The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 55, No. 4, 1995

GENDER TALK: DISCUSSION OF MURIEL DIMEN'S 'THIRD STEP'

Michelle Price

" . . . I can't understand why she walk like a woman and talk like a man"

"Girls will be boys and boys will be girls, it's a mixed up, shook-up world, except for Lola..."

--The Kinks "Lola"

Within the past 100 years, many changes have taken place within psy- choanalytic metatheory and clinical practice. Many contemporary psycho- analysts have abandoned claims of scientific accuracy and neutral ob- jectivity informed by a unitary metapsychology. We currently have a kaleidoscope of narratives that highlight and emphasize relational themes, power/knowledge factors, discourse, context, and the coconstructed mean- ings of analyst and analysand. Intertwined in this major paradigmatic shift are alterations in how we think and talk about clinical practice as well as reconsiderations of gender, masculinity, and femininity.

Muriel Dimen has presented us with a scholarly, innovative, and exciting paper that traces the history of masculinity and femininity and gender within psychoanalytic discourses. Besides providing us with this clear and astute overview, she proposes new movements forward that are informed by postmodernist and feminist stances. Such a (re)direction of "gender talk" does not abandon the field of psychoanalytic inquiry and interpretations but redefines it. These proposals reveal the gaps in both analytic and femi- nist narratives and yet utilize these gaps and absences to create possi-

Paper presented at the Scientific Meeting Series of the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, 4/21/93.

Michelle Price, C.S.W., is a Faculty Member and Supervisor at the American Institute of Psy- choanalysis of the Karen Homey Institute and Center and a Faculty Member of the Mr. Sinai School of Medicine. She is Director of the Treatment Center for Incest and Abuse of the Karen Homey Clinic, Inc.

Address correspondence to Michelle Price, C.S.W., 110 E. 87th St., lC, New York, NY 10128.

321 0002-9548/95/1200-0321507.50/1 © 1995 Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis

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bilities. This is an example of what Kaminsky (1994) describes as acts of creation, whereby what may be seen as pathology, as lacks, can be turned on its head to provide individuals with opportunities for growth and expan- sion. This is the ameliorative, the construction in the deconstruction, that Dimen as well refers to.

In order to put forth different conceptualizations regarding gender, Di- men suggests that we need to understand how we think about women and men. I would add and how we talk about women. This involves an anal- ysis and interrogation of the language that creates and maintains the social categories and institutions of gender and what constitutes them. The gaps and omissions in the discourse that she exposes can be spoken of as si- lences. Bollas's (1987) concept of the unthought known, that which we know but cannot think of, as it is not yet signified and positioned in lan- guage, can also be utilized to describe this phenomenon. What Dimen reveals are some of the subverted discourses that have been foreclosed through discursive practices to maintain a constructed and closed order of things, a grand narrative of masculinity and femininity or male and female identity. The identification of discursive practices and naming the dissoci- ated and disenfranchised knowledges (Ingram, 1994) that are the result of these practices are part of the postmodernist agenda and inherent in Di- men's paper and general work. Although potentially frightening and anxi- ety provoking as it destabilizes and shakes up existing paradigms of knowl- edge, it provides persons, men and women, with opportunities and spaces to fully appreciate the extent of their experiences, differences, and sim- ilarities. This seems not at all contradictory to psychoanalytic philosophy and a "method which defines itself in terms of the elaboration of multiply- layered meanings, as opposed to a final truth" (Goldner, 1991, p. 251).

In discussing Freud's texts, Dimen elaborates on Freud's doubts about the constitution and delineation of masculinity and femininity, men and women. Despite these uncertainties he maintained binary and hierarchical categories and infused them with scientific and universal prestige, therefore privileging them as essential, true, and natural. His own doubts were re- vealed in a footnote added to the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (Freud, 1905, 1915). He writes (1915, p. 219)

It is essential to realize that the concepts of masculine and feminine whose meaning seems so unambiguous to ordinary people, are among the most con- fused that occur in science . . . . Activity and its concomitant phenomena (more powerful muscular development, aggressiveness, greater intensity of libido) are as a rule linked with biological masculinity; but they are not necessarily so, for there are animal species in which these qualities are on the contrary assigned to

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the female . . . . In human beings pure masculinity or femininity is not to be found in the psychological or biological sense Every individual on the contrary dis- plays a mixture of the character-traits belonging to his own and to the opposite sex; and he shows a combination of activity and passivity whether or not these last character traits tally with his biological ones.

