Richards valuably reprises the works of generations of feminist writers who, through the power of their thought collectives, have dislodged from psychoanalytic thinking organizing concepts that trapped women in “idealized unhappiness” (Schafer, 1984). Principal among such concepts is penis envy. It took the work of the writers Richards mentions, and others, to identify the odiousness of the concept and its destructiveness to women's wellbeing. So, it is refreshing to read again that it took waves of feminist writers to help psychoanalysis come closer to its ideal self: as a radical discipline that aims for progress by upsetting the status quo. Implicit in Richards' paper is the fact that it took radical women writing feminist literature, to help psychoanalysis claim more of its radical identity in its theoretical framings of what it means to be a woman.
It is instructive to know that feminist writing comes in different flavors. As Richards notes, there are the “equality” feminists, and there are the “difference” feminists. Each collective of feminists focused on critically important issues. For example, equality feminists recognized and promulgated the right of women to seek equal education and employment, irrespective of the state of the economy in terms of men returning home from wars. In this regard, it is important to note that society fabricated role definitions for women (housewife, mother, and women's professions, such as nurse and teacher) to make room for men to be men, meaning that high status jobs would be reserved for them. Psychoanalysts were in cahoots with this configuration, as Richards points out. That is, the psychology that was to be analyzed was that a woman's unhappiness was to be interpreted as her neurosis, the kernel of which was penis envy. Here is a place to make more explicit my reference above to Schafer's notion of “idealized unhappiness” in women. His 1984 paper is in fact an insufficiently heralded feminist paper. He pointed out that analysts tend to foster women's unhappiness rather than analyze it, lest a woman's fury be
unleashed, which, of course, would need to enter the transference-countertransference reactions of the work, perhaps feared by the analyst and patient. Schafer makes a cogent and spirited argument that such work is necessary, of course, so that women are liberated to actualize their true selves, free of constricted and preformed, male-determined roles.
It seems to me that one potential pitfall for the equality feminist point of view is that it can be misinterpreted to mean that a woman is equal to the extent that she identifies with men. An anecdotal experience from my midcareer days makes clear that such a distortion can be put into practice. A famed surgeon in the hospital in which I worked as chief psychologist did accept women into his residency training program, but he was famous (infamous) for saying that all of the surgery residents (including the women) on his team were men. Richards alludes to this possible distortion in her reference to Heilbrun's work. This corruption of equality feminist writing perhaps hides a male point of view that women who pursue equal opportunity are really engaged in penis envy.
What is critical to the “Difference” feminist point of view? I think it is to delink authenticity as a woman from all fixed gender-based notions such as “vaginal orgasm” or the assumed high importance of sexual experience in the hierarchy of a woman's life experiences. In this regard, I found myself curious about Richards' assertion that some feminists devalued sex (p. 18). Did they devalue sex, or did they devalue the fixed and high importance placed on sex in male-dominated points of view? Certainly, a modern psychoanalytic point of view would require the psychoanalyst to be openly curious about the value of sex in each person's identity, a point of view held by Freud, at least in his consideration of sexuality. His point was that analysis helps one to determine the correct psychical weight to be attached to one's sexual strivings—“correct” to be delineated in terms of each person's psyche and aspirations, not in terms of some pre-determined notion.
“Equality” and “difference” feminists can be caricatured, the former as blindly pursuing being just like men, the latter as blindly eschewing and hating men. Neither is true in relation to the compelling bodies of literature summarized by Richards, but they are pitfalls that may be seized upon by anti-feminists or those fearful of powerful women. Here again I will reference Schafer's seminal paper. He opined that analysts tended
not to take up women's unhappiness in terms of its sexist and misogynistic determinants, lest intense anger be unleashed that will lead to lively critiques of self, the analyst, and oppressive society.
I would like to discuss the intense anger that may underlie women's unhappiness in terms of the first word in the title to Richards' paper, namely, “rage.” Whose rage, I ask? My own point of view is that we need another way of understanding the creative and systematic ways in which feminists have caused psychoanalysts to have to redo our conceptual bases for looking at women and gender development. “Rage” is disorganized and destructive. Not that feminists cannot or should not feel that way, but our debt to them is that they, perhaps through the organizing effects of their collectives, developed enough scaffolding to hold the rage and to convert it to an organized, creative energy.
I think the rage that needs to attract our attention is the rage of men in society who cannot abide the power of women. It is still a force among us in this very time, and in high places in government. The feminist fight against that rage is operationalized in the “Me Too” movement. There will always be a need for feminist writers and their impact on social institutions including, but not limited to, psychoanalysis, because we are haunted by ghosts. The ghost of the base and concrete meaning of “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence is a ghost that still haunts us, for example. That is, we are still haunted by the disavowed governing notion that equality, power, rights, privileges and unbridled happiness should reside in and be reserved for and controlled by men. Elizabeth Janeway, a 1970's feminist, in her book, “Man's World; Woman's Place” (1971), cogently opined about men's reaction in response to women who seek to have increased presence in positions of dominance. She said (p. 125), that “the reaction of men would be to increase the dominance they wield already until their power grows so great they are answerable to no one. The shadow role of the dominant male is ogre.”
