ABSTRACT
Why was the theory of femininity in psychoanalysis articulated from the start in the form of an alternative? What does it mean for analysts that they must choose between two contradictory conceptions of women: that of Jones and that of Freud? The posing of these questions makes it necessary to recall briefly the contents of the two doctrines and the basis of their incompatibility. For Freud, libido is identical in the two sexes. Moreover, it is always male in essence. For it is the clitoris, an external and erectile part of the body, and hence homologous to the penis, which is the girl’s erotic organ. And when, at the moment of the Oedipus complex, she desires a child from the father, this new object is again invested with a phallic value: the baby is nothing but a substitute for the penile organ of which the girl now knows she is deprived. Thus feminine sexuality is constantly elaborated as a function of phallic reference.1
