaching the oedipal stage, according to Freud, the girl has to recognize that her clitoris is not a “real penis” but only a penis equivalent thus she could not possibly continue her desire for her mother, whereas her boy counterpart retains his love, or rather sex object, which is the mother. She lacked the so-called “treasured” possession of males, which is the very “instrument” for her to be able to come back to her place of origin. She realizes that her vagina serves as a receptacle, a hole to be filled. Her desire to “penetrate” her mother proves impossible so that all she can do now is to hate her mother and divert her desire to her father or to a person who possesses a penis. Since the mother (or her vagina) is considered as a “home,” the daughter develops hostility towards her mother because it is as though it is her mother’s fault why the child is born a girl and not a boy because recognizing that you are a “female” means recognizing that you are lacking something. The son could fulfill his sexual desires towards his mother by having intercourse with other woman, hence, in a way he is able to come “back home” whereas the daughter will never be able to satisfy her early desires to her mother; all the daughter has is clitoris that doesn’t grow like the son’s penis. Moreover, the daughter becomes aware, and accepts the fact that her desire to impregnate her mother (or other woman) will never be fulfilled because instead of impregnating, she is the one supposed to be impregnated. She doesn’t have the penis that thrust in sexual intercourse but only a passive vagina that waits for the warrior to ravage, animate her lonely and dark world. The girl’s discovery, the realization of the absence of penis in her follows that all she could do now is to become like an empty vase waiting for a flower to be placed in her. Here now also comes into play the passivity or activity in sexual intercourse wherein the woman just waits or receives the sperms accorded or given to her by man’s penis. Like a hole, the vagina is just there waiting for that ‘thing’ to fill it. Like a bottle without water, it is the penis that fills it through his sperm.

Freud then tell us that women’s little sense of justice is related to the predominance of envy in their entire life; that they do not know what is fair or what is good or what is just because of their nature, that is, women are clouded by their lack (having no penis) and of their deficiency (for having a penis-equivalent – clitoris only), hence, disrupts their tendency of seeing the better part of herself and of the society at large. But then Irigaray says, “…if woman does nor religiously, blindly, support the attributes of power of the king, judge, or warrior, that power may well decline, or prove useless, since the real issue is always men’s competition for power.” [p.118] Women has no choice but to follow the phallocratic standards of justice because in the first place the society or men for that matter, considered only men’s capabilities and power. How could women be recognized as having a fair sense of justice if men only considered their point of views? If women speak what they think is justice, they are always been presupposed by Freud to have arisen only from the envy of men’s power for being assertive anyway. And how could they even begin to speak or to assert themselves when they are only regarded as objects? She is included in the exchange market only as a commodity. If commodities could speak, Irigaray says, “they might possibly given an opinion about their price, about whether they consider their status just, or about the dealings of their owners” [p.118] – men, who are recognized as subjects, as persons, in contrast to women as objects, as mere commodities in the sexual market. “The problem is that women often find it hard not to claim access to the procedures of equivalence that are still limited by right to men alone, or at any rate to ‘masculinity’ and whose practice is prescribed and re-marked by phallic hegemony.” [p.118-119]

Irigaray acknowledges Freud to a certain extent in his opposition to the feminists, “except that the reason he cites are questionable and testify to his failure to grasp the importance of the question.” [p.119] Feminists, or women who demand power’s equal, or “equivalent” to those of men may well be considered only as an envy. But can we blame them when for a long time they have been representing themselves only as the alienated and oppressed…the victim of penile narcissism, just so that she get possession of those privileges? This reminded me of my favorite women personality in the field of politics, Meriam Defensor-Santiago, who was supposed to be the president of the Philippines but was betrayed, cheated by Fidel Valdez-Ramos during the 1992 election. Meriam is known to be outspoken and assertive. Now since outspokenness and assertiveness are generally regarded as strength, people tend to say that Meriam is masculine, hence unnatural, since femininity is generally equated to passivity. Considering our country’s current president, which is also a woman, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s whimsical behavior, particularly in decision-making, and for being considered as one of President Bush’s “pet,” people now tend to conclude that women could not really be counted in political matters, in justice talks. Being whimsical and passive are considered weaknesses hence, attached to femininity, hence a woman’s nature.

