Comparative Literature: East & West

Series 1

ISSN: (Print) 2572-3618 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcle19

Luce Irigara’s View on Mother-Daughter

Relationship

Xiaoqing QIU

To cite this article: Xiaoqing QIU (2009) Luce Irigara’s View on Mother-Daughter Relationship,
Comparative Literature: East & West, 11:1, 31-43, DOI: 10.1080/25723618.2009.12015364

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 Luce Irigaray's View on Mother-Daughter
Relationship

QIU Xiaoqing
Guangdong University ofForeign Studies

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1. Introduction
As a feminist theorist and a philosopher, Luce Irigaray has made her feminist
theory quite systematic over more than twenty years' development. In her early
works such as This Sex Which Is Not One (1977), Elemental Passions (1982), An
Ethics ofSexual Difference(l984), Irigaray takes a close look at how man constructs
the patriarchal society and his singular perspective of interpreting the world. She
moves on to explore the possibilities of the existence of female subjectivity in such
works as Thinking the Difference: For a Peaceful Revolution (1989) and I, You, We:
Toward a Culture of Difference (1990). In her more recent works, I Love to You:
Sketch for a Felicity Within History ( 1993) and To Be Two(l994), to name only two,
Irigaray expresses great concern over the ideal model of heterosexual relationship
and advocates the construction of an inter-subjective relationship between man and
woman on the basis of respect for sexual differences. 111 [ZJ 131

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 In almost all of her major works, Irigaray discusses the mother-daughter
relationship. She finds that "there are often serious and painful problems between
daughters and mothers" and that the concerns over the relationship are actually
related to the struggles for women's liberation as "these struggles have significantly
helped women become aware of themselves," and they begin to listen to each other
and talk about their problems with their mothers. 141 Irigaray gives an in-depth
analysis of the problematic mother-daughter relationship and puts forward her own
suggestions on how to improve it. She talks about the relationship in the following
four works in particular: "And the One Doesn't Stir without the Other", Thinking
the Difference: For a Peaceful Revolution, I, You, We: Toward a Culture of
Difference, and To be Two. By closely reading her works, this paper attempts to gain
a comprehensive understanding of Irigaray's unique view on mother-daughter
relationship and to point out her unique contributions to feminist theories in general.

2. Critique of Freud's pre-Oedipal mother-daughter relationship

Freud declares that the mother is the daughter's only love object m the
pre-Oedipal period and the daughter's strong love for her mother will probably last
till she is over 4 years of age. He goes on to say that the daughter's love for her
mother is based on her assumption that her mother has the penis, so once she finds
out that her mother is also castrated, it is likely that she will no longer treat her
mother as her love object; instead, she will hate her mother and tum to her father for
the compensation of the lack and thus enter the Oedipal period. 151
Irigaray strongly opposes Freud's view of the pre-Oedipal mother-daughter
relationship. She points out that although Freud asserts that the pre-Oedipal phase is
more important for the girl than for the boy, he "focuses particularly on certain
aspects that might be qualified as negative, or at least as problematic." These
aspects include premature weaning, the forbidding of masturbation, and especially
the deprivation of the phallic sexual organ. Thus, the girl becomes increasingly
dissatisfied with her mother. 16l Freud also says this mother-daughter relationship
has to be given up if the woman is to enter into the desire for the man-father. 17l
Irigaray points out that Freud's real intention is to prove it is the female's "lack"
that causes her to leave her mother and tum to her father. She refutes this "lack"
theory by redefining female sexuality from the perspective of sexual psychology.
She states that female sexuality is plural and multiple, consisting of various female
sexual organs such as the "lips", the clitoris, the vagina, the womb, the breasts, etc.

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 Therefore, a woman is not the lack.l81 In this way Irigaray ridicules Freud's
penis-envy theory and says it is "completely pathogenic and pathological" for the
daughter to give up her love for her mother in order to enter into the desire for the
father. By so doing the daughter ends up losing her subjectivity. 191
Irigaray emphasizes the importance of subjectivity for both the mother and the
daughter. In her famous prose essay "And the One Doesn't Stir without the Other"
she both teases Freud's penis-envy theory and points out the daughter's dilemma:
she is almost suffocated by her mother's overwhelming love and disappointed with
her mother's loss of herself, so she wants to escape. However, she also knows quite
well about her father's patriarchal expectations of her and is clear that she will end
up being objectified if following her father:

