Women are not born, they become

Women are not born, they become it. Neither biology, nor psyche, nor economics are capable of predetermining the image that the human female takes in society. A creature called a woman, a cross between a male and a neuter, could only arise under the influence of all aspects of civilized life. Only when communicating with other people can the individual realize himself as the Other. Since the child is self-contained, he cannot notice his sexual difference from others. For children, both girls and boys, the body is first and foremost an exponent of a certain inner world and a tool for understanding the outside world; they get to know the world through the eyes and hands, not through the genitals. Infants of both sexes equally experience the drama of birth and weaning; they have the same interests and pleasures; The first source of the most pleasant sensation for them is sucking, then they go through the anal phase; their greatest pleasure is their total stool function; they study their bodies with the same curiosity or the same indifference; from the clitoris and penis, they extract a similar vague pleasure. As their perception of the external world develops, their feelings turn to the mother. Her skin, soft, smooth and elastic female skin, awakens in them sexual desires, satisfied grasping organs. Both girls and boys defiantly embrace the mother, feel her, caress her; at the birth of a new child, both those and others experience jealousy that manifests itself in the same way - these are anger attacks, moods, and urination disorders. Children of both sexes equally flirt in order to win the love of adults. Until the age of twelve, a girl is as strong physically as her brothers, their intellectual abilities are no different.

they can compete with them in any field. And if it seems to us that in the girl long before puberty, and sometimes from early childhood, the specific signs of her sex appear, then it is not because some mysterious instincts from birth condemn her to passivity, coquetry and motherhood. The fact is that since birth the child lives among the people and the girl from the first years of her life insistently inspire the idea of ​​her destiny.

At first, the world is presented to the newborn only as immanent sensations, it is still immersed in something undifferentiated, as at the time when he lived in the gloom of the womb. Whether breastfed or bottle fed, it is constantly surrounded by the warmth of the mother's body. Little by little he begins to perceive objects as something different from himself, he distinguishes himself from them. At the same time, it is quite sharply torn off from the body that feeds it, in response to which a violent reaction sometimes occurs1. In any case, it is at that moment when this storm begins to calm down, that is, by the time the child approaches six months of age, in his facial expression, which later turns into real maneuvering, the desire to like others begins to appear. Of course, such behavior is not caused by conscious choice; but it’s not necessary to think about the situation in order to survive it. A child directly experiences the original drama of any being - the drama of relationships with the Other. A man with anguish is aware of his alienation. He is ready to give up his freedom, his inner world and would like to merge with the universe. This explains his cosmic and pantheistic quest, the pursuit of oblivion, sleep, ecstasy, death, He never manages to destroy his separate "I", but at least he would like to achieve the strength that the unconscious world possesses, to harden, as an object. He is particularly aware of himself as a being when the fixing gaze of another person is directed at him. It is in this regard that the behavior of the child should be considered: in his bodily form, he discovers isolation, loneliness and estrangement from the surrounding world, he tries to overcome this catastrophe, moving away from his existence in the form of a certain image, the reality and value to which other people give. It seems that he begins to assert his identity, from the moment when he begins to recognize his

Judith Gautier tells in her memoirs that she cried so plaintively and withered when she was separated from her nurse that she had to be returned. Only much later she was weaned.

This theory was advanced by Dr. Lacan in his work “Complexes familiaux dans la formation de l'individu”. This fact, which is of extreme importance, is, according to the author, an explanation of why, in the process of development, the “I” retains the character’s ambiguous appearance in the play ”.

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reflection in the mirror, which also coincides with the moment of weaning the child from the breast. His “I” is so mixed with reflection that it is formed only in conditions of detachment. So, the mirror plays a more or less significant role. However, there is no doubt that by the age of six months the child begins to understand the mimicry of the parents and, by their views, recognize themselves as an object. He is already an independent subject who is striving towards the real world, but he can meet himself only in a detached image.

