Mary Ann Doane Clinical Eye Analysis

In Mary Ann Doane’s article “The Clinical Eye: Medical Discourses in the ‘Woman’s Film’ of the 1940s,” Freud is addressed in order to understand female sexuality. Freud states, “The cat is the signifier of a female sexuality which is self-enclosed, self-sufficient, and above all, objectless. This sexuality in its inaccessibility, forecloses the possibility of knowledge, thus generating a string of metaphors - cat, criminal, child, humorist” (Doane, 216). In this statement, it is shown that female sexuality is not an essential part of a women. Instead, her sexuality is a social construct that is derived from aspects of the outside world. In order to understand the female sexuality, Freud uses metaphors in place of a true definition. However, I argue that this “true” female sexuality, one that is of the woman and nothing else, is inexistent due to the social construction of what female sexuality should be. Doane’s article goes on to address the Bible with the statement, “Like unto a leopard but not a leopard” (Doane, 216). Doane explains that, in the Bible, the panther is thought to be a failed imitation of the leopard. In the same way, though the woman may aim to be sexuality liberated and accountable, she is unable to attain her “true” female sexuality because it does not exist. Instead, she must take on a …show more content…
Because of this othering, the man in reinforcing the stereotype of his dominance, and lessening the meaning of female sexuality. Therefore, like the panther, female sexuality becomes devoid of meaning, and is a failed imitation of male sexuality. Just as the panther and the leopard are not the same animal, female and male sexuality, when put against each other, are not the