Françoise Hurstel : the father’s gaze

Few studies have been devoted to the father’s function during the girl’s adolescence. One of these functions, that of the father’s gaze and speech in the development of the feminine, is studied here. This gaze of the father renews the operation of the mother’s gaze in the mirror stage, but on the side of identity. It takes on meaning insofar as the father does not appropriate his daughter as a sexual object and establishes with her a relation characterized by the paternal function.