When a child grows, he fights against primordial alienation in two ways. On the one hand, he seeks to reject the gap: he presses against his mother, seeks to feel her living warmth, requires affection, On the other hand, he tries to justify himself, having received the approval of other people. He looks at adults as gods: after all, they can endow him with one image or another. He is experiencing the magic of a gaze that can turn him into a charming angel, then into a monster. These two methods of protection do not exclude each other, on the contrary, they are complementary and interpenetrating. When a child succeeds in pleasing, a feeling of self-justification is corroborated bodily; kiss and caress him. Both in the womb of his mother and under her tender gaze, the child experiences the same feeling - happy passivity. During the first three or four years of life, both boys and girls behave in the same way: they all strive to prolong the happy state that precedes weaning; in both, we can observe both the desire to win over and the crookedness; boys, like their sisters, want to like, cause smiles and admiration.

It is more pleasant to deny a gap than to bridge it; it is safer to get lost in the center of the universe than to take a solid form under the influence of the consciousness of other people. Contact with the body leads to a deeper detachment than any humility under the influence of another person's gaze. The desire to please, the antics are a more complicated and difficult to reach stage than a simple rest in the arms of the mother. The magic of an adult’s gaze is deceptive: the child claims that he is not visible, the parents come into play with him, search for him by touch, laugh, and then suddenly declare: “You are tired of us, you can see perfectly.” The child said something that amused everyone; he repeats it, but this time, in response, he is only shrugged. In this world, just as wrong and unpredictable as the world of Kafka, the child stumbles at every step1. That is why

In “Blue Orange” Yosyu Gokler says about his father: “In a good mood, he seemed to me as scary as in moments of impatience, because I couldn’t understand what caused his soul's movements ... Being afraid of changes in his mood as whims some deity, I had respect for him, mixed with anxiety ... I pronounced my

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many children are afraid of becoming big; they despair when parents stop putting them on their knees or letting them into their beds. Having lost physical intimacy, they are more and more acutely beginning to experience moral distancing, which is always painfully experienced by man.

Here, for the first time, girls are in a better position than boys. It is like a second weaning, less harsh than the first, as a result of which the child gradually loses bodily contact with the mother. But in kisses and caresses the boys are particularly persistently denied, the girl is still caressed, she is always allowed to be near her mother, her father puts her on her knees, strokes her head, she is dressed in a dress of the most delicate flowers, forgives her tears and whims, carefully combes her hair, they amuse her with grimaces and coquetry. Her fear of loneliness is protected by touch and condescending eyes. The boy, on the contrary, is banned from any kind of coquetry, his attempts to be liked, his antics cause irritation. “Men do not ask to be kissed ... Men do not turn in front of a mirror ,,. Men don't cry ... ”- they are told. Adults want the boy to be a “little man,” and he can win their approval only by showing independence. They like it only when they do not want to like it.

Many boys are afraid of the harsh independence to which they are doomed, and want to become girls. In the days when, in early childhood, all children were dressed in dresses, boys often cried when they put on their pants and cut curls with them. Some stubbornly want to be women, and this is one of the reasons that leads to homosexuality. “I passionately wanted to be a girl, and I was not so aware of the advantages of the male state that I wanted to urinate while sitting,” says Maurice Saks. However, if at first the boy is treated more strictly than his sisters, it is because more significant plans are associated with him. The requirements that are imposed on him immediately put him above the girl. Maurice tells in his memoirs that he was jealous of his younger brother, with whom his mother and grandmother were very gentle. His father once took him by the hand and led him out of the room. “We are men, we will leave women,” he told him. Child convince that from boys

the words as if they were thinking about an eagle or tails, not knowing how they would be perceived. ” A little further, she tells the following story: “One morning, after I was scolded, I pulled my counting down: the old table, the floor brush, the stove, the bowl, the milk bottle, the kettle, etc., and my mother laughed when she heard it. .. A few days later, when my mother scolded me again, I tried again to soften her with her, but it was not there. Instead of cheering, I annoyed her even more, and I was punished more severely. It seemed to me that it was completely impossible to understand adults. ”

The Sabbat.

