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The author advances the hypothesis that “filiation” has meaning for females only in those instances in which the developing female has been able to experience a “feminine mother” in a narcissistic homosexual mother-daughter relationship.
The possibility of this “feminine mother” can come about only if the mother can recognize herself as a mother and at the same time recognize her partner as the father of her child. This position permits her to avoid any sacrifice of her own narcissism and femininity when she narcissistically accepts her daughter as identical to herself if, however, different. This idea of a double feminine is consistent with the dictionary meaning of filiation as “a succession of things issuing one from the other.” Then neither is injured and both are mutually enriched by this exchange.
If this relationship is lacking and cannot be internalized, then certain homosexual organizations may result, as these women attempt to refind their own proper sexual identity while trying to separate themselves from an indiscernible sameness. The author illustrates this hypothesis with a discussion of the psychosexual evolution of Julie, a brilliant and beautiful woman who, though more masculine than feminine, rediscovered her femininity in the course of her analysis without fully giving up her homosexuality. The author considers this course of development to be closer to a “third sex” than to penis envy or the refusal to be a woman. In other words, this homosexuality, far from being solely defensive or regressive, contributed in part to the development of the patient's psychic structure.