Psychoanalytic Feminism
Psychoanalytic Feminism
The source of psychoanalytic feminism is the theory of Sigmund Freud’s biological determinism where he stated that Gender is the product of sexual maturation due to Oedipus & Castration complex. Boys gain strong superego & become civilized people. They become obedient rule followers of the father’s value & patriarchy. It clears masculine traits. Girls get penis envy. She becomes narcissistic moving from active to passive sexual aims. She wants to be loved & controlled by man & fall victim of vanity & shame leading towards uncivilized moral inferiority. This theory is criticized as women’s social position & powerlessness is related to the social construction of femininity. This theory is biased with Freud’s own cultural ideas leading to believe falsely that women are defective & avoiding feminine mystique. This theory does not focus on power relation within family. Millett found the concept of penis envy an instance of male egocentrism. As per Alfred Adler people use the creative self to gain power. Neurotic women use it to protest against patriarchy. Karen Horney saw women as feminine created by patriarchal culture and adapted by male domination. Women feel inferiority due to realization of their social subordination. They want to be man not because they have penis but because they control society. Clara Thompson defined female passivity & the distinction of male & female as the product of ever changing social idea. They are rooted in culture. To change women psychology legal, political & socio-economic structure should be changed. They defer from Freud offering a unitary theory of Human development not a dualistic theory of female & male development. Dorothy Dinnerstein showed that at Pre-Oedipal stage men’s need to control women & women’s need to be controlled by men leads to a misshapen set of Gender Arrangement. Nancy Chodorow rejected the phenomenon that women are destined to mothers by nature and conditioned to mothers by society.
The source of psychoanalytic feminism is the theory of Sigmund Freud’s biological determinism where he stated that Gender is the product of sexual maturation due to Oedipus & Castration complex. Boys gain strong superego & become civilized people. They become obedient rule followers of the father’s value & patriarchy. It clears masculine traits. Girls get penis envy. She becomes narcissistic moving from active to passive sexual aims. She wants to be loved & controlled by man & fall victim of vanity & shame leading towards uncivilized moral inferiority. This theory is criticized as women’s social position & powerlessness is related to the social construction of femininity. This theory is biased with Freud’s own cultural ideas leading to believe falsely that women are defective & avoiding feminine mystique. This theory does not focus on power relation within family. Millett found the concept of penis envy an instance of male egocentrism. As per Alfred Adler people use the creative self to gain power. Neurotic women use it to protest against patriarchy. Karen Horney saw women as feminine created by patriarchal culture and adapted by male domination. Women feel inferiority due to realization of their social subordination. They want to be man not because they have penis but because they control society. Clara Thompson defined female passivity & the distinction of male & female as the product of ever changing social idea. They are rooted in culture. To change women psychology legal, political & socio-economic structure should be changed. They defer from Freud offering a unitary theory of Human development not a dualistic theory of female & male development. Dorothy Dinnerstein showed that at Pre-Oedipal stage men’s need to control women & women’s need to be controlled by men leads to a misshapen set of Gender Arrangement. Nancy Chodorow rejected the phenomenon that women are destined to mothers by nature and conditioned to mothers by society.