I, too, a captive when a man holds me in his gaze; I, too, am abducted from myself.
Immobilized in the reflection he expects of me. Reduced to the face he fashions for me in
which to look at himself. Traveling at the whim of his dreams and mirages. Trapped in a
single function-mothering. (!OJ

Thus, Irigaray criticizes Freud's interpretation of the pre-Oedipal

mother-daughter relationship and gives a new account of the daughter's
ambivalence toward her mother: First, motherhood suffocates the daughter. Second,
the daughter sees that the mother does not possess subjectivity; she has lost her
identity as a woman. Third, the daughter still needs the mother because "the one
doesn't stir without the other" 1111. In fact, the daughter and the mother are
interdependent. Only when both of them remain independent as a woman can they
move together and avoid being objectified by men.

3. Patriarchal disruption of the mother-daughter bond

Although the daughter is not lack of maternal love in the pre-Oedipal phase, her
relationship with her mother is problematic. In Thinking the Difference, Irigaray
explores the root that causes this inharmonious relationship. She finds that the
ultimate purpose of Freud's penis-envy theory is to establish a male culture where
females are subordinated:

Freud is acting like a prince of darkness with respect to all women, leading them into the
shadows and separating them from their mothers and from themselves in order to found a

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 culture of men-amongst-themselves: law, religion, language, truth and wisdom. In order to
become a woman, the virgin girl must submit to a culture, particularly a culture of Jove, that
to her represents Hades. She must forget her childhood, her mother; she must forget herself
2
as she was in her relationship to Aphrodite's philotes. (I J

In Irigaray's observation, the abduction of Persephone is the original sin of patriarchy.

Irigaray further points out, "Patriarchy has thus destroyed the most precious site of
love and its fertility: the relationship between mother and daughter" 1131 . In order to
find the traces of the daughter's estrangement from her mother, Irigaray argues that
we must go back in time just as Persephone does, beginning at the end. 1141 Thus,
Irigaray traces the whole process of the disruption of the female line of descent and
finds that the female ancestor was already murdered in the Greek mythology, the
Greek tragedies as well as the Bible:

The Old Testament does not tell us of a single happy mother-daughter couple, and Eve
comes into the world motherless. Although Mary's mother, Anne, is known, the New
Testament never mentions them together, not even at the moment of the conception of
Jesus. 1151

Therefore, it can be said that the mother-daughter bond was already broken in the
ancient times:

In myths concerning mother-daughter relationships and myths about the goddess/lover

and god couples, the story, setting and interpretation were masked, disguised to varying
degrees by the patriarchal culture that was growing up. This culture erased-perhaps out of
ignorance, perhaps unwittingly- the traces of an earlier or contemporaneous culture. 1161

Irigaray points out, the fact that Persephone never turns to her mother for help
proves that the female line of descent was already interrupted. (I?J Since the
mother-daughter bond is broken, the daughter is faced with an even worse situation
than her mother-"And I walk with even more difficulty than you do, and I move
even less" 1181 .

4. Establishment of the mother-daughter bond

Based on these critiques and fmdings, Irigaray puts forward her own idea

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 concerning the re-establishment of the mother-daughter bond:

Woman is deprived of the possibility of interiorizing her female identity. It is imposed

upon her as pure exteriority. And that's one of the reasons why she herself, just like the
society that defmes her, privileges the mother-son relationship; the mother-daughter
relationship reminds woman, women, of their lack of subjective identity, and arouses affects
for which there is no corresponding cultural organization. (! 91

Here Irigaray explains Freud's influential belief that the mother can get infinite
satisfaction only in her relations with the son, which is the most satisfactory of all
human relations. 1201 Irigaray asserts that the society we have is "a between-men
society": "It is a society which excludes between-women sociality, separates
women from one another and hence does not have a female culture". [ZJJ In her
opinion, renewing the broken mother-daughter bond means that we must cultivate a
female culture, that we need to interpret and construct a female history in order to
open up another era in our culture that respects differences, especially sexual
difference. 1221
According to Irigaray, one important way of renewing the broken
mother-daughter bond is that woman must assert her subjectivity as a whole woman,
hence her plural identities as both mother and daughter. "Women must love one
another both as mothers, with a maternal love, and as daughters, with a filial love.
Both of them. In a female whole that, furthermore, is not closed off.... Achieving,
through their relations with each other, a path into infinity that is always open,
in-finite". 1231 For her, "mother" has rich connotations. Besides its usual meaning of
one's mother in the biological sense, it also means the common female ancestor,
and the one who engenders "love, desire, language, art, the social, the political, the
religious". 1241 Mother is creative, thus Irigaray says it is "necessary for us to
discover and assert that we are always mothers once we are women".125l She
emphasizes that "[w]e have to be careful about one other thing: we must not once
more kill the mother who was sacrificed to the origins of our culture. We must give
her new life, new life to that mother, to our mother within us and between us".1261
Furthermore, in order to improve the mother-daughter relationship, Irigaray
thinks it imperative for the daughter to communicate with the mother:

