Week 6 - Irigaray and love

Luce Irigaray is a Belgian feminist, famous for being expelled from the Freudian School in Paris. She criticised Freudian theory in 'Speculum of the other woman', discussing theoretical neglect and the social implications of excluding women, who were treated as 'lifeless inessential matter without consciousness[1]'. 'Subjects' are therefore always male - women can only become subjects if they adopt a male subject positioning.

Irigaray therefore positions the female 'other' not as a 'fixed female subject' but as a changing one, leading to a dialogue of differentiated states of being. The difficulties in the relationship of 'love' are more than just a confused psychiatric female identity - Irigaray deals with the idea of the 'constraints of privilege' that disable members of hierarchical levels from countenancing external influences.

Language, therefore, is both Irigaray's path to, and barrier from, the other. In order to traverse the collective idea of 'difference', there must be a philosophy and language that theorises for diversity. Irigaray therefore suggests a new 'language of love' that focuses on verbs instead of 'gendered' nouns. It is key, she tells us, that we should not appropriate the subject - telling the other I love *to* you.

The sad conclusion of Irigaray's work is that there is simply no language capable of articulating our relationship with the other. Not even these love-themed fridge magnets.

[1] Irigaray, Luce, The Way of Love, trans. by Heidi Bostic and Stephen Pluhácek, London, Contiuum