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require more because of their superiority. To encourage him on the hard way, he is constantly inspired by the thought of his manhood. This abstract concept takes a very concrete form for it and is embodied in the penis. A sense of pride in his small, soft, hanging penis arises in him not by itself, he penetrates them thanks to the behavior of the people around him. According to ancient tradition, mothers and nurses liken the male penis of masculinity. Whether from grateful love or from humility, they experience his charm, or his helpless infantile state inspires them with a sense of superiority, but they treat the child's penis with some special condescension. Rabelais tells us about the games and catchwords of Gargantua1; also known are the games and the keenness of the supporters of Louis XIII. And more bashful women give the penis of a little boy friendly nicknames, speak of him with a child as a little man, who is at the same time both the child himself and someone else. As they say in the statement already cited, they represent it as an “alter ego, but usually more cunning, clever and clever than its owner” 2. From the point of view of the anatomy, the penis is very suitable for fulfilling this role: located on the surface of the body, it looks like a small, naturally given toy, like something like a pupa. Thus, extolling the child's twin, they give weight to him as well. One father told me that his son was still urinating while sitting at the age of three. This child, who lived surrounded by sisters and cousins, was timid and sad. One day, his father took him to the restroom and said: “Now I will show you how men do it.” From that moment on, the boy was very proud that he knew how to urinate while standing, and began to despise girls for the fact that "they pee through the hole." The real reason for his contempt was not that the girls did not have any organ, but that he, and not their, was isolated and taught to urinate the father. Thus, the penis is not at all perceived as a born privilege, supposedly bringing a sense of superiority to the boy; on the contrary, his elevation is a kind of compensation — made up by adults and enthusiastically taken by a child — for severe experiences.

1 "... And he began to ask the work of his codpiece. And the nurses daily decorated his fly with lush tassels and amused themselves by squeezing him in his hands, like a plaster rolled up into a tube; and when the fly crows had ears on the top of the head, the nannies were rolling with laughter - it was evident that this game gave them considerable pleasure.

One of them called it a sleeve, the other - a pin, the third - a coral sprig, the fourth - a cork, the fifth - a cinch, a jerk, a jigger, a gimlet, a hanger, rezvunchik-bouncing, standing, a little red sausage, a small egg ... "and t .d

2 A. B and 1 in f. La Vie intime de l'enfant, vol. I, p. 89

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related to the last separation from the mother. So help him to survive the regret that he has already gone out of infancy, and that he is not a girl. Later, he will begin to associate his superiority and proud independence with his penis1.

For girls, everything is different, Mothers and wet nurse have no respect or tenderness for their genitals, do not attract attention to these hidden parts of the body, which are only partially visible and which cannot be picked up. In a sense, girls have no genitals. However, the girl does not feel deprived of anything, she, of course, feels her body as a whole. At the same time, her position in the world is very different from that of a boy. In this regard, a number of factors can turn in her eyes this difference into inferiority.

There are not many issues that psychoanalysts so often discuss as the famous female “castration complex”. Most experts today believe that the desire to possess a penis is manifested in different cases in a variety of forms2. First of all, many girls for a long time did not know anything about the structure of the male body. The child is not surprised that there are men and women, just as there are sun and moon. It seems to him that there is no difference between the word and the essence, and there is still no analysis in his curiosity. There are also girls who do not pay any attention, or even laugh at a small piece of flesh hanging between the legs of the boys. This is the same feature of men as clothing or hairstyle. Often they notice him in the newborn brothers, and “if the girl is still small,” writes X, Deutsch, “her brother’s penis makes no impression on her”; she talks about a girl who, seeing the penis, showed no interest in him and only much later, due to her own problems, began to give him meaning. It happens that the penis is perceived as an anomaly; it is some kind of growth, something incomprehensible, hanging like a bump, nipple or wart, it can cause disgust. Finally, it is indisputable that in many cases girls are interested in the penis of their brother or comrade, but this does not mean that they feel purely sexual jealousy towards him. And the more they do not feel deep resentment due to the absence of such an organ. Their desire to take possession of them is not

^ m t. 1, p. 79-80.

In addition to the works of Freud and Adler, there is an extensive literature on this subject. Abraham first suggested that the girl considers his genitals mutilated. Karen Horney, Jones, Jeanne Lampl De Groot, X. Deitch, A. Balint studied this question from a psychoanalytic point of view. Saussure is trying to combine a psychoanalytic approach with the ideas of Piaget and Luke. See also: Pollack. Les idees des enfants sur la diffeerence des sexes.

Cha from the desire to seize any other object, it is often superficial.