Society Holds No Interest for Women
Irigaray, quoting Freud, claimed “we also regard women as weaker in their social interest, no doubt because of the dissocial quality which unquestionably characterizes all sexual relations.” [p.113] Women’s weak social interest is obvious but, “the ambiguity, the double meaning, of that expression makes further comment unnecessary” [p.19] because it has been determined, initiated, and perpetuated by the society of men itself wherein women’s inferiority is doubled by their sexual inferiority. For how can you take part in the social life and participate in it when you are considered an outcast and ostracized? How can you speak when the categories used are not neutral, that is, very phallic; very masculine that even the language offered to women belong to the phallic currency? “And why, after all, should women be interested in a society in which they have no stake, which earns them interest only through compulsory intervention of a third person who des hold a legal?…In fact, how can one take part in social life when one has no available currency, when one possesses nothing of one’s own to put in relation to the properties of the other, or others?” [p.119] How can one take part then of the social life when aside form the very dominant masculine categories they don’t even listen to you...just because you are a women?

Perhaps these contradictions might possibly be explained by the lack of attention or interest to women, that Freud devote in his passage to the social dimension of sexual relation, for at the core of it, women’s weaker social interest is itself useful to them, to the phallic currency.

Freud reproaches women for her lack of abilities – sexual, psychological, cultural, political, etc. but such misogyny can be understood as an ideological bond that bails out the current regimes of property because right from the start, women is not recognized as subject with dignity, and it has been perpetuated, implanted, reinforced by the society.

In the discussion of marriage, Irigaray took Friedrich Engel’s study on The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State to show the forbidden truths, as it were inherent in marriage contracts: “The succession of different property regimes – slave, feudal, capitalist – has not altered the fact that woman is possessed by the head of the family as a ‘mere instrument of production’ and reproduction. The marriage contract will often implicitly a work contract, but one that is not ratified as such by law, thereby depriving woman of her right to perfectly legitimate social demands: salary, work hours, vacations, etc. She is accepted on a ‘equal footing’ in a home in which she takes care of the domestic chores in exchange for food, lodging, and clothes… ‘The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife…. In the great majority of cases today, the husband is obliged to earn a living and support his family, and that in itself gives him a position of supremacy without any need for special legal titles and privileges. Within the family he is the bourgeois and the wife represents the proletariat. As well as being undeclared work contract, the marriage contract will also have disguised a purchase agreement for the body and sex for a wife, ‘who only differs from the ordinary courtesan in that she does not let out her body on piecework as a wage worker, but sells it once and for all into slavery.”[p.121] How’s that for a shock? Finally the “forbidden truth” is revealed!

The contract is usually drawn up between the father who serves, or is likened to a pimp, and the “future” husband as the customer, in which the value of the daughter/woman’s virginity is exchanged for the man’s dowry, plus certain capacity to work, plus a certain guarantee of potency, as if a woman is useless or without value if she loses her virginity earlier before entering into the contract. We must also be reminded that as it were, little girls are deemed to have no value before puberty, or if they have not yet reached the onset of puberty because this stage is the preparation to become a woman wherein she is already capable of giving birth; to receive the penis, to “drink” his sperm, and to breastfeed the child.

Moreover, if the marriage contract is not done between the woman’s father and the supposedly husband – the customer, the whole deal will be arranged between the heads of two families; the fathers of both sides will come to an agreement. The woman’s father had to protect her virginity since this was a value necessary for her “exchange,” and the husband will have to confine his wife at “home” to ensure the accumulation of his wealth, of private property in a single place, and its transmission to his own children through inheritance. “Monogamy arose from the concentration of considerable wealth in the hands of a single individual – a man – and from that need to bequeath this wealth to the children of that man and of no other. For this purpose, the monogamy of the woman was required, not that of the man, so this monogamy of the woman did not in any way interfere with open or concealed polygamy on the part of man” [p.122] In “imprisoning” women in the house, this keeps her in a state of economic dependence that justifies every kind of oppression. In confining her at “home” doing all the domestic chores, nursing the children, serving the king of the house, etc., how else could she be active in her social life if she is stultified to be active, only, at “home?” Nevertheless, as Irigaray reconsidered, if the family is considered to the basic political and societal unit, the woman therefore is actually an active participant of the society….

