ABSTRACT
In feminist gender discourse, women are ‘other’, in the sense that they represent what is not contained within the phallocentric or patriarchal system. Translated into Lacanian theory, ‘other’ here would mean that she is in the Real and she is a mystery. In this sense, she is Other, like sexual gender difference, class difference, or race difference. This Other is always a minority. Women and men are either phi or -phi, the presence or absence of imaginary masculinity and femininity.
Lacanian theory is a bit subtler in its conception of gender and sexual difference. Self and Other are both symbolically castrated, so structurally it cannot be a question of “Us” and “Them”. The Other is the generalized social Other of society. Society is always Other in relation to the subject. The society that is Other to the subject is the Symbolic. Femininity rooted in the Real is a different form of Other. She appears as Other.
