Transforming Feminine Categories: Genealogies of Virginity and Sainthood

Abstract

The categories of virginity and sainthood, often used as norms of femininity, are historically and contextually constructed. Genealogies of these categories reveal definitions of female subjectivity in accordance with male desires. Traditional conceptions of virginity have implications for theories of female development and sexuality, conceptions of the psychoanalytic process, and theories of social symbolism. Notions of virginity as an unblemished state, the first penetration by a penis as an irrevocable transformation to womanhood, and defloration as a developmental milestone in female sexuality derive from male fantasies of female purity that translate into justifications for social structures of control and ownership. While fantasies of sainthood played significant roles in the work of both Sigmund and Anna Freud, their images of saints, which they did not analyze, were unconsciously shaped by a Victorian sensibility. Because the psychoanalytic legacy is androcentrically informed, analysts may be hampered in their efforts to treat the pathologies of perfection that continue to plague women. Contesting and unsettling conventional epistemological assumptions open up the categories of virginity and sainthood to images and representations of female autonomy and integrity. The critical analyses offered here contribute to theories of the plasticity of gender and the social construction of femininity.