Richards describes the “Rage and Creativity” that created the space to think about how genital differences, specifically the female experience of her gender, are conceptualized psychoanalytically. She begins with pointing out the rarity of a female thought collective in science, and then traces the steps that led to a mutual influence, a thought collective between feminists and psychoanalysts. She describes how the formation of a feminist thought collective created a productive change in feminist thought and also in psychoanalysis. The ultimate result of this process was the abandonment of penis envy as bedrock within the psychoanalytic thought collective as a whole. The paper inspired me to think, what else? What are other avenues where a mutual influence would be beneficial?
Recently I have been reading books and watching shows that depict women's lives in China, India, Korea, and the Satmar of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. What is clear is how ubiquitous it has been around the world that a woman is expected to leave her family, and to live with her in-laws where she is powerless and isolated. If she does not provide the family with a baby, she has no value. Even if she is horribly abused by her inlaws or husband, if she tries to return to where she lived before she married, she is turned away by her family of origin. Were Chinese women's feet bound to make running away close to impossible? Although modern marriage has provided alternate patterns for relationships and parenting, it is still an institution rife with difficulties. The primary form of marriage created a precarious situation for women, one that would not meet the standard of livability as Judith Butler defines it. Modern marriage continues to present a challenge to flourishing.
Livability operates as a theoretical tool to illustrate that we cannot take the concept of the “human” or the idea of human life for granted, to do so is to fail to think critically and ethically about the consequential ways in which the human is produced, reproduced and deproduced in contexts of precarity, power and the ever present possibility of unlivable life. (McNeilly)
There are many theories about what conditions are needed to allow people to flourish together without the tyranny of being oppressed or being the oppressor. These include sexual liberation, freedom from pregnancy, ability to make a living, intellectual freedom, as well as controlling the means of production. What I propose is that we haven't thoroughly thought through the psychoanalytic conflicts and social controls around the means of reproduction.
There have been discussions about how women can be oppressed by pregnancy, childbirth and childcare. Women who have sex outside of marriage suffer societal rejection or are killed, honor killings being an example of that. There is an obvious link between these practices and sexual repression. Much has been written about how sexuality and pregnancy are regulated by the patriarchal system. Freud emphasized the detrimental effects of sexual repression on our psyche, bringing about a striving towards sexual liberation. Early psychoanalysis seemed to assert that women and men need orgasms to be free.
The dystopian novel, The Handmaids Tale, by Margaret Atwood, portrays the objectified woman as a childbearer rather than prostitute. We are familiar with a whore/Madonna split in culture. Atwood's story portrays a rare configuration that emphasizes pregnancy under control, which of course includes controls on sexual expression. Compare the prostitute with the handmaid. The prostitute's purpose is to meet the sexual needs of men. The handmaid's purpose is to meet the procreation needs of a specific man to whom they belong. What can this story tell us about the psychological and socio-political position of pregnancy? What if we focus on the control of pregnancy, if we think about it as the ownership of pregnancy and children as a frame for understanding the repression of women and children?
Early psychoanalysis described childhood sexuality. The buildup and
release of tension was emphasized. But what about the reproductive function of our bodies and how it is registered in the mind of the child? As a child analyst I am constantly reminded of the intense curiosity children have around the question of where babies come from. Freud had children, he must have had to field questions from his boys and his girls. Why could he see that girls were fascinated by the penis, but he had a blind spot for the universal fascination with and envy of the pregnant belly? There is ample evidence of male envy of childbearing, starting with the fact that the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide.
I think it would be interesting to take a wider angle look at the female body, the pregnant body and reproduction. Richards (1992) wrote about a gender identity that originates from the girl's experience of her own body, not in contrast to the boy's body. Balsam (2003) writes about the lack of theory about the pregnant body. Why did it take so long to see this?
The Venus of Hohle Fels (Paleolithic Era, 40,000 and 35,000 years ago) is currently considered to be the oldest figurine that represents a human. An internet search for Venus figurines will demonstrate that there have been multiple figures found that are representations of similar round bellied full breasted woman. They look like they are pregnant or have been pregnant multiple times. Venus of Willendorf is another well-known example. We think these figurines were representations of goddesses and may have been worshipped. They could have been early pornography, dolls, or talismans to bring fertility. As psychoanalysts we can say that the pregnant female body was on the minds of the sculptors. These figures seem to me to convey power. I contrast them with current images of women like the Barbie doll, or the fashion model where the female body is represented absent of any sign of fecundity and seem to me to be as reduced and contained as a bound foot.
The Adam and Eve story is relatively recent in comparison with the paleolithic female figurines. What is the purpose of Eve being created from Adam's rib? There are of course many explanations given by religious scholars. In the spirit of multiple determination, could one reason for this be that this a male appropriation of birth? Could this be seen as men owning the first human birth, and women then take over that function in a disgraced state and in sorrow?
Richards mentions the 2019 documentary One Child Nation. The film, by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, details the implementation and impact of the one child policy. “The policy was a war on women, women's bodies, and, in particular against women's fertile bodies. It was a war against mothers and potential mothers.” One of the filmmakers asks her grandfather why, in 2019, sons are still preferred. He tells her that grandsons stay in the family, granddaughters leave. This was a typical sentiment in old China, and apparently it persists in the countryside amongst the older generation. Although this sentiment is not consciously encouraged at in the present era, what are the generational sequelae of this practice? The grandfather is described preventing himself from getting attached to a girl grandchild, not because she has no value, but because she will leave the family. If the entire family resists getting attached to the girl, how does this ripple through the family of origin and family of procreation psychologically?
Richards' depiction of the coal miner's dilemma highlights that the gender issues are deeply woven into the psyche and society. When Mr. Rose says: “The way of life is changing so bad,” he grew quiet. “You'll get overwhelmed if you think about it too hard.”
Richards brings up another avenue to explore. She states, “A very important effect of feminist thinking has been in the area of understanding the importance, value, and potential of parenting so that the old idea that only mothers can be caregivers has been deleted from Freudian thought.” This is so important. The idea that caring for a child is a gendered activity is unnecessary and has created havoc.
Parenthood is a basic function, which includes the so-called maternal and paternal function. Typically, the father is thought of as the provider of a paternal function or thirdness, and the mother is thought of as providing support. In order to refrain from biological gender designations, I refer to these functions as support and thirdness, respectively… These functions can be staggered, shared or fixed. (Rotenberg, E., p. 107)
If caring for a child is feminine, it will be devalued. If caring for a child is feminine and devalued, many men will either feel awkward about caring for their children or they simply won't do it. The child of same
sex parents adores his parents only to find that society devalues his two Moms or devalues the parenting her two Dads provided her. This is all to the detriment of the child who longs for love from both parents.
Developmentally, both boys and girls have fantasies of the fecal baby. If this fantasy persists into adulthood it bodes poorly for the actual babies born to the people who think they are crap. Entering a grownup world where gender roles involve becoming the oppressed or the oppressor would certainly create difficulties in creating a reality-based understanding of one's body and therefore one's gender. Patriarchal control of women and children is a dominant contributing factor creating the repetitive expression of misogyny and childism, generation after generation. As psychoanalysts we understand that these generational patterns cannot be eradicated through conscious decision making. They have to be changed through a working through process that involves a constant recognition of blind spots. Perhaps Foucault's concepts of biopower, where he discusses how people are organized around creating order around biological processes, including reproduction, will help us continue to think creatively and to employ our rage to empower continued change.