Abstract

Born in Belgium in 1930, Luce Irigaray is a French feminist, philosopher, linguist, and psychoanalyst whose work poses a radical challenge not least to teleological order. Known for her resistance to being reduced by biography, Irigaray has come under attack by critics within feminism itself. In 1974 she published one of her most influential works, Speculum, de l’autre femme, which challenges the phallocentricism of both Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis and of philosophy. This chapter explores how women’s being is seen, specifically by Irigaray, and how women might subvert the lexicon.