As psychoanalysts we need to face this deep psychological issue. Feminist critiques of psychoanalysis are helpful in keeping us as a discipline from being contaminated by the baser aspects of our founding societal precepts. Clearly, we have been so affected, as in embracing concepts like penis envy and clinging to them too long. We are not permanently
immune from such influences, to wit, the value of reviews such as the one offered by Richards. However, I say that we, psychoanalysts, need to self-engage our responsibilities to conceptualize the underlying rage of men towards women, and to analyze it in our male patients, and the effects in our female patients, and to offer expert psychoanalytic opinion when we see its effects in society. In that regard, I was intrigued by Richards' references to the complexities of family life in Appalachia after the coal industry imploded there. Clearly, the psychological infrastructure of many men in that region is worthy of reflection. While some men have ably adapted to housefather roles efficaciously and productively, others resent the roles and are deeply unhappy. In part, does this mimic what happened to women when we felt trapped at home? When man or woman cannot exercise his or her true calling, misery is an outcome, and poor adaptations such as drug addiction, an affliction that permeates Appalachia, can happen. There is a darker possibility here, as well. To what extent are some Appalachian men afflicted with the view that just because they are men they, not women, are entitled to be the powerful ones? To what extent is their helplessness and haplessness to be housefathers, and their resentments of their more efficacious wives, some of whom returned to school and lifted themselves out of abject poverty, a smoldering rage that they act out in passive-aggressiveness or try to quell with drug addiction?
So, feminists continue to write. May there be more of the likes of Arlene Kramer Richards to keep us focused on, and up to date about, such worthy contributions. Have we as psychoanalysts gained enough from feminism to stand on more solid ground in our analytic thinking, writing, scholarship and clinical work? What is that solid ground? For me it is wide openness to and curiosity about a woman being and becoming who she is, self-determinedly free of internal and external pressure and predetermination. This is easier said than done since as analysts we are part of the larger social order that is persistently tempted by and falls into significant prejudices and “isms” that limit our better selves. Feminist thought collectives have often given feminist points of view the heft they have needed to keep making their points whenever society needs them. I wonder if even they are strained to the hilt, as they continue to have constructive impact, as may be reflected in Richards' comments about third wave feminists whose tools are “anger, profanity, ambition, power,
violence” (p. 12)? Is this approach an index of how desperate the struggle is against patriarchy and its weapons of sexism and misogyny? How much is this third wave an identification with the aggressor? Is it a byproduct of patriarchy's capability to ensnare its targets (including feminists) in its web of hatred, forcing them to use the destructive tools of the patriarchal ogres? A case in point: In the much heralded novel, Where the Crawdads Sing (Owens, 2018), the heroine, Kya (aka “Swamp Girl“), is rejected (abandoned) by her whole family and by the community on the outskirts of which she lived. Kya became a brilliant, wildlife expert, entirely without formal schooling. In that sense, and in being able to sustain a love relationship with the man who had taught her to read in her youth, she triumphed. She was able to accept him as a life partner, even though he, too, had abandoned her when he could not reconcile his love for her with his own ambitions; but he came back to her, worked assiduously to regain her trust, and they formed a lasting love relationship. Even with these triumphs in her life, the early and chronic mistreatments that the “Swamp Girl” had endured took their toll. She came to stand trial for murder. As her lawyer said to the jury (p. 340):
But ladies and gentlemen, did we exclude Miss Clark because she was different, or was she different because we excluded her?… If we had fed, clothed, and loved her, invited her into our churches and homes, we wouldn't be prejudiced against her. And I believe she would not be sitting here today accused of a crime.
The crime of patriarchy that has incited feminist writing is its insistent and persistent determination, by any means necessary, including violent means, to undermine women, to take from us our powers to define ourselves and to live fruitfully based on those powers. I am concerned about a trend in writing that would have us join the perpetrators in the use of their tools, lest they win still again. One might argue that “the Swamp Girl,” Kya, was a third wave feminist, one who ultimately killed predation by killing her predator. There is a further argument to be made that her crime was an effective solution for her, but it did not resolve the structural societal hatred of, and rage towards, women. Feminist writing that attacks structural elements in society at large and in psychoanalysis must continue. In the fight against the embedded societal and intrapsychic forces that hold women back, feminist writings of all eras are a powerful tool that can undo some damaging aspects of patriarchy
in psychoanalysis, such as the insidious use of the concept of penis envy to define the essence of women's strivings. Such writings are a necessary component of the armamentarium of tools necessary to advance women's rights. My own preference is to combine those writings with political action, rather than turning to violence, to contain the inevitable pushback against such rights (e.g., the Feminist movement of the 1960's, Roe v. Wade, 1973, and the current Me Too Movement).