ABSTRACT
Before the child knows sexual difference as the anatomical difference between the sexes, s/he knows or recognises the lack in the mother's desire for something that the father is perceived as having. With regards to femininity, Lacan presents two apparently contradictory propositions. First, that there is not one x which is not submitted to the phallic function, and second, that for not-all women, the phallic function is valid. The chapter argues that varying and differential logical relations between the presence and the absence of the phallus generate sexual difference across different registers of experience. In the case of an educated woman having sex with a truck driver, despite the appearance of equality it becomes acceptable for the working class man to have the imaginary phallus because she, the woman, is in the place of the mother who has the phallus represented by her education or intelligence.
