“Becoming a woman and wondering what a woman is are two essentially different things. I would go even further – it’s because one doesn’t become one that one wonders and, up to a point, to wonder is the contrary of becoming one. The metaphysics of the woman’s position is the detour imposed on her subjective realization. Her position is essentially problematic, and up to a certain point it’s unassimilable”.
Lacan, J., The Psychoses. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III, ed. J.-A. Miller, trans. R. Grigg London/New York: Norton, 1993, p, 178.
Lacan takes a swipe here at Simone de Beauvoir’s celebrated aphorism: “One is not born a woman, one becomes one.” In substituting wondering for becoming, Lacan promotes the reflection more than the finality. The feminine position questions both sexes and is accompanied by varied symptoms testifying to the fact that this position is in part inassimilable to the Other scene. Will the subject be at best a metaphysician of themself?
Translated by Samya Seth