Nevertheless, masculinity was linked with activity, while femininity was linked with passivity.

As Dimen indicates, Freud took folk science and/or local knowledge, the particulars, and transformed it into universal truth, obliterating its develop- ment within a cultural and historical context and linguistic order that de- fines available knowledges and discourses. This rhetorical strategy col- lapsed culture, history, biology, anatomy, and sexuality and presented the gendered self as natural with limited attention to its contextualization. Geertz's (1973) thick description assists us in connecting a general per- spective with a specifying analysis of discourse (Kaminsky, 1994). This can be particularly beneficial in locating the culturally available yet hidden discourses that informed Freud's theoretical truths (the ground behind the figure). This type of deconstruction is readily available in reading Horney's papers on Feminine Psychology (1967). Homey, through her emphasis on culture and feminine experiences, illustrates the underlying biases that in- formed Freud's "objective and scientific" values. Utilizing Freud's own lan- guage, which was the only form of analytic discourse then available, Homey reveals the political, social, and power factors that contributed to the organization of Freud's views of feminine psychology (Price, in press). As Dimen infers, the same type of analysis can be used to deconstruct Horney's essays and reveal their gaps, particularly in regard to the ordering of sexual desire and premises of essentialism.

Freud's theoretical presumptions privileged heterosexuality, which was achieved in a successful resolution of the Oedipus complex and accepting one's rightful position in the order of the world (although at times he doubts and challenges this presumption). Additionally Dimen argues that by emphasizing the role of the Oedipus complex he minimizes, if not at times eclipses, the role of the pre-Oedipal mother, as well as female sexu- ality and subjectivity which Homey contested. In Freud's texts, women became women by accepting the so-called submissive, passive position. "Real" women are heterosexual females who have husbands and babies. This is by no means a position of the past. A patient of mine who clearly defines herself as a feminist is experiencing serious fertility problems and it seems more than likely will be unable to conceive a child. In discussion of this in session, she cried out "What kind of woman am I, if I can't have a

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child." She then added, "1 can't believe I said that, I am a feminist, but I really believe it, it is natural for real women to have babies." For this woman, despite other narratives and convictions, to be a woman means to conceive and be a mother. Not to be so puts her own sense of femininity and womanhood in jeopardy. The signifier of feminist causes additional problems for her. To be a feminist for her means to not define herself as a woman by her fertility. Yet she does. To admit so means to feel guilty and unable to be a real feminist (like a real woman). To not admit so means to dissociate and suppress an aspect of her experience, causing alienation and despair. One possible way of interpreting my patient's conflict is that the conflict itself is a signifier of various cultural narratives fighting for dominance, manifesting themselves in her identity struggle.

Since Freud, a long line of analysts, researchers, and others have argued, debated, and reorganized his concepts and. their etiology. Despite the phal- Iocentrism that informed Freud's metatheoretical narrative, Dimen illus- trates how he provided a way to begin to examine gender development and sexuality as achievements within social and family orders. This project has been embraced by many including Homey, Stoller, Persons, Gilligan, Symonds, and Chodorow. Stoller (1985) challenged some of Freud's claims regarding gender development, particularly its more fragile development in girls than in boys. By emphasizing and reinstating the importance of pre- Oedipal development, Stoller elevates the role of the mother in gender identity development. Since the boy has to separate from his mother to identify with the same-sex parent and consequently achieve gender coher- ence, which the girl does not, the male child is involved in a two-step process, thereby rendering his task more difficult.