We must also find, fmd anew, invent the words, the sentences that speak the most archaic

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 and most contemporary relationship with the body of the mother, with our bodies, the
sentences that translate the bond between her body, ours, and that of our daughters. We have
to discover a language which does not replace the bodily encounter, as paternal language
attempts to do, but which can go along with it, words which do not bar the corporeal, but
which speak corporeal. [271

. Here Irigaray lays emphasis on the creation of a female language that can speak the
daughter's bodily encounter with the mother. Woman has long been silenced and
passive, so she does not have access to language "except through recourse to
'masculine' systems of representation which disappropriate her from her relation to
herself and to other women".[281 Daughters and mothers often lack a personal path
for exchange as the world is defined by man. Thus Irigaray says women need
"words, images, symbols which represent the significant events in their life and
which allow to build them in the feminine"[ 291 . "Let's hurry and invent our own
phrases. So that everywhere and always we can continue to embrace." [301 In
Irigaray's opinion, a female language plays a significant role in the construction of
female subjectivity. Only when women create a language of their own can they
assert their own identity. "The constitution of the deeper self necessarily comes into
being with language, images, and representations." [311 Therefore, Irigaray advocates
that the male discourse be subverted and a female language based on the
harmonious mother-daughter relationship be established. [321
In order to establish an inter-subjective relationship between the mother and the
daughter, Irigaray also puts forward six pieces of practical suggestion in her book Je,
Tu, Nous. The second piece of suggestion, for example, goes, "In all homes and all
public places, attractive images (not involving advertising) of the mother-daughter
couple should be displayed"J3 31 Irigaray believes that the mother and the daughter
can improve their relationship by doing things together in their everyday life. In
addition, she thinks both the mother and the daughter should make contributions to
improve their relationship. She stresses the importance for both of them to have
their own space and to experience themselves as autonomous and free subjects. [341
In fact, as early as 1979, Irigaray observed that the absence of one's own space may
result in the loss of one's subjectivity: "[y]ou put yourself in my mouth, and I
suffocate. Put yourself less in me, and let me look at you. I'd like to see you while
you nurse me. [ ... ] So that we can taste each other, feel each other, listen to each
other, see each other-together". (JSJ

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 5. Evaluation of Irigaray's theories
Renewing the mother-daughter bond, according to lrigaray, can not only help
women find their own identity, but it can also help the two sexes understand that
they are different individuals, that they have different words, that the woman is "no
longer the nature-body for which man will be the word". Because of this, the two
sexes "can unite their incarnations and engender spiritual as well as natural children.
[ ... ] I think that such an alliance between women and men could work towards
achieving the reign of the spirit which, according to Christian theology, corresponds
to our present mission." [361 Irigaray also points out that only when the mother and
the daughter are on good tenns can we "define a culture of the female" [371 •
Irigaray's contribution to feminism, especially with regard to mother-daughter
relationship, lies mainly in the following aspects:
First, Irigaray advocates an inter-subjective relationship between the mother and
the daughter. She stresses the need to construct a female identity and holds the view
that subjectivity and inter-subjectivity are vital for the construction of a female
identity. Giving up her love for her mother means the loss of the daughter's
subjectivityY 81 The lack of subjective identity is the very reason why the
mother-daughter relationship is problematic. [391 Through subjective relations
between mothers and daughters women can get out of the vicious circle of the
patriarchal phallocratic order and give daughters the possibility of spirit or soul. [401
lrigaray believes the establishment of a hannonious mother-daughter relationship
depends mainly on the inter-subjective relationship between the mother and the
daughter. She acknowledges the intimate relations between women and nature, but
she also points out that this does not prevent the mother and the daughter from
having a human relationship between them. [411 This human relationship, according
to Irigaray, should be "a woman-to-woman relationship of reciprocity with our
mothers".r42l In other words, it should be an inter-subjective relationship where both
the mother and the daughter become subjectivity. Apart from this, lrigaray thinks it
important for both the mother and the daughter to take initiatives to help each other
form their subjectivity:

