Dr Claire French: Psychology and the Feminine

Listen to Dr Claire French speak about Jungian psychology and the its understanding and portrayal of the feminine. As a renowned lecturer she’s given many talks to the Society and if you enjoy today’s talk, make sure to check out her autobiography, My Upside Down World scheduled for release late 2020. WARNING: Please note, Claire directly quotes from New Woman, New Earth: Sex Ideologies and Human Liberation(1975) by Rosemary Radford Ruether, an American ecofeminist theologian. At around 7 minutes into Claire’s talk, she reads out a derogatory term which is followed a minute later by a similar term. This term is used both by Claire and the author to illustrate the fallacy at the heart of Freud’s feminine psychology, in particular, the theory of ‘penis envy’. Ruether does this by providing an analogy with an imagined Freudian analysis of an African-American slave’s ‘white skin envy’. The point she is making is that both theories and interpretations are repulsive and false.