A neologism constructed from the Greek words for male (andro-) and female (-gyny) to describe a state of unity or ambiguity with respect to gender assignment arising from the presence in one body of sex characteristics from both genders. The androgyne has a central position in Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jungâs theory because in his view the androgyne represents the resolution of the anxieties and tensions of sexual difference in favour of complementarity. His theorization of the place of the androgyne in culture reflects the widespread presence of such figures in myth. And although Christianity is surprisingly free of such figures, Jung detected in Christ an androgyne quality he saw as essential. For similar reasons, though arrived at quite independently, English writer Virginia Woolf gives prominence to the androgyne as well. She famously argued in A Room of Oneâs Own (1929) that an androgynous consciousness was an essential precondition to becoming an artist. Her viewpoint is not, however, widely shared in feminist theory.