Spring1978 Signs 721 women in Poland. Gender identificationmay also modifythe duties and the rightswithina role, as in all social roles which have dual or more extensivesubdivisions.That is, the cultural base and social circles may than does demand thata woman performthe duties of a role differently a man. They may offerdifferentpersonal rights,as in the case when for doing the same thing. women and men are paid differently The point I am making here is that I cannot locate a sex role, or even a gender role, seeing only the influence,more or less pervasive,of upon the social roles selected and gender identificationand self-identity entered into by men and women and upon the relationswithmembers of the social circlesof these roles. It seems to be that being a woman is not a social role but a pervasiveidentityand a set of self-feelingswhich lead to the selectionor the assignmentbyothersof social roles and to the from performanceby women of common roles in some waysdifferently men. StudyofSocial Roles of Sociologyand Centerfor theComparative Department Chicago(Lopata) LoyolaUniversity, Department ofSociology (Thorne) MichiganState University Comment on Naomi Goldenberg's "A Feminist Critique of Jung" (vol. 2, no. 2) BarbaraE. Chesser What is set forthas critique is characterassassinationof Jung as sexist and racist.Quotes are takenout of context.There is misapprehensionor misrepresentationof basic concepts, for example, the archetype, the animus/anima,the differencebetween the individual and collectiveunconscious, and the implicationsinherentin the factthat these originate not in metaphysicaldeductions about the human mind but in empirical observationsof psychobiologicalphenomena. Jung has often been attacked by those ill equipped to deal with the biological considerations fundamentalto his thought.Misconstructionhere is so complete it cannot be discussed profitably.A paragraph,withmyinsertedcomments,at random: To Jungiansthe anima, the animus, and theirverbal handmaidens Eros and Logos are "archetypes,"bydefinition,whatis unchanging and unchangeable. [Eros and Logos are not archetypes-psychoid structureswhich cannot become conscious-but manifestationsof This content downloaded from 205.208.116.024 on November 12, 2017 01:24:08 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 722 Letters/Comments aspects of the anima/animusin consciousness.1Nor are archetypes immutablebut species specificand open to the operationof natural selection.2]This concept of archetypeallows Jungians like Erich Neumann and Esther Harding to writestudiesof the "archetypal" nature of the female psyche which are based on their subjective selection of mythologicalmaterialto document preordained conclusions. [The brain is said to contain the archetypesas inherent structuraldominantsof the psyche;"theyare the ever-presentand biologicallynecessary regulatorsof the instinctualsphere."3 Uncertain they could ever be pinpointed neurologically,Jung conceived theirnature as psychoid,on the bridge betweenmatterand "spirit."4The femalepsychecannot be said to be archetypal,except doubtfullyin one under the delusion she is Kali, Tonantzin,or the VirginMary.] Feministscholarsmustexamine the veryidea of the archetypein Jungian thoughtif sexismis ever to be confrontedat its base. Indeed, if feministsdo not change the assumptions of archetype or redefine the concept, there are only two options: either(1) to accept the patriarchalideas of the feminineas ultimate and unchanging and work withinthose or (2) to indulge in a rival search to findfemale archetypes,ones whichcan support feminist conclusions. [As Jung repeatedlystressed,the archetypesare not ideas or images.5If theyexist,we can no more change theirnature at will than opt out of the Order Primates. But it is gross misrepresentationof Jung's thoughtto claim that patriarchalor any other kind of institutions,fantasies,ideas, etc., are in themselves archetypesor follow as the result of the existence of archetypes withoutthe mediationof culture.] Jung is called raciston "evidence" that speaks for itself.From unpublished seminar notes viewed by Goldenberg,we are told that"Jung virtuallyequated the Negro withthe gorilla."And his allusion in "Women in Europe" to cultural differencesin European and Chinese conceptions of the sexual divisionof labor is held to be racism against the Chinese!6Jung did not,like mostpsychologists, ignore the non-Western 1. C. G. Jung,"The Syzygy:Anima and Animus,"CollectedWorks,ed. C. Adler et al., 2d ed. (Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1968), 9:16. All citationsto Jung are fromthisedition unless otherwiseindicated. 2. Jung,"On the Nature of the Psyche" (1969), 8:200-201. 3. Ibid., 8:201. 4. Ibid., 8:216. 