Outgrow

Question

1. Does "outgrow" in the provided context mean "forget"?

2. Is it " a state of polymorphous perversity" that should be outgrown and hidden?

3. Does "over different temporal phases" mean "at different times"?

4. Does "imagined reprisals against a re-appropriation of power" mean "the revenges that a woman imagines she will suffer due to attaining power in a patriarchal society"?

5. Does "a relay of alternative wishes" mean "a group of alternative wishes"?

6. Does "that re-routes the gaze of mastery" mean "that changes the prevalent patriarchal understanding of female body"?

Context:

In psychoanalytic theory, the infantile state of gender undifferentiation is for Freud a state of polymorphous perversity that is auto-erotic and pleasurable and which we have to outgrow or, in the case of femininity as a mask, hide, as we become more socialised. That femininity might entail the taking on of different masks over different temporal phases, once in the earliest phases of development and later to protect from imagined reprisals against a re-appropriation of power is an idea that, difficult though it may seem at one level, offers a way for thinking of representations of the female body as at least a double inscription of femininity that oscillates between passivity and activity, generating a ‘relay of alternative wishes and demands that re-routes the gaze of mastery’.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

catttt1. Does "outgrow" in the provided context mean "forget"?

No. You grow out of it. You get older and come to see it as a thing of childhood.

catttt2. Is it " a state of polymorphous perversity" that should be outgrown and hidden?

Well, yes and no. Grammatically, it's "the infantile state of gender undifferentiation". The writer goes on to define it as "a state of polymorphous perversity", so it amounts to the same thing logically.

catttt3. Does "over different temporal phases" mean "at different times"?

Yes, but with reference to stages of development, phases.

catttt4. Does "imagined reprisals against a re-appropriation of power" mean "the revenges that a woman imagines she will suffer due to attaining power in a patriarchal society"?

I think so. This seems to be a recurring theme.

catttt5. Does "a relay of alternative wishes" mean "a group of alternative wishes"?

She is quoting someone, Freud, I guess. It is difficult for me sitting here cold not thinking about my phallus at the moment to get into the mode of thinking necessary for understanding this. The word "relay" seems to indicate that a wish leads to a demand, which leads in turn to the next wish and a subsequent demand, and so on. It is not a relay of alternative wishes, it is a relay of alternative wishes and demands. I suspect there is a mistranslation somewhere, and "alternative" should be "alternate", that the two things alternate.

catttt6. Does "that re-routes the gaze of mastery" mean "that changes the prevalent patriarchal understanding of female body"?

I don't think so. It seems like she is talking about the change wrought upon the female in question, who gets trapped in the relay cycle, or something like that, and consequently never achieves "the gaze of mastery", whatever that is.

Outgrow

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