Freud spoke of the “repudiation of femininity” as being an “underlying bedrock”, part of the “enigma” of sexuality. The enigma is not so much the refusal of the feminine dimension as such; it has more to do with rejecting its erotic and genital aspects, as well as its creation through sexual ecstatic pleasure. Equality between the sexes is a legitimate demand in the political, social, and economic spheres, but forming a masculine–feminine relationship as a couple is a creation of the mind,...

Psychoanalysis and the Feminine presents Jacqueline Schaeffer's understanding of the feminine as a psychoanalytic concept.Schaeffer considers the difference between the sexes to be the paradigm of all differences, and the basis for the repudiation of the feminine and gender theories, those that destitute or invalidate psychic bisexuality. In addition, the author proposes a number of oppositions: a feminine, constructed in relation to the masculine, which differentiates its...