Despite the advances Stoller's work has implemented, there are serious problems. He makes clear distinctions between sex as biology and gender as cultural and social, ignoring the social/cultural constructs involved in signifying and representing the body. He then proceeds to define femininity as merger with mother, while masculinity is defined as autonomy and sep- arateness and ignores girls' needs to separate from their mothers. He addi- tionally constructs two mutually exclusive categories of gender, and al- though he attempts to not place them in a hierarchical position, he nevertheless does. In a culture where autonomous and independent striv- ings are 'valued, women's so-called femininity consisting of merger and relatedness would be devalued. In addition, his position forms the "bed- rock" for some of Gilligan's and the Stone Center's work, which as Dimen so clearly and articulately illustrates, reinforces strict gender boundaries, hierarchies, and delineations, thereby excluding many men and women. It does nothing to challenge or question the binary system of gender that often limits and restricts men and women. It only attempts to reverse them

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and elevate one above the other. It is still basically the same story. Al- though this reversal of the binary may feel satisfactory to many women, it only reinforces what are seen as traditional female qualities that can easily be devalued and pathologizes those who do not conform.

Using a Foucauldian analysis, Stoller's work has the potential to change the people occupying power positions, but does not reveal the hidden power/knowledge discourses that are operating. By doing so, nothing is changed and existing gaps, biases, and power structures remain. The revo- lutions will continue with the difference being only in who occupies the signifier of power. The focus, as Dimen argues for, may not be to generate new interpretations of women but to analyze the very construction of gen- der. Such a project would include exposing the omissions and restrictions within the context of current available knowledges. This involves locating the hidden inscriptions of gender, the differences and similarities of men and women that are located within the "bedrock of gender." This incorpo- rates Harris's (1991) ideas of gender itself as bring and containing contra- diction and Dimen's (1991) idea of gender multiplicity constructed within a relational matrix. Inherent to these works is a continued usage of gender distinctions and differentiations; there are still men and women. This is part of the postmodernist dilemma and tension and illustrates a paradox of challenging gender and its social construction, yet still maintaining it.

Dimen outlines for us various feminist discourses and how they, al- though well intentioned, have re-created the very problems we tried to solve in the first place. She exposes these problems and limiting narratives through her discussion of "difference feminism" and the work of Gilligan, Miller, and the Stone Center. Judith Butler (1990), in her profound text, Gender Trouble, asks the question, "And to what extent does the effort to locate a common identity as the foundation for a feminist politics preclude a radical inquiry into the political construction and regulation of identity itself?" Butler is not so interested in identifying the origins, the cause and effect of gender, but advocates for a genealogical investigation of the politi- cal stakes in designating the origin of gender and to decenter defining insti- tutions.

Miller (1976) and the Stone Center group (Jordan et al., 1991) focus on identifying a certain line of development for women that privileges related- ness, nurturance, and connectedness. As Dimen writes, erased from their meta-narrative are women's experiences of aggression, envy, sexuality, competitiveness, as well as nonrelated experiences. Women's experiences are reified and unified, further limiting them. Also absent from their work and various other feminist texts is attention to cultural, class, economic, social, and racial differences. Their use of the signifier "woman" denotes that all women are the same and share a common identity. Rhetorically

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women's multiplicity and differences are erased, falsely categorizing and unifying them and positioning men as the common enemy. Also eliminated are similarities between the genders. Furthermore, the language and poli- tics that represent "women" as subjects of feminism is itself a discursive formation, only this time utilized by the political system that is supposed to facilitate women's emancipation (Butler, 1990). Once again gender is con- structed within political and power/knowledge discourses with an agenda of maintaining differences, exclusion, and hierarchical structures.

This form of totalizing feminism creates problems for men and women and marginalizes those whose do not fit in or find their voices in their dominant narratives. Dimen generously provides us with a personal exam- ple of her own experience, which further exposes the theoretical problems with their approach. I, too, had encountered their work in a less than posi- tive way. Growing up in a traditional, conservative culture, I often had the experience of not feeling like a girl. It wasn't that I felt like a boy; I just felt as Dimen names it, "out of gender," not being like the others. As I got older I attributed it to the old-fashioned, semi-Victorian mentality of the world I grew up in and hoped to find a new sense of womanhood in feminist studies. (This itself reflects gender, like identity, something that we acquire and step into, illustrated in Gergen's "texts of identity.") I attended one of the Stone Center's annual meetings. I sat in a large room with approx- imately 300 others, listening to papers by Miller's group. The more I lis- tened, the more disheartened I became, the more my hopes shattered. I could no more find my femininity, my womanhood, in their narratives as I could in my culture and family of origin. This experience of marginaliza- tion, exclusion, and difference was confounded by the overwhelming ap- plause of their work by the women attending. I once again wondered why was I not like the other girls. Postmodernist feminist critique has assisted me in understanding and relinquishing some of my burdens and providing me with the space to be related and nonrelated, nurturing and nonnurtur- ing, and not define connectedness and relatedness as the essential core of my being and essential for a sense of womanhood.

So once again we are left with a similar problem as we were with Freud. Fraser and Nicholson (1990) write in regard to the feminist movement that what is troubling is the role and importance it gives to sisterhood, at the cost of repressing differences, aggression, and competitiveness between sis- ters. The consequence of this placing of differences as secondary has been many women's denying an allegiance to feminism. Dimen and postmod- emist discourses suggest a way out of this dilemma without going as far as to totally obliterate the categories of gender. Such discourses provide alter- native ways of constructing gender that have the potential to expand one's options, possibilities, and experiences. They provide a way in which

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women can locate their own subjectivities and sense of agency. Dimen envisions a third step. The step metaphor does not necessarily signify a linear process of feminist critique. These steps fold into one another and are not neat or orderly. Much is buried within them. The multiple voices of these different eras invade one another and permeate through the apparent concreteness of the steps themselves.

Dimen is joined in her endeavor of expanding gender constructions by Jane Flax, whose work has attempted to further the discourses of post- modernism, feminism, and psychoanalysis. Flax (1990), like Dimen, writes of the difficulties in attempting to locate a defining theme of gender or feminism as it requires the suppression of individuals' voices. Flax further writes that the very search for the root or cause of gender relations may partially reflect a mode of thinking that is grounded in a particular theory of gender relations in which domination and politics are present. The search for such an essence is a product of enlightenment--Kantian think- ing which is no longer interesting or pertinent. This, as well as Dimen's arguments, move us into the position of studying the very categories of gender as socially constructed by language and power discourses. Al- though useful, the idea that people are separated by gender and aspects of anatomy is as arbitrary as separating people by the color of their skin. To quote Lacan, gender becomes "necessary fiction."

Postmodernism, with its attention to deconstruction and revealing power/ knowledge factors and discourses, rhetorical strategies, and multiplicity, attempts to locate arbitrariness, give voice to dissociated aspects of experi- ence, and continuously add new voices and signifiers into the discourse. As Dimen quotes Rivera (1989), the problem is not with multiplicity but dissociation. We therefore begin to privilege experiences that were previ- ously silenced or constructed as pathological. Conflicts can be appreciated without necessarily needing to be erased or resolved. This type of thinking has serious implications and possibilities for psychoanalytic theory and practice. It has the potential to provide us with opportunities to reveal the signifiers of women and men, masculine and feminine, and gender identity itself as complex and multiply constructed conceptions of social identity. In short, this theory would look more like a tapestry composed of threads of many different hues than one woven in a single color (Fraser and Nichol- son, 1990). This tapestry would be unfinished and continuously expanding. It would embrace multiplicity and contradiction. As Dimen (this issue) cau- tions us, "If we don't have in mind an image of this multiplicity, we are going to wind up either missing those dimensions of our patients' experi- ences that enable them to grow or re-creating the molds that got our pa- tients into trouble in the first place."

Dimen's metaphoric third step and postmodernist discourses assist us in

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thinking and speaking of gender like identity as multiply instantiated, am- biguous, shifting, overdetermined, and conflicted, all constructed within social/historical/political/linguistic contexts and orders. It destabilizes and problematizes notions of gender as a way of making space for a multi- plicity of experiences of men and women, not for exclusionary purposes. It asks the question, What does it mean for this person to be a man or woman? How have they within their relational/historical/cultural context linguistically constructed themselves as a gendered person? How have they coded their human experiences in gender and possibly retain them as natu- rally gendered? What experiences and knowledges are unavailable due to a lack of signification within the general discourse?

