Abstract

RIVIERE, Joan. Womanliness as a masquerade.Translated byAna Cecília Carvalho,  Esther Carvalho. Psyche (Sao Paulo) [online]. 2005, vol.9, n.16, pp. 13-24. ISSN 1415-1138.

Based on a case history of a highly successful intellectual married woman, mother and house wife who suffered from an anxiety that made her obsessively seek for reassurance from men, following her public professional performances, the author states that there is no difference between genuine womanliness and the masquerade. Thus femininity is a mask whose double purpose is to deny the woman’s phantasy of the possession of the penis taken from father and also to protect her against the danger of retribution from the parental figures.

Keywords : Joan Riviere; Femininity; Masquerade; Women sexual development; Infantile sexuality.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )