Week 9 discussed a plethora of concepts from subjectivity to Freudian psychoanalysis, the differentiation between gender & sex and cultural discourses influencing how we understand who we think we are.
The lecture started with the ins and outs of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, described well as a key factor in the silencing and oppression of women. The central idea was that because women do not have a penis, they do not have access tot he vital symbolic signifier of Western Culture, the phallus. He assumes women regret that they are not men. Key also is Freud's 'Oedipal Conflict'; whereby the son idolises the father not the mother after discovering that she does not have a penis, where both son and father both once battled for the mother affection. It's based on the comparison of gender qualities. An important note was that Freud wrote these theories in the last half of the 19th century when patriarchy was unquestioned.
The reading by J.Lorber and L.J.Moore on male sexuality and societies narrow perception of 'handsome' was surprisingly valid, I myself found examples recognisable in my habits of identifying one male from another.
The tutorial presented a varying selection of interpretations of the weeks focus questions, from the separation of gender and sex, questioning whether a physical sex takes priority in identifying a person, over a mental gender.. Also interesting questions were raised on sexuality applied to this concept and which label would be applicable to changed sexes, followed by the pointing out of these labels being irrelevant and the need for such caused by cultural and societal pressures to fit into a category.