A Fault in Sublimation
Freud once again has seen female sexuality as a lesser version of masculine sexuality by claiming, “women have less capacity for sublimating their instincts than men.” [p.113]. He sees the mother as a castrated male and therefore devalued. The identity of the child’s super-ego is always considered masculine because in the (re)production, the child is always identified with the “paternal prototype.” Besides the fact that the definition of “ego” in women is vague, Freud considers the mother’s ego as an expression of their masochistic fantasies and activities. Since she is lesser than her male counterpart, she will therefore always remain in “a state of childish dependence upon a phallic super-ego that looks sternly and disdainfully on her castrated sex/organ(s).” [p.124] Everything that is good and sublime to women is ascribed as masculinity, wherein women only identify, represent, and play man’s identity/ego/super-ego. Whereas all of women’s weakness or deformities are considered to be natural to them so that in order for them to really sublimate themselves, they should always maintain a sense of shame, or to be in isolation from the social world, that is to say to live in the “private” houses and live a life of decency – of passivity. Thus, in Freudian system, a woman has to denounce her identity (if ever there is) and her sexuality (if ever there is) just so she will be accepted in the society. She will always be a sexual object without being, without truth.

Furthermore, women is said to have lesser capacity of sublimation because all her desires cannot be expressed in reality but only in dreams – that they can never take a conscious state, they will and will always remain in the unconscious. So that to express themselves, women has to undergo a change of character and neurosis or sexual inhibitions – to “mimic” a work of art. Therefore she becomes an aesthetic object but as some-thing that doesn’t have a value because it (she) is forged, an artifice, lie, deception. Like the pirated CD’s that could be bought just anywhere in this city that is of low quality hence of cheap value, women are seen to just defying the natural, who flaunts appearances, a criminal. “The society has the duty to ban forgeries.” [p.125] Yes. But this is also the same way of saying that men have the right to reject and not recognize the excellence or goodness of women just because they don’t have the so-called nature’s masterpiece – penis! By mimicking a work of art, they (women) could be “legally sanctioned.” But what or who determines what is legal anyway? Isn’t it men? Therefore socially, even personally, a woman is a woman because of her lack, of her deficiency.

Irigaray further included the concept of “Red blood” in this topic wherein it signifies woman but at the same time also signify her loss. The red blood is valued and exalted in “prehistory” but was denied and censored in the onset of patriarchy wherein the blood’s value is replaced by the penis’ sperm. “Blood rights are so completely neglected that ‘consanguineous’ is now defined as ‘sired by the same father” [p.125] so that the “sperm has capitalized the authority, the attributes, the product of labor, once associated with blood.”[p.125] In the privacy of the bedroom, in the fantasy productions that are rarely discussed in public, Irigaray likened man, the master of the house as “a vampire who needs to stay in disguise and do his work at night.” [p.126] As it were he has to re-insure his potency, enjoined to reappropriate the right to exploit blood and then, as a result, to go on to more sublime pursuits.

Although I agree to Irigaray, to some extent I think she has quite exaggerated her analogy of man as to that of a vampire, as if woman is “always” exploited, alienated, degraded in the sexual acts. She failed to put into consideration that many women also enjoy doing it with their partners. Of course the idea of masochism on the part of women will again come into play in here but the point is, women may not always have to be regarded as the victim of the vampire as she, herself derives pleasure in it. Irigaray presupposed that women “will never manage to satisfy the sexual need which gave rise to them.” [p.127]

Nonetheless I still agree with her that many women are still under the pretext that she is anatomically inferior, castrated, as if “anything she produces will find a market only when it gains legitimacy under mans’ name or auspices.” [p.126] To liberate women then, from oppression, Irigaray says, “perhaps blood will have the freedom of the city, and the right to circulated, only if it takes the form of ink. The pen will always already have been dipped into the murdered bodies of the mother and the woman and will write in black, in the black blood (like) ink, the clotting of its (his?) desires and pleasures.” [p.126]

