ABSTRACT
In recent psychoanalytic theory, two points have been particularly vexing and confused. The first concerns the mother, and specifically the question of whether the mother belongs to the imaginary or the symbolic. The second concerns the distinction between the mother and the woman. These two issues have been especially important, and perhaps especially divisive, for the interpretation of Kristeva, particularly for her reception by feminist readers whose relations to Lacanian theory are uneasy and complex. When we speak of the “otherness” of woman, or of “feminine alterity,” at least in psychoanalysis, the meaning of this femininity can emerge only if the position of the mother is clearly situated, and only if the distinction between the mother and the woman has been understood.