The implications for psychoanalysis are vast. Mitchell (1993), in regard to context, writes "the extent to which the patient is always speaking selec- tively to a particular other person for a specific purpose" (p. 69). This cau- tions us to question continuously the impact of how our own beliefs and values created in language and relational matrixes influence our ability to recognize, question, and explore our patients' identities and gender forma- tions. Our own sense of gender and sexuality can preclude our questioning it in our patients and ourselves and foreclosing on its inclusion in psycho- analytic dialogues. Inherent to this is an emphasis on multiple voices or identities of which aspects become mobilized and constructed in any par- ticular relational context. As Rivera (1989) writes, concepts of the unified and well-integrated self are no longer viewed as ideals. They are consid- ered to be dangerous ideological fictions used to erase the awareness of differences between and within human beings. Identities are constructed through a lifetime of multiple positioning and coherence replaces integra- tion and unity (Dimen, this issue; Bromberg, 1993).

The work of psychoanalysis is to embrace paradox, ambiguity, and mul- tiplicity rather than artificially unify it. Listening to previously silenced voices and deconstructing well-organized and coherent narratives is the psychoanalytic agenda. Dimen reminds us that penetrating the seamless, normative veil to uncover hidden ambiguities, deconstructing that which is normally taken for normal so as to reveal semiexplicable chaos, is what psychoanalysis is all about. We have a choice in using psychoanalysis as a regulatory, normalizing discourse, as Foucault, Lacan, and others have ex- posed, or utilizing it as a forum to destabilize, decenter, and explode no- tions and prevailing narratives of "the natural," gender and desire that serve to oppress, limit, and restrict people. We can utilize psychoanalysis to reveal nature and natural as discursive means of normalizing, control- ling, privileging, and marginalizing modes of behavior, thought, and iden- tity. This involves challenging and deconstructing the binaries of subject vs. object, self vs. other, hetero vs. homo, man vs. woman, analyst vs. patient,

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and revealing their hidden power, hierarchical strategies, while knowing others will remain hidden, keeping the process going. As Dimen (1995) writes in regard to sexuality, but can easily be applied to gender, it would

• . . move the body outside the discourse of nature into questions of embodiment, of the meaning and representations of the body as experienced in relational con- text. It would encompass a necessary tension between the always amorphous sea of desire and a developmental process that provides experiences of coherence, in which hetero, homo and other sexuality are mutually constitutive, not a sequen- tial and hierarchical binary. And it would, I hope, go some way toward remedy- ing the cultural dissociation of homosexuality and various experiences that make gender, in Judith Butler's term, a most melancholy matter for us all.

Dimen suggests that we contest gender and expose the seams, which entails embracing not knowing as well as knowing, and recognizing that we have an ambiguous, multiply constructed relation to one's sex. Goldner (1991), in a similar yet slightly different voice, writes that a postmodernist relational perspective opposes the reification of gender as a coherent es- sence or entity and argues instead that gender is fundamentally and para- doxically indeterminate, both as a psychological experience and as a cul- tural category. These narratives open up the possibilities of confusion, complexity, and freedom. Gender is both a solution and problem, compre- hensible and incomprehensible, as are most things. It is the immersion of ourselves, as men, women, analysts, and analysands in this continued paradox and tension, that enables us to grow and embrace life and contra- diction.

In ending this discussion I find myself in a paradox. I do not wish for Dimen's text to not be understood, for I believe she has and continues to make some of the most important and profound contributions to feminist psychoanalytic work. Yet, 1 know that I have missed, (re)authored, and (re)interpreted some of her contributions and there are unavoidable gaps and absences in this discussion. I will close with stating that I embrace Dimen's work and feel both personal and professional gratitude for her colleagueship. I am indebted to her contributions to the analytic commu- nity and respect and value her as an analyst, a scholar, and a woman, whatever that might signify.

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