5. Jung,"Instinctand the Unconscious" (1969), 8:133, n. 6. Jung,"Woman in Europe" (1964), 10:117. In the West the sexual divisionof labor has been seen as following"naturally"fromdifferencesin biology;among the Chinese it has been perceived more directlyin termsof hierarchicalstatusdifferences,i.e., males and femalesare seen as similarin mentalmakeup but normallyoccupydifferentstatuses.One's whole sex identity,then,is not on the line, as traditionalin Westernsociety,ifone takeson Shadow(Stanford, tasks allotted to the opposite sex. See F. L. K. Hsu, UndertheAncestors' Calif.: Stanford UniversityPress, 1971), esp. pp. 54-74, 272-76. This content downloaded from 205.208.116.024 on November 12, 2017 01:24:08 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Signs Spring1978 723 world, nor did he rely entirelyon the writingsof others. He traveled widelyto understandnot onlymembersof advanced civilizationsbut also primitives.He often averred a special affinityfor black Africa and mentioned his fieldworkamong the Elogonyis. The reader should examine his views on non-Europeans by reading "Travels" in the autobiography,his "Commentary"to Wilhelm'stranslationof The Secretof theGoldenFlower:A ChineseBookofLife,and "Archaic Man."7 European ethnocentrismcan be found but equally his stand against biological racism-both best perceived in historicalcontext. Only a few points with regard to Jung's alleged sexism can be touched on. It is not a lone or inaccurate observation of Jung's that women tend to be consciouslyoriented towardrelationshipswithpeople and men with things,but he did not see a well-developed Logos in a woman as "unnatural" or puttingher "at a great disadvantage" except where it was at the expense of Eros or the feeling part of her being. Women's need of a developed Logos in combination with a wellexpressed Eros is a theme on which it is fairerto say Jung harped in correctingthe one-sidedness he perceived in Europeans. Perhaps he failed fullyto understand the perceptionsof women, but he repeatedly deals withwomen's need of their suppressed "masculine" mental qualities and men their"feminine"ones. In context,this is the point of the quote selectedbyGoldenberg to illustratehis supposed condemnationof a developed Logos in women. What is actuallysaid is that lack of conscious development of Logos leaves women particularlysusceptible to prejudices.8 "Women in Europe" is notJung's "dogmaticassertions"about what should or should not be the role of "existingindividuals," but, as he states,a psychologicalethnographyof the modern European woman as he found her in 1927. One may faulthis perceptionsbut not claim thisis his portraitof Woman as she is or should be in all timesand places.Jung is exceptional among psychologistsin his cognizance of the role of culture in shaping the individual,yet Goldenberg (and others) can somehow hold that he ordains the plightof the women he describes-which, incidentally,he compares throughoutwiththatof the slaves of Imperial Rome.9 Jung viewed the minds of women and men as differentand com7. See the followingbyJung:"Travels,"Memories, ed. AJaffe(New Dreams,Reflections, Flower: York:RandomHouse,1961),pp. 238-88;"Commentary," inTheSecret oftheGolden Brace& World,1962), A Chinese BookofLife,"trans.RichardWilhelm (NewYork:Harcourt, pp. 81-137; and "ArchaicMan,"(1964), 10:50-73.Here and elsewhere, Jungstateshis cultural.He saw no beliefthatdifferences betweengroupsof humanbeingsare basically inintellect, a particudifferences buthe didviewthemodernEuropeanmindas possessing fromitssocialand naturalenvironment, as larlyhighdegreeof consciousdifferentiation whichwerecharacterized byparticipation mystique. comparedwiththoseinothercultures 8. Jung,"The Syzygy" (1968),9:14-15. 9. Jung,"Womenin Europe"(1964), 10:121,126. This content downloaded from 205.208.116.024 on November 12, 2017 01:24:08 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 724 Letters/Comments plementaryin psychobiologicalfunctioning,but this cannot be equated withrampantsexism("An inferiorconsciousnesscannoteo simplistically be ascribed to women; it is merelydifferentfrommasculine conipso sciousness"'0). If he did not thinkthe sexes at theiroptimumconsciously or unconsciouslyimitatedeach other, the role of woman stillwas not decreed to be hausfrau; forexample, because of perceiveddifferencesin psychicfunctioning, Jung thoughtwomen mightbe bettersuited to research on the mind than men. The goal of both sexes inJungiantermsis always individuation. Because naive biological determinism repeatedly surfaces to legitimizemale supremacy,we have the greateststakein not ignoringor denyingsex differencesbut in understandingthem.One of the starting places is the observationsof Jung. That we make ourselves, that our mind-unlike our brain-is not the product of our evolutionaryhistory and dependent on itsmode of neurologicalorganizationforitsfunctioning is popular fantasy.As we and other animals do not perceive the physical world as it "is" in any direct way but through constructsof reality,thatis, percepts (whichare partiallydependent on the structure of the brain and partiallyon past experience, and whose nature differs from species to species), it is likelythat perceptionsof the social environment,too, are ordered byconstructswhichreflectnotonlyindividual lifeexperience but our evolutionaryhistory.The idea the mind is a clean slate upon whichany behavioral programcan be writtenis one thathas passed out of the biologicalsciences,ifnot the social sciences.Jung'sfeet were not withoutclay nor his ideas withouterror,but his was one of the most profound minds of the twentiethcentury.Because his work deals with issues painful to many of us, that is, the projection-making capacities of the mind and the significanceof sex differences,we cannot subject his work to unwarranteddismissal. Department ofAnthropology University ofCalifornia,Los Angeles Reply to Barbara Chesser's Comment on "A Feminist Critique of Jung" NaomiR. Goldenberg According to Jungian lore, Carl Jung once said he was glad to be Jung and not a "Jungian."As Junghe could be a thinkerwho testedideas and 10. Jung,"Anima and Animus," 1sted. (1953), 7:204. This content downloaded from 205.208.116.024 on November 12, 2017 01:24:08 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).
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