Editing Luce Irigaray (section)

=== Sexual difference ===
Building on but departing from Lacan, Irigaray asserts that the phallus has functioned as the central signifier of meaning and subjectivity, leaving no space for women to exist as autonomous subjects.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Stone |first=Alison |url=https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/34617/chapter/294782900 |title=Sexual Difference |date=2015-02-03 |publisher=Oxford University Press |editor-last=Disch |editor-first=Lisa |volume=1 |language=en |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199328581.013.43 |editor-last2=Hawkesworth |editor-first2=Mary}}</ref> To counter this, she proposes the creation of a new [[symbolic order]] that acknowledges and values genuine sexual difference, allowing women to develop their own forms of speech, desire, and representation. Her vision is not for gender neutrality but for a world in which male and female exist as two equally recognized yet distinct identities.<ref name=":3" />