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REVIEW
they were so numerous in Vienna's radical movements and Marxist–
inspired politics; and why Freudians as well as feminists supported the
social democrats' politics in varying degrees. Yes, they differed about how
to attain their ends, but, ultimately, they were united in believing that
all
individuals needed to be freed from personal and political shackles. So, even
though this feminist movement petered out, it left behind legislation that
benefited subsequent generations of women.
As we know, chauvinism was not eradicated then or later on. Mostly,
subsequent waves of feminism, especially when taking such formulations as
penis envy and castration literally, often without reading Freud, rejected
psychoanalysis. But feminists who read carefully expanded on Freud's
understanding of the unconscious-by working with patients and espe–
cially by learning more about the transference and countertransference in
the psychoanalytic session. More recently, many psychoanalytic feminis ts
were inf1 uenced by the French followers of Jacques Lacan, whose main
emphasis has been on the "language of psychoanalysis," that is, on the
structural relation of the words used in their psychoanalytic sessions by
both analyst and analysand. However, this is a gross simplification of
extremely complex issues which remain in dispute among practicing ana–
lysts and scholars, and which frequently are misunderstood in
translation-not only of words but of culture. I'm thinking of Janine
Chasseguet-Smirgel's and Joyce McDougall's different interpretations of
"perversions"-themselves "politically incorrect" formulations
111
America-and of Julia Kristeva's focus on semiotics. Their theories and
clinical methods differ from those of American ego psychologists–
although this often tends to be ignored by non-psychoanalysts and the
public, as is the fact that there are many ongoing discussions within the
American and International Psychoanalytic Associations that transcend
theoretical boundaries. In any event, we must keep in mind that in Freud's
Vienna as well as in our own time, and in between, feminists always have
responded to local knowledge and cuI tural givens-whether advancing
feminist or psychoanalytic aims. As we are only too aware, they still do.
