sitting in Chicago...

I'm sitting in Chicago waiting for my appointment at the Video Data Bank... pondering about the issue of Phallocentrism. It keeps coming up in everything I am reading lately [no pun intended]. It seems to me that the manner which phallocentrism is played out in film and in visual art has everything to do with the gender identification of the director, or artist. As viewers, its meaning changes at our acceptance or denial. When "death of the author" occurs [as Bathes puts it]... the viewer is in control of directing the interpreted meaning and experience. Other questions.... is there a female version of this concept?... does it really matter??

finding out Freud is both stunning and lacking...

more to come on this... I'm right in the thick of reading Freud's "3 essays on sexuality" and 'Instincts and their vicissitudes". There are so many interesting dissections within his writing, yet much is lacking in regard to female sexuality. My thoughts are reeling trying to make sense of it all. Perhaps he should have studied a broader audience of women (not just women diagnosed with forms of hysteria).

some great women to check out (who have worked to question and expand on Freud's writings and this topic about female sexuality) are: Karen Horney, Luce Irigaray, Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman.