Does the female unconscious exist?

Belonging to one sex or another is an occasion for passionate discussions in which many copies are broken. This is not about physiology, of course – everything is clear with it, but about the psychological feeling of being a woman or a man and the corresponding social roles. With all the resulting habits and fears, weaknesses and virtues. Gender theory (and very controversial), for example, asserts the absolute independence of social roles from anatomy. According to this theory, espoused by philosopher Judith Butler, we can, regardless of whether we are born male or female, wear either a male or female “costume” in society, as in a masquerade.¹. On the other hand, supporters of the “biological” approach tend to exaggerate the role of hormones, only to them and reduce the essence of male and female principles.². Psychoanalysis, located between these two extremes – culture and biology – asserts the existence of the unconscious, which determines our behavior in accordance with sex. The psychoanalytic approach makes it possible to describe the female identity, which is born as a result of the action of the unconscious, which is different for boys and girls, without limiting the feminine principle to some a priori framework. However, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan argued that “women do not exist”³. Bearing in mind that there is no single, universal idea of ​​a woman, a higher feminine essence. There are only a few women. Of course, for these words, he was hard hit by supporters (and especially supporters) of gender equality. In Lacan’s defense, it can be said that he generally denied the existence of many phenomena. Saying, for example, that sexual relations do not exist as a model – and the people who enter into them invent everything anew every time.

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“You’re a girl!”

It’s hard to tell how right Lacan was about sex. But if we talk about women, then it is impossible not to admit that we certainly have common features. The tendency to neglect one’s needs for the sake of the needs of loved ones, the depreciation of one’s skills and abilities at work, the constant dissatisfaction with one’s own appearance… Where does all this come from, if not from a non-existent higher and universal model? “From the unconscious,” says psychoanalyst Serge Hefez. “It is filled with the emotional bonds we forge with those we are most attached to. It dictates to women a willingness to sacrifice their interests, coming from the inability to completely separate from the mother. And it also forces us all our lives to reach for the unattainable image of a beautiful mother – no matter what she really was.

Of course, you can try to explain all the same upbringing. From childhood, adults perceive boys and girls differently. They are held differently, spoken to and fed differently. Boys are spoken to in a more stern tone, while girls are usually lisped. Boys are brought up to be independent and decisive, and girls are brought up to be gentle and attentive to their loved ones. That’s right, but why do their parents raise them like that? First of all, because the parents themselves were brought up in the same way. And somewhere at the very beginning of this chain of generations, there are not textbooks on education at all, but some kind of primary unconscious knowledge of what a girl should be like. “Scenarios like this,” says Serge Efez, “are the basis of our unconscious. The experiences of our ancestors and our own growing up influence us and how we raise our children.”

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Anatomy is destiny?

And yet, a woman’s ability to empathize is explained not by her lisping in childhood, but primarily by her unconscious, emphasizes psychoanalyst Andrei Rossokhin. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, argued that our unconscious is determined by a certain set of ideas that arise from the difference in the structure of the sexes: “Anatomy is destiny.” The idea of ​​how a visible penis or a vagina hidden in the depths defines us seems ingenious in its simplicity and obviousness. Women tend to analyze the inner world, they accept the other person with their body, while men are aimed at the external, they strive to conquer, penetrate (for more details, see the next page).

Today, this view may seem somewhat simplistic. “Freud’s attempts to derive mental differences from anatomy were due to the mechanistic nature of science in the XNUMXth century,” says Jungian analyst Lev Khegai. Freud tried to find the basis of his psychology in biology. Today, psychology does not need to reinforce its authority through an appeal to the natural sciences.

Supporters of gender theory see the reason for the differences between male and female roles not in anatomy, but rather in ideology. Judith Butler emphasizes that identity is much more influenced by society than by physical differences. In her opinion, our behavior is very remotely related to the structure of the genital organs. And the qualities that are attributed to women – openness, empathy, passivity – are the result of ideological motives. By imposing vulnerability on women, society emphasizes power relations between the sexes.

“In fact, for Freud, there was no truly masculine or truly feminine unconscious,” says Serge Efez. – It would be more accurate to say that in our consciousness impulses are organized around the opposition of active and passive principles that coexist in everyone. Boys are taught to suppress the passive and develop the active, while girls are taught the opposite. From this point of view, the formation of identity does not occur as a result of creation, but rather, on the contrary, as a result of alienation.

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Hidden powers

This idea of ​​a universal identity, which occurs even before the formation of feminine or masculine traits, is vividly expressed in the work of Carl Gustav Jung. It is to him that we owe the assumption of the existence of the collective unconscious. He called it collective because, unlike the personal unconscious, it does not consist of individual, more or less unique elements, but of universal elements. “They are present in all cultures and at all times,” says Lev Khegay. – Differences in the psychology of men and women are highly dependent on these unconscious models. It is because of their influence that some men behave aggressively, and women try to demonstrate passivity. Which does not mean that men are inherently more aggressive than women.”

Naturally, female archetypes have a particularly strong influence on women. “First of all, it is the archetype of the Great Mother, the primary source of energy, infinitely good and at the same time non-destructive, which appears in the form of female deities in the religions of our ancestors and in our personifications of nature,” notes psychologist Lisbeth von Benedek (Lisbeth von Benedeck). – Other ideas about the feminine refer us to other personifications of the feminine that can arise in us – a savage, a seductress, an Amazon, a sage woman.

In the unconscious of every person there is an archetype of the opposite sex, Jung argued. Thus, the animus is part of the female unconscious, and the anima is part of the male. They act as elements of mental compensation in relation to our sexual identity. And if we do not realize how these archetypes affect us, then we attribute some shortcomings to the opposite sex. If, on the contrary, we accept them, then the anima makes men more sensitive, and the animus of women more proactive, able to analyze and act. “It is useful for a woman to pay attention to men who are attractive to her or, on the contrary, annoying, to look at the men who dream of her,” advises Lisbeth von Benedek. “These are projections of her animus, signs that a part of her consciousness is looking for a way to fulfill itself.”

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Recognize the other in yourself

To realize and accept in your psyche the beginning of the opposite sex is not an easy task. And today, when many ideas about male and female are recognized as obsolete, and the recognition of gender equality is almost a duty, it is doubly difficult. “During the sessions, I often notice this internal conflict,” says Serge Efez. – A woman cannot be a good mother, wife and at the same time live a full sexual life and develop in the profession. Women experience anxiety, guilt. Or they deny the differences between men and women, want to live like men and cannot truly accept their femininity. The psychoanalyst insistently reminds that it is important for women (as well as men) to develop different sides of their identity and that for her love and family are as important as professional success. The same point of view is shared by Andrey Rossokhin. “Each of us has a mental bisexuality that has nothing to do with the physical,” he notes. “And harmonious development is possible only when we are not afraid of this part of our “I”, but accept it – and learn to use it for our own good.”

¹ J. Butler «Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity» (Routledge, 2006).

² J. Gray “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus” (Sofia, 2014).

³ J. Lacan “Seminars. Book 20. More” (Gnosis, 2011).