Editorial

This Special Issue on Femininity was conceived following the publication of an edition on Masculinity in BJP 22.1. As guest editors we were intrigued with how ‘femininity’ might be understood, and reading through the papers we were struck by a consistent theme: femininity is no longer seen to originate in, and to be defined by the relationship with man and ‘lack’. It is now understood as also derived from women's relationship with each other, whether as sisters, mothers, lovers or friends. Classical notions of gender based on a binary and symmetrical conceptualization seem no longer theoretically adequate. Thus these writers all adopt a critical perspective in their understanding of how femininity is constructed and how therefore it may be understood.

The questions of binary terms, male/female, masculinity/femininity and active/passive are the same ones that Freud asked us to distinguish between, and he observed that the constructs of masculinity/femininity are the most saturated with the value judgements of each society and period. His theory of sexual identity, which he maintained throughout his life was rooted in the bedrock of psychic bi-sexuality, was both biological and psychological. Throughout his work it moves back and forth between these two dimensions. Since then theorists seem to have come down more firmly on one side or the other of this distinction. For example, Klein thought that intimations of the (sexed) body were innate, informing the nature of earliest phantasy life. And whilst Freud (1937) stated in ‘Analysis Terminable and Interminable’ that for women the desire for a penis is never really given up, Klein mapped the envy that might be felt towards the female/maternal body and its capacities, both physical and psychical. Diametrically opposite to this, Lacan held that the biological body has nothing at all to do with sexuation and the structuring of sexual difference; it is achieved through the setting of limits, the ‘nom du père’, installed throu