Today, only a mother can see to it that her daughter, her daughters, form(s) a girl's
identity. Daughters that we are, more of the issues concerning our liberation, we can also
endure our mothers and educate each other among ourselves. I think this is essential for the

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 social and cultural changes we need. 143]

One way offonning subjectivity is to open up one's space, as Irigaray says in Je, Tu,
Nous: "To establish and maintain relations with oneself and with the other, space is
essential.. .important for them [women] to have their own outer space, enabling
them to go from the inside to the outside of themselves, to experience themselves as
autonomous and free subjects" [441 .
Second, Irigaray advocates the creation of a female language. lrigaray believes
that the restoration of the mother-daughter relationship is closely linked to the
respect for female speech, and this requires changes to symbolic codes, especially
language, law and religion. [451 The serious and painful problems between the
mother and the daughter are mainly due to their lack of communication which in
turn is partly caused by the lack of a language of their own. [461 Therefore, Irigaray
advocates the creation of a female language on the basis of a harmonious
mother-daughter relationship.
In many of her works Irigaray stresses the importance of such a language and
encourages women to discover or invent words that are particularly associated with
the female body and female experiences. "I suggest mothers create opportunities to
use the feminine plural with their daughter(s). They could also invent words and
expressions to designate realities they feel and share but for which they lack
language." [471 Irigaray fmds that the little girl always uses "you" and "I" when she
talks with her mother, which implies that the mother and the daughter live together
or do something together. However, she also finds that the mother often uses the
imperatives when she talks to her daughter; but when she talks to her son she
sometimes or even often uses "you" and "1". This shows that "the mother no longer
respects the two poles of dialogue: I and you". Because of this, the daughter is silent
and suffering. She "doesn't even find a with Her, the Mother, with whom to have an
inner dialogue." Thus the exchanges between the mother and the daughter are often
covered up by exchanging objects or money. [481 In order to have an inter-subjective
exchange with others we need a language that is "an exchange of words" and real
dialogue. [491 In other words, for Irigaray, the language must be communicative in
nature.
Third, Irigaray emphasizes the importance of communication between the mother
and the daughter as well as the reestablishment of a female genealogy. Irigaray
finds that the mother and the daughter have never spoken to each other. [SOJ

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 "[S]omething crucial is missing: communication with the mother."[5 IJ In her opinion,
the communication can bring mother and daughter together and establish a
reciprocal relationship between them.[521 Irigaray also points out the symbiotic
relationship between the female genealogy and mother-daughter love, "[a] woman
celebrating the eucharist with her mother, sharing with her the fruits of the earth
she/they have blessed, could be delivered of all hatred or ingratitude towards
her maternal genealogy, could be consecrated in her identity and her female
genealogy"J531 So she advocates the reestablishment of a female genealogy. She
says, "there is a genealogy of women within our family: on our mothers' side we
have mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, and daughters". So "[l]et us
try to situate ourselves within this female genealogy so as to conquer and keep our
identity. Nor let us forget that we already have a history." [541
In addition, Irigaray finds it necessary for women to love one another apart from
the mother-daughter love. She says: "[l]et us also try to discover the singularity of
our love for other women. [ ... ] This love is necessary if we are not to remain the
servants of the phallic cult, objects to be used by and exchanged between men, rival
objects on the market, the situation in which we have always been placed."[551 She
uses the term "women-sisters" to show her expectation of the relationship among
women. She thinks the love for women-sisters can help women establish a mutually
beneficial relationship and prevent them from being subjected by men.

6. Conclusion
Irigaray begins the issue of the mother-daughter relationship with the searches for
the broken mother-daughter bond and points out that it is the patriarchal culture that
has murdered the female ancestor, resulting in the disappearance of love between
the mother and the daughter and the loss of subjectivity for both of them. Thus she
suggests a harmonious mother-daughter relationship be reestablished to resist the
patriarchal culture. In order to achieve this she emphasizes that both the mother and
the daughter must become subjectivity. And one way that can help women assert
subjectivity is to create a female language. It is equally important for them to
communicate with each other to enhance their mutual understanding. lrigaray also
points out the symbiotic relationship between the female genealogy and
mother-daughter love. Based on this, she suggests a female genealogy be
constructed to keep women's identity. In the meanwhile she thinks the
mother-daughter love should be extended to the love for women-sisters.

