Sigmund Freud Gender Roles Essay

Freud lays out his conception of the relationship between gender and the behaviour he observed in his paper Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes. He claims that the divergence between masculine and feminine sexuality occurs in early childhood as a consequence of differing genitalia . He further contends that this display of sexual dimorphism has significant consequences in feminine psychological development, including jealousy, same-sex relationships, and the abandonment of the mother as an object of desire in favour of the father. An exploration of his arguments regarding the relationship between gender, sexuality, and the Oedipus complex forms the first part of this essay. However, Freud insists
The first sexual experience of the child is suckling at their mother’s breast for both genders; according to Freud the mother remains the sexual object for boys — for women, it is later transferred to their fathers . Boys retain their masculine sexuality, while girls first disavow their masculine sexuality before adopting a feminine one during puberty . This change is precipitated by what Freud sees as an inevitable part of development in girls, when “they notice the penis of a brother or playmate, strikingly visible and of large proportions, at once recognise it as the superior counterpart of their own small and inconspicuous organ, and from that time forward fall a victim to envy for the penis .” This has a significant effect upon the psychology of the girl: they adopt the contempt men hold for women, develop a sense of inferiority as a result of the damage to their self-image, and the blame they place on their mother (for “[sending] her into the world so insufficiently equipped”) sours the relationship between them . This same wound to the self-image forces the girl away from masculine sexuality and masculine masturbation, which Freud sees as associates with the clitoris in girls . When the girl gives up her wish to have a penis, Freud suggests she replaces this lack with the wish to bear a child, with that goal the reason for the transferrence of her affections from the mother to the father . This point is the first piece of masculine repression which culminates in its replacement by feminine sexuality (associated with the vagina) . Women may deal with their Oedipus complex by repressing it or otherwise carry it into adulthood, a factor which Freud suggests may be responsible for the difference in ethics between men and women; his belief that the superego is less removed from its emotional origins in women and thus they are more