The author addresses the question: What is it about the essence of femininity that its understanding yields little to rational discourse and theory? Mieli's answer to her own query is located in Lacan's theory of the oedipal quest and conflict. After offering the reader a finely distilled tour through Lacanian concepts of the phallus, the real, and feminine jouissance, Mieli proposes that theories of femininity inherently confront the inexplicable domain of the mother's unknowable body. The very thing (das Ding) which motivates the search for knowledge is that which cannot be known since it is defined as a lack. One implication for theory in general, and theories of femininity in particular, is that they cannot reach a satisfactory conclusion via attempts to fill the absence created by desire with any encompassing truth which avoids its own incompleteness.