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 Irigaray contends that a harmonious mother-daughter relationship also plays an
important role in improving the relationship between man and woman. "In order to
rediscover and improve in the culture of love between men and women, we need to
restore the value of the mother-daughter relationship."l561 Irigaray's argument to
establish a female genealogy has evoked a critique of essentialism, but recent
studies have agreed to believe that this strategic essentialism will force man to
rethink his relationship with woman, and thus prove constructive in re-establishing
sexual relations based on respect for sexual differences.

Notes:
[1] S<iJ:E: Uifi' ·ifrj!_tolir: ~00Jfi:EJ11.1~:9:11.±5Ur>>. « ~00:9:11.±50> 2004 :q;:tJ(*~·
~ 130-131 J:L
[Liu Yan, "Luce lrigaray: French Postmodern Feminist", in Feminism in China, Autumn 2004,
130-131]
[2] xiJ:E: «£3:~~ffi-li1f~Ql;;<$:)), iit~: iit~:k~l±lJ\fH±. 2001 :q;:, ~ 163 ~.
[Liu Yan, A Theoretical Reader in Motherhood(Wuhan: Wuhan University Press, 2007), 163.]
[3] Kwok Wei Leng, "Irigaray, Luce", in Lorraine Code, ed., Encyclopedia of Feminist
Theories (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 275.
[4] Luce Irigaray & Sylvere Lotringer, eds. Why Different: A Culture of Two Subjects.
Interviews with Luce Irigaray, Trans. Camille Collins (New York: Semiotext(e), 2000), 30-31.
[5] ~~ftifrt~: «~:f~7HJT~~iJfl1iif~». ~,J,~il, ~tR.": OO~j)C{tl±lJt&~iiJ, 2ooo:q;:,
~ 115-141 ~ 0

[Sigmund Freud, New Lectures on Psychoanalysis, trans. Cheng Xiaoping, et a!. (Beijing:
International Culture Publishing Company, 2000), 115-141.
[6] Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter & Carolyn Burke (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 47.
[7] Luce Irigaray, An Ethics of Sexual Difference, trans. Carolyn Burke and Gillian C. Gill
(London: The Athlone Press, 1993), 101.
[8] Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter & Carolyn Burke (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 28.
[9] Margaret Whitford, ed. The Irigaray Reader, trans. David Macey (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 1991), 44.
[10] Luce Irigaray, "And the One Doesn't Stir Without the Other," trans. Helene Vivienne
Wenzel, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7.1 (1981), 66.
(11] Ibid., 67.
[12] Luce lrigaray, Thinking the Difference, trans. Karin Montin (London: The Athlone Press,
1994), llO.
(13] Ibid., 112.
[14] Ibid., 107.

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 [15] Ibid., 100.
[16] Ibid., 101.
[ 17] Ibid., I 06.
[18] Luce lrigaray, "And the One Doesn't Stir Without the Other," trans. Helene Vivienne
Wenzel, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7.1 (1981), 60.
[19] Luce Irigaray, I Love to You: Sketch for a Felicity Within History, trans. Alison Martin
(New York: Routledge, 1996), 47.
[20] 9tm1N!: Ufi1'¥7HJT~itiJt~iil\1». ~+-'¥- -~. ~tJ?:: !Eilif-:>c1ttl:l~0'iiJ, 2000
~. ~ 139 :w.
[Sigmund Freud, New Lectures on Psychoanalysis, trans. Cheng Xiaoping, et a!. (Beijing:
International Culture Publishing Company, 2000), 139.
[21] Luce Irigaray, I Love to You: Sketch for a Felicity Within History, trans. Alison Martin
(New York: Routledge, 1996), 44.
[22] Ibid., 47.
[23] Luce Irigaray, An Ethics of Sexual Difference, trans. Carolyn Burke and Gillian C. Gill
(London: The Athlone Press, 1993 ), 105.
[24] Margaret Whitford, ed. The Irigaray Reader, trans. David Macey (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 1991), 43.
[25] Ibid., 43.
[26] Ibid., 43.
[27] Ibid., 43.
[28] Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter & Carolyn Burke (Ithaca,
NY.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 85.
[29] Luce lrigaray & Sylvere Lotringer, ed. Why Different: A Culture of Two Subjects.
Interviews with Luce Irigaray, trans. Camille Collins (New York: Semiotext(e), 2000), 32.
[30] Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter & Carolyn Burke (Ithaca,
NY.: Cornell University Press, 1990), 215.
[31] Luce Irigaray & Sylvere Lotringer, ed. Why Different: A Culture of Two Subjects.
Interviews with Luce Irigaray, trans. Camille Collins (New York: Semiotext(e), 2000), 52.
[32] ~IJ;fi: Ui~ ·ffrlltiJDff: ~IE€lJ\1.1~3cli±5(1!f». «"P~3cli±50 2004 ~fk*!ff,
~ 135 :w.
[Liu Yan, "Luce Irigaray: French Postmodern Feminist", in Feminism in China, Autumn 2004,
135]
[33] Luce Irigaray, Je, Tu, Nous: Toward a Culture of Difference, trans. Alison Martin (New
York: Routledge, 1993), 47.
[34] Ibid., 48.
[35] Luce lrigaray, "And the One Doesn't Stir Without the Other", trans. Helene Vivienne
Wenzel, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7.1 (1981), 61.
[36] Luce Irigaray & Sy1vere Lotringer, eds. Why Different: A Culture of Two Subjects.
Interviews with Luce Irigaray, trans. Camille Collins (New York: Semiotext(e), 2000), 34.
[37] Luce lrigaray, I Love to You: Sketch for a Felicity Within History, trans. Alison Martin
(New York: Routledge, 1996), 47.

