ABSTRACT
The chapter begins with Joan Riviere giving the British Society a blow by blow account of the nature of the female orgasm. This is followed by Freud’s account of female sexuality, which has women feeling inferior because they do not possess a penis. Both Klein and Riviere put forward very different views on female sexuality, which are described in this chapter. In 1929, Joan published ‘Womanliness as a masquerade’, which describes a type of woman who experiences her competence as a stolen penis, which she conceals beneath a facade of femininity. There are still women in senior roles who feel obliged to dress in an ultra-feminine way. The chapter also describes a second paper written in 1932, called ‘Jealousy as a mechanism of defence’. This describes a patient who can only take pleasure in things if they are at someone else’s expense. These two papers show that Joan did not simply develop Klein’s ideas, but also had highly original ideas of her own. The chapter also contains a discussion of Joan’s sexuality.
