Freud's Theory of Female Psycho-Sexual Development - Literature review Example

Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development Freud’s theory of psycho-sexual development emphasizes mainly on male development and very little is mentioned about the female psychosexual development. Freud’s view on women ideology was fired by many feminist writers. In his paper entitled "The Psychical Consequences of the Anatomic Distinction between the Sexes,” Freud wrote, "Women oppose change, receive passively, and add nothing of their own," [1] (Freud, The Psychical Consequences of the Anatomic Distinction Between the Sexes, 1925.) While talking about the feminism and sex Freud has put forward some ideas about female sexuality and he regarded feminism from sexual point of view. But after all Freud was a man and attitudes and opinions he produced about the female sexuality is definitely from men point of Freud’s attitude towards feminism is a fine example of the general masculine opinion about the woman and femininity in the masculine psyche. Freud says, “When you say ‘masculine,’ you usually mean ‘active’, and when you say ‘feminine’, you usually men ‘passive.’[2].”(“Femininity” 148-149). Hence in this analysis it is necessary to study Freud psychoanalysis from female point of view so whether Freud is right in his opinion can be realized if we compare his idea with that of the feminist idea. Freuds theory of female psycho-sexual development: “The psychical consequences of envy for the penis... are various and far-reaching. After a woman has become aware of the wound to her narcissism, she develops, like a scar, a sense of inferiority. When she has passed beyond her first attempt at explaining her lack of a penis as being a punishment personal to herself and has realized that that sexual character is a universal one, she begins to share the contempt felt by men for a sex which is the lesser in so important a respect.”[2] “Envy for the penis” is the central idea of Freudian attitude towards feminism. Freud, because of his feminist ideology was fired by many feminist writers. The term penis envy and castration anxiety were totally discouraging for the women and these terms were the major stumbling block for the women. It is the question of debate why Freud everywhere uses the word “Penis”? Rather he should use the word power in place of penis. According to Freud the major source of the female inferiority is the lack of penis. But it is the opinion of many of the feminist writers that the inferiority complex in woman is not associated with the sexuality but the social constrains are their which compel her from being a superior person. Penis is nothing but a symbol of the power, the masculine power. Penis envy is associated with the theorized reaction of the girl when she knows that she doesn’t have the penis like the boy. Sigmund Freud also put forth the concept of castration anxiety. “The castration complex of the girl is also started by the sight of the genitals of the other sex.”[3] (Page no. 158, “New Introductory lecture, 33, Femininity ) It refers to the deep rooted fear or anxiety in the boys during the phallic stage of sexual development. This concept further asserts that when the boy sees the genitalia regards falsely that her penis is chopped off and it is because she has been definitely punished for her misbehavior and this feeling brings the pride in his personality and he starts feeling that he is always right and the women are always wrong. He starts supposing himself as a most superior creature in the world and especially superior to the woman. Freud’s feminist philosophy is based on this basic concept. A remarkable number of feminist critics have criticized the penis envy as a concept and psychoanalysis as a discipline. It is the argument of most of the critics that the assumption and approaches of Freud is quite patriarchal anti feminist. The feminist critics have also attacked on his opinion of regarding the women as broken or deficient men. Some psychoanalysts like Karen Homey asserts the concept of womb envy to challenge the Freudian concept of penis envy. [4] (Page no 159, “Falling in Love: Why We Choose the Lovers We Choose By Ayala Malakh-Pines) It is true in some sense, if according to Freud the girl has the envy for the penis which she is not having then why can’t be the man also become jealous for not having womb. Thus the idea of womb envy is quite logical if Freud’s is right. The second idea Freud put forward is the Oedipal Complex which means a boys feelings of desire for his mother and jealously and anger towards his father. According to Freud, the boy wishes to possess his mother and replace his father, who he views as a rival for his mothers affections. The Oedipal complex occurs in the phallic stage of psychosexual development. In the case of the girl according to Freud the father becomes the object of love for the girl. de Beauvoirs responses towards to Freud’s theory of female psychology Simone de Beauvoir, one of the highly acclaimed feminist French writer argues some of the opinions of Freud in a very sensible and logical way. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was criticized by Beauvoir for attempting to impose a male model on to the female experience. She also criticizes Freud for regarding woman as a mutilated man, “The idea of mutilation implies a comparison and a valorization….it cannot be born from a simple anatomical confrontation.” [4] (page 151, The Roots of Radical Feminism, Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism  By Margaret) Beauvoir in her book “Second Sex,” points out that Freud’s emphasis on penis envy could be meaningful only within the scientific world that defines male body and male experience as the standard against which all the human development is measured. Man always feels superior to that of a woman and always thinks that his body is the superior to the woman. He has always been thinking about himself as an absolute creature and the woman as other creature. Freud according to Beauvoir is not in position to think from another perspective of the woman and that is the destiny of the woman. This opinion is expressed by Beauvoir, while talking about the Freud philosophy. According to the sexologist Maranon “women who attain orgasm are viriloid women; the sexual impulse is in one direction and woman is only half way along the road.” [5](Page 66,The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir) According to Freud the libido has an essence of masculinity and it is closely connected with the male sexuality. Beauvoir strongly criticizes Freud for not accepting the fact that the feminine libido has its own original nature. She says, “He declines to regard the feminine libido as having its own original nature and therefore it will necessarily seem to him like a complex deviation from the human libido as general.” [6] (pg. 66, “Psychoanalytic Point of view, Chap11,Second Sex) Rather by nature it is there in every woman but it has always been suppressed by the social constraints imposed on her. In the chapter ‘psychoanalysis’ chapter of “Second Sex,” Beauvoir outlines the various phases of psychosexual development. Her major criticism consists of some major point. According to her Freud’s account of female sexuality is grafted on to a male model and naturally he has made the image of a woman as a mutilated boy. Freud assumes that the woman is the mutilated man. But according to Beauvoir “But the idea of mutilation implies comparison and evaluation.” [7] (page 68, “Psychoanalytic View, The Second Sex) It is the question why Freud thinks woman as a mutilate man. She has her own existence. Here Freud is not thinking about the entire different body structure of the woman. How can she be a mutilated man if she has some extra organs in her body which is the thing of pride for her? This concept of Freud shows that he has built the masculine model while analyzing the woman and feminism. Simone de Beauvoir is quite conscious about the existence of the woman and she wants the liberty of woman to express herself. May be on anatomical level she is quite different from the man but psychologically there should not be quite difference between her and the man. If such difference is there, that is naturally due to the social constrain which has been imposed on her since long time in human history, She criticizes Freud ‘for failing to appreciate the fundamental existential situation of alienation, placing a totally inadequate stress on social factors: it is, to her, the patriarchal culture that endows the girl with an awareness of her real social inferiority and the boy with his superiority.’ [8] (pg.318, Simone de Beauvoir: Frued and the Second Sex) She says, “I shall pose the problem of feminine destiny quite otherwise [than it is proposed by psychoanalysis ]: I shall place woman in world of values and give her behaviour a dimension of liberty. I believe that she has the power to choose between the assertion of her transcendence and her alienation as object; she is not the plaything of contradictory drives; she devises solutions of diverse values in the ethical scale.” [9] (page 76, second sex, Simone de Beauvoir) While arguing about the condition of the women, Simone de Beauvoir says that the Feminism remains under the inferiority complex just because of the humiliation she gets for her feminism and not because she has no penis. The thought of Freud seems to be somewhat weird and single minded. She starts believing in masculine dominance not because she has no penis but because she observes the place which her father has achieved due to his masculinity. At every step and every path of her life she experiences the universal predominance of the male. Thus one question has been put up by Jones “the ultimate question [of] whether a woman is born or made” [10] (page 11, Gender and Envy, by Nancy Bruke) and the answer is that woman is born anatomically but the inferiority in her is not born but it is deliberately made by the society. For Freud the jealousy for the genital of the boy is the mainspring of the psychological development in girls, Along with Simone de Beauvoir, Freud was attacked by other feminist writers also. Luce Irigaray is among them who retort, “Why does the term “envy” occur to Freud? Why does Freud choose it? Envy, jealousy, greed are all correlated to lack, default, absence. All these terms describe female sexuality as merely the other side or even the wrong side of a male sexualism…’Penis envy’… means nothing less than the little girl, the woman, must despise her own pleasure in order to procure a ….. remedy for man’s castration anxiety.” [11] page 51, Luce Irigaray, Speculum