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 [38] Margaret Whitford, ed. The Irigaray Reader, trans. David Macey (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 1991), 44.
[39] Luce Irigaray, I Love to You: Sketch for a Felicity Within History, trans. Alison Martin
(New York: Routledge, 1996), 47.
[40] Luce Irigaray, Je, Tu, Nous: Toward a Culture of Difference, trans. Alison Martin (New
York: Routledge, 1993), 47.
[41] Luce Irigaray, Thinking the Difference, trans. Karin Montin (London: The Athlone Press,
1994), 111.
[42] Margaret Whitford, ed. The Irigaray Reader, trans. David Macey (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 1991), 50.
[43] Luce lrigaray, Je, Tu, Nous: Toward a Culture of Difference, trans. Alison Martin (New
York: Routledge, 1993), 50.
[44] Ibid., 48.
[45] Luce lrigaray, Thinking the Diffe rence, trans. Karin Montin (London: The Athlone Press,
1994), 112.
[46] Luce lrigaray & Sylvere Lotringer, ed. Why Different: A Culture of Two Subjects.
Interviews with Luce Irigaray, trans. Camille Collins (New York: Semiotext(e), 2000), 30, 32.
[47] Luce Irigaray, Je, Tu, Nous: Toward a Culture of Difference, trans. Alison Martin (New
York: Routldge, I 993), 48.
[48] Luce Irigaray & Sylvere Lotringer, ed. Why Different: A Culture of Two Subjects.
Interviews with Luce Irigaray, trans. Camille Collins (New York: Semiotext(e), 2000), 36, 37.
[49) Ibid., 85.
[50] Luce Irigaray, "And the One Doesn't Stir Without the Other", trans. Helene Vivienne
Wenzel, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7.1 (1981), 60.
[51] Luce Irigaray & Sylvere Lotringer, ed. Why Different: A Culture of Two Subjects.
Interviews with Luce Irigaray, trans. Camille Collins (New York: Semiotext(e), 2000), 31.
[52] Ibid., 21.
[53] Margaret Whitford, ed. The Irigaray Reader, trans. David Macey (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 1991), 46.
[54] Ibid., 44.
[55) Ibid., 44.
[56] Luce Irigaray & Sylvere Lotringer, ed. Why Different: A Culture of Two Subjects.
Interviews with Luce lrigaray, trans. Camille Collins (New York: Semiotext(e), 2000), 65.

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?1994-2015 China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House. All rights reserved. http://www.et
 QIU Xiaoqing B.A. (1995) in English from the Department of Foreign
Languages, Central South University (Changsha); M.A. (1998) in British and
American literatures from the Faculty of English Language and Culture,
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (Guangzhou); M.A. (2003) in
Tourism Management from the Department of Environment, University of
Westminster, UK. She is currently a lecturer and Ph.D. candidate in GDUFS.
Her academic interests include American fiction, gender studies, and
eco-feminism.

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?1994-2015 China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House. All rights reserved. http://wwv