“La Femme de Trente Ans”
According to Freud, “a man of about thirty strikes us as a youthful, somewhat unformed individual…. A woman of the same age, however, often frightens us by her physical rigidity and unchangeability. Her libido has taken up final positions and seems incapable of exchanging them for others. There are no paths open to further development; it is as though the whole process had already run its course and remains thenceforward insusceptible to influence – as though, indeed, the difficult development to femininity had exhausted the possibilities of the person concerned….” [p.113] It is said and believed that women of 30’s has already exhausted her sexual productivity; all her possibilities of (re)production. Accordingly she loses her sexual appetite because it is the stage where her hormones are fast changing and shifting. However, Irigaray argues that “perhaps what libido she has been so curbed, censored and finally inhibited that it can never function; perhaps women does not have enough energy to change her condition. Especially since that condition is a result of social, economic, and cultural conditions and conditioning.” [p.127] As a girl or a lady, she is assigned difficult tasks and lots of household works that she may be confined only at home, forgetting her social life. Even if she has free time to associate with men in the society and join their conversations, it is seen as inappropriate - she’s unfit for it, she doesn’t have a place in their discussions. Sooner or later she just marry, only to be confined at “home” and bear, nurse children and her husband. If the child is a male, lucky for him. But if it is a female, well, she just have to repeat and undergo the cycle that her mother has encountered, again. “And once again woman will support that economy, without even really being a party to it, without her sexuality ever being accounted for. She is reduced to a function and a functioning whose historic causes must be reconsidered: property systems, philosophical, mythological, or religious systems – the theory and practice of psychoanalysis itself – all continually, even today, prescribe and define that destiny laid down for woman’s sexuality.”[p. 129]

SUMMARY and CONCLUSION
Psychoanalysis is one of the fields in psychology that tries to explain the human psyche or the person’s behavior by way of going back to the past experiences, most specifically of childhood experiences. I believe that a person’s behavior in the present moment is so much affected by her/his encounter with the world in the past regardless if they are joyous or resentful moments. By traveling back to the past, one will have a more or less better, clearer, and more profound understanding of who and what s/he is right now.

However, if we take Freud’s psychoanalytic interpretation of femininity, or womanity for that matter, although there may be some “truths” to his claims, I assess that he seemed to have complicated the matter more because his assertions are predominantly clouded by his bias for men, and against women. Putting into the pedestal the penis (men), women have already ceased to “exist,” wherein Freud explained women’s sexuality only in terms of phallocentric currency, sees “reality” only in a patriarchal model. Had he not fetishist and put into the clouds so high the value of penis and seen and recognized the vagina also, particularly the clitoris in its own right and not as a “penis-equivalent,” he could have given us a clearer understanding of what/who women are for objectively seeing reality. If one is going to apply his own system, one has the right to interpret that Freud’s “over-love” for the penis and disdain for the vagina, is that he must be actually a gay or a bisexual and, he may actually be envious of women because he, himself doesn’t have the vagina, which explains his hatred of women. Instead of women having a penis-envy, using Freud one could say that he is actually suffering from “vagina-envy.” Freud is “only” considered as the “Father of psychoanalysis” just because he is the first one to introduce it but it doesn’t mean that we should follow all his steps and ways of interpreting human behavior. Like what Luce Irigaray did, who is herself a psychoanalyst; trained in psychoanalytic traditions of Freud, using psychoanalysis itself could give us possible reasons why Freud has always been very negative towards women. Like all sciences, they could give us explanations about things but they are never final. Even the most prestigious scientists would give at least .01 to .05 rooms for doubts, room for improvements, for further discoveries and developments. Transcending the psychoanalytic tradition, by going beyond the tradition, one could have a more genuine understanding of what womanity is. The failure of most men to recognize the presence and essence of female organ is symptomatic of “ontological homelessness” as Irigaray tells us. The female genital organ is likened to a HOME where we all came from, where we came out, where we originally grew up, that even prior our birth, it has always been out home.

In her book, Je, Tu, Nuous, Irigaray indicated that our culture, or the society at large is suffering from “cultural amnesia” and tried to put it forward in relation to the discussion of the placental economy. Placenta is said to be the one that supports the fetus (baby) inside the mother’s womb. It separates the fetus from the mother, that is, it has a “life” of its own yet at the same time it is that which connects the two together. “All” human beings had their own placenta when they were born but many of us have already forgotten or, are not even aware of this that our very first breath or the first stages of our life’s development happened and supported by the placenta. And placenta is something that is very feminine; it exists only in a woman’s body/system and without it, emergence of “new” life would be impossible to occur.