of the other woman [speculum de l’autre femme], translated by Gillian C. Gill, New York, 1985. Personal Response Why is it that the female sexuality is always been theorized within the framework and within the masculine benchmarks. I agree with Beauvoir because her opinion about psychosexuality seems to be more matured, comprehensive and sensible where as Freud seems to be taking into consideration the particular group of woman so his opinions are restricted and sometimes prejudiced unlike that of Beauvoir whose opinion is very comprehensive. Envy is not there in the woman only but it is there in man also. If Freud thinks that the woman has envy for man’s penis then the same case should happen with the man that he also should have envy for not having the female organs which are remarkable and amazing gift given to her by nature and those are uterus, breast and vagina. Rather the man has been deeply captivated by these organs of the woman and he can even succumb for possessing it. He can sometime stake his entire life for acquiring full possession of these organs. We have many witnesses in the history regarding the possession of the woman. History gives us many examples of wars which took place because of possessing the woman and her female organs. Simone de Beauvoir strongly opposes Freud for giving an excessive importance to the sexuality. Sexuality is among the other impulses and it can’t be the whole and sole part. The superiority of Penis: It is the universal assumption is that the male genital is superior to that of female. But how this superiority comes? It is probably because of its visibility. Male sexuality is based on having the penis. It is because it is visible and larger, and that is the reason why it is regarded as superior. This doesn’t happen with the female sex. It genital is not visible and larger so the feeling of nothingness can develop in her mind. And as she is nothing she wants something. Perhaps she wants the penis symbolically. The real meaning is that she must be having the child which is the symbol of the penis. She tries to get the power. Therefore Thus according to Irigaray women’s desire for penis is just to fill the nothingness in her. Of course in this desire the penis is symbolic. It’s a symbol of power, the status which has been snatched away by the society. Somewhere deep in her mind a suppressed desire of gender equality is there in her mind and the envy for penis is in real sense envy for the patriarchal society and envy for the men who are having the profound authority and freedom. While talking about the behavior of the woman Freud seems to be of the opinion that the woman cannot be rational and logical and so he says that if a woman starts behaving in a rational way like the man it means that she is trying to deny the fact that she is the castrated figure and it is neurotic according to Freud. There is a vast difference between the sexuality of a man and a woman. As a “penisless” person the woman libido is quite different from that of man. The target of pleasure is totally different from the man. She gets pleasure in sexual intercourse by pleasing the man unlike the male sexuality who always gets pleasure from woman gain and vaginal intercourse. One more point I would like to reveal here is that it is definitely not at all the penis envy that the woman is having. If such type of envy would be there then the women should have been attracted towards man in a same way man does. Her eroticism would have been based on just a male gaze. But on the contrary the woman eroticism requires touch, closeness and nearness. Freud ‘in fact is much more focused on the distinction phallically endowed or castrated: Women are castrated men.” [12] Pagen244, Freud on Women-Nancy Chodorow If the woman had been just the castrated or say mutilated man then no man would have been attracted towards the physical beauty of the woman. She is neither a castrated nor a mutilated or half creature. She is definitely not an “object” by nature. She on the other hand is an active member in the system of reproduction. So the job of a great responsibility of reproduction has been performed by the woman. For the same purpose the nature has given her all necessary organs like womb, vagina, and breast. These organs are much more valuable than that of penis. So the statement is very wrong that she has nothing. Rather she has everything but her “everything” is either suppressed by the society or it is deliberately neglected by the society. And this is her real tragedy. Sources: [1] (Freud, The Psychical Consequences of the Anatomic Distinction Between the Sexes, 1925.) [2].”(“Femininity” 148-149). 3] (Page no. 158, “New Introductory lecture, 33, Femininity ) [4] (page 151, The Roots of Radical Feminism, Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism  By Margaret) [5](Page 66,The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir) [6] (pg. 66, “Psychoanalytic Point of view, Chap11,Second Sex) [7] (page 68, “Psychoanalytic View, The Second Sex) [8] (pg.318, Simone de Beauvoir: Frued and the Second Sex) [9] (page 76, second sex, Simone de Beauvoir) [10] (page 11, Gender and Envy, by Nancy Bruke) [11] page 51, Luce Irigaray, Speculum of the other woman [speculum de l’autre femme], translated by Gillian C. Gill, New York, 1985. [12] Pagen244, Freud on Women-Nancy Chodorow Read More