Although fetus has a life of its own and is supported by the placenta, we cannot deny the fact that its life is still very dependent to the mother. Fetuses are considered parasites in the sense that it takes part or share to whatever food the other is taking in and so pregnant woman are supposed to eat more food as compared when they were still not pregnant because this time, she is not only feeding herself but also the “child” inside her. Fetuses are parasites that they even get ample amount of calcium of the mother, which causes weakening of bones of the mother. We were once fetuses; we were parasites! Well, many of us are still parasites though, but the point is that, just because we are already born in this world and grew up adults, we now tend to forget that we owe our lives to our mothers who had the courage and had taken the risk and responsibilities of the hardships and difficulties of bearing us, of bringing us forth in this world. We were, and many still are parasites that most of us (in a patriarchal society most especially) cannot, or don’t even “give back” the care and love and respect to the woman whose been there for us from the very beginning of our lives. The “love,” nourishment and care that the placenta has “given” – that our mother has given us, cannot be paid or exchanged by any amount of money but at least, there has to be an appreciation accorded to our mother – to women.

The placental economy is said to be a peaceful economy that encourages the growth of an “other” – the fetus – us - inside it because it recognizes the existence of the “other” and respects it. Our lives are all nourished in it, lived peacefully inside the other – the mother. We are an “other” to our mothers yet we “belong” to them - different identities yet one. However in our culture and society now, we tend to disregard the importance of the “Other” – the mothers, women, females, girls. Looking at the reality of our country, it is so sad in our culture that men are pampered so much while women are expected to dream for the family, to be responsible for the parents and siblings, to go abroad for any jobs just to feed the needs of the family and even their luxury. I hate this subculture... Asian or Filipino women are bracketed with that role...While men, have the privilege and the luxury of time because they are the ones who will continue the name of the father and besides, they dream for their ego and personal quest for career, family, material comfort, etc. Without curing ourselves from this cultural amnesia, we would all be living inauthentically; we would still be living in a world of deceptions and lies.

The limitation of this essay is that it is more directed to more “close-minded,” traditional beliefs of a patriarchal society wherein male genitals are fetishised, hence power over those who doesn’t have it. I am aware that with the help of education, more and more man and woman alike already accept each other without having hold over the other, respecting each other’s integrity and seeing the other as a dignified person.

It is a fact that it is the economic dominance of men over women that give them as sense of power and superiority over men, but nowadays some women are now more successful than men in career, handling the family & children, in business, etc. The problem is, women may have been “liberated” from their economic dependence to men, but many of them are the more stifled because after all those tiresome works in the “outside world,” when she gets home she is still the ‘only’ one expected to take care and attend to all the needs of her family; to cook and prepare the husband and the children’s food, to wash dishes, wash clothes, fixes the house, etc, whereas we just often find the husband relaxing himself in front of the television, reading newspapers, etc. Aside from her shift from her job in the society outside to her family/home inside, there is still another shift – it’s her “job” to attend to the sexual needs of her husband, to give him all the sexual pleasures he need. In the morning in is the woman who often has to wake up very early in the morning while the husband and the children are still sound asleep, to prepare their things needed by the children in school and of the husband in his work. So that when they wake up everything is ready, they just attend to themselves. Or, if the child is a female, aside from being the mother’s “right hand” in terms of “serving the family,” she is expected to be the one to “replace” the mother’s “job” to serve them just in case the mother is not around, whereas the boys could just play and play or attend to themselves alone.

Nevertheless the truth still stand out, many of us are still suffering from a cultural amnesia. This is a sad reality…the reality of living in a world full of deceptions and lies…really sad… But the “fight” must go on… For although believing and adhering to our customs and traditions are great guide to human life, as David Hume once reiterated, sometimes it is also necessary to challenge them to bring about progress and development. Philosophy’s role as master discourse needed to question and to be questioned, to disturb and be disturbed precisely because of its